Know When to Throw In the Towel!
Often times on the journey to successful entrepreneurship bumps in the road are destine to occur. Not all business ventures succeed after their creation, in fact to be quite honest and up front most will not last past three years.
Most often ventures fail due to a number of reasons similar to disgruntled partners that can’t get along, lack of working capital, or inability to tap into a market.
So what if this misfortune comes knocking at your door, how exactly should you handle it? I know speaking from personal experience my first venture failed miserably and I’m quite glad that it did.
It allowed me the chance to learn from my mistakes, figure out what I didn’t want to do in the future and it also removed the nervous bugs and cold feet syndrome that usually comes with first attempts.
When your business is in trouble and it seems that there is no point of return it’s important to know when to throw in the towel.
Entrepreneurs tend to be risk takers, type A’s, people who refuse to lose, they refuse to say “can’t,” “quit,” or “fail,” so often times it’s hard for them to admit that there is no money or purpose at the end of a particular business’s tunnel.
Even worse when you create a venture it becomes your “baby” in some respects, so many times an entrepreneur’s vision can become cloudy and distorted. So instead of viewing decisions from a business perspective, they may begin to make them from a personal viewpoint, which can become detrimental in many different situations.
The quicker that a distraught company either compiles a different strategic plan and re-organizes or closes the venture, the less bleeding will ensue in the future.
As a smaller entrepreneur it’s much harder to recoup from continued net losses and usually you won’t have assess to large management teams to spend millions on policy and strategic planning.
If you have to take that step and close your venture it’s important not to view the process from a negative point of view. You have to realize that you are capable of succeeding as an entrepreneur and go back to the drawing board so that you can pin point what you did right and where you went wrong, and how you plan on avoiding similar circumstances in the future.
After you have analyzed and evaluated the situation don’t be afraid to jump back into the game wether it’s with a new and improved, revised version of your previous business, or with a totally new venture. Just be sure that you always get back in the race and remain confident in your business abilities.
While it’s important to know when to throw in the towel, it is equally important to know when NOT to throw it in. Just because your venture is facing adversity or isn’t posting the returns you had previously hoped and planned for doesn’t mean that you have to just up and quit.
When making a major decision such as this you have to be certain that you evaluate all the alternatives very closely, making sure that you come to the right conclusion.
Leave a Comment