The biggest fear of entrepreneurs is experiencing failure in business. Many dont even take risks of starting out or expanding their business due to this fear. Paradoxically, successful entrepreneurs all have track records of how they encountered failure in business. This is an inevitable challenge that rises at a point, in the building of a business or enterprise.
Are you on the verge of business failure or have experienced a business failure in the past? In any case, let’s learn the best way to handle the failure in business.
- Be prepared for Failure and Face it when it comes
Inasmuch as there is every tendency and certainty of your businesses succeeding, there are also equal tendencies for it to failing. That’s actually the reason to be prepared in advance for it, so you won’t be caught unaware and unprepared. You must always have at the back of your mind that things would not always go smoothly or as planned. Sometimes, unplanned things happening business, just as life would give you good and bad times.
Entrepreneur and Writer, Ajaero Tony Martins once said, ‘A pilot learning how to fly an airplane will never be allowed to practice without a parachute; so must you also never start a business without an escape plan’
No entrepreneur prays for failure in business but if it comes, you just have to face it. That’s what makes successful and long-standing enterprise; the ability to face adversity and withstand the storm of business failures.
You prepare in advance to handle business failure by changing your perception towards failure.
- Have a right perspective of Failure
How you view failure in your business is very important. Failure is an asset and not a liability if you have the right view of it. In other words, because you have experienced or are experiencing failure in business is not a pointer to quitting. Never entertain the fear of failure and never be afraid of business failure. Success can only come from failure; the reason you know how to do something right is because you have probably done it wrong the first time. Having a positive mindset about failures in business would prevent you from quitting.
- Learn from these Failures
You must understand that failure in your business is an opportunity to learn something new. What you learn from your business failures is very essential to what you will gain out of it. Truly, failures can be very painful; no doubt, the first entrepreneurialfailure you experience will always be very painful and regretful. However, each failure teaches you something new as you evolve as an entrepreneur.
Therefore, determine what went wrong, find out what caused the failure in the first place. You have to conduct an analytic and detailed inquiry. Make sheets and charts, ask questions from your successful business friends and mentors, put heads together with your employees; you can even hire professional help.
At this point, you must be cautious; you must utilize the lessons learned at each time of failing so you can get better in your business. Your role as an entrepreneuris to avoid the same mistake all over again. This is probably the most important element to converting your business failure into success.
Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, D. J. Rockefeller and a host of successive businessmen all experience failures in business; rather than quitting, the learnt from their failures.
- Wisely Apply lessons learnt
Life would always give you the opportunity to start again; when it comes, take all you have learned from your business failure and apply them wisely. Take positive actions, map out plans to re-strategize and resolve to succeed. You should strive to use your failures positively, just as the great inventor Thomas Edison said when a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
Successive entrepreneurs don’t give up, they only get better. Get dogged, remember that success is a journey and you are one step away to achieving that big dream.