A SHORT BUSINESS GUIDE FOR AMATEUR ENTREPRENEURS

Being an entrepreneur is not an easy task to accomplish. Entrepreneurs go through a lot of stressful days and daunting nights to make their businesses successful. They face several failures and letdowns before hitting a home run. Patience in these kinds of circumstances is inevitable. A patient entrepreneur who accepts the realities of life and realizes that perfectionism is an illusion is capable of taking his business to new heights. But not all of this is as easy as imaginable. Not all entrepreneurs can make it thus far and their businesses fail for one or another reason. It’s crucial to look into the reasons that businesses fail and how to avoid these unfortunate disasters so future entrepreneurs can learn from the failures of others and benefit their businesses.

1. LACK OF GOALS: There ain’t any successful businesses that haven’t settled their goals. Setting goals is paramount in determining how far you need to go in a certain amount of time and what resources would be required to achieve that goal. When a business has criteria to fulfill and a deadline to accomplish which is doable given the resources the whole team involved will know their limits and work hard to reach their target.
2. FINANCIAL INCAPABILITY: Let’s face it, no matter how brilliant your ideas are or how stunning your planning is, you won’t be able to execute it without any financial aid. A business needs consistent cash flow to be able to sustain itself. Not only the initial investment is a challenging task but to be able to manage the cash flows within the business ensuring that the business is profitable should be a top priority. Financial management can further be divided into two different sections:

a) Initial Financing: The initial finance is required to build and grow a business. To achieve this one should be able to sell his ideas and planning to the investors and stockholders clearly and concisely explaining the salient features. They must sound believable to be enjoyed by the investors.

b) Financial Management: Once a business is off the hook it needs to keep track of its finances. The money that is coming in should not be lower than the money going out. Profitability is ensured when you are earning more than you are spending. Managing the cash flow in your business is an important key to making it successful.

3. NOT KNOWING THE AUDIENCE: Whatever the business, online or offline, customers are the ones running it. If a business doesn’t fulfill the needs of its customers then it is of no use. Customers are made by knowing them. An entrepreneur is knowledgeable and well aware of the market trends and its customers' needs. Not indulging with the audience will only take you away from their demands. Answering their questions, knowing their problems, taking their opinions, and finding a solution to tackle them is of utmost importance when it comes to building a loyal fanbase and making a business profitable.

4. DIFFERENTIATING DEFICIENCY: Thousands of businesses start every day but not all can become successful. One reason for this could be a shortage of USP or Unique Seller Preposition. If there is no factor setting you apart from your already established competitors then you’ll be lost in the shuffle. A unique value in your product or service can grab attention and if solving a problem for the customers, can surely be a hit too. Introducing what’s already in the market and old-fashioned will not set a differentiating factor and being an amateur business in the market it is likely to be suppressed by the prevailing competitors.

5. TREATING BUSINESS AS A HOBBY: A business should be treated as a business and not as a hobby. Prioritizing your business is significant to ensure its success. An entrepreneur is responsible to grow and build the business and show the desire to run it. If an entrepreneur is only giving his business a few hours a week then he should expect the result of those few hours. Not giving attention and seriousness to your business and treating it as a hobby will only lead to immediate failure. Lack of finances, Incomplete tasks will all pile up and end in a shutdown. To avoid it the business should be the top priority of an entrepreneur.

6. NEGLECTING INNOVATIONS AND MARKET TRENDS: Innovation is a major source of success in business in today’s world. With new emerging technologies and researches opening new doors of innovations to benefit humanity is a potential opportunity for businesses to rely upon and create their differentiating factors. Ignoring these innovations and sticking to the same service or product may lead it to be disregarded by the masses when there is a better solution to their problems available. Market trends also control the flow of business sales and keeping up with it is an essential responsibility. Not following any of these attributes and clinging to your products emotionally will result in the reduction of sales and audience hence out-dating the business eventually.

7. SKEPTICISM ABOUT EMPLOYEE LOYALTY: Not trusting your employees to complete a task or a job will lead to skepticism and an environment of distrust within the business facility. It will lead to the entrepreneur not delegating tasks to its employees, rather executing themselves. It will increase the pressure upon him due to repetitive task pile-up and not getting enough time for other necessary tasks. An entrepreneur should stick to managing its employees, delegating the task to the best possible person, and trusting in his skills. Trusting your employees also means asking them about new ideas and involving them in planning and strategizing your business. This will increase the sense of enthusiasm and passion in every person working to grow the business.

8. A NEGATIVE MINDSET: Imagine having all the resources in the world but you still aren’t able to build a business just because of your negative mindset. A negative mind restricts creativity and blocks any new possible ideas emerging in the brain. An entrepreneur with a pessimistic approach will find himself in a never-ending trouble loop-hole and instead of searching for a way out he will complain and brag and holding others accountable for the downfalls. Contrarily, a positive mindset will try to search for the root cause, evaluate the data, analyze the numbers, discuss with its employees and come up with a diagnosis to cure it.

Certain other factors such as leadership, organizing your business, laser focus, core values, right partnership, marketing strategies etcetera go into building and sustaining a successful business. But no matter how much you do you’ll still come up short sometimes. You’ll still fail. But that failure is not the end of the story for a positive-minded optimistic entrepreneur, it is an experience, a lesson, a trial. Learning from these failures, accepting them, and making a change to subdue them is the testimony of a successful entrepreneur.

All the businesses are started with nothing. It is the leader that runs the business that dictates its future. The decisions he makes lead the way for a business to thrive and flourish. It is always better to understand the science of business or hire people who’ll guide you on that. One can never be a master of all the trades. But instead, he should hire the masters of all trades.