So you’ve been operating your business for, say, 6 months now and things aren’t going quite as planned. When you first decided to start your own business you pictured making thousands from day dot and having clients streaming in, however, this isn’t the case. Yet, even if things are looking a bit grey right now, that’s no reason to give up on your new business completely.
If you have started your own business, you have most likely based this business around something that you are passionate about, or something that you are good at. This means that even though your business may not be doing so well currently, you shouldn’t doubt your own skills or passions. Instead, you should continue to do what you do best, while taking a critical look at each aspect about your business.
In order to properly excel in your field of expertise, you need to be comfortable admitting your weaknesses from a business standpoint. So during your self-analysis, you should consider things like your pricing, customer service quality, customer response time, marketing strategies and your level of professionalism. By identifying the area of running your business in which you need to improve, you can actively take action to ensure this improvement occurs. If you find that your customers are positively reacting to this change, your confidence in your business will soar.
However, identifying your weaknesses does not mean that you have to dwell on them until you convince yourself that you actually aren’t at all cut out for running your own business. Remember to focus on improvement, as this is the goal for every business owner.
In combination with this self-analysis, you need to be resilient. There is always going to be ups and downs when it comes to running a business- you may have a flood of work and customers one week, and the next you’ll be in a lull or have a problem with a supplier. No matter what you are going through with your business, resilience is the key, because if you have based your business around your biggest passion, you shouldn’t quit when the going gets tough.