The best way to awesomeness is to learn from your business mistakes. The next best way? Learn from others’ mistakes!
Telstra spoke to 1,000 Australian SMB owners to uncover the biggest blunders made by small businesses in 2014, and this is what they found.
Make friends- with people and technology
Nearly 40% of Australian SMBs cited ‘not building the necessary partnerships/relationships’ as the single biggest business faux pas made last year.
In the area of technology, one in four admitted to not investing in technology at the right time, although 68.2% of small business owners believe technology is much more affordable and accessible for small businesses now, than it was when they first started their business.
The next most common blunder sounds like a tricky one to avoid, and that is making big decisions based on whatever competitors are doing. 14% of all SMBs surveyed admitted to making that mistake.
Curiously, 47% of all SMB owners interviewed believed that they had never made a business mistake. Of these, the ‘proudest’ or perhaps the ‘savviest’ SMBs were from NSW, where only around half admitted to having made a business mistake they would like to recall.
On the other hand, 62% of South Australians admitted to having made a business mistake.
Moving on in 2015
Everyone makes mistakes. But what do Australian SMBs think they’d work on this year?
The three areas identified as key focuses for 2015 are:
1.Customer and supplier relations
2.Marketing
3.Job satisfaction
Almost 40% of Australians SMB owners also believe that small businesses need to adopt virtual working to remain viable into the future.
According to Andy Giles-Knopp, Executive Director at Telstra, the research reveals that customer and supplier relationships will be the biggest priority for SMBs in 2015 and technology will be key in driving this through solutions such as video conferencing, mobile devices and business apps.
Here’s to a another year of great work, entrepreneurs!
