By JOHNNY CARCIOPPOLO / Community Columnist

Not honing-in on your target audience

In order to succeed in business, you will need to ask two questions:

• What is my niche?
• Who is my audience?

Everyone in new businesses gets overzealous in the beginning and overdo in this area. New business owners don’t target and hone in on their appropriate audiences. When you don’t zero in, you miss hitting the mark with a bull’s-eye. Figure out your niche and even create a sub-niche if you want.

Let’s say, for example, you have a business that creates artwork. You could sub-niche and create artwork for baby nurseries. In this way, you truly hone in on your audience.

Trying to please too many by casting the net too wide

So many business owners try to please too many too soon and cast too wide of a net. Sure, you’ll catch a lot of fish, but they might not be worth keeping. You may want to throw them back in the water. The right business will always attract the buyer it was meant to attract.

In order to succeed, you have to cast a smaller net and capture the right leads and the right clients. Going too far outside the net and casting too wide of a net will only lead to not being able to satisfy those particular clients.

You’d rather be a big fish in a small pond instead of a small fish in a big pond. You don’t want your business to resemble one that has no direction and no focus. If you put that vibe out there, then you will fall short of success in a hurry.

Having so many great ideas and applying them … all at once

The most talented entrepreneurs have the biggest ideas and before they even finish implementing one, they are starting another. It’s perfectly fine to have many big ideas, but applying them all at once can be a disaster.

The old adage about being the master of all trades and expert at none does have some truth to it. If you want to succeed beyond your wildest dreams, then don’t apply all those great ideas at once.

Technology can be your best friend when it comes to keeping your ideas focused, organized and timely.