SMB Advice | Page 2

Easy Ways To Set Small Business Goals

October 9, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt like you are not moving things forward in your business? If you have then it is probably because you aren’t measuring yourself against your business goals. Don’t be another small business owner who doesn’t set goals because “you’ll never end up achieving them” or just backing out on your goals altogether. If this sounds like you then you need to shift your entire way of thinking when it comes to setting goals. Taking the time to set goals and following through on them is an investment that pays off immensely in the long run. If you are wondering what it is that you can do to realistically look at your business and create goals then follow these tips.

Create A Long-Term Plan

Focusing on long-term goals in a certain time-frame is crucial. These goals have a place in your overall goal setting though you really need to focus on setting clear, attainable goals in the short-term as well. Take college, for example. When you start off as an undergrad, you set the goal of attaining your bachelor’s degree before going on to pursue a master’s. Your goal roadmap should have goals that can be achieved sooner rather than later, which will help you achieve your long-term goals. Creating these goals could also assist you in realizing your vision even better.

Stay Focused

Setting goals is great and all, but you also need to make serious efforts to attain those goals. If you’re going to be developing something like content, then you should put aside one day a week to do specifically that. Be productive. Set deadlines. It is so easy to get distracted or discouraged so it is imperative that you stay focused as much as possible. One of the best ways to keep on track is to eliminate or avoid distractions whenever and wherever possible.

Be Mindful Of Your Current Situation

Take a good, long look at where you are currently and ask yourself this: “Is this where I want to be?” Is is crucial that you are 100% clear with yourself about your current situation, especially when it comes to thinks like money, accounts payable, sales pipelines, and processes. As soon as you have established what your current situation is like, you can then look forward to the future and the goals you have set for it.

One Big Picture – Lots Of Smaller Pieces

You need to make some short-term tasks that you want to achieve for the next year. Monthly and weekly sales goals can help you move closer to your revenue goals. Set a goal for increasing things like cold calls, posts on social media, and direct outreach if you are looking to increase sales. Trying to generate more traffic to your website? Create a content development system and start an editorial calendar. Trying to get more subscribers? Develop a new, free download for your website. It will be impossible for you to achieve your goals if you don’t take any steps towards doing so.

Hard Work

There’s nothing quite like some good old-fashioned hard work. And it is this hard work that really determines your outcome. A lot of small business owners spend a lot of time working on their day-to-day activities, refusing to put enough time and resources towards achieving their professional goals. These people are the same ones surprised that their business has failed or their goals have been left behind yet again. The amount of energy you put towards a goal and the likelihood of you accomplishing that goal go hand-in-hand. Set your annual goals first, then your monthly goals, and then your weekly or daily goals. Once everything is organized you will start to see a difference in your business.

What Have We Learned?

If you’re having a hard time setting goals, or an even harder time sticking to those goals and accomplishing them, you’re not alone. But just because this is an issue with other small business owners doesn’t mean it has to be an issue with you. Look over these tips, understand them, and then put them into practice with your own small business. I promise, if you really put an effort into your goals, you will find them accomplished more often than not.

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How To Speed Up Virtual Meetings

October 8, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

A lot of meetings are now taking place using tools like Skype or Google Hangouts. This is really great in a lot of ways and can make your life a little bit easier. The downside, though, is that it can also be a royal pain in the butt. When meeting with multiple people in one video conference, there are going to be some technical difficulties. Someone’s microphone won’t work, someone will accidentally hit the mute button and someone’s camera won’t work. You could get 20 minutes into the meeting before you even get the chance to speak about anything important, and by that time everyone is already aggravated.

Things get even more complicated when you are meeting with people in other countries. Language barriers and cultural differences can cause even more issues.

With a little bit of planning ahead of time, you can generally make these virtual meetings a little bit more productive. You just have to make sure that everyone feels accomplished, respected, and everyone feels like you are closer as a team.

1. Be Fair When Planning Meetings

Everyone runs on a different schedule. So planning around EVERYONE can be a little tough. But, you have to understand that it isn’t exactly fair to make one teammate miss something important to them at the same time every Thursday just because that is when it is the most convenient for yourself. Get with everyone, discuss a time in advance, and make sure that no one is sacrificing any more than anyone else.

2. Discuss The Meeting Ahead Of Time

When you are scheduling a meeting, make sure everyone knows exactly what is going to be discussed, and exactly what goal you are trying to achieve at the end of the discussion. It is really easy for people to get off track, especially in groups. If everyone has a clear understanding ahead of time, this shouldn’t be an issue, and staying focused should be much easier.

3. Take Culture Into Consideration

You might want to jump on the video call and jump straight to business without thinking too much, but if you are dealing with people from other countries then you should familiarize yourself with business practices in that culture. You don’t want to accidentally offend someone, or be offended by them when you shouldn’t be. That would be a downer.

4. Set The Rules

Before the meeting takes place, you should tell all team members to avoid side conversations or doing other things during the meeting. It is also good to remind them to not speak too fast, and to speak clearly. This will make everything go so much faster.

5. Pay Attention To Body Language

It is really easy for two people to run the show during a video chat. But the last thing you want to do is to make someone feel left out or unimportant. If you can tell someone has something on their mind, but they are trying to stay polite and quiet, talk to them directly and give them a chance to be a part of the group. Just a little bit of effort can go a long way.

There are lots of ways that a virtual meeting can go wrong. But there are an equal amount of ways that they can be super helpful. If you follow these 5 steps, I know you will be able to pull off a successful business meeting from the comfort of your own home or office.

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10 Qualities Of A Creative Leader

October 1, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Creative Leadership is Key to Growth When you look at the leaders of today, what do you see? Creativity, adaptability, and innovation are a few of the things these people have in common. I’m not talking about CEOs or billionaires. No, I’m talking about actual leaders. These people have a calling for creativity, a burning desire for innovation, and adaptability is a personal trait. Titles like CEO, COO, President, or General Manager are just that, titles.

A lot of top professionals have a hard time being creative. These positions come with too many responsibilities and constituencies that these people have to worry about. When you have to focus on turning a profit every 12 weeks, cutting costs to keep the shareholders happy, and watching your back to make sure you keep your job it can be hard to keep your eyes on the horizon.

A job title doesn’t automatically give a person courage, charisma, creativity, adaptability, or any other special trait. These things are personal traits that take many forms. If you work in a field like human resources, accounting, project management, operations, logistics, or any other specialty field doesn’t mean that you should sell yourself short on the creativity spectrum. On the other hand, if you are an employee, a supplier, a freelancer, a coach, or a consultant then the opportunity to change your organization and your own career is right in front of you.

So what do you need to do? Well for starters you should probably have a strong affection for your company as well as your clients, especially considering the fact that creativity is something special that you give to others. You really need to focus on the impact your company could have and the growth that can be enjoyed by both you and your clients.

You know what happens when you have creative leadership? Your job becomes more meaningful and gives you increased visibility. Obviously the best way to start is with something small. Complete a project early, come up with some creative and alternative plans, and try to add some unexpected value whenever possible. Do some sentiment analysis or qualitative research. This is a great way of providing new perspectives that could potentially lead to new solutions.

Have you ever heard of David Oglivy? Well, he was one of the original Mad Men (step aside John Hamm, this guy is the real deal), a real ad man. Well Oglivy adopted 10 qualities that he saw in creative leaders and they are:

High standards of personal ethics.
Big people, without pettiness.
Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.
Brilliant brains – not safe plodders.
A capacity for hard work and midnight oil.
Charisma – charm and persuasiveness.
A streak of unorthodoxy – creative innovators.
The courage to make tough decisions.
Inspiring enthusiasts – with trust and gusto.
A sense of humor.

Are you looking to increase the reality of the possibilities of your career or business? Of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be? Pick one of these ten qualities. Take one a week for ten weeks. Demonstrate that quality in every single way possible in order to demonstrate which quality you are working on. After the ten weeks is up you will have turned yourself, your business, and even your clients into entirely new entities, all for the better I might add.

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Three Keys To Conversational Intelligence

September 25, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Most successful people have one thing in common even if everything else is different… They are all very intelligent speakers. This doesn’t mean that they know everything about what they are saying, but it means that they know how to speak in a way that gives them the best results at the end of the conversation. Anyone who is willing to take a second to learn can be able to create trust just by speaking and listening. Here are 3 simple things that will change your life when it comes to getting the most out of your conversations.

1. Don’t Talk Over Others Or Interrupt

Chances are, you have probably been in a conversation with someone where you can’t get a word in, and it is super frustrating. This actually releases chemicals in our brain that triggers stress, causes us to tune people out, and makes us lose interest in the conversation entirely. Some people can even go into defense mode or freak out completely.

As a leader, you do not want to be this person. No one respects that person, and you will get a lot more respect if you spend an equal amount of time listening and speaking, especially if you are the boss and you really don’t HAVE to listen. This has a huge effect on the direction of the conversation and the outcome.

Next time you are on a call, try to pay attention to how much time you spend talking versus how much time you spend listening.

2. Try To Understand Rather Than Judge

When you are listening to someone and you are spending that time thinking about what you are going to say next and how you are going to say it for the hardest impact, you are actually losing track of what the person you are speaking to is saying. This kind of listening and judging activates the lower part of our brain, which is dedicated to protecting ourselves from harm, especially social rejection and judgement toward us. This isn’t a good way to listen or to speak.

When we are listening with the true intent of connecting with that person, it activates a completely different part of our brain. Dopamine is now released into the brain, which makes us feel great. Sometimes connecting with people is all about the state of mind that you are in.

3. Ask Questions That You Don’t Have An Answer To

One of the things we like to do the most is to ask people questions that we already feel we have a clear answer to. It makes us feel smart, and it’s a way to put the other person down. Instead of waiting for a response so that you can make someone feel dumb by then giving them your much smarter response, why not try this:

When the answer is clear to you, have the courage to step back and legitimately ask the person the same question you think you have the answer to. Even if the answer in your head is crystal clear, it would be silly for you to not try and hear this person out, see what they think the best solution would be. You may end up seeing things from a new perspective, or you may be able to put your heads together and form a completely new solution. You just never know, and you can’t go into conversations with the intent of judging.

Your job as a leader is to set the conversational tone for your entire team. Not only does hearing people out the right way go a very long way to setting a good, respectful tone, but no matter how smart you are on your own, it is the best and easiest way to achieve great results and have a productive team.

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The Friendliest States And Cities To Small Businesses

September 8, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Small businesses make up the backbone of our country. They exist in every single state in America, though not ever single state is friendly to these entrepreneurs. But that isn’t the case for every city and state. Thumbtack recently released the data from their fourth annual Small Business Friendliness Survey, which ranks which states and cities are the friendliest to small businesses.

Ranking in at the number one most friendliest city to small businesses is Manchester, New Hampshire, according to the small business owners who operate there. To add even more praise to the state, New Hampshire also ranked as the number two most friendliest state to small businesses, just behind Texas.

What’s interesting is the fact that the rest of America’s Northeast was considered the most unfriendliest grouping of states in the entire country, according to the survey. Utah and Colorado join Texas and New Hampshire as being very friendly to small businesses whereas California, Connecticut, and Illinois joined the Northeast states, all receiving a score of “F”.

Chief Economist of Thumbtack Jon Lieber stated that whether a city or state is friendly or not to small businesses comes from a plethora of primary considerations. “What most influences a business owner’s perception is the presence of training programs, as well as events that allow networking,” Lieber added.

In terms of training, this usually refers how easy it is for small businesses to obtain online information that regards rules and regulations that pertain to how small businesses must operate in that city or state. “Websites matter,” Lieber says. So basically what he’s saying is that entrepreneurs and small business owners do not want stress or hassle when it comes to gathering information on how to properly file things like local taxes. In addition to that, opportunities to network are also important. This is due mainly because of the isolation felt by many of the small businesses currently operating in the United States.

One more factor that determines whether or not a state or city is friendly to small businesses is determining whether or not a city or state is the ease of regulatory compliance. A key compliance issue for small businesses was licensing. Cities and states that require certain professionals to obtain a license did not automatically make them unfriendly. However, if the licensing was not carefully monitored then there is the liability of increasing perceived unfriendliness. Licensed professionals do not really like it when an unlicensed competitor gains a competitive advantage.

Thumbtack is an online service that connects local small businesses with customers. These businesses can range from anything like plumbers and house painters to therapists, physical trainers and more. Small businesses are able to compete for customers that are interested in their services through the use of a bidding system. As for the Friendliness survey, nearly 18,000 U.S.-based small business owners participated by providing their rating of both their state and their city governments on a wide array of factors. Over a dozen different metrics were used by Thumbtack to evaluate states and cities against each other.

So, if you’re thinking of starting a small business where you live I would advise you to take a look at Thumbtack’s survey to determine how easy or hard it is going to be for you to get your startup off the ground where you live.

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Five Free Tools To Score Content

August 21, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Right now, having good content is the key to the success of your website. Keyword research isn’t enough for SEO anymore, and we need any tool we can get that will show us what Google’s search engine actually likes, and what it doesn’t like. Unfortunately, that has never been made super clear. That is where this list of really great tools comes into play. In a world where content is king, you need to be able to make yourself the king of content.

SerpScape

This is a pretty new website. They claim to look at 40 million SERPs on a rolling basis. The only other ones that look at that many for free would be SEMrush and SpyFu. It’s not the best, but it is useful and worth checking out!

SpyFu

SpyFu says that they index 4 billion results across 64 million domains across the United States and the UK. They don’t say how they define the results, though. Free users only get to see the related results from the top 10, but they do show the number of related terms they have found for the page. Even if it only shows you the top 10 though, who else do you really need to be looking at?

MarketMuse

This company does offer a free version of their service with an option to upgrade to one of their paid plans. The developers are really trying new things when it comes to graph technology and finding gaps in topic relatedness, so it’s a little bit different that the other tools.

You can copy and paste from a page with images and any other media into their blog research tool and check out scoring holistic content for all the pages under one domain. This way, you can find different interesting topics that no one else is writing about, giving you the upper hand.

Clarity Grader

This is a tool you can use to judge the readability of your content. If you have a general interest website, no one wants to feel like they are reading a college essay you wrote to impress the professor who is failing you. It will tell you when a sentence is too long, and use different algorithms to determine the overall readability of an article you are writing. Pretty neat. Of course, wordcounter.net does the same thing… But no matter what you write, it tends to say you are writing at a college level. Currently, it says I’m writing at an 11th-grade level. It only switched to that after I wrote the last three sentences… Interesting.

Nibler

Nibler finds the average number of words on a page, which is a comprehensive coverage mentioned by the Search Metrics Report. The tool can not single out the length of one page, but it can give you useful metrics for pages alongside another single page.

So there you have it! If you’re looking to better the content on your web pages then these 5 tools will definitely help you with that. Plus, the fact that they’re completely free isn’t too bad of a deal either.

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The Importance Of Local SEO To Your Small Business

August 20, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Local Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is an important benefit that a lot of marketers and businesses take extreme advantage of. While SEO, in general, is important, local SEO will continually be significant for enterprise companies for the following reasonings:

It’s a Way to Generate Profits
If you follow these processes and steps correctly, local SEO will not only expose your business online but will also make you more profit. If you get the top spot of search engine results, then this will dramatically and immediately increase traffic for your website.

A recent study showed that 78% of local mobile searches and 61% of local laptop searches resulted in offline purchases. In just the U.S., there are 7 billion different and unique local searches monthly. So if you use local SEO, make sure you’re posting the right content to the right client base, so it drives online searches to your business.

Mobile and Wearable Tech is Growing
Showing in 10 countries, including the U.S. and Japan, there are more Google searches that take place on a mobile device rather than a PC. Now that there are more and more wearable devices coming out these days, like smartwatches, then realistically there will be more searches made on the go. Therefore, using local SEO will only benefit you since local searches will become more frequent.

CEO of HostGator Adam Farra says, “Society today is already transitioning from PCs to mobile Internet usage, so local SEO will be a necessity, not a ‘nice to have’ in the very near future.”

It’s a Way to Build Links and Share Social Media
Another major reason for using local SEO is the opportunity to connect two business firms together. It creates a potential partnership between the two and helps with social sharing as well.

Marketers can build and share their links with local search engines like Yahoo Local, YP, Google Places, Foursquare, Yelp and Bing Places. By doing this, it could help your business, as well as another business, grow and meet new clients. Meeting with local bloggers or other website owners could change your way of thinking in your business in a more positive manner. You could even plan an event or new business idea with them for new, different profit-making strategies.

It’s a Way to Extend Your Business

Your website is actually another location for your business and with the help of local SEO, you’re basically helping users connect with your business. It helps easily locate and study your website and also helps update it with info and more content which is important in growing your business in the future.

TouchBistro, an iPad POS app for restaurants, used its website to show its partnership with Uber and also provided a $20 promotional credit to customers who ate at TouchBistro affiliated restaurants in Toronto. Restaurants that participated were given promotional cards with codes to give to customers, who then had to download the Uber app to receive their $20 credit.

You Expose Yourself to Local People
The absolute main reasoning for using local SEO is that it targets the people within the area of your established business. This helps small business owners who just started their enterprises if they use SEO.

Smaller businesses can use online resources to advertise in local classifieds, such as using Angie’s List, Craigslist, or Yelp. If you use sites like these, make sure you use high-quality videos and images or other important items that advertise your business.

Using these steps and processes with local SEO will benefit you and your business or new business. Constantly adding or changing the content on your webpage will help keep it up to date as well as help provide your clients with a better understanding of what your services, products and promotions provide.

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Top 5 Ways To Lose A Customer

August 14, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

In the business world, there are too many things that can go wrong. You might as well not make things worse on yourself by not treating your customers the right way. It is really easy to be turned off as a customer, especially when there are a thousand other companies that do the same thing as you, but are a lot cooler about it. Here are my 5 favorite things that you could be doing to lose customers… So read them and stop doing them.

1. Having Inaccurate Data

As a company, customers are the most important thing for you. Without them, you actually have nothing. You can’t just call yourself a business and make money, people have to believe in you and your product. What happens when you don’t treat your customers right? Nothing. And Nothing is bad.

Your customers should always feel important. If you reach out to them with an email or something and get something simple like their name wrong, that is pretty offensive. Not only that, but it can make them feel like you don’t care enough about your company to even get simple things right. If you can’t get a name right, then how are they supposed to believe in your product or service? What about that are you going to mess up too?

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In order to run a successful business, you have to make sure every single customer feels important. Not only that, but you yourself have to know that they actually are important.

2. Not Maintaining A Relationship

Once you get done making your deal with your customer, that shouldn’t be the last you hear from them. It also shouldn’t be the last they hear from you. A lot of companies fail because of thinking that way. If you maintain a positive relationship with every new customer, that means you will always be on their mind to some extent. It is also way more likely that they will return to you for their future needs. This does, however, bring me to my next point…

3. Being Annoying

Yes, it’s important to maintain a relationship with your customers and clients. BUT… You don’t want to be the type of company who is constantly calling and trying to shove yourself down people’s throats. You can’t force people to spend money, and it’s really annoying to them to feel like they are being pressured. Nothing is wrong with giving them a little nudge in the right direction, but when that nudge becomes a push, they are going to avoid doing business with you at all.

Different age groups also prefer to be contacted and followed up with in different ways, so make sure you do a little bit of research first. It’s not hard to Google these things and find tons of studies on them. Younger customers prefer to get emails. They check them regularly and they go straight to their smartphones. Older customers probably hardly ever check their email, so sending them is just a waste of time. Instead, try sending out letters through snail mail.

4. Ignoring Them On Social Media

If you are a company, you either have a social media presence, or you’re going out of business soon. You need to either accept your client’s friend requests, follow them back, or whatever it may be that you do on that specific website. Most customers expect a response within an hour, and none of them really has any sympathy for a delayed response, even if it is a night or a weekend.

It would be silly not to do these things anyway. Social media gives you the best of everything. You get free marketing, you can always keep people updated on the latest news from your company, and you can gather very valuable information from anyone you are connected with on any social media site. Don’t be a fool, get the most out of it that you can.

5. Not Listening

It is not hard to see what people think about you, your products, your services, or anything about your company. People post online about pretty much everything. You’ll be able to see what people like, what they don’t like, anything. You can also use the internet to give surveys and gather analytics. Not listening to what your customers have to say is ridiculous. Not using negative survey feedback to your advantage is ridiculous. Instead of looking at negative comments and bad experiences as a negative thing in general that you should ignore… use it as a positive thing and give the people what they want. Your business should be alive (growing, changing, evolving) all the time. There is nothing wrong with a little bit of constructive criticism. At the end of the day, it just means more business.

Customers are the life force of any business and it is crucial that you keep these customers happy. These 5 things are surefire ways to lose valuable customers, which will certainly mean the downfall of your company. So, needless to say, avoid these things AT ALL COSTS!

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Small Biz Dev Hackathon 2015

July 30, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Small Biz Dev Hackathon Can Help Grow Your SMB At the Small Biz Dev Hackathon, attendees will be using their technical and design skills to come up with new ways to help small business grow to new heights. Business owners and business experts will be together discussing different obstacles and barriers that are universal throughout the industry, and developers will get a chance to show off their skills and problem-solving abilities to come up with solutions. Winners of the Hackathon will not only change the business world forever but will receive seed money and be entered into AngelHack’s HACKcelerator program.

There are many different problems that small business owners may face, and it is the attendees job to solve at least one of these problems that will be presented at the event. Problems could include anything from financing, finding new customers, managing cash flow, or anything like that.

The solution should be simple and broad enough that any business big or small should be able to take advantage of it. There will be guidance from small business owners and small business experts the whole time to ensure attendees get on the right track and stay on it in order to achieve the best possible results.

The judging criteria will be based on a range of different things. Simplicity is number one. There are 5 point’s to be had in this category. To get the full 5 points, judges will determine if the application is simple to use and if the team can explain it in three sentences or less.

Creativity is next, also worth 5 points. Judges will decide how creative the team was in developing the idea, and how challenging the solution was to come up with.

Impact and design will also be worth 5 points each. How will the teams solution impact the industry? Is it valuable? Is the design and interface attractive looking?

First place winning teams will win up to $3500 in money and be entered into the AngelHack HACKcelerator program. This is nothing to sneeze at! If you are interested in this sort of thing and think you have what it takes, this is not only a great opportunity, but it will also probably be a fantastic time. You’ll have a chance to be surrounded by like-minded people and probably learn a million things that will stick with you for the rest of your life. The information you could obtain will last forever.

The Pre-Capital One Hackathon session is a virtual session hosted via WebEx on July 29, 2015 from 6:30 pm PST to 8:30 pm PDT at Dignita (for San Francisco event) and on Aug 5th, 2015 from 6:30 pm EST to 8:30 pm EST at 1776 (for Washington, DC event). You can register for the event here.

8 Must Haves For Your Startup

July 21, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Must-Have Startup Investments A lot of entrepreneurs think that bootstrapping is the most efficient way to start a new company. It gives you a freedom you wouldn’t have if you needed to report all your expenses to venture capitalists or angel investors. Although, some expenses, even costly expenses, are important. Take a look at some of these expenses that are worth the investment.

1. Free Stuff!
Let’s be honest here, who doesn’t like free stuff? But honestly, giving away free stuff, like company t-shirts, will help generate money and business. It can help get people talking about your business, grow brand recognition and may even get noticed by larger companies.

2. Customer Service
Good customer service is very valuable. Marketing Metrics did a survey that reported almost 200 marketing managers revealed that 71% found customer satisfaction to be a major metric in managing businesses. Customer service and satisfaction is a high leading indicator that increases the lifetime value of a purchaser, reduces customer churn rates, helps customer loyalty and improves word of mouth as a major differentiator of your company. Spending a little extra on good customer service will by far pay off in the end.

3. Technical Support
Even if tech is your “thing” or not, it still may be a good idea to outsource some or all of your in-house technological needs. You could keep what you’re good at and outsource the technology you need to run on its own, so you can focus on other important things within your company. Spending hours on server maintenance and working on making your website could be better invested in core competencies. It is essential to business success for your technology to run smoothly. So spending money for great technical support will be easier on you and your business.

4. Powerful Software for Data Analytics
From the very start, you should spend money on robust data analytics software. You can’t improve what you don’t measure and you can’t measure unless you test. Analytics helps you understand what isn’t working when it should be. For data-driven business owners, you need to analyze numbers from a bunch of different sources so you can create an informed viewpoint. Having a powerful data analytics software can help you do all of this.

5. Market Research
Over 100 entrepreneurs that have failed startups took a survey that showed 42% attributed their failure to a lack of need for their product. So never assume you know your targeted customers and what they need. Market research can be expensive and time consuming, but coming out with a product or service to an untested market can be even more expensive and time consuming. Just spend the money from the start to really find out what the right targeted customers and their needs.

6. An Accountant
It can be a pain to know exactly how much money you need to keep aside for your taxes or quit confusing to identify all your valid tax reductions. Get a good accountant so you aren’t throwing money away or risking any issues with the IRS. Most accountants will meet with you by the hour to give advice on your documentation and deductions, then each year they complete and file your taxes, they’ll charge you a fee. It’s not rocket science, it’s just worth it.

7. Financial Advice
It’s very important to pay for good, secure financial advice unless you plan on opening a financial planning business. To save yourself from a rocky road of issues and stress, try getting a tax attorney to set up your books and help show you what should be tracked to help secure your future funding. Never underestimate the need for a long-term financial plan to help your company succeed.

8. Legal Advice
No matter how expensive lawyers can be, good legal advice is essential for startups. Just locate a lawyer who specializes in the business you are starting and pay for the right advice you will need to keep your business afloat. Statistics gather by VentureBeat in 2011, show the new Silicon Valley startups spent on average of $80,000 alone on legal advice. Good legal advice may be a bit expensive, but making a legal mistake can cost way more in court fees and could very well put your company in bankruptcy.

Starting a new business can be quite the exciting adventure. Many founders in the beginning stages of their company’s growth, go to bootstrapping. Don’t just rely on that, spend money on where it matters. These expenses are well worth the investment.

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