Business Failure is a process that happens gradually be it a newly started business or an already existing business.

A commonly known fact in the world of business is that “90 percent of small businesses fail in their first year“.

How can you stop that from happening in your business?

These 9 Practical Tips on How to Avoid Business Failure will help steer your business out of impending failure and make it sit atop your competitors.

When you see a business failing, its failure does not happen all at once. It is a process, probably hundreds of decisions which gradually steered the business to where it is in that condition.

However, a successful business is also a process; a good mix of proper choices, diligence and wise decisions taken at the right time.

To avoid business failure definitely, means you want to become successful in business. The tips you would learn here will benefit you in two ways.

First, it will help your business from being among the ninety percent failure rate.

Secondly, if followed diligently, It will make you grow a multi-million dollar business valuation in a relatively short time.

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But can you really avoid failure

No.

Failure is part of life.

Business failure can happen at any time but don’t let it lead to the extinction of the company. So in this article, what I really mean about avoiding business failure is stopping your business from going extinct or to stop existing.

7 Steps to Avoiding Business Failure

1. Make Sure Your Business Fills a gap or solves a problem in the marketplace.

Customers are the lifeblood of your business.

In other words, NO BUSINESS CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT CUSTOMERS. And to impress customers, your business should be able to solve their needs and problem. If your business cannot solve a need or fill a gap in the market, that business is needless and will definitely fail in a short time.

Create Value, That’s all

[clickToTweet tweet=”A #company that creates value can never experience #business #failure Start creating value for your customers” quote=”A #company that creates value can never experience #business #failure Start creating value for your customers”]

The more value you create for your products, the more satisfaction you create for your customers. Value is what makes customers stick to your products despite they are other people operating the same business

Why is Google the greatest internet company?

Google has made the internet industry easy for its users. It ranks number one in according to Alexa. Despite there are other search engines, many people prefer using google.

They’ve created value that people cannot resist

2. Be Innovative and do better than your competitors

If your competition has advantages over you, then you need to innovate to keep an edge over them. You need to develop better ways of making your product stand out or create a better customer experience or in whatever way you can, just make your business unique in a particular way else your competition might put you out of business.

You need to develop better ways of making your product stand out or create a better customer experience or in whatever way you can, just make your business unique in a particular way else your competitors might put you out of business.

Operate a dynamic business in a dynamic world

Don’t be static. Be dynamic. No customer will go for old products or information.

We are living in a world where technology changes every month.

Be updated in your industry and know what is working and what is not working.

Be prepared. Thousands of people are doing the same thing

You need to be ready to face the challenges

Do you know what it means to go for a competition in which more than 50 thousand people are involved?

Just like the blogging industry, there are more than 152 million websites and a blog is created every minute. So if someone really wants to go into the blogging industry, he must be prepared and ready to compete with other blogs.

Learn from the “Big Heads”

There must be a “big head” in every industry.

You should learn what strategies they are using to boost more sales and get more customers.

3. Create a Scalable Business

A business without scale is a business that lacks potential.

A scalable business, however, is a business that is capable of impacting thousands if not millions of people in scale or a few in magnitudes. A business that lacks scale can’t go far because other businesses that have it will do better in the market.

In other words, to build a scalable business, go into a business that has the potential to impact many people. An example is an online business. Create Businesses which have the ability to reach out to many.

4. Have a Vision for Your Business

It has been noted that businesses with a long-term vision tend to last longer than those without a well-defined vision. A business with vision will have a clear sense of direction and tends to succeed.

If you aim at avoiding business failure, then develop a written and achievable vision long-term vision for your business.

That’s why you need a business plan

Business planning cannot be overemphasised.

I started out my first blog (on Blogger) without a business plan. There was a point I reached whereby I could no longer determine the future of the blog. I almost decided to quit blogging but I received inspiration from many people who have made much impact on the internet, then I decided not to quit. That made me create this blog in other to keep my passion moving.

What are my trying to say?

A business plan can solve a lot of problems. I created a business plan for my blogging business before I went on to buy a domain name and the web hosting for this blog.

You can hire us to do that for you.

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5. Invest In Your Business – Must do to avoid business failure

Don’t overlook the importance of investing in your business. Investment can come in many ways: time, money, diligence, sacrifice, attention and dedication.

This forms part of the process to building a successful business. Your Business requires your utmost attention, especially at the start-up phase. If you fail to pay serious attention to your business at this stage, most likely you’re building your business on a sandy foundation.

I hate free stuff

Don’t start any business with “freemium” mentality.

It’s better you give yourself time to save up some money before venturing into any business.

Just like in the blogging industry, a lot of newbies prefer going for free blogging platforms. If you want to start like a professional, go for a self-hosted blog. You can buy your domain at Namecheap and use Siteground or Bluehost as your web host

Don’t be ignorant (Intellectuality)

Don’t be left out

Invest in books, seminars, webinars and online courses that will help you become knowledgeable in any industry you choose to for your business.

6. Patience and Consistency

You need to give your business time to grow and become profitable. You need to be consistent in applying proper business techniques to see results. Depending on your seriousness, you can beat business failure if you are able to apply these tips consistently in your business.

It can take you one year to master

Start small and grow big with time

No one started a business and made it become popular in one day.

For you to be a good footballer, you have to practice and master the techniques.

This is applicable in every business. It can take you more than one year to master a particular business and start making money from it.

 7. Learn Necessary Skills

There are many skills one should learn in business.

Even when hiring employees, you need to make sure they have the necessary skills and diplomacy to run your business or else you risk business failure. Such skills include:

• Marketing
• Customer Service
• Troubleshooting
• Organization
• Analytical Skills
• Diplomacy
• Management etc

You can enrol for courses that can help you build some of these skills

8. Work with people

This is where entrepreneurs get it all wrong

They want to start and grow their business alone which is almost impossible. Take a look at the fortune 500 companies. None of their founders started alone.

You can’t do it alone. No man is an island. If you plan to work alone, then have in mind that you will fail one day.

You need a co-founder. You need to create a team of people with a similar mindset.

9. Promotion is King

The secret of every successful business is promotion. And Promotion brings traffic or customers.

I really knew nothing about promotion until the day I never saw any visitor to my website.

Why do I see Jumia adverts everywhere? I see it when I log on to facebook, twitter and Instagram. I see it as an AdSense and AdWord ad almost every time I browse on the internet.

The shocking part of it is that I saw their advert on Linda Ikeji’s Blog, which we all know that Linda Ikeji charges more than N500k to advertise a banner on her blog.

The online store was just established on 2013. But today, it has grown to become the best online retailer in Nigeria and now has more than 1000 staff operating in 36 states in Nigeria.

• For songs to be popular, the artiste must invest in promotion.
• If you want to make your blog posts go viral you have to promote it through social media, search engine, etc
• It’s promotion in form of election campaign that made Donald Trump to win the election in the US.

If you want to escape business failure, learn and master the art of promotion. That’s the key to making your business popular in a competitive market.

WRAPPING UP

Don’t allow silly mistakes to make your business fail.

Also, be careful when you borrow money. You must be well assured that you will recover the money and pay back.

Moreover, saving is also important in other to avoid business failure. Many entrepreneurs are in a haste to buy their first car when they make their first one million Naira. Don’t do that.

Rather, save 30% of any income you make then invest the remaining amount.

Your turn

What do you think causes business failure and how can one avoid that. Share your thoughts.