The Path Of Success Is Paved With Failure
I often repeat to myself that the path to small business success is paved with failure.
My wife and I have run our business since 1999. While we have been incredibly fortunate, there have been countless mistakes, stumbles and outright failures.
All of the failures could fill many more than the 2500 characters I'm permitted here. But let me get you some of the big ones.
I think it was our second year in business that we got audited by Job and Family Services. Oh yeah. They have auditors too. Come to find out, the person we had hired as an "independent contractor" really was defined as an employee in their books. So we got a big old fine for that.
I can't tell you how many times I have trusted a new client or even an existing client to pay after I did the work only to get burned with no payment or partial payment. I had one client that, after repeated pleadings, started paying his bill 50% at a time. Every new bill, he would send in exactly 50%. It got down to like $10 and still he would send 50%. I eventually admitted defeat.
I hired a friend that ended brutally. I was told time and time again not to hire a friend. But I did it anyway and suffered the consequences.
I started my business exactly when the dot com bust happened. I couldn't have picked a worse time to start an Internet-based business.
I expanded office space last year because "what could happen to the economy". Now I'm writing this in my new extra 2000 square feet of office space all by myself. The rest of my office fits quite comfortably in the space we had before our economic chaos.
I did a video on a very powerful blogger that he took exception to and now he ranks very well for my name on Google saying some really mean things.
I bought an entire computer lab that was going to be my "next big thing" to help educate the business community on Web Marketing. But now because of the recession I don't have the resources to promote it and so, for now, it sits mostly empty.
My intense optimism time and time again clouds my judgment of what the landscape really looks like.
I don't know anything about running a business. I never went to business school and still seriously struggle to understand my balance sheet even though it's been explained to me a half dozen times at least.
I swear, I really could do this all day.
Even though I can easily recount failure after failure, collectively my business has been a huge success. I could go on and on about all those too. But that's another story.
The tip I have for you all is... DON'T GIVE UP.
Every time I hit a snag or an outright tear in my business fabric I think to myself, "this is another milestone where I won't give up again. Another business out there just had something similar happen and they called it quits. I will get through this and be a better small business because of it."
Success isn't determined by all the wins you've had. Success is determined with what you did with all your loses.
