The figure you’re about to see might be an unpleasant one. It might even be frightening. However, it’s crucial that you, as a new business owner, are aware of it. That figure is 20 percent, and it relates to the 20 percent of businesses that fail within their first year. It’s not a positive thought, and it’s not something that owners of startups will want to contemplate (after all, every business owner expects to succeed, or they wouldn’t have gone to the effort of launching a business at all).
As unpleasant as that figure might be, it’s vital that you know it and keep it in mind. Being aware of it means that you will remember there are many different things you need to do to ensure you don’t fall foul of the mistakes that lead to business failure. However, it’s not enough just to know that 20 percent figure and push on regardless; you need to know what mistakes to avoid as well. With that in mind, here are some of the things you need to steer clear of when you’re starting a business.
Being Scared To Fail
If you are going to succeed and not be one of the 20 percent of businesses that fail within their first year, you need to be confident. You need to be confident in your business and in your own abilities. This can be hard when you have to keep remembering that mistakes can be big problems and that there is a chance you won’t do as well as you had hoped, but it is important.
One way to do this is to stop being afraid of failure. This probably sounds like a contradiction; we’ve just said you need to be aware that failure is a very real thing. However, there is a difference between understanding that and being afraid of it. When you’re afraid of failure, you are unlikely to try anything new or push yourself too far. This is not how successful businesses achieve greatness. In business, you need to realize that you have to try new things and that small failures might occur because of them. Don’t be scared of this and keep trying, as it’s the only way to success.
Not Having A Business Plan To Follow
If you want to avoid failure, there is one thing that will help you above all else – having a good business plan in place. Writing a business plan can be seen as unnecessary and a chore that takes too much time and effort rather than something that will benefit your business, but this is the wrong attitude to take. A business without a plan to follow is highly likely to run into big problems. Not only that, but without a business plan, you won’t know how to get past these problems in the most beneficial way.It’s crucial to include what size of company you’re looking to build, where you will operate, how to complete a company registration in Thailand if you choose to operate there, and also to ensure your business is legally fit to operate
Your business plan will take time to write – it should take time to write. This is not something that can be quickly scribbled down and forgotten about. The business plan for your enterprise is what will guide you through the ups and downs, help you make decisions, and ensure you can obtain any funding you need.
Despite this, many business owners don’t make a business plan at all. This means they don’t know the best decisions to make to move forward, such as whether to try vehicle branding to attract more customers, and it means that when they need to pitch their business to investors or lenders, they don’t have any plans or future predictions to show.
Not Being Organized
You might just think that some people are naturally more organized than others, and if you are a disorganized kind of person, there isn’t a lot you can do about it. Perhaps in your general life, this is something you can believe, but in business, all it will do is harm you, your business, its reputation, and its ability to succeed.
No matter how organized you might be in other areas of your life, you have to be organized in your business. Without proper organization, you can misplace important documents, forget customer orders (or get them wrong), and not have a good routine in place when it comes to social media marketing, for example. Plus, much more.
As time goes on, a disorganized business owner will start to lose more and more. This could be lost time looking for tools or documents.
Therefore it’s crucial that you create good systems and processes that you and anyone working for you are able to follow. Doing this will take time, but it is worth thinking carefully about. Once the systems are in place, you just have to follow them, and you’ll be so much more organized. Plus, when you take on new people, they can follow them, and your business will go from strength to strength.
