Today’s post on the Small Business Success blog reports on important factors that can make or break a small business.
Entrepreneurs polled declare these factors very important to success:
- Past job experience
- Learning from successes and failures
- Strong management
- Good fortune
And among the barriers to entrepreneurial success:
- The failure to take risks
- Not putting in the time and effort required
- Difficulty raising capital
- Lack of business management skills
What barriers to success are you experiencing? Do these four factors ring a bell? Starting an online business can be very inexpensive, in terms of capital. It depends (like so much in life) on what your business goals are.
I thought it was interesting that the “failure to take risks” was at the top of the second list.
- What are you risking in order to start your online business?
- What do you think you should risk, but you haven’t (yet)?
The Wile E. Coyote School of Risk-taking
Try this:
Think back on a risk you took in the past. Maybe you were starting grad school, getting married, moving away from home, building a house in the desert.
It can be about business or not, just any sort of venture that, when you started, made you feel as though you were jumping out of the airplane for the first time.
Did your parachute open?
Let’s say it didn’t. You crashed and burned. (This is the Wile E. Coyote School of Parachuting. You didn’t stay crashed-and-burned for long.)
Something inside (your inner entrepreneur, let’s say) compels you to drag your crumpled self over to the plane and climb onboard again.
You can’t give up. You WON’T give up.
Do you have the persistence, guts and determination to carve out your niche and start an internet business? I think you do. Or you wouldn’t be here.
I think you and Wile E. Coyote have a lot in common.
Perhaps you don’t think you’re as determined as he. His goal is pretty clear: Catch the Roadrunner and eat him for breakfast. He doesn’t clutter his day with other objectives. In anticipation of snagging that winsome critter, he spends every moment patiently refining his strategies. He puts in the time and effort necessary for success.
When he fails, he peels himself off the ground and tries a different approach. In fact, the only difference between you and the Coyote may be that his goal is clear, and yours isn’t. Be like the Coyote, and take failures in stride. And then be yourself, and learn from them.
What is your Roadrunner?
Your Roadrunner is your online business goal. Where is it, and how far away?
The Coyote seemed to have non-ending resources. He could always afford to order another Acme gizmo to help him catch the Roadrunner, so my silly analogy stops here.
Meep-meep!
