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Business isn’t always going to be smooth-sailing — a fact that is known by every successful entrepreneur. In this podcast, Nate Woodbury shares with us several helpful tips that can help you save a failing business. Stay tuned!
How do you stop a failing business? All right, I’ve got a successful business, but I’ve had many fails. And my first eight years — eight and a half years — have been a financial rollercoaster. And I switched directions and so I’ve had many failures along the way. So, how do you stop that, and how do you actually achieve success? Because I fill in there now, I can share some of my secrets with you. So, when you know your business isn’t succeeding or isn’t succeeding like you want it to, you’ve got to be objective and separate yourself emotionally from it. Okay, you’ve got to be objective and just look at it logically and find out what is going wrong. Because in order for you to fix it, you’ve got to know what’s going wrong. I mean, maybe you need a second pair of eyes to come and look at your business and help you figure out what is going wrong. The next thing I want to recommend is to create systems. And if you haven’t read or listened to the book, “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber– So, the E-myth Revisited. Man, that is a must-read, and that has a good chance of saving your business from failure. Systems mean that instead of me wearing all the hats and just being an employee and being self-employed wearing all the different jobs in my company, that I systematize my business. That I create a system and hire somebody to run that system or create a program to run that system or hire this person. And so, I’m systematizing my business. This allows me to work on my business continually making improvements and making it better and ensure that it will succeed and grow and be profitable instead of just working in my business –being a slave to it. Another way to look at this is if you’re working as the technician instead of as the owner. All right? I mean, think about McDonald’s. Like, a McDonald’s is a very successful business franchise. Do you ever see the owner? I mean the owner of that location? No. You see the high school students. You see the manager, perhaps? They’re the employees that are hired to run that system. And so that’s one reason that you might be feeling is if you are the dishwasher, if you are the cook, you’re working as the technician, not as the owner. Okay, this is one that I have struggled with. And I’ve made improvements in and want to continue improving. And that’s that I try and sell what I want instead of what my customers are asking for. Because in some cases, I feel like I know better. I know what they need, so I sell them what they need. Okay? I’ve learned that they know what they want. And they’re not going to buy what they don’t want. So, I need to sell what they want and if I can also provide them what they need. And you can do that through education, right? So, if you sell them what they want and educate them on what they need, for so long, I did struggle because I only would– I was only willing to sell them what they needed, but they didn’t know that they needed it, right? Okay, another piece of advice, and it’s kind of hard because we live in a world with lots of shiny objects. I would focus on one thing at a time. Just focus on one step at a time. So, you’ve got this big idea. You’ve got this big launch campaign and all these things that you want to set up. This big sales funnel, these websites, the marketing videos that YouTube channels social media. Wow! Right? Just focus on one thing at a time. And focus on the most important thing like what’s going to bring in revenue today? Is this Facebook campaign cool? Is it going to be great long term? But is it going to bring me revenue right now? I’ve got to focus on bringing in revenue right now before I can go there. Does that make sense? Maybe let me say it this way. Just don’t over complicate things. And we can make our businesses way too complicated. If we just take a step back and simplify. Okay, this is advice that I wish I would have given myself. And I knew better but I got a business loan. I had already been in business. But I got a business loan so that I could invest in marketing. And I thought that marketing was going to help me scale. It didn’t work. I didn’t have proper sales funnels in place so that all that marketing money just was wasted. Yeah, that was– that was a lesson learned. Don’t go into debt. Don’t go into debt for your business. It’s so easy to start a company and be an entrepreneur and create a very successful, profitable business with zero money in the beginning. Okay. And I guess I had another point here talking about shiny objects. I wrote, “Filter shiny objects that don’t really lead to direct results.” There’s a lot of shiny objects out there. Different programs, different campaigns, different tools, different gadgets that are awesome. Like I still don’t own a drone. I wanted a drone ever since they became popular. But I don’t know how I’m going to use a drone to actually make revenue for my business. I could get it and write it off because we do so much filming. And I have all these desires of getting a drone. Maybe I can justify it. But the moral of this story is, just filter the shiny objects that don’t lead to direct revenue if you want to save your company. Alright. How consistent are your sales? If you don’t have consistent sales, then your great risk of failure. You’ve got to have revenue coming in. You’ve got to always have new clients coming in, or you’re at risk of failure. Okay, that’s an all stage. Is that a place to me that a place to the beginner. So, look at consistency. Be honest with yourself about how consistent your new customers are coming in. Okay, this next one was one that I am very good at. I really have tenacity at making a mistake and picking myself up and learning from it and moving on. So, I feel like I’ve got a lot of entrepreneurial wisdom, a lot of business wisdom. Because I make a lot of mistakes and I learned from it. So, that’s the biggest tip right there if you want to reverse your business from failure and move it towards success. Be open with yourself about mistakes. What mistakes have you made, and what can you learn from each one of them? You know, don’t just be hard on yourself and judgmental of yourself. You didn’t do it on purpose. What can you learn from every mistake? I want to work this one because it sounds cliche. Like, solve problems. Find a problem that you can solve. But I want to contrast that instead of just creating a product, right? Instead of just creating a service, “Ooh! I can create websites for people.” Yeah, people want websites, right? I’ll create websites. I’ll be a web designer. Well, I want to recommend that you create websites that do something specific that fill a need, fill a void. I look at it in terms of results. When I had a web design company — right — we designed over 500 websites. And my clients were happy. They had a pretty brochure that they could show their family and friends. And yet, I knew that their website wasn’t getting traffic and they weren’t making sales. That’s discouraging to me. It’s totally discouraging, and that’s why I don’t have a web design company anymore. There’s a longer story than that. But I love results, and I recommend that you create a product or service that you can get them predictable outcomes and results. Okay. Here’s one that I’ve learned through experience. And I’m going to call it to know your value and prove it. All right, I knew the value of my YouTube service, but I didn’t have a track record. I didn’t have a portfolio in large scale like I was trying to sell. So, I decided to prove it. And it took me 2 or 3 years without making any money. Then I proved it. Then I had a track record, and people would come to me I didn’t have to pursue them they would come to me saying, “Hey, do for me what you did for them.” So know your value and prove it. Just even if you have to give away your services, give away your product for free, invest in yourself, invest in your portfolio. Prove it. This one would be a hard one for me just the way that I’m wired. But maybe this will work for you. Get a job to remove the financial stress. Maybe, okay? See how that resonates with you? Just think about what would it be like. I mean, yeah, you’re going to have less time to work on your company. But if the stress was gone, if the urgency was gone because your bills were paid, would you be able to turn your company around? Here’s another cliche one. Okay, set goals and know your why. Why are you in it? You know, so when you get smacked down, you get punched across the face or something and hit some big obstacle or setback or some failure. When you know why, it’s easier to get back up. And if you’re setting goals and you’re making progress towards them. If you don’t have goals, then you don’t know where you’re going. And you don’t know if you’re making progress. So, you’ve got to set goals and have a foundational why beneath them. Okay. And lastly, you know, if you’re trying to avoid your business from failing, maybe it is time for this business to fail and just to go and start a different one. Now, you know what doesn’t work, go start one that will work. Take all this knowledge and go start fresh. I’m not saying that’s the right answer. But maybe it is. You would know better than me. Now, with that foundation, the next video that you should watch is what I would do if I were starting a business from scratch. I share all my secrets on how I created my business that I absolutely love and what I would do if I were creating it from scratch again to save me from making mistakes. So, go watch that video next.