How to Deal With Business Failure

In life, we face both success and failure. This is also the same with doing business – we are destined to meet those two opposite things. Even the most successful entrepreneurs in our history have struggled and tasted business disasters before they have finally attained the kind of success that they are now enjoying. Furthermore, the young entrepreneurs who have also attained great success in their early age have not actually achieved such success overnight. They also experienced a lot of troubles during their startup.

If you are just a newbie in managing and operating a business, chances are, you will say hello to business catastrophes. So if you will meet failure in your entrepreneurial journey, how would you deal with it?

Sun Tzu once said that “in peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace”. In other words, we have to always prepare whether we are experiencing success or failure. We need to learn how to handle, not only failure, but also success.

Seeing our business losing is frustrating. It can destroy our motivation and the will to move on. But we are supposed to be doing business to move on, and temporary failures should not stop us from reaching our dreams and goals.

We have to continue moving on by preparing for our success during our times of failure. We need to prepare for a celebration in times of troubles. See? It doesn’t matter if we are in success or failure. If you are experiencing failure, work hard and continue to reach success. Working hard and being tenacious in getting success during times of failure is what I call preparing for a celebration in times of troubles.

Failure is frustrating if we only think of the present but not the future. Success is boring if we only think of the success we are enjoying now but not think of the coming failures. Thus, to make life well balanced and exciting, we should know how to deal with both success and failure.

So if you are asking how to deal with your present business failures, deal with the business success in the future. Don’t get frustrated of your present troubles, but be challenged in overcoming and coping those troubles. This is how you prepare success in time of failure.

On the other hand, if you are experiencing success, prepare for failure. Don’t prepare for failures if they are already coming, but prepare for them before they even come to existence. Remember that the best way to deal with a failure is to prevent it from coming in the first place. And the best time to prevent it is when your business is still strong, profiting, and having enough resources.

When your business is currently making money, don’t be too confident. Use your current income, while you are earning them, to invest in something that will give you extra money in case your business will lose money in the future. When your business is currently losing money, don’t be too frustrated. Look beyond for other ways that will make you some money for the meantime and for the future.

When you have a lot of customers now, value them like you only have few customers. When you have few customers now, don’t be discouraged, but work on the quality of your business and look forward for more customers.

When your employees are still motivated, productive and happy, expect that some of them will leave you in the future, thus, you have to give them more care, attention, appreciation and recognition to make them stick with your company. When your workers are already unhappy and unproductive with your company, don’t be disappointed but make an effort to make yourself a better manager, employer or leader, and then expect that they will be more motivated to work again with your company.

Whether we are experiencing a business failure or success, we should always have a vision of the coming future. To deal with business failure is to deal with future business success. On the other hand, to deal with business success is to deal with business failure. Business and life is a cycle. Success and failure is part of the cycle. And in order to survive in this tough world, the key is simply to move on!