My take on Funerals and Wakes for Failed Businesses
Penny Power OBE
The Human Touch in a Digital World- Creating Love & Connection for Business Owners in an emotionally disconnected world through BIP100/ Author ?? Business Is Personal
Recovering from the pain of losing a business
This morning Michael Tobin @Michael_Tobin_ tweeted about “Funerals and wakes for failed Businesses”. An article by The Guardian. Funerals and wakes for the Failed Business
Whenever I see anything that talks about the loss, the pain and the need to support people who have been brave enough to start a business and then had to experience the pain of its loss my heart and stomach physically hurts. My heart pounds and my stomach feels an emptiness.
Like many losses in life, no one can truly know this pain unless they have endured it, and no one knows how hard it is to emotionally and financially come back from this unless they have been strong enough to rebuild.
I know this pain, my husband Thomas Power, knows this pain. In fact, if I could have a single pound for every time someone has said to us “you should have been LinkedIn” then we would actually be the millionaires.
Writing this blog, I could take this in so many directions. I could talk about the mindset you need to get past the loss, I could talk about the vision you need to hold to come back again and try with new ways to deliver the same burning vision you hold. I could talk about how others treat you. There are so many learning’s for this.
Most of all, it is about the people you have around you that care, honour and still believe in you. For that reason, the idea of a Funeral and a Wake, is genius. It would help you get closure, but at the same time help you to see the people that truly understand that you are grieving and need support.
The grief goes far beyond the financial hell, you are grieving the life you gave to a business, the people you can no longer help as customers, the suppliers you loved that you can no longer give business to, and of course the staff that were on the journey with you that you can no longer employ. Above all, you are grieving your dream, the vision you held.
It has taken Thomas and I five years since we sold Ecademy to really make it back, to have the courage to begin a company again that had the same vision, applying all the learning, connect with all our old members from these days across the world and critically, and without ego, to know that we were right with what we were bringing to market, but the timing was not right. Timing is a huge part of success. If the market is not ready, no matter how powerful you are as an evangelist, you can only reach those that want to hear.
So, back to the Funerals and Wakes. The Business Cafe will celebrate all business owners and their courage, their tenacity and their determination. Those that have failed will be loved and nurtured, those that are just starting out will be encouraged, and those that are building and doing well will be celebrated.
I would love us to provide a way to give a Funeral to those who have lost. This month Thomas and I burned the papers from the past that represented our pain. A symbolic moment on a Saturday night to finally say 'goodbye to the pain and hello to the future".
How poignant a moment it was to see Michael Tobin’s Tweet. Thank you to him
I am all about helping creative business owners to publish fun books, journals and planners on Amazon KDP
7 年Ahhh Penny, this resonates so much for me too... The heartache and the loss of identity when you close a business is incredibly challenging. Even though I closed my business by choice because I didn't love it any more, there was still a lot of sadness in the months following.
Bid Master & Writing Trainer
7 年Creating and sustaining a successful business takes loads of qualities — resilience, courage, stamina, determination, tenacity, to name a few. The one often omitted — maybe because it sounds a bit New Age-y — is love. Love of what you do, love for the people you work with, love for what you leave behind. I know from my own experience that, if I didn't love what I do (showing people how to use language to get the results they want) I'd have given up long, long ago. When your business passes, what will it leave in its wake?
Co-Create
7 年I remember those ecademy days :) Here is another real account of how another biggie Microsoft dealt with the house of cards ...courtesy of someone who knows.... "One of the biggest reasons for our success, though, is that the plan we delivered to the board that day wasn’t much of a plan at all. There were no financial projections or discussions of revenue streams. There was no market research on what users, advertisers, or partners wanted or how they fit into nicely defined market segments. There was no concept of market research or discussion of which advertisers we would target first. There was no channel strategy or discussion of how we would sell our ad products. There was no concept of an org chart, with sales doing this, product doing that and engineering doing some other that. There was no product roadmap detailing what we would build and when. There was no budget. There were no targets or milestones that the board and company leaders could use to monitor our progress. […] We left that out for the simple reason we didn’t know how we were going to do it. When it came to management tactics, the only thing we could say for sure back then was that much of what [we] had learned in the twentieth century was wrong, and that it was time to start over.” - Eric Schmidt, Google Cheers A
Great piece here Penny. Well done you for trying again! Remember, if we to see failure as learning, we can approach risk without fear. Onwards and upwards!
A Stroke Of Luck. Founder. Owner. Investor. I train competitive players and people how to reliably, predictably win, in the greatest of pressures, tapping into their greatest natural athletic instincts.
7 年Penny!! what a note. everything about it plus of course the wake idea is just sooo spot on. I realised I am still grieving and hadn't got closure. just cracking on...as one does. JUST for this piece of 'relatedness' (if that is a word?!) I am wanting to know more with a view to joining.