As a business owner, there will be many bumps in the road especially at the beginning of your journey. Whether it’s a lack of funding, slow sales, or just an overall lack of motivation, your journey to success will have hurdles. This article will aim to focus on why perseverance is key to operating and owning a successful business.
Failure isn’t bad
Failure is inevitable in business creation. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates admitted in a 2019 interview at Village Global that his failure in management caused Microsoft to not be what Android is. Microsoft’s window-powered smartphones failed to shake up the smartphone market, with Apple and Android leading. Although Gates admits this failure, Microsoft is still the most valued in the world with a market capitalization of $1.05 trillion. The lesson we can take from Bill Gates in this scenario is that failing doesn’t hinder success. Failure is needed to learn and make your business even stronger. Now that Gates has failed at management, he can now reflect on that situation, understand the missteps he took, and fix those for the future. Failing creates a roadmap for you to gain knowledge and grow; without failure, your knowledge and your business will stay stagnant.
Rejection is a redirection
From an early age, we’ve all faced some sort of rejection whether it was not getting into your dream college, not making a sports team, or just flat-out getting told no. Every one of us has faced some kind of rejection. When starting a business rejection may feel like the new normal to you, investors may commonly reject you or people may reject the idea of your business in general. Do not let this deter you. Instead, do self-reflection, ask the investors specific questions about why they didn’t invest in your business, and try to apply these to improve. Look at it more as a positive redirection into a different path. Now that you’ve been redirected into a different path, you can focus on improving your business and making it better than it was. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos discusses a lot about how he got rejected hundreds of times because everyone thought Amazon wouldn’t ever be successful because they didn’t see it as feasible. If Bezos had stopped all of the rejections, Amazon would never even exist today. You cannot be deterred by “no’s”; instead, redirect your energy into building up your business and applying the criticisms.
Marathon, not a sprint
When you talk to any long-distance runner, none of them ever say that they’ve run a 26-mile marathon in a sprint, because it’s not possible. To complete the marathon, you must keep a steady pace–it’s not possible to run it all at 100 miles per hour. This analogy can be applied to the starting and overall journey of your business. According to the “Bureau of Labor Statistics” it can take a startup more than 10 years to become successful. Now, this isn’t always the case, like the social media app Facebook which only took 4 years to start booming. But, it’s completely normal to take many decades to run a successful business. For example, Walmart took five decades to gain success after starting in 1962. As a business owner, you need to allow yourself the time to successfully curate the perfect business. Don’t compare yourself to businesses that were overnight successes, instead take the time to make sure everything is in order and also to make sure you’re knowledgeable. You want to run your business at a steady pace to perfect your craft and optimize your success.
As an entrepreneur, you need to persevere because someone out there needs whatever idea you’ve come up with. Don’t failure, rejection, or time deter you from starting and running your business. Do a lot of self-reflection and take all of the criticism you can get, don’t ponder on the “no’s” instead put your energy into applying critiques and strengthening your business.
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