Herman School of Business
Evolve or Die...
I gave a speech this week before the Howard County Women’s Business Network and about sixty people attended the luncheon. They are a very positive group of hard working business owners, networking to support each other with a wide range of members. Home based business owners sat with owners of large companies with many employees at multiple locations. The reception they gave me both before and after the talk was warm and wonderful.
My talks hit on the fact that Failure Isn’t Fatal by giving my background mixed with stories of famous successful people who had to overcome enormous failures before climbing to the top of the mountain. Something happened after the talk that I noticed immediately. During the speech I use the example that if the room were on fire we would all exit quickly, not worrying about what others think. And yet, if your business is on fire you are afraid to admit it even to yourself, and many owners sit there amidst the flames and burn needlessly instead of getting out.
In some ways my talk was giving permission for people to fail, or at least admit that what they owned and operated was not working. One woman stood during the question/answer portion and said she had a great year last year, was doing everything the same as before and her sales are plummeting. What should she do? She thought she was failing and I told her she was doing fine, the economy was failing her. The customers she had loved her products, they just couldn’t afford to keep buying right now. During our exchange, and later when we talked one-on-one she thanked me for pointing out that even when you do everything right, there may not be enough customers to sustain you. She has two choices, just like all business owners…one is to find new customers to replace her lost sales, or sell the business to someone else because she doesn’t want the to do the work involved with growing her business.
More than one woman in the room came up to me afterwards with a big smile on their face…thanking me for pointing out that walking away after you have tried all you can to succeed but didn’t is actually a positive step, a step towards your next success. And that by staying and wallowing in your current state is the negative thing to do. Amazing how we start companies all the time without worrying about what others think and then stay too long because of what the others might say. It’s your life, live it your way. I readily admit that 6 of the 21 companies I have founded failed. Some lost a lot of money. All caused me emotional pain and time seemingly was wasted. Or, was it? What I learned from every situation was put to use in future endeavors, so while the profit wasn’t money…the knowledge gained turned into cash in a later venture.
Buy a competitor and get bigger, go find some new customers to replace the ones who no longer buy from you, or sell your company now and catch your breath and then start something else that may take you to a higher level of success. If you think you are now on the right track…but just pausing for awhile…that train coming just might run over you.
- Posted: 20 June 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Business failure
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