What good is a business if it’s only going to make you some money for a year or two before disappearing from the face of the Earth? You need to make sure your business is in this for the long haul. Because an alarming amount of businesses fail within their first few years. Keep your business around for longer with this advice.
Get legally protected
You could do everything in your business perfectly except this and you still be putting your business in extreme danger. So many businesses fall at vital hurdles because they didn’t consider the legal complexities of their startup until it was too late. The sort of things I’m talking about are patents, trademarks, tax laws, contracts, health and safety… There’s a lot! You need to get fully clued up about business law. If you don’t, you’re going to run into trouble further along the road.
A Few Not So Obvious Tips I Learned While Incorporating My Company
Stay on top of payments
It’s not just about making sure you sell your products. It’s not about breaking even. In business, you’re got to make sure you’re making a healthy surplus when it comes to cash flow. So you need to investigate all areas in which you are receiving revenue and making payments. This, of course, means you need to get an excellent bookkeeper! Whoever is overseeing the funds of your business, they need to be able to deal with cash flow problems that may occur. For example, they should know about things like factoring accounts receivable solutions.
Why You Need to Stop Worrying About Profit and Start Worrying About Cash Flow
Remember the competition
Don’t become complacent around the competition! New businesses often do this. They become so fixated on developing themselves as a business within their own terms that they forget to keep an eye on the competition. Of course, there are plenty of others who make the opposite mistake. You shouldn’t be getting obsessive. But you do need to have an understanding of their market and what makes them a strong business. Don’t get stuck eating their dust!
#AskGaryVee Episode 48: Ignoring the Competition, Niche Marketing, & Swagger
Never forget that customers are fickle
Customers, eh? One day, they’re continuing as they always have done, happily buying loads of particular products. But the next day, inexplicably, they just stop buying one thing and move onto something else. And if you’re not prepared for this, you could find your business in serious trouble. The fact is that these sorts of situations shouldn’t have a devastating effect on your business. You should have been keeping an eye on consumer trends so as not to be taken by surprise!
11 consumer trends that will change the way you do business in the next 5 years
Imagine doomsday
A lot of people would say that you need to be optimistic in the business world. After all, pessimism rarely gives people the drive they need to succeed! You need to remember that there’s a difference between pessimism and realism. You need to stop and think about really bad things that can occur to your business. Image the worst possible scenarios. I’m talking about sudden failures that could cripple your business. Now think about what you could do if those things happened. You need to think about the worst because you need to prepare for the worst! This is how you can maintain longevity. Develop some disaster plans for your business.
30 startup tips for avoiding failure, from successful founders
