Photo courtesy of Freepik

You have a great idea for a business, the drive and passion that could make a business succeed, and the willpower to push this thing into life.

Of course, you’re going to make a few mistakes – It’s all a part of the learning process. But will you make one of these 10 mistakes that can kill a start-up?

Not if you read this blog post!

I’ve rummaged through the internet, reading, oh I’d say close to a billion articles, to come up with the top 10 reasons that start-ups fail. Heed these warning, and learn from these mistakes so that you avoid the fate of 90% of start-ups!

1. Failure to prepare a business plan

Photo courtesy of photosteve101(CC Attribution)

In the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” Stephen Covey states that you should “begin with the end in mind”.

This is where your business plan comes in.

Sure, you’ve a great idea – But where do you want it to go?

Creating a business plan will allow for you to gauge exactly what resources you’ll need in order to succeed, and what are the different outcomes that you expect to see. It gives you some clarity with regards your business goals, and allows for you to understand what areas are urgent, what areas can be prioritized lower on the scale, and where to put your resources.

Remember:

“People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan”

This blog post has been re-purposed into a Slideshare. Just scroll on down to the bottom of the page if you’d prefer to get the information through a visual medium!

Photo courtesy of Sarah Burke

You’ve heard time and time again that you should be mixing up your content.

But it’s hard to get out of your blog post funk sometimes.

A great way to make the step is with a Slideshare.

Why?

Because creating a Slideshare is a lot like writing a blog post.

Both blog posts and Slideshares work very similarly: They both aim to tell a story, while adding value to their viewers lives.

Photo courtesy of yukop(CC ShareALike)

The only difference is that Slideshare presentations rely more heavily on visuals to effectively communicate these stories and use the written word to aid in understanding, while blog posts rely more heavily on the written word to communicate its message clearly, and use images to aid in understanding. 

Because of this, Slideshares require you to work with visuals as your main medium rather than text.

If you don’t have a good eye for visuals, then you may be balking at the idea of creating an entire piece of content created around visuals. But don’t worry – Powerpoint does most of this work for you. You don’t have to be particularly design-inclined to create a decent looking slideshare with Powerpoint.

At first, it can be hard (especially if you’re a bit of a perfectionist) but it’s far from impossible.

You can create a Slideshare from scratch, or you can create it using a blog post that you’ve already published it. Repurposing a blog post into a Slideshare is slightly easier in my opinion, so if you’re not super confident in your powerpoint skills, I’d suggest going down this route for your first time.

Here’s how you can create a professional Slideshare, even if you’re just a beginner!

Photo courtesy of aspearing(CC Attribution)

There are a lot of content marketing rules out there.

These rules range anywhere from telling you how many words should be in a blog post, to the correct procedure for dealing with a marketing crisis.

And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with rules, there is something wrong with a business that is so rule-bound that they can only ever be average.

So here’s the thing with rules: Truly great businesses rarely follow them.

To be great, you have to take risks. And to take risks, you sometimes have to bend (or break) a rule or two.

Photo courtesy of BrentDPayne(CC ShareALike)

Great businesses tend to view rules as more like guidelines. Sure, they can help steer a business in the right direction, but when the times calls for it, they’ll create their own course of action.

The following content marketing rules are ones that I see businesses adhere to time and time again, even when it’s clear that it’s not working for them. I see businesses cling to these rules like comfort blankets, telling themselves that as long as they stick by them, they will succeed.

But in fact, these rules might very well be hurting your business.

Here are 5 content marketing rules that you should definitely break.

Before there was mass media, before there was marketing, before there was “business” as we know it today, people relied on word of mouth to spread information.

Before writing, word of mouth was the main method of transferring information from one tribe to another tribe, often by a practiced storytellers whose job it was to remember these stories and tell them to others over and over again.

Later on in our history, we notice that a familiar expression in our various forms of literature begins to appear. The trope commonly appears in history books, fictional novels, poems and movies. You’ll recognize it from its allusion to popularity, awareness and geography.

For example, the expression may be “He was known through the land as the most skilled swordsman” or “her beauty travelled by portraiture and word of mouth to England and Europe”.

Photo courtesy of Freepik

Creating a startup is a pretty big deal, and it’s not for the weak of heart.

Among other things, you need to be resilient, determined, creative, flexible and hard-working. But most of all, you need to have a good eye for hiring the right talent, with the right type of personality, for the right role.

In the end, your team is what’s going to make or break your business. The people who you surround yourself with will help you keep up with changing tides, with new innovations, with the most up-to-date marketing strategies.

You can’t do it all by yourself.

Unless you’re Superman, in which case you can probably skip the rest of this post and go save some kittens from the burning comet headed right for earth.  

On the off chance that you’re not superman and/or you’re not preoccupied with saving kittens from a deadly comet, please feel free continue reading to find out what are 4 most essential personality traits that every team member in a startup needs to succeed.

Photo courtesy of m_shipp22(CC Attribution)

Have you ever wanted to teach a pack of thirty 12 year old kids?

No?

That’s OK. Not many people find the prospect appealing.

But I did it for three years, and while it wasn’t easy, it was very rewarding.

I loved my experience as a teacher, and I was disappointed that I couldn’t continue to teach when I moved to Vancouver (without doing another 4 year degree, of course).

But as they say: When one door shuts, another one opens! And with my move to Vancouver came a career change and I found myself launched into the wonderful world of marketing.

As with any job, your old experiences influence how you approach a new position.

This can sometimes be a negative thing, but at other times, a positive. I wasn’t sure what connections there was between teaching and marketing or what influence my teaching experience would have on my current role as a marketer, but as time goes by and I get more comfortable in my new career, there have been certain areas where I can see my old teacher-self shine through.