Avoid Business Failure with These 11 Steps
Tips for Business Success and How to Avoid Business Failure
Fear of Business Failure? 11 Tips to Make Your Business Successful
These are the 11 actions to avoid business failure. Coming from a place of abundance, I should have titled this ‘11 ways to ensure business success.’ The unfortunate truth is while using my SEO research, most people are searching “How not to fail,” versus searching “How to succeed,” and that’s part of the problem.
Stick around, and I’ll give you 11 helpful tips to know how to make your business successful.
Let’s talk about business success.
Success should always be a goal of any entrepreneur, but determining what success looks like to you and your organization is often overlooked. People tend to focus on failure and unsustainability, instead of abundance and success.
Let’s discuss 11 ways to get you on the road to success.
1. Begin with the end in mind.
The first is to begin with the end in mind. What will your organization or your company look like six months, a year, three years, or even five years from now? Do you even want to be around that long? Are you just trying to hit a goal, a financial or personal goal?
Your organization or your business doesn’t have to last any longer than you want it to, but you have to see what that looks like in the future. You can always adjust and change, but you have to put those thoughts out there and see what it looks like in the long run.
My girlfriend runs a successful food truck in Virginia, and she’s banging out. I’ve wondered if she wants to still be running her food truck two or three years from now? Is it just something fun to do that she got really good at and she’s making good money with but doesn’t want to do long term?
There’s a restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, that I would go to every single time I went home. It was called Hot Diggity Dog. The line would be wrapped around the restaurant because it was only open during shortened hours; around lunchtime. Then one day, they just closed their doors out of nowhere.
It couldn’t have been financial; unless there was some bad financial management, it had to be more to it. That business owner had a different why and that restaurant wasn’t sustaining it anymore. So, they closed it, and that’s OK.
Ask yourself those questions. What is your long term goal with your business?
2. S-W-O-T analysis.
The second is the repetitive SWOT analysis. I’ve spoken on SWOT before. Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You need to know these and reevaluate them, depending on your business, as much as every three months. This is extremely important.
You need to know what your opportunities are, what’s open to you, how you can improve yourself and your business. You also need to know your threats. Who’s going against you? Who is your competition? What are they doing?
The SWOT analysis will help you prepare for all of that.
3. Know who's in your circle.
Know who’s in your circle. There’s a saying going around that says, “You are an average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
I believe that energy transfers, and if you’re around a lot of negative people, that can seep into you.
You can take the most positive, optimistic person in the world but if you put them in a jail cell for 23 hours a day, and treat them like crap for the other hour, you will kill their spirits. You know when you walk into a room where people have been arguing, or there’s tension, you can feel it.
Picture this, you woke up on the right side of the bed, you worked out that morning, you feel good, you are in a positive mindset. Then you run into Bob, who’s complaining all the damn time. Bob is never happy.
He complains that his back hurts, his knees hurt. He says he doesn’t like his wife. He’s unhappy in his job, he’s unhappy with everything. What would that do to you? It would most definitely kill your vibe.
How can you avoid that? When you see someone like Bob, you make the choice to remove yourself from that situation so their energy doesn’t bring you down.
You are judged by the company you keep, and you are formed by the company you keep. Hang around people who are positive, motivating, who talk about money, talk business, and they will help you reach your exponential greatness.
Protect yourself from those who are negative, as they will only bring you down.
4. Follow the order of urgency and importance.
Fourth is to build what you need to reach your goals in order of urgency and importance. Everything isn’t urgent and everything isn’t important, but that’s how you need to build your business. It’s urgent to set the foundation for your business, and if you haven’t set the foundation, you really don’t need to be doing anything else.
Then you have your importance. What is important? Your website, your payment methods, your social media pages, getting the word out. Those are important. They are also urgent. Once you’ve done the most urgent and important things, you can start working on everything else. Start with what matters, because if you start getting customers and clients and you have nothing to sell them, that doesn’t usually work out.
5. Find buyers.
That leads me to the fifth. Find the buyers you plan to sell to. Know your ideal persona, the perfect person that you want to sell to. It doesn’t have to be just one, but it should be a few.
6. Avoid inventory.
Sixth, this is for me personally, this might not relate to you depending on your service or your product, but avoid inventory. There are so many services out there to avoid. You don’t have to have extreme inventory in your possession. If you don’t have to have it, you don’t have to keep it.
Choose to go digital, use drop shipments, use distributors. Don’t hold on to inventory unless you absolutely have to.
7. Know thyself and thy customer.
Seventh, know thyself and know thy customer. You have to know your customer, and your customers will love you half as much as you love them. So, you want to treat them right, but not to the detriment of your company.
Set good standards, have good values, and stand behind your word, and your customers will keep coming along.
8. Budget
Eight is to budget, budget, budget. You have to know your cash flow. You have to know your expenses. You have to know how much money you have and how much money you’re going to have. If you run out of money, where are you going to get it from?
If you don’t keep track of your money, your business won’t last very long.
Go out of your way and make sure you have a good CPA and a good handle on your own books.
9. Niche down.
Ninth, you cannot be all things to all people. You need to niche down.
I remember long ago when I first dreamt of having a business. I wanted to sell the perfect product that everyone would buy, like that Smiley Sponge, right? Everybody has a kitchen. Everybody washes dishes. Everybody needs it. Perfect product.
Niche down. Find a customer that fits in what you can offer them, and then niche down even more.
Maybe you want to sell soap. Everybody uses soap, right? But even then, you have to niche down. Some people want natural soap. Some people want soap with no sulfates. Some people want black soap. Some people want softening soap. Some people want soap that smells like roses.
Whatever your thing is, find those people and sell them that product. It’ll make life easier for you. It’ll keep your customers happy and help you avoid inventory.
10. Move in silence.
Tenth, I’ve said it before, and I’m going to repeat it, move in silence. Everyone doesn’t have to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
Let your results speak for themselves. Let your actions tell your story. You don’t have to talk about it. Have you ever heard the expression, “Talk is cheap.”? Sometimes you need to just move in silence. Keep your thoughts to yourself.
11. Know your worth and value.
Lastly, know your worth and know your value. Do not undersell yourself.
Once you start under-selling yourself, it’s going to be hard to come up from that. You can’t be competing with everyone all the time. You can’t get the lowest price for the lowest thing because that will drive you under.
Know your price, set it, and go after it.
There is no foolproof plan to running a successful business. There are always going to be things that come up. Use these 11 tricks to help you run a successful business, and I guarantee you’ll be around a lot longer than those searching on how to fail.
Invest in yourself just one percent a day and reach your exponential greatness, and at the end of the year, you’ll have phenomenal results.