No entrepreneur starts out to fail; on the contrary, the notion of success is the fuel that powers them to make decisions, achieve goals and realize their dreams. Only half of businesses make it to their fifth birthday – so that’s a 50% chance of surviving. However, failure has been the key ingredient to many a successful entrepreneur’s story.
When you research the traits that entrepreneurs invariably possess, you will come across lists that include:
- Self-starter
- Competitive
- Confident
- Determined
- Disciplined
- Passionate
The mix of these traits are essential for anyone who wants to start and develop their own business, but even those people who are blessed with these characteristics can have businesses that don’t succeed. Why is that? The answer is because they don’t have resilience or the ability to reflect objectively, adapt and learn from the challenges they have faced.
Resilience
Resilience is essential in business, and your response to a struggling venture will decide whether you will make it as a successful entrepreneur on not. You will come across several challenges and hurdles that you need to overcome. You will have to work long hours, your personal finances will take a hit and you will question what you are hoping to achieve, and then your business fails. What do you do?
You have two options – sink or swim.
Having a failed business behind you can make you feel that it is the end of the entrepreneur road for you. You are surviving on a Vanquis credit card that is your only way to try and boost your credit rating, and it’s time for you to use this lifeline as a means of getting back on track. You have to accept that times are going to be challenging, dust yourself down, and recognize that you have a whole lot more to achieve?
Resilience is what makes you able to get up each morning and tackle each day with an increased gusto; it makes you pick the phone up to potential clients and your previous clients and customers. Failure can fuel success.
Adapt
Traditionally, businesses have been built on rigid plans, goals and objectives, whereas today’s entrepreneurs are more agile and flexible with their approach. They are willing to adapt their business to suit market requirements at a speed that has previously been unseen – sometimes to the detriment of their current venture, but this can be a real advantage in terms of developing strategies to overcome the shortfalls in the next venture. Failure can inspire innovations.
Learn
When business doesn’t go to plan, it is important that some time is devoted to reflecting on where things went awry and the business mistakes that were made. Successes should be assessed and analyzed, but so to should the failures so that achievements can be replicated, and mistakes avoided.
By making errors in judgment, you quickly learn not to make the same mistake twice. Somebody who has a failed business will never hopefully make the same error again – the consequences will have been too high to risk such an oversight again. A failed business can make an entrepreneur learn business lessons quickly, which could take a lifetime of paid employment to gain the same knowledge.
Past failures can provide a deep understanding of a niche or industry that is ordinarily looked over and open the door to new opportunities. Nobody likes a failed venture behind them; however, often it can be a blessing in disguise.
