- Let's talk a little bit about failure in small business. A wise entrepreneur once asked, "What is the secret to success in entrepreneurship?" Make sure it's your second time. That may sound a little strange. What he meant was that you're going to learn from your failures. In fact, success and entrepreneurship is not doing everything right. It's making lots of little mistakes and learning from them. Growing your business in the process.
Let's talk about a few principles that can help you understand the role of failure in business. Number one is recognize that failure is an option. In fact, its a necessity. Things are going to go wrong from time to time. You have a choice when those things go wrong. You can either get upset about it or you can ask yourself the question, "What did I learn from this?" Number two is understanding the difference between big failure and little failure.
Big failure is something that's catastrophic. It brings your business to it's knees. Little failures are portioned calculated risks you take. Rather than betting everything on one big tv ad, you try lots of little direct mailers and see which one succeeds. That leads to principle three, which is, we try things and we measure them. Try and measure and we repeat that process over and over. Some of the things that you try, some of the ads that you run for instance, are going to fail miserably but other ones that we try are going to succeed.
Then we're going to adapt those and try again. Do this over and over and you can use failure to help you become successful. Number four is understand that loneliness is a part of being an entrepreneur. It's because you're willing to do things that other people aren't willing to do. You see the world in a way that's slightly different than the way other people see the world. It's not necessarily good or bad it just means because you're looking at things in a different way you may occasionally be misunderstood and unliked.
Recognize that's okay and try to surround yourself with peers who get what it's like to be an entrepreneur. That'll help you feel a little bit better about that. Then number five is slow down the roller coaster. Entrepreneurship sometimes can be just a rapid series of super big highs and very deep lows and that is exhausting physically, mentally, emotionally. You want to slow that roller coaster down and make the highs and the lows not quite so extreme.
There's a quote that I created for myself and I have it in my office. You're welcome to copy this and put it in your office as well. The quote goes like this: "The truth is things are not as bad as I think they are. "Things are not as good as I think they are. "The truth is I am not as bad as I think I am. "I am not as good as I think I am, truth is." Sometimes that's just a helpful reminder to me that even though things seem fantastic it's not as fantastic as I'm perceiving it to be.
If things are miserable I just need to relax a little bit and let things take their time. Entrepreneurship is about learning how to embrace failure and accept both the highs and the lows. You're goal over time is to create steady, consistent growth on your journey of growing your small business.
Author
Updated
3/31/2015Released
4/15/2014Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
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Management Tips
with Todd Dewett7h 50m Intermediate
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Introduction
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Welcome48s
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1. Finding Your Most Valuable Customers
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2. Setting Fees and Prices
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3. Solving Problems
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4. Working with Family and Friends
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Managing family and friends2m 59s
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5. Creating a Business Plan
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6. Starting a Hobby Business
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7. Discovering Your Most Valuable Service or Product
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8. Bootstrapping Your Business
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9. Creating Culture
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Building company values2m 34s
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10. Getting Organized
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Managing your time4m 45s
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11. Marketing with Social Media
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Deciding on your channels3m 11s
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12. Business Entities and Compensation
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13. Small Business Accounting
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14. Finding Your Marketing Message
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Refining your message4m 56s
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15. Documenting Business Systems
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16. Balancing Work and Life
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17. Increasing Sales in Your Business
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Developing your sales system3m 15s
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18. Testing Whether You Have an Idea or a Business
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19. Hiring Service Providers
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Selecting and hiring vendors2m 51s
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20. Hiring Employees
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Crafting a job and pay range3m 58s
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Interviewing candidates7m 25s
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21. Motivating Employees
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Developing people and paths4m 24s
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22. Seeking Capital
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Crafting your pitch5m 40s
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23. Working With Difficult Customers
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Working through complaints6m 11s
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24. Letting Employees Go
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Making a smooth transition5m 58s
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25. Generating New Sales Leads
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26. Maintaining Focus as a Business Owner
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Avoiding opportunity traps5m 26s
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27. Thinking Like An Entrepreneur
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Getting rich your own way4m 16s
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28. Dealing with Competition in Business
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29. Avoiding Blind Spots
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30. Creating a Customer Experience
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31. Networking for Small Business
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32. Building Accountability into your Small Business Culture
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33. Dealing with Business Failures
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34. Improving Sales Systems
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35. Giving Back
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36. Setting Goals for Small Business
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Measuring your success3m 31s
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37. Channeling Your Motivation
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Why you deserve success3m 8s
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38. Building a Small Business Exit Strategy
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Exit strategy options5m 7s
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39. Building Customer Loyalty
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The role of customer loyalty3m 47s
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40. Building Employee Loyalty
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41. Structuring a Small Business
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42. Branding Your Small Business
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Crafting your company story3m 39s
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43. Dispelling Big-Business Illusions
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44. Understanding if Entrepreneurship Is Right for You
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45. Managing Remote Employees
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Leading from a distance3m 11s
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46. Crowdfunding Your Business
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Understanding crowdfunding3m 29s
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47. Cultivating Entrepreneurial Curiosity
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48. Growing into a Mature Business
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Putting it all together5m 50s
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Video: Embracing the challenge of entrepreneurship