If you have a home based business, or any business, you are probably aware that you can spend hour upon hour working away to no avail. It is sometimes a lack of awareness in a business owner which is to blame for the fact that their business is failing. They simply don’t know what they are doing. It might have worked before, but doesn’t now – or you are a new business and you don’t know what you are doing wrong. It is only when you can admit this fact that you can move forwards and start to look at your own limitations which are holding your business where it is, or worst still, allowing it to fall backwards.
90% of new business start ups fail. This means only 10% will be successful and go on to grow and improve their businesses. The other 90% will fail and do something else. Looking at your business as a failure, makes it one. Don’t consider yourself as a failure as a result of a failed business. Look on it as feedback rather than failure. Feedback offers an option to grow from the experience whereas but failure assumes an end.
The power of advertising
Businesses fail for many reasons. If you think you have failed in your business consider that you simply have left out some small detail, which would, if you had implemented it, changed everything. What was your advertising budget? how did people find you? How many people every day did you put your products and services in front of? Advertising plays a huge part in today’s flourishing businesses. Literally billions are spent on advertising every day. Just Britain’s ad spend is set to hit £20 billion a year, source: http://snip.ly/0Hsn
Why small businesses fail
Small businesses can fail for many reasons. Advertising, or the lack of it is just one of many possible reasons a small business may lose its footing. Internet businesses, especially those run by a one man band can have many problems. A small business needs to grow, and measures need to be in place to allow this expansion. One possible reason for a limited ‘glass ceiling’ on your businesses growth is your own limitations, or limited thinking. This is true of not only practical considerations such as advertising, budgeting and putting profits back into the business, rather than buying that new car; but also of unseen inner conflicts which hold the business owner in a paradigm of negative self belief.
The glass ceiling of a consistent self image and world view
Our conversations with ourselves and with others are great indicators as to where we are going in our lives. We often behave in ways which are inconsistent with where we want to go in life. Our old negative habits, thoughts and conflicting intentions can hold us from achieving what we truly desire. We must change our self image if we are to change our lives for the better. Take a look at the books on the right – The New Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz and Stuart Lichtman’s – How To Get Lots Of Money For Anything Fast.
Our subconscious is eavesdropping to our every thought and word, choose them carefully.
So – What to do when business fails?
Take stock and learn from the experience. Pick yourself up and start again. There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Ask yourself: ‘what can you do differently this time’? Why did you not succeed? Is your heart really in it? What do you want anyway?
If you are running contradicting programs in your head you are bound to find yourself in trouble. If you can iron out the details of what you really want from a business, you can help prevent these problems occurring in the future. Some contradicting thoughts may be things like –
- “I want the freedom of a business, but I don’t want to work for it”.
- “I don’t want a boss but I’m lousy at managing my time/motivating myself”
- “I want my own business but have no financial backing”.
Any obvious signs of conflict will later present themselves through some kind of adversity in your business. This is especially true if you are working on your own and have no-one to help you discuss any problems you might have. It can be easy to overlook significant problems which are obvious to anyone on the outside. If you have ever seen “The Hotel Inspector” or “Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen nightmares”, you will know how easy it can be to overlook the obvious when running a business yourself. It’s hard to see the wood for the trees.
Starting your own internet business
If your business relies on email marketing, or online marketing of any kind, you can subscribe to my email list which offers advice for anyone with an internet business, or a way to start your own internet business from scratch. Sign up on the right of my website.
Take an inventory of your time
Making an inventory of your time will show you exactly where you are wasting your efforts. With an online business, once everything is set up your main job is advertising. You should be spending 90% of your time generating leads (or on money producing activities), the rest should on developing yourself/learning. If your time is being spent on activities which don’t lead to more customers through the door – or onto your landing page (in the case of an online business), you should take a serious look at yourself. Only when you start monitoring something does it change. Start monitoring your time and activities.
Develop the owner not just the business
As with anything, your own personal development is what keeps your business moving forwards. If you become static then so does your business. Spend time studying your business and with other entrepreneurs. Learn the basics of internet marketing and email marketing to keep up with the technological side of owning a business. If you would like access to an online business community, ongoing support and training in marketing a business online, and access to products which you can re-market and sell as your own, without having to physically touch a product or speak to a customer, check out the free video series which will explain more here.