Here are some common practices we see that aren’t good for business in the long run.
- Be bad at communication. This one is a major player. A surefire way to miss leads and potential clients is to not respond to all legitimate emails, texts or other forms of messaging you happen to be on. I’ve written about this one before, maintaining a professional response time. Ideally, texts should be responded to in 30-60 minutes on average and emails should be responded to in 6 hours on average. Note that I said on average since of course there are going to be times communications are accidentally missed or you happen to be busy.
- Stay out of date. Ahem. Equifax. Keep your Phones, Websites, Computers and applications up to date as much as you can. This can definitely be a feat and lots of time, which is why “best you can” is the key phrase. Updates bring great things, such as patches to exploits that can be used to get into your site, computers, and life. Keeping your tech up to date is a must if you want to protect yourself, and customers.
- Be Closed Minded and Run from Opportunity. Not everything is going to make you money. You’ve learned that by now. Some things are too good to be true, I’m sure you’ve learned that too. Though there’s never a good reason to turn down something that has a chance to bring you more business or help your business. Sometimes the thing you least expect to brighten everything is in fact what does. Every little bit helps.
Whether it’s ignoring an email from someone you don’t know, ignoring that next update or turning down an invite for networking, it’s certainly not going to help.