If you are in business and you get to a point where you feel like giving up, I am hoping you give that another thought. Running a business is more complicated than most people anticipate. A lot of people go into business because they feel they have a great idea which the market will pay for. They set shop with this idea but, things don’t move as fast as predicted. The products or services the business owner thought will wow the market turns out to be an investment in the owners ego. What the business owner thought will be quality turned out to have little meaning to the customer.
According to StatisticBrain.com the five major causes of failures are as follows:
| Major Cause | Percentage of Failures | Specific Pitfalls | |
| 1 | Incompetence |
46 % |
Emotional Pricing |
| Living too high for the business | |||
| Nonpayment of taxes | |||
| No knowledge of pricing | |||
| Lack of planning | |||
| No knowledge of financing | |||
| No experience in record-keeping | |||
| 2 | Unbalanced Experience or Lack of Managerial Experience |
30 % |
Poor credit granting practices |
| Expansion too rapid | |||
| Inadequate borrowing practices | |||
| 3 | Lack of Experiences in line of goods or services |
11 % |
Carry inadequate inventory |
| No knowledge of suppliers | |||
| Wasted advertising budget | |||
| 5 | Neglect, fraud, disaster |
1 % |
Source: http://www.statisticbrain.com/startup-failure-by-industry/
The good news is all these issues can be addressed and failure does not have to be the only way out. For a business to run successfully, a business owner will have to excel in finance, marketing and operations. Usually, as an entrepreneur you are good at one of these functions but not all three. The areas of inadequacy could cause an entrepreneur to feel overwhelmed.
To keep from feeling overwhelmed, honestly evaluate your strength and weaknesses in these three areas:
- Operations: the process of delivering your product or service.
- Marketing: the process of making others aware of your product and service and converting them to customers.
- Financing: the process of increasing financial benefits by optimizing the operations and marketing function.
If you goal is to excel in business, then you will need all three functions running efficiently in your business. If you are not good in one or more functions, you will need to hire someone who is. If you can’t afford to hire, use free services like Score and other local business development services to get advice. Do not try to go it alone, surrounding yourself with the right people, can make the difference. Having a great idea is not the same as being able to run a business. To be successful, your scarce resources need to be focused on the greatest opportunities.
If you feel like giving up, don’t until you have evaluated all your options. Sometimes, the answer to what you need is just one step ahead if you are just willing to move forward.