Why I believe businesses fail

Why Do Businesses Fail?

There's only ONE real reason your business will fail.

But let me tell you what the reasons aren't.

It's not your business partner, It's not your product or your service, It's not your staff, It's not your spouse, It's not your competition or your price point. It's not even the government or the interest rates. In fact from this day on we'll probably hear: ' It's Brexit. It's Donald Trump '. In other words, it's always something outside of you that you can't control.

But let's look at different examples of companies that have grown through adversity. Big companies, like Google that started after the Dot-com crash. Or Facebook that grew through the global recession. No, the only reason businesses will fail is because of YOU, the business owner.

I've had some great success stories but plenty more failures. And I've come to terms with owning all of that. And I'm here to say, if you can't own your successes and your failures, then you can't move forward.

So what I want to do, from experience is offer some advice on how to select the best business coach for yourself. What do you want to look for in the minefield of business coaches? We need some real value here. The first thing you want to do is understand the difference between advice and opinion. Everybody has got an opinion. What's the difference? Well, advice is information given first-hand, from somebody that's been there and done what it is you're looking to emulate. There's so many business coaches out there that have never actually ran a business. I mean, would you trust a skinny chef? No. Would you hire an overweight personal trainer? No of course not. So why would you take advice from someone who's never ran a successful business? In fact, more to the point I'd go as far to say: Have they ever had any failures as well, and learnt from them, and been successful after that? Because your failures can be your biggest capital. They're where most of the learning can come from. So, if you're looking to take advice from somebody and know that it's not opinion.... then talk to someone that's actually been there and done it. That's ran a successful business and maybe had some rocky ground and came back from that. The lessons I've learnt, and the great advice I had received is to focus on three cornerstones that make up great business advice. The first one is fundamental to business owners. And that is the tactics required to operate a business. Any great business coach understands tactics, and that's, to be fair what most of them teach. In fact 95% of business coaches only focus on tactics. So what does that mean? It's your sales, your marketing. Your time management. Your planning policies and procedures. It's all the fundamental aspects you need in order to operate a business and being able to manage cash flow, organise your HR, and being able to apply marketing to the marketplace. All of this is tactics. You've got to learn it. That's your trade craft as a business owner. But if you're only applying tactics - you can have the best tactics in the world - but if you don't have a plan for how to strategically execute them, you're going to fall down. You've got no direction, which is where the second cornerstone comes in.

The second key and critical cornerstone of understanding business advice is understanding strategy. See, you can be a good tactician, but unless you're a strategist, you're going to get lost with your competition. So, what is business strategy? What is great business strategy? It's asking better questions. Why are you in business in the first place? What are you here for? What are the pain points that you're solving for your customers? Why are you the people to solve it? What does your business stand for in terms of overarching objectives that guides the business when it gets stormy? So that you're not just moving pieces on a chessboard, but you understand a lot of the thinking that's required on how to win the long-term game of business. That's where strategy really steps up. Now, with strategy there's a challenge - it's a deeper level of thinking. And most business owners are too reactive to the marketplace. They're too busy being busy to really focus on strategy. Which is why they struggle. And there's also a very few business coaches that understand it at a deep level. I've been fortunate enough over the last six months to be mentored by some amazing business coaches and learnt that if your strategy doesn't lead your tactics, you're going to get left behind. So while strategy and tactics are fundamentals of business success, there is a third and critical component, that almost no business coaches talk about. And that's because they're just not qualified. And that's the psychology and the mindset of a business owner. Very few psychologists are good business coaches, and very few coaches and business coaches are psychologists. But if we look at sports, what you'll find is all great sporting coaches understand that physical components are just the price of admission. When it comes to game day, 8-% is mindset. Just look at Lionel Messi, one of the greatest football players in the world. The difference between Lionel Messi on a great day, where he can't put a foot wrong and scoring goals, and his feet are like poetry, versus a day where he's just not up to speed, has got nothing to do with how many new skills he learnt this week. No, it's whether or not he's on game, whether his mindset is there or not.

Now, as a business owner, you can learn all the strategy and tactics in the world, but it's who's applying the strategy and tactics that is the most important part - and that is YOU! So, unless you understand how to manage YOU on the inside, it doesn't really matter what's going on, on the outside. After all, outer world follows inner world, not the other way around. So, how do you really address mindset? Well, there's so many different layers that we can go into here that many people just aren't aware of. Most of the behaviours of business owners are unconscious. So, how can you possibly understand what they are unless you have somebody to be able to point out your blind spots. Therefore you should ask yourself do you have the 10 skills you need to be successful with you business.

1. Personal Mastery - Do you have a system to maintain your peak mindset and energy? (e.g. a morning routine, a way to reset mentally, a way to deal with emotions).

2. Financial Ingenuity - Do you have proven strategies to secure financial resources?  Do money issues stop you from driving your business forward?

3. Customer Service - Do you have a customer service strategy to delight your customers and develop raving fans?

4. Peer Group - Do you have a group of business peers who push you to the next level in your business life?

5. Time Mastery - What is your system to effectively manage your time and ensure you stay 100% focused on what matters. Do you have clear plans for each day based on immediate or long-term business priorities?

6. Strategy and Brand - What is your comprehensive business strategy and is it built on strong foundations?

7. Marketing Story - Is it based on your strategic branding positioning? Have you developed effective education-based marketing to find, qualify and attract your ideal customers.

8. Sales and Marketing - Do you have an online and offline marketing system in place that repeatably generates high value / high volume of leads for sales.

9. Human Resources - Do you have a company vision statement that everyone on your team adheres to? Do you hire based on this core statement? What is your system for leading, training and managing your team at all levels?

10. Implementation - Do you have vision and priorities established for the next 12 months of business? What about a 90 day action plan in place with clear business objectives? Is your whole team working towards this with established daily and weekly priorities?

Please note: What you have read is advice, not an opinion. Delivered to you by someone who has owned a great business, had lots of failures and learnt an incredible amount from that all business owners and those wanting to be successful entrepreneurs should be aware of.

Thanks for reading, have a sensational day!

AJ Roberts