So you’ve decided to take a bold step and key into the business world? Congratulations! You are on the right track.
You are extremely excited and can’t believe that some time ago, your business was just an idea. You’re filled with creativity and innovation about what is and what is yet to come.
Your business is going steadily and one day, in a twinkle of an eye, you discover you are losing money. You realize your business is failing and everything you do to stay afloat does not seem to be working.
Hold on now, don’t be too upset. Failure(s) at some point in life both in relationships and businesses are to a large extent inevitable. The very successful ones at some point down the line have had several failures and setbacks. If they were able to bounce back, so can you too.
When you see that your business is failing or has failed, try to ponder on these 5 ways to overcome failures.
- Check that you are/were on the right track
Before we explore simple tips to help you bounce back, you have to first answer these questions: Is this business something you are knowledgeable about (see previous post)? Is it something you love to do? What do you hope to achieve with it? What prompted you to start this business?
The main aim of a business is first, profit. The second aim is service/product. If you are not providing a valuable service/product, you cannot make a profit.
How do you plan to monetise your knowledge to your advantage?
If you don’t know about the business, then you need to ask yourself if you are willing to learn the skills required for the job and are these skills transferable. You must understand that before you start off any business or capitalise on your idea. Your transferable skills enable you to be flexible while trying out different business-related ideas.
Like a dear friend will say, being good at anything isn’t enough. Do your research and most importantly, look for people who have successfully thrived in that business area. If you must pay to gain knowledge, then pay to learn. Some skills and training may require certification.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself:
Mistakes and failures are bound to happen as long as we breathe. It proves you made a move to accomplish something, unlike many others who don’t have the guts to try.
Since we all know business is a game of profit and loss, we should understand that failure serves as a learning ground for entrepreneurs and a stepping stone to greater things. So when the inevitable happens, remember you are not the first, and you won’t be the last.
- Ask yourself what you did or what are you doing wrong?
Don’t beat yourself up in order not to accumulate negative vibrations that may end up discouraging you totally from getting back up. Ask yourself what was/is your mistake? What led to this failure in your business? Have there been cases of improper business management? Have there also been cases of handling important facilities carelessly? Identify where you went wrong and take responsibility for it. Learn from it and make a change.
- Learn from your mistakes:
Now that you’ve identified what caused your business to fail, the next step is to learn from these mistakes and re-strategise. Create a working plan/system that helps counter and prevent such mistakes from happening again. This will help your service/product stand out from that of your competition. Don’t be too stubborn to ask for help.
The good part about learning from our mistakes is knowing that it won’t happen again and if it does, we can pull through. Bad experiences are teachers that leave lasting marks to help us remember the lessons we have learnt.
- Get back in the game:
Start off again. Nothing good would surface if you sit back with folded arms, scared to try again. The time to sit and sulk over unplanned losses is over. Get up and start over. Time waits for no man and like I said in my previous post (see here), someone elsewhere has the same idea as you and they are pushing further to be the best.
You are your biggest motivation. Do everything to rekindle that passion that made you start that business in the first place and get back in the game.
The only way proven successful way to overcome business failure is persistence and perseverance. Keep trying, keep fighting. We all have the ability to produce wealth.
Starting a business is indeed scary, I agree! I’m actually turning my blog into a business and have spent $1000 so far in doing so and I’m still not up and running with it. I complained to my friend Shelly, who is a small business owner, and she made a good point: You have to spend money to make money. So now I feel fine about it. I have considered hiring a business coach, but I haven’t done that yet. Thanks for sharing such valuable information! I, for one, feel better about it now!
Don’t be too hard on yourself is always a good tip when diving into something new. I ageee it’s also important to make sure you are on the right track. Good post.
Getting back in the game can be so difficult sometimes after experiencing a setback! I dealt with it last year and it was awful!
I think stop being hard on yourself is such an important message! And very hard to do.
I think that having metrics is so important. In addition to looking at how you feel and who did what, it’s also important to have real numbers to look at. Good article.
I used to put my self in the situation of being hard for my self. I know it’s not good. Sometimes when I realize it’s kill my own happiness. This is very good article don’t hard to yourself is important message for everyone whom read it. ☺️
I really enjoyed reading this and I have learned a lot about not being stressed out because my business isn’t thriving as much as I would want to.. Good read!!!
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