Top 5 Mistakes New Business Owners Make

i9 Sports® protects its franchisees from the Top 5 mistakes new business owners make.

Going into business for yourself is a dream shared by many people – but many businesses fail within two years of opening. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, and 50% of small businesses fail before the end of their fifth year, as reported by fundera.com.

If you are thinking of opening a business, consider this list of potential pitfalls and see how the i9 Sports® business model guards against these mistakes.

Insufficient capital

Not setting aside enough capital to fund a business is probably the most common mistake. New owners often believe that their company will start making a profit almost immediately or underestimate the amount of funding they will need.

i9 Sports has guidelines for franchisees that let them know how much capital they will need to not only start a business, but also sustain it during its ramp-up phase. Keep in mind: You also need to budget for your own living costs. You’d be surprised how many people don’t. Our start-up costs begin at $36,500.

Insufficient and inconsistent marketing

Finding a customer base can be difficult when you are just starting out. Your efforts need to be comprehensive and consistent. It takes time for people to notice new businesses, and marketing efforts are vital.

At i9 Sports, we help new franchisees with local marketing, so they reach potential customers in a cost-effective way. We teach how and where to market for best results. We provide online i9 Sports-branded templates to use for emails, banners, social media, and more — which makes it quicker and easier for you to execute local marketing campaigns. In addition, the home office markets i9 Sports on a national level to increase brand awareness.

Underdeveloped systems

When starting a new business, owners need to get processes in place as soon as possible – processes such as:

setting up and maintaining accounting and invoicing
handling the banking
marketing the business
updating social media
responding to email, texts, phone calls, and voicemails
scheduling appointments
finding vendors
hiring employees
establishing policies such as an employee handbook or operational handbook
using a customer relationship management platform to communicate effectively with customers

Often small-business owners don’t think about how they will handle these tasks or how much time to allow for them. Also, all of these tasks are in addition to providing the services their company offers.

With i9 Sports, the bases are covered. Policies are already in place. Each franchisee has a personal business coach who mentors and gives advice. The i9 support team will show owners how to find venues and volunteers, will help market the business, and will provide practice plans, and sport-specific drills and plays. Fellow franchisees are a great resource, too. They’ve already done these things.

Failing to delegate

A failure to delegate often goes with having undeveloped systems. If an owner doesn’t have a process in place for completing a task, then employees don’t know what to do, or they may do a task incorrectly.

An owner needs to have help, especially in the areas where they’re less skilled. Someone who is great at marketing might not be good with numbers and needs a bookkeeper. Or it could be the other way around. No one person can do everything that’s needed, so delegating is a must.

At i9 Sports, we help our owners delegate. Our personal business coaches can show owners how to delegate the responsibilities that employees or volunteers can handle. The marketing team will assist the owner with marketing.

Poor location

Another mistake is choosing the wrong location for a business. It’s important to locate where a business will be noticed. Checking demographics also is important to ensure that a service is needed in the area. Why open a lunch cafe in an area where all the residents commute for work and are away during the day? Why open a fancy boutique in an area with low incomes or absent foot traffic?

At i9 Sports, we do a proprietary market analysis. We compare our customer profile against nearby ZIP codes to determine which areas have the right demographics to support multiple sports leagues. In addition to a high concentration of potential players, we also look for locations that are safe and reliable places for families to gather and play.

We work with franchisees to identify potential venues. A personal business coach will share our time-tested methods for securing contracts with playing locations. At i9 Sports, we have your back.