According to Small Business Administration, 20% of new businesses fail their first year, 30% will fail in the second year and after 5 years only half of the startups will still be open for business. These can be scary numbers for young entrepreneurs eager to build their first business, but there is still hope. If half of the new businesses fail after 5 years, the other half is still up and running right? Even though the odds are against you, a real entrepreneur never run from a challenge. Here are some tips new business owners can use to help ensure your business’ success:
Do What You Know & Love
When creating a business you need to give it your all, and your heart needs to be in it. Start a business about something you love, something you’re passionate about. If you start a business to make money or because it looks cool, you will get frustrated when things aren’t going your way. If you start a business about something you are passionate about, when things are looking bad you won’t give up.
Keep in mind though that just because you are passionate about a subject doesn’t mean your business will automatically be a success. You still must do your research about what businesses are more likely to succeed, the competition, current trends and different methods of marketing to ensure your company’s success.
Create Goals, Then Focus
As an entrepreneur, you are your boss. This means there is nobody there to tell you what to do, so you are going to need to tell yourself what to do and keep yourself on task. You need to set a few key goals for your business and only focus your energy on those. When starting a business it’s easy to get distracted with other opportunities and business ideas but you’ll never get anywhere unless you pick one thing and stick with it.
Be Organized
When you’re starting, you should create a detailed plan of action for your company. This plan should include your short term goals, long term goals, budgeting, available resources, a personal work schedule and employee work schedules if you have employed workers. You should also make sure you have good data preparation so it’ll be easy to analyze data and pinpoint errors.
Maintain Your Health
Starting a business is very different than being just an employee. Being employed to a 9 to 5 job entails working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. While running a business requires working every day as much as you possibly can to get keep everything afloat. With that said, you still need to find time to manage and maintain your health. Exercising daily and eating a healthy diet will keep your mind sharp while you grow your company.
Be Realistic
There are a large group of people who think that they will start a business with overnight success- this will certainly not happen. To become successful you will need to endure a lot of hardship and failures. You need to be realistic and prepare for these situations. It might take months or even years before your business has reached the level you want it to, but you must be calm, patient and trust the process.
Being a new business owner in this day and age is no easy task as there will be many obstacles to overcome, but that shouldn’t stop you. You have the ability to be the next big thing, you just have to be dedicated and believe in yourself.
