Please hold on, I really don’t mean to scare you. However, 75% of
corporate employees fail in business; be it a side business or a full
time business after years in corporate employment. Have you ever
wondered why it is so?
At a time, I thought it was a jinx, as I could not imagine how a high
flying employee could fail woefully in a personal business. I have also
had my fair share of failures but now I know better.
Let me share a bit of my failure story.
One beautiful afternoon, I got a call from a colleague and he introduced me to a wonderful health product. The interesting part was that I would get paid for using the product and get commissions from inviting people into the business. It was a networking business.
Being a sales person at work, I saw this as a walk over and I
invested in the business immediately. My dear reader, I never smelled
any commission as I could not introduce any one to the business. It is
over six years now and I still have some of the products in my home.
Let’s just say I leant how to fail honourably.
In the last three years, I have invested in three businesses and I am
bold to say that I have made considerable success in each of them. This
success rate did not just happen, it is because I have learnt from my
previous failures and I’d love to share same with you. For the sake of
this article, we will call our case study Sunshine.
Order
Sunshine works with a pre-listed job description and role assignment. For 7 years, Sunshine resumes to her job function each day, working through her duties in a breeze and she has imbibed this way of life subconsciously. She sees life in this form of stability and order. This is the mindset that Sunshine takes into the business world. Sunshine does not know that building a successful business requires a level of disruption. Things hardly work out as planned especially for start-ups. Order is her first shocker in the business arena, as there is every cause for alarm.
Sunshine works with a pre-listed job description and role assignment. For 7 years, Sunshine resumes to her job function each day, working through her duties in a breeze and she has imbibed this way of life subconsciously. She sees life in this form of stability and order. This is the mindset that Sunshine takes into the business world. Sunshine does not know that building a successful business requires a level of disruption. Things hardly work out as planned especially for start-ups. Order is her first shocker in the business arena, as there is every cause for alarm.
Research
Sunshine is a very busy hard worker and she hardly has time for social functions except family events. During one of such events, she got talking to a cousin of hers. He cousin invites her to a trending business and voila, her mind is made up. She resumes to the office and tries to contain her excitement till she shares her new found business idea with her colleague at work. Her colleague leapt for joy at the idea and Sunshine went ahead to invest in the business. Sunshine has set herself up for failure as she did not research her market and only got counsel from her busy colleague just like herself.
Sunshine is a very busy hard worker and she hardly has time for social functions except family events. During one of such events, she got talking to a cousin of hers. He cousin invites her to a trending business and voila, her mind is made up. She resumes to the office and tries to contain her excitement till she shares her new found business idea with her colleague at work. Her colleague leapt for joy at the idea and Sunshine went ahead to invest in the business. Sunshine has set herself up for failure as she did not research her market and only got counsel from her busy colleague just like herself.
Capital
Sunshine once failed in a business before she started. This is because Sunshine was waiting for the big lump sum as her initial capital to start. Eventually, sunshine got her huge capital and invested all into her business. She made the huge mistake called OVER CAPITALIZATION. She invested more in finesse instead of founding values. I have been there so I know. The chilling boxes I bought when starting out in my event planning business are presently used as storage boxes in my home.
Sunshine once failed in a business before she started. This is because Sunshine was waiting for the big lump sum as her initial capital to start. Eventually, sunshine got her huge capital and invested all into her business. She made the huge mistake called OVER CAPITALIZATION. She invested more in finesse instead of founding values. I have been there so I know. The chilling boxes I bought when starting out in my event planning business are presently used as storage boxes in my home.
There are still other factors like Trust and Processes but I will be
stopping here for today. I hope this article has helped you think things
through, even as you start your business.
Do feel free to comment on other factors you know so as to help that corporate employee venturing into starting a side business.
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