How do you stop a failing business? All right, I've got a successful business but
I've had many fail. And my first 8 years... 8 and a half years have been a
financial rollercoaster. And I switched directions and so I've had many failures
along the way. So, how do you stop that and how do you actually achieve success?
Because I fill in there now, I can share some of my secrets with you.
So, when you know your business isn't succeeding or isn't succeeding like you
want it to, you've got to be objective and separate yourself emotionally from
it. Okay, you've got to be objective and just look at it logically and find out
what is going wrong. Because in order for you to fix it you've got to know what's
going wrong. I mean, maybe you need a second pair of eyes to come and look at
your business and help you figure out what is going wrong. The next thing I
want to recommend is to create systems. And if you haven't read or listened to
the book the E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber... So, the E-myth Revisited. Man, that
is a must read and that has a good chance of saving your business from
failure. Systems mean that instead of me wearing all the hats and just being an
employee and being self-employed wearing all the the different jobs in my company,
that I systematize my business. That I create a system and hire somebody to run
that system or create a program to run that system or hire this person.
And so, I'm systematizing my business. This allows me to work on my business
continually making improvements and making it better and ensure that it will
succeed and grow and be profitable instead of just working in my business
--being a slave to it. Another way to look at this is if you're working as the
technician instead of as the owner. All right? I mean think about McDonald's/ Like
a McDonald's is a very successful business franchise. Do you ever see the
owner? I mean the owner of that location? No. You see the high school students, you
see the manager perhaps? They're the employees that are hired to run
that system. And so that's one reason that you might be feeling is if
you are the dishwasher, if you are the cook, you're working as the technician
not as the owner. Okay, this is one that I have struggled with. And I've made
improvements in and want to continue improving. And that's that I try and sell
what I want instead of what my customers are asking for. Because in some cases, I
feel like I know better. I know what they need so I sell them what they need. Okay?
I've learned that they know what they want. And
they're not going to buy what they don't want. So, I need to sell what they want
and if I can also provide them what they need. And you can do that through
education, right? So, if you sell them what they want and educate them on what they
need, for so long, I did struggle because I only would... I was only willing to sell
them what they needed but they didn't know that they needed it, right? Okay,
another piece of advice and it's kind of hard because we live in a world with
lots of shiny objects. I would focus on one thing at a time. Just focus on one
step at a time. So, you've got this big idea. You've got
this big launch campaign and all these things that you want to set up. This big
sales funnel, these websites, the marketing videos that YouTube channels
social media. Wow! Right? Just focus on one thing at a time.
And focus on the most important thing like what's going to bring in revenue today?
Is this Facebook campaign cool? Is it going to be great long term? But is it going to
bring me revenue right now? I've got to focus on bringing in revenue right now
before I can I can go there. Does that make sense? Maybe let me say it this way
--just don't over complicate things. And we can make our businesses way too
complicated. If we just take a step back and simplify. Okay, this is advice that I
wish I would have given myself. And I knew better but I got a business loan.
I had already been in business. But I got a business loan so that I could invest
in marketing. And I thought that marketing was going to help me scale. It
didn't work. I didn't have proper sales funnels in place so that all that
marketing money just was wasted. Yeah, that was... That was a lesson learned. Don't
don't go into debt. Don't go into debt for your business. It's so easy to start
a company and be an entrepreneur and create a very successful profitable
business with zero money in the beginning. Okay. And I guess I had another
point here talking about shiny objects. I wrote filter shiny objects that don't
really lead to direct results. There's a lot of shiny objects out there. Different
programs, different campaigns, different tool,
different gadgets that are awesome. Like I still don't own a drone.
I wanted a drone ever since they became popular. But I don't know how
I'm going to use a drone to actually make revenue for my business. I could get
it and write it off because we do so much filming. And I have all these
desires of getting a drone. Maybe I can justify it. But the the moral of this
story is, just filter the shiny objects that don't lead to direct revenue if you
want to save your company. Alright. How, consistent are your sales? If you don't
have consistent sales then your great risk of failure. You've got to have
revenue coming in. You've got to always have new clients coming in or you're at
risk of failure. Okay, that's an all stage. Is that a place to me that a place to
the beginner. So, look at consistency. Be honest with yourself about how
consistent your new customers are coming in. Okay, this next one was one that I am
very good at. I really have tenacity at making a
mistake and picking myself up and learning from
it and moving on. So, I feel like I've got a lot of entrepreneurial wisdom, a lot of
business wisdom. Because I make a lot of mistakes and I learned from it. So, that's
the biggest tip right there if you want to reverse your business from failure
and move it towards success. Be open with yourself about mistakes. What mistakes
have you made and what can you learn from each one of them? You know, don't
just be hard on yourself and judgmental of yourself. You didn't do it on purpose.
What can you learn from every mistake? I want to work this one because it sounds
cliche. Like solve problems. Find a problem that you can solve. But I want to
contrast that instead of just creating a product, right? Instead of just creating a
service, "Ooh! I can create websites for people." Yeah, people want websites, right?
I'll create websites. I'll be a web designer. Well, I want to recommend that
you create websites that do something specific that fill a need fill a void. I
look at it in terms of results. When I had a web design company right we
designed over 500 websites. And my clients were happy. They
had a pretty brochure that they could show their family and friends. And yet, I
knew that their website wasn't getting traffic and they weren't making sales.
That's discouraging to me. It's totally discouraging and that's why I don't have
a web design company anymore. There's a longer story than that. But I love
results and I recommend that you create a product or service that you can get
them predictable outcomes and results. Okay. Here's one that I've learned
through experience. And I'm going to call it to know your value and prove it. All
right, I knew the value of my YouTube service but I didn't have a track record,
I didn't have a portfolio in large scale like I was trying to sell. So, I decided
to prove it. And it took me 2 or 3 years
without making any money. Then I proved it. Then I had a track record and people
would come to me I didn't have to pursue them they would come to me saying, "Hey, do
for me what you did for them." So know your value and prove it. Just even if you
have to give away your services, give away your product for free, invest in
yourself; invest in your portfolio. Prove it. This one would be a hard one for me
just the way that I'm wired. But maybe this will work for you. Get a job to
remove the financial stress. Maybe, okay? See, how that resonates with you? Just
think about what would it be like. I mean, yeah, you're going to have less time to work
on your company. But if the stress was gone, if the urgency was gone because
your bills were paid, would you be able to turn your company around?
Here's another cliche one. Okay, set goals and know your why. Why are you in it? You
know, so when you get smacked down, you get punched across the face or something
and hit some big obstacle or setback or some failure. When you know why, it's
easier to get back up. And if you're setting goals and you're making progress
towards them. If you don't have goals then you don't know where you're going.
And you don't know if you're making progress. So, you've got to set goals and
have a foundational why beneath them. Okay. And lastly you know, if you're
trying to avoid your business from failing, maybe it is time for this
business to fail and just to go and start a different one. Now, you know what
doesn't work, go start one that will work. Take all this knowledge and go start
fresh. I'm not saying that's the right answer. But maybe it is. You would know
better than me. Now, with that foundation, the next video that you should watch is
what I would do if I were starting a business from scratch. I share all my
secrets on how I created my business that I absolutely love and what I would
do if I were creating it from scratch again to save me from making mistakes.
So, go watch that video next.