Dealing With Negativity In Business
There’s a lot of talk about how treacherous and terrifying being in business for yourself is.
Let’s address this in a simple two point or two action-step formula. We won’t beat around the bush, and instead we’ll get straight into it. Let’s cure any negativity you associate with business.
Unless of course you’d rather moan and stress yourself out. If not, read on.
First Rule To Consider: 99% Of The Time, Everything Is Great
You just have to set things up correctly. There is a process for pretty much everything you do, and whilst you can continually improve upon the systems you have in place, your day-to-day operations should be smooth.
After you’ve gotten over the hump of starting your business and getting it to an income generating point, you’re plain sailing from there. You’ll have incremental improvements and sometimes you’ll have paradigm shifts that greatly improve your business. But overall, it goes up and up.
This is obviously not anything to worry about. It’s the reality though. If you pick the right service, the right customers and the right industry, most of the time everything is great.
When it comes to negativity in business, you hear more about it because it’s not like everyone goes around saying, “Yeah… today I had a perfectly average day. Everything went fine but nothing remarkable happened.”
Instead, you get the loudmouths bragging about big wins and the sad people venting about the negatives.
If The Above Isn’t True For You, Something Is Going Wrong
I see a lot of freelancers who have the opposite experience. They go from “bad client” to “bad client” or they’re always behind schedule. They never have any money even when they’re earning money. Either they have twenty hour days or months with no work – and not by choice.
I see many other business owners. They can’t shift products. Their employees cause chaos. Their partners disappear without trace. People refuse to pay them.
Then there are the wantrepreneurs. They slip from failed project to failed project. Or they buy tons of courses whilst dreading their next day at work with their boss, wishing they could do something to break free from a life they dislike.
Look… if you’re one of the above, then something is wrong.
If you have a business that doesn’t earn money or clients that hate you, then you need to change something. I can’t tell you what it is, not being omniscient, but it’s something wrong.
Do you seem to attract only bad clients? Then target different ones. IF you can’t ever hit a deadline, give yourself more time when you negotiate a contract or work harder.
If your business is not plain-sailing for 99% of the time and you’re established, then you’re doing something wrong. Start doing things differently or you only have yourself to blame.
Starting Up
There are exceptions to the above. One of those exceptions is in the very initial stages of starting your business.
At this point you will be stressed. You have a lot to do. There’s building your products. Or getting clients. You have to think about what you’re selling, who you’re selling it to and how that fits into your life and plans.
There’s not a lot you can do about that, but here are two things:
- Keep your plan as simple as possible. Forget the fifty page business plan fit for a venture capitalist. Write your service, what it costs and who you’re selling it to. Then write how you get the product or service into the hands of your first customers. Don’t make it any more complicated than this. You can expand later.
- Forget this plan being your one and only goal in life. Even if you’re pinning your financial future on something you can’t let it be the one thing you’re trying to do right now.
Young Love And Business
One of the biggest problems people have with business is the same they have with romance. It’s very easy to have a good idea and think, “This is the one!” Just like you do when you’re a teenager with a crush.
Almost inevitably, you break up with your teenage crush when it turns out you’re incompatible or you’re simply a pair of kids who don’t know how to have relationships yet. Just as inevitably, you feel like “the one” is gone and your dreams are shattered and you’ll never find love again.
People think of business the same way. Here’s the sad fact: Your business might well fail initially. Here’s a happy fact: That literally doesn’t matter.
You might sell paintings. Your first paintings don’t sell. You can get heartbroken or try something else. This doesn’t necessarily mean “quit painting and become a janitor.” It means paint something else.
Your one scheme isn’t the only idea in the world just like that girl that fifteen year old you fell in love with isn’t the only one out there.
Keep dating, keep tweaking your ideas. Eventually, you’ll be successful at everything so long as you keep going. You just have to detach yourself from the idea that every speed bump is some abject, soul destroying failure.
After all, it isn’t. Even if it were, there’d be no point in thinking like that any way.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, this article boils down to a couple of tips and tricks so far as negativity in business is concerned:
- Get over the mental fear of failure. Trust the process and adjust when you need to.
- Trust the process so far as it produces results. If your business is failing and your life is miserable then you must change what you’re doing.
This is a business article but pretty much applies to anything in life.
If you have clients that disappear when it’s time to get paid, then make them pay some upfront. If nobody is buying your product, either sell it to different people or sell something else.
Most solutions are simple; you just have to adopt a frame of mind in which changing what you’re doing isn’t something you consider a failure.
As with all these mental things, chances are what you perceive as a massive failure probably isn’t.