Share your biggest mistake in business!

[AHAEvents]

A nosey question I know, but, what has been the biggest mistake in business that you've made and have you learn't from it?

Back in 1999 we had a client (AHA was also a marketing company!) who invented a suspension bike seat post, a German bike manufacturer offered him £6m for the rights to it but he turned them down in the hope that a British company would buy it from him. They didnt, and he lost the chance of getting his hands on some serious money. He still makes seat posts in his garden shed, but isn't making anywhere near the money he was offered.

In hindsight I think if he had the chance again he'd take the money, he is now in his mid 50's and could have retired with the money he was offered.

Darren

Ps - Everyone at AHA tried to get him to take the money but he wouldn't listen to us!

 

[VeryMark]

My worst mistake was not learning how to network a lot earlier - I wasted six months.

 

[SillyJokes]

My worst mistake was to promise delivery of something that I was relying on someone else to manufacture and deliver.

The supplier let me down and I lost a huge order and the respect of the customer and it was the worst day of my business life when the goods didn't turn up.

I made a mistake by thinking the supplier understood the urgency and could deliver in a week. They had, afterall, told me they could. But I should have kept on top of them and made sure it was happening. I knew that they normally took over a week to deliver.

Even when the goods turned up after the event they were one costume short.

Amazingly though, I still use that supplier, I just don't ever do last minute urgent orders with them. And I'll never forget the week they dropped me in the.....

 

[Webstuff]

I guess if I had to pick a worst mistake, it would be choosing paypal as my payment processor . Unfortunately, theres little in the way of cheap alternatives. I don't mind mistakes too much though; aside from the initial frustration, I tend to learn from them, and it helps my understanding and ability to grow.

 

[VeryMark]

Yes, all mistakes help if you learn from them and make sure they can't happen again. Sometimes, also, putting it right in the best way you know how can mean a more loyal customer.

 

[SillyJokes]

Crossguard, I did absolutely everything I could to put the order right. I phoned every single store who carried the items but there weren't enough costumes in the country to cover the order and I ended up having to send an alternative which was not really acceptable.

Obviously the guy got a full refund and wasn't charged for the alternatives but short of sewing some myself and driving them down to London there was nothing I could do.

That was the worst part. Being trapped, knowing I had made a mistake and totally unable to put it right despite all my efforts.

All the refunds and apologies in the world couldn't get the right product to him in time for the event. I still feel sick to my stomach today when I look back on it.

Everyone has the odd unhappy customer but a refund or replacement done promptly and courteously shows you care and feel the customer is important.

Just don't make promises you cannot guarantee to fulfill - ever.

 

[TargetTesting]

My biggest mistake was (and probably still is!) thinking that I can do it all (website, brochures, logos etc.) , instead of concentrating on what I do best. I spent endless weeks working on designs, tweaking them etc. instead of getting out there and selling my services. I've no doubt I've lost some work because of this.

I think I've learnt my lesson and now outsource the work that is not core to my business to people who can do it better and more importantly quicker!

Regards
Bill

 

[Webstuff]

Thankfully, thus far, I haven't been asked for or required to give a refund, and the only time I've given money back was when a customer accidently payed twice, not knowing that newer versions of a software I was distributing were free to all previous customers. From the sounds of it though, SillyJokes did the best he could with the situation. Sometimes things "just go wrong", and ensuring other people work to your deadlines can turn out to be a hopeless task.

 

[MikeH]

It would probably be getting bad advice on changing a website that cost us dearly in SERPS. However, lessons were learnt and our knowledge is greater than it probably would have been due to learning from this mistake.

Mike.

 

[lisastorey]

This is going to sound really cheesy but it isn't meant to be!

Being new to business my biggest mistake so far has been doing things without joining a forum such as this.. I have probably wasted a couple of hundred quid .... which dosen't sound too bad but considering I have only been in business a couple of weeks it is dismal :cry:

Still I am glad I found the forum at last ..... lots of helpful advice now! Hindsight is a great thing :lol:

Lisa

 

[MikeH]

Forums can save money, but the most important thing is the time saving. Ask a question and you normally get the answer quite quickly saving you time to focus on what you are good at.

Mike.

 

[Ozzy]

I've made lots of mistakes in the past and will no doubt make lots more.

One mistake that comes to mind was trusting someone who as it turned out was only using me. This person spent almost a year buttering me up before stabbing me in the back, amazing what lengths some people will go to.

Another mistake was selling my previous business without taking proper legal advice, and then ending up in the middle of something I really didn't want to be in the middle of (huge political rows and domestic problems). Oh yes, and I lost out on around 150 grand which kinda sticks in your throat and lost out on the first 6 months of my daughters life.

Trying to do my own marketing a tear (tear is a typo but kinda appropriate) ago cost me tens of thousands of pounds of wasted money, now I leave that to the professionals (as Alpha has advised on another post)

Not getting married and having children sooner

I can think of lots of mistakes really, but I feel a mistake isn't a mistake unless you don't learn from it. If you learn from it then its "experience"

 

[kyber]

I have lots of exerience - trusting someone to much a losing a business being one of them

Stuart

 

[malcdawes]

Kyber & Ozzy make good points on trust. I am currently looking for people to join my business as franchise partners. Two interested parties happen to be good or very good friends. Above all, don't mix business with friends unless you know the rules. We have made a pact that the two relationships will remain very separate.

Another acquaitance of mine did not have the same view. She set up a company supposedly to benefit from the association I have with my Australian company, only to turn around and do a bit of back stabbing that Ozzy has experienced.

Make sure you know people well enough beofre entering intyo "trust" based agreements

Malcolm

 

[Alpha]

Mine (so far)

was not getting into business sooner. I was an FDand then an MD in my last role before I sold the company for the Group and wanted one more senior role before moving into my own business at MY pace. Unfortunately following 09/11 rsenior roles were almost impossible to find and I wasted a year trying. I then had to rapidly sit down and have a rethink and therefore developed my business strategy 'on the fly' rather than putting a lot of thought behind it first. (I'm still spending a lot of time catching up on that one!!)

 

[Kay]

My biggest mistake also relates to trust and getting used. I had a business relationship with a guy who sold services relevant to our target audience. When we moved overseas and needed to move our company registered office to a new address, it seemed ideal to use his office as our mailing address. All he had to do was to forward our mail.

Things didn't work out quite like that. He opened and read all our mail (allegedly "by accident") and didn't always send it on. We became more and more under his control, as he tried to dictate who and what we could advertise on our website. We can't prove it but I'm pretty sure he never paid us most of the commissions we should have received on sales of his products. All in all it was a nightmare to escape from his clutches.

Now we have a friend of a friend doing the mail forwarding thing. He has no interest in trying to control us or our business. I would never again get into any kind of deal with a so-called synergous site where they might want to control us in this way. It was a mistake. I guess I was naive to think the guy would behave decently.