As the old year draws to a close, I always look back to see what I did well and what could be improved. Below, I share with you my mistakes, missteps, and mistakes that I experienced in my business over the past year.

Many of these mistakes, mistakes, and oversights cost me money, so I’m sharing them with you so you can avoid them as you make your own New Years resolutions.

• Error, error and mistake n. # 1: spending too much time on my computer, instead of meeting people face to face. Networking online is great, however it can never replace a face-to-face meeting or having a conversation on the phone. Sending emails is very easy, but I found that I was too wrapped up with the ease of this technology. I even had a big argument with one of my vendors because I tried to “break things up” with him via email. I should know better.

  LESSON LEARNED – Complement online networking activities with face-to-face and telephone meetings.

• Error, error and mistake n. # 2: spending too much time on the technical side of my business. I worked in the tech industry for almost 10 years and I pride myself on being a girl who knows her tech stuff. However, my digital savvy kept me up late into the night as I took on the responsibility of updating the content of my web pages, creating new autoresponders, and creating new HTML pages for new products, rather than handing things over to others. For every new product or teleclass I launched, it took me 8 hours to have all the technical parts ready.

  LESSON LEARNED – Hire a technology expert to maintain my website. Let it go.

• Mistake, mistake, and mistake # 3: not delegating my administrative tasks. There are certain things I hate doing in my business: updating documents, making them look pretty, writing content, and writing sales copies for new information products. I can’t stand doing these things and it would take me eons to write a single sentence. So that meant I would have to hurry up and type something fast because I sat for too long and the deadline was an hour away.

  LESSON LEARNED – Hire a virtual assistant or copywriter to do all of this for me.

• Mistake, misstep, and mistake # 4 – Spinning my wheels pointing to the wrong market. When I started training, I was on a mission to inspire women to create the career they deserve. Although I was making money, I was not passionate about helping women move up the corporate ladder. It wasn’t until my mother attended one of my speaking engagements that she gave me the clarity I needed. With his wisdom and keen eye, he helped me shape my current mission: to help business owners make more money using online media.

  LESSON LEARNED – Really listen to what my clients (and my mom) are telling me about the problem they are experiencing.

• Mistake, misstep and mistake n. # 5: create lots of cool information products at once. Just because you can post 5 special reports in a weekend doesn’t mean you have the manpower or energy to promote them all at the same time. I realized that to make sales on an information product, I really need to market it. Until I do that, they will stay on my website, look pretty, and become stale.

  LESSON LEARNED – Focus on one product for at least 3 months and use my affiliates to help promote the new product.

• Mistake, mistake, and mistake # 6: attending networking events that weren’t producing results. While networking is about building relationships, it should also lead to some quality contacts. Unfortunately, I attended too many networking events where everyone was like me: an entrepreneur looking for business. Although I made some excellent contacts, after attending the same networking events for 12 months in a row, I noticed that my networking circle was outdated and lacking in power.

  LESSON LEARNED – Stick with a networking event for no more than 4 consecutive events, review the results, and then move on. Also, attend more networking events that put me in touch with my target audience.

• Error, error and mistake n. # 7: not spending enough to educate myself. As an entrepreneur, it is so easy to forget that I have to invest in myself by taking courses that can help me learn to do better. In the first half of the year, I didn’t spend a penny and my progress was shown by it. However, in the latter part of the year, I started spending quite a bit on educating myself on new techniques and processes. Doing this put me in touch with how to do things better in my business, as well as meeting phenomenal people and coaches. Also, I noticed an increase in sales.

  LESSON LEARNED – Set aside at least 10% of all business income in a savings account to spend on educational materials.

These are what I consider to be the 7 mistakes, stumbles and oversights that cost me money and I trust that by reading this you will avoid them while making your New Year’s resolutions.

Better yet, if you have mistakes, missteps, or mistakes that you experienced in your own business, write them down and then write down the lessons you learned from that experience.