We'll take a look at the 5 biggest pitfalls industrial SMEs should avoid when adding XR to their business AND offer you some alternatives so you'll know what to do instead. Overwhelming advances in AI, 5G, tracking, streaming, SLAM, nerfs, ARKit/Core, spatial computing, ERP integration, device-hype with Meta Quest & Apple Vision Pro... Even for market professionals, it is difficult to maintain an overview on current technology and align them to the manifold business needs of manufacturing industries. Tech demos on social media appear as ready-made solutions, but the gap to these is often still large so how are SMEs supposed to know where to start? Unlike larger corporates, for SME's investing in new technologies must amortize faster, and a business outcome must be assessable right from the start. This often prevents them from taking first steps into XR yet it is precisely this group that can benefit most from mixed reality technologies to make processes more efficient, save money, train people faster or compensate for labor shortages. Our talk is a practical guide that summarizes the most important “Dos & Don'ts” of the recent years and provides important practical help on how to get started, on which use cases to focus for quick successes, and on how to grow an XR strategy. We help to categorize the technical landscape, differentiate what is promising but experimental from what is already an off-the-shelf solution suitable for daily use. We give an overview on the most prominent industrial AR use (and fail) cases, valuable tips to avoid beginners' mistakes and present solutions and approaches SMEs should follow to get their XR business started.