Ner­is­sa Gold­en

It didn't take me long to com­pile this list as they are mis­takes I've made and some of them more than once. With the right sys­tems and dis­ci­pline you can change your mon­ey game in or­der for your busi­ness to stay afloat.

1 � Set­ting your prices too low. Many en­tre­pre­neurs be­lieve that they will get ahead by be­ing the cheap­est on the block but that's not so. If your prices are too low and they don't al­low you to prop­er­ly serve your cus­tomers then they won't do busi­ness with you for long. Don't be afraid to be more ex­pen­sive than your com­peti­tors if you are of­fer­ing more val­ue and bet­ter ser­vice.

2 - Set­ting prices based on time and not val­ue. Con­sid­er a soft­ware de­vel­op­er who may de­liv­er a busi­ness ap­pli­ca­tion to a client in a mat­ter of days but which al­lows them to make mil­lions of dol­lars. If she on­ly charged for the time spent on the work it doesn't rep­re­sent the true val­ue of what she de­liv­ered, which is the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make mil­lions. Know the true val­ue of what you pro­vide to your clients and price ac­cord­ing­ly. Charg­ing too low sends the mes­sage that your work is sub­par.

3 - Set­ting prices based on sup­plies and not in­clud­ing your time. It may seem like a no-brain­er but of­ten when you en­joy what you do, you for­get to in­clude the fact that it takes you time to do the work and that has a cost. Go­ing to pick up the wood, build­ing the cab­i­nets, de­liv­er­ing and in­stalling them has a val­ue. Keep track of your hours over sev­er­al tasks to help you un­der­stand how much time it takes you to de­liv­er on dif­fer­ent types of projects and in­clude that in your quote.

4 - Not sav­ing. Oh hap­py day. You got paid and there are bills to pay and fun to be had. By all means pay your bills but save as well. While it would be a re­al ego boost to run out and by that new SUV with your prof­its, a bet­ter plan would be to rein­vest the mon­ey in the busi­ness, even if it means hir­ing a fi­nan­cial plan­ner, tak­ing a mar­ket­ing course or pur­chas­ing a new com­put­er. Prac­tice this rule. Spend some. Save some. Give some.

5 - Not keep­ing good records. There is noth­ing more em­bar­rass­ing than a bounced check. Take the time to file your bank slips, in­voic­es, and re­ceipts. At all times you should be aware of how much mon­ey is out­stand­ing, how much you need to pay out to sup­pli­ers and ser­vice providers. De­sign a strat­e­gy to col­lect pay­ments in a time­ly man­ner to keep your busi­ness out of the red.

Ner­is­sa Gold­en is an award-win­ning Me­dia Strate­gist, Busi­ness Coach and au­thor who helps her clients ac­cel­er­ate their busi­ness growth by lever­ag­ing high im­pact com­mu­ni­ca­tions so­lu­tions and in­come gen­er­at­ing strate­gies. Get tips on start­ing and grow­ing a busi­ness at www.tru­ly­caribbean.net. Fol­low her on Twit­ter @tru­ly­gold­en.