Is the fear of failure in business holding you back?

Please don’t let fear of failure stop you from starting a small business or from buying an existing business.

I am convinced the biggest thing that stops people from going into business is ‘The Fear of Failure’, this is usually dressed up as ‘I don’t have the money’; ‘I don’t have the time’; ‘I don’t have the experience or tallent’; or ‘I’m not very good at selling.’ But in reality these ‘excuses’ are no more than fear dressed up. Look a bit closer and delve a bit deeper inside your thoughts and I’d be willing to bet that a stronger reason always emerges to the top ‘FEAR!’

Other comments that people say are “I’d like to start a small business but I don’t know if there will be enough people that would buy my product.” Or “I have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed and I don’t know if I could make enough money to live on.”

All the above obstacle to starting a small business are all about fear of failure and, whilst fear is designed to save us from physical harm, such as an attack by a grisly bear, it will be holding you back unnecessarily. The primal fear of an animal attack is a good thing, but the fear that prevents you from doing things that you want to do are not.

So if the fear of failure is what is preventing you from starting a small business you will need to overcome this and use some positive thinking. This fear is usually broken down into two halves:

 - If I fail I will be a loser and others will look down on me.

 - If I fail I will lose all my money and my home.

Let’s take a close look at these two…

If I fail I will be a loser

You will only be a loser if you tell yourself this, whereas in reality you are not at all. Most people will admire your spirit and hold you in higher esteem than you might think. I know when I bought my last business people would say to me how they admire what I have done. Of course if your business were to go wrong you might not feel good about it, but it is all about what you tell yourself, as to how you will feel about it. So tell yourself a different story and you will feel different.

If I fail I will lose all my money and my home

You might well lose the money you have invested within the business if it fails, but if you set the business up in the right way in the first place, like incorporating your business, you will protect your personal assets, so you will not lose all your money nor your assets. The only exception here is if you have secured any of your assets on any loans you might take out to set the business up.

If you never try you will never know and something I heard Sir Richard Branson say “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.”

The big topic and discussion right now is where to invest cash – it has been reported in the news that the Governor of the Bank of England is encouraging people to spend their cash!

So what are the options open to investing your cash?

- Put it in a deposit account and earn a very low amount of interest?
- Invest in property?
- Invest in a business?
- Invest cash in stocks and shares is a possibility?
- ISA’s, Pensions and other investments or what about government bonds?

The above are a few ideas of what can be done and in many cases for most people this is a bit of a dilemma! A colleague of mine is trying to raise a significant amount of capital for business investment purposes, and it seems as though the majority of the people he has approached are wary of the ‘Double Dip’ potential, so are holding on to their cash right now.

One of the problems with cash is that, certainly with interest rates so low, the amount you will earn with it sitting in a deposit account will not keep up with the rate of inflation, so that in the long-term the buying power of your cash will lessen over time.

However, this is not to say that you should rush out and spend it all, however, having said that I can quite understand where the Bank of England Governor is coming from, if people don’t spend because of their worry about a ‘double dip’, they will inadvertently bring about the ‘double dip’ anyway, as the result of holding back – a kind of self fulfilling prophesy as it were!

So if cash is not a good option, then what about the other options open to investors right now. Well the good news is that it is extremely cheap to borrow right now (if you are able to obtain the loan in the first place and if you shop around), so if you decide to borrow to buy property or to buy a business, then this is can be extremely exciting and highly rewarding.

Right now, that is exactly what I am doing – I am combing some of my cash with a loan from the bank (at the rate of just 4.59%!) to buy a business. The return on my cash investment is looking like 105% in the first year, which to my way of thinking is an excellent return on capital, and way in excess of what it will earn in a deposit account or in property and is well in excess of the UK’s rate of inflation right now!

I would always recommend that you do your homework, but don’t be blinkered – there are too many people that say I can’t do this or that, or I don’t have the money etc. Instead of telling yourself ‘I can’t do this or that’, ask yourself questions using the word ‘HOW‘; like how can I do this or; how can I do that; Your brain likes questions like this. If you ask the right questions your brain can set about to answer them, whereas if you tell yourself it can’t be done, well guess what – ‘It Can’t!‘ and you will be right.

This article is not meant to be about investment advice, as I am not regulated by the FSA, but it is about making you think about other ways of using spare cash to invest in other areas that you might not have done before.

It might be worth your reading my article about the ‘Power of the Subconscious Mind’  if you want help with your thinking on this subject.

If anyone tells you that you can’t do it you might want to watch this video of a footballer scoring a goal from the centre circle!

Positive thinking is about telling yourself you can do it and not to listen to your own internal voice of negative thoughts or to others that might tell you negative things, as you never know what their motive is to say you can’t.

Player scores free-kick from centre circle

I always encourage ‘Positive Thinking’ and will tell you ‘You Can Do It’!

So if you have a great business idea to start out then think in a positive way and go for it and as Nike say – ‘Just Do It!”‘

You can read a bit more about the power of positive thinking and how the mind can do amazing things on our site too.

Owning your own business is a dream for many people and a dream that can come true if you take action.

The reasons for wanting to own your own business are many, but top of the list of reasons is usually a financial one or the desire to pursue a life long dream of being your own boss!

There is no doubt that owning your own business can be extremely rewarding and whilst a job does have its rewards, there is no ‘Value’ in a job. Let me explain – You could work for a company for any number of years and at the end of the day when you leave, you are left with nothing, except for knowledge and experience. However, if you have your own business then at the end of the day you have an asset to sell along with the knowledge and experience.

It is important that when you set about starting your own business you plan it and have in mind the concept of building value. There are thousands of businesses in the world with business owners that end up owning a job, rather than owning a business. Let me explain this by way of an example – The typical plumber or electrician set up in business and instead of thinking ‘Business’ they end up doing the all the work themselves, so they do the plumbing work for their customers, they do the quotes, they raise the invoices, they chase the debts and pretty much do everything else. A business of this nature will have a value and there are people that would buy this type of business, but only by someone else with the right trade qualifications.

Now compare this to a business whereby it employs people to do the work of the business, it has office staff to deal with invoicing and debt collection, staff to deal with customer services, a business with a management team in place and so on – a business of this nature has true value and is a more attractive proposition to many potential business owners.

The image in this article is a ‘Business in a Box’ and if I were to sell a business in a box, as it were, I would include a business plan template of how to set about building a business of value and not one where you move from having a job to owning a job!

One of the biggest battles in the search for business is getting your website found on the internet – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay per Click (PPC). You may be thinking that this is another article about SEO and if you were you will be forgiven for thinking this, but it’s not at all…

SEO is a vital part of your online business, but it is not where it ends! Let me explain further…

People only buy when they:

1. Know your company;
2. Like what they see, and;
3. Trust you or your company.

So once you have spent your money attracting people to your website, you now need to direct your attention to converting those prospects into paying customers by working on the above list, so how do you do this?

One way to get them to know your company or the products you sell is to offer free or very low cost options, so they can either try before they buy or not have to spend too much to find out if your service works. With thousands of scams and get rich quick schemes out there, people are quite rightly very cautious when buying from an unknown website on the Internet, so you need to help them break down that brick wall that stands between them and you or at least begin to remove some of those bricks from that wall.

It takes multiples of marketing cash to convert a prospect into a customer compared to the amount it takes to convert an existing customer into a returning customer. This is why it is important to get your visitors to experience your products so they not only get to know the products, but also how your business operates. Doing it this way will make the purchase decisions much easier and any initial objections they may have had will begin to disappear – brick by brick!

It will be a stage by stage process from your free or cheaper products through to your more expensive products. Obviously, not all customers can afford the more expensive items and possible will not even need or want them, but where they do it is important for them to know and trust you before they purchase.

If you imagine a funnel and you are feeding prospective customers into the top along with your spend on SEO and PPC etc, with the hope that you get trusting and satisfied customers out at the bottom along with the cash they spend on your products and services. You will need to attract a huge number of potential customers in at the top end, to gradually develop their trust in you and your products and services so that they end up coming out at the bottom of the funnel spending cash with you.

When you have enough happy customers ask for testimonials, as these are extremely powerful in helping to convert other potential customer into a paying customer!

Other free offerings in addition to your existing products include: Ezines; E-books, Webinars and special reports, with the idea being to entice your prospects along with giving them confidence in what you do. You could also try to produce an audio or video for your customers to watch online or to download for free so they can see that you are an ‘actual person’ or that actual people exist in your business.

Videos are a great way to introduce you and to explain your products or services to prospective customers. These videos also provide an opportunity for you to demonstrate your expertise in your field. Also, don’t forget that for a prospects to receive your free products or services, they will have to provide you with their contact details, name and email address for example, so that you can contact them again and again – but don’t pester people unnecessarily!

It is important to recognise that people are different and as a result people will have different preferences as to how they would prefer to receive information. This preference might be to have a free version of your product to download or for them to read a free report. Other prospects might prefer to listen to the same material as an audio track or to watch a video presentation, all of which should be downloadable so that they can listen or watch them in their own time.

Once your prospects have experienced your expertise and have sampled your products and start to know, like, and trust you, they are more likely to open their wallets and spend more money on your services and products.

It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped!

Choose Now. Choose Well.  - Tony Robins

Tony Robbins “How Great I Am” “Powerful beyond Measure! “

Dare to be great!

Dare to be powerful beyond measure!

Have a great day and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tony Robins for this great gift – play it again and again and listen to the message – take control of your life and realise that the decisions YOU make will shape your life every step of the way…good luck.

As we have seen in the news, since the credit crisis and the collapse of Icelandic banks, that voters in Iceland have overwhelmingly rejected proposals to pay the UK and the Netherlands in the wake of the collapse of the Icesave bank – in fact with just one third of results counted, 93% of voters said “No” in a referendum!

As a result of the credit crisis and the collapse of the banking system, governments around the world pumped billions into the system to prevent complete melt-down. The British and Dutch governments paid compensation of £3.4 Billion (€3.8 Billion; $5.2 Billion) to customers directly affected as a result of the collapse of Icesave bank and are seeking reimbursement from Iceland for this.

It is right (perhaps?) that the Iceland Government have sought the views of Icelanders (perhaps our own government should have doe the same with us before doing the bail-outs they did!) before making any such reimbursement, but are they being short sighted?

Are the Icelandic people not seeing the bigger picture and will their economy become a wasteland where no world economy will risk investing again? The world economy is a small place these days and works as if it were one, which is more apparent today than it has ever been before.

With the advent of the Internet and with world economies being highly inter-dependent it is vital for economies to recognise how they could quite easily become black listed for what could be deemed to be ‘Bad Trading’. For example, would you lend to someone a second time when they had reneged on a deal or failed to repay a loan the first time? It is important to recognise that the Iceland government is not contractually due to pay the £3.4 Billion, but perhaps morally it is and if it wants to be taken seriously in the financial world economy again then the Icelandic government needs to take responsibility for the actions of the bank that failed on their own shores.

It is important for Icelanders to recognise that the Iceland economy benefited hugely from the positive effects of the boom times, but appear to be unwilling to payout when times are tough. They are not willing to put their hands in the pockets that were lined from profits made as a result of people believing in their banks when things were good, to help out the governments of the countries that helped them line their pockets in the first place.

“Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.”

Eddie Rickenbacker
World War I hero

There are conflicting stories out there right now about where the world economies are going – with the latest news saying that ‘World Trade Drops the Most since 1945!‘.

So in the light of scary news like this what do you do if you are considering going into business?

If you look around there are many business doing well, thank you very much, in the present recession – for example Dominos Pizzas, see their sales soar!

So the answer is that there is no good or bad time to set up in business, but there is a good or a bad or perhaps not so good business to set up. So select your business carefully and go about it in the right way. There is no time like right now to set up that business dream of yours and go for it.

My very first business I set up was in the middle of the 1990 recession and I survived – so I am sure you can too.

If you are considering the pros and cons of work against running your own business this article is directed at you.

Having a job gives you the guarantee that you receive your salary at the end of each month and in most cases you can leave the job when you walk away each evening and unless you are in management or have a job that requires working at weekends, you should have your weekends free too.

However, if you own a business then it is not always certain there will be profits there to pay your salary or dividend and it is very hard to close the door each evening without taking the business home with you.

The rewards of having a business far out weigh those of a job and not least because you own an asset, whereas if you stop working at your job your income ceases. If you decide to stop working at your business your income will continue and you will have the asset to sell too.