By Celemma Lara
Starting a business and turning it into a company is a path full of many obstacles and some failures, the latter do not have to be the end of your project. On the contrary, it allows you to acquire new tools and learning by overcoming the mistakes made.
The steps that I propose, according to my experience, to overcome the failure of your venture are the following:
Detect failures and accept them: Take responsibility for the decisions you made and their consequences (accountability). Avoid looking for blame.
Fix those mistakes: Watch carefully and learn from those mistakes.
Recover the capital: Sell what you can, without desperation and put the corresponding value on it, do not give it away. Sell the product inventory, the idea is to practice what you learned in the previous steps trying to target the right market niche. This allows you to obtain liquidity and measure the level of rotation of those products based on what you have learned.
Now yes, a new beginning!
Plan strategically: It is important that you create structure, develop a management strategy and a plan that guides you towards the business vision, taking into account your new and valuable experience.
Some frequent inconveniences that you will have to face with determination, strength and perseverance are:
Capital: Although you have recovered part of the capital, it is possible that you still consider that you need capital to continue: Evaluate and analyze what processes you can hire third parties, so that you generate the payment only when the sale is made. Make sure that investment is strictly necessary. Look for an investor.
Manage negative opinions and mistrust about the future of your business: Sometimes it is difficult to manage some comments, especially when they come from people you respect and/or know your work area well.
The idea is not to ignore the advice, but to have confidence in your project and in its management. Remember that what is new and/or different tends to generate resistance in others. Be whole in your actions.
Lack of commercial and credit references of the company: The recommendation is to maintain a good cash flow. Movement is more important than keeping large amounts of money in the bank. Pay close attention to purchases. Your best strategy will be to get the lowest costs, maintain quality and assertively acquire what the customer needs, to increase merchandise turnover.
“Giving up is the way out for the weak. To insist is the alternative of the strong” Henry Ford