Reading the biographies of successful entrepreneurs is always interesting and inspiring, especially for those who have decided to embark upon the adventure of starting a new business. The success stories of these characters make them seem like insuperable geniuses, marked at all times by creativity and innovation. However, many of them have a dark past of businesses that didn’t work or, more accurately, they had to go through a steep learning curve that led them to perfect their trading strategies.

1. B Y D A V I D
K I G E R
Here are the keys to deal with
adversity in your business
Image courtesy of
Tom Simpson at
Flickr.com
(Walt Disney)

2. Here are the keys to deal with adversity
in your business
Before succeeding, many bite the dust, but failure is sometimes more fruitful
than success, because it is a great opportunity to start again in a more
intelligent way.
Reading the biographies of successful entrepreneurs is always
interesting and inspiring, especially for those who have decided to
embark upon the adventure of starting a new business. The success
stories of these characters make them seem like insuperable geniuses, marked
at all times by creativity and innovation. However, many of them have a dark
past of businesses that didn’t work or, more accurately, they had to go
through a steep learning curve that led them to perfect their trading
strategies.
A typical case is that of Henry Ford, who had to go through huge economic
losses during his time with the Detroit Automobile Co. since its
automotive products were perceived by potential customers to be too
expensive and of poor quality. From all this he would learn an important
lesson, which he described in his own words as follows: "Failure is simply an
opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."

3. Here are the keys to deal with adversity
in your business
Here are some tips that will help you better cope with adversity and even
properly handle the failures that may arise when starting your own business:
1.
Know your market. It is essential for you to know where you are in order to
define the best course of action. By this I mean to go deep in thinking about
the needs, desires, demands, customs and habits of your potential customers,
so that this information becomes useful to craft marketing strategies planned
for each of the existing niches.
2.
Do not get contaminated by the people around you. Well-intentioned
or not, many people will tell you not to even try, because the risk is high and
there are safer investments. If they manage to inflict this fear upon you, you're
lost, because your creative process will be limited. Countless successful
products in all kinds of markets were only the result of accidents and errors.

4. Here are the keys to deal with adversity
in your business
3.
Have a plan for moments of crisis. Positioning a new product or
company is not an easy task, so don’t expect an immediate acceptance.
Indeed, there are cases that are successful quite quickly and manage to
triumph, but the usual case is that this is an arduous process. Sometimes you
will have to take a step back if you want to take two forward. As an
entrepreneur you must know that you will live with economic ups and downs
and you should foresee this in order to not run out of cash eventually.
4.
Become a part of different networks. Make a complete list of potential
customers, suppliers and business partners, and get ready to do lots of public
relations with each and every one of them. You decide which will be the
appropriate medium through which to have an empathic relationship that
allows you to start closing more and more negotiations. It is important for
everyone you know to know what you do. Boost your promotional campaign,
now more than ever, through the usage of different social networks that best
showcase your business.

5. Here are the keys to deal with adversity
in your business
5.
Be persistent, up to the point of proving you've gotten the best out
of you. Success is based on this principle. You are able to accomplish
everything you want to create. And here’s the good news: you have already
given the first step. This is one of the most important points and it is the
common factor with prominent businessmen. It’s likely that you will make
mistakes when starting new tasks, but nevertheless, you should not give up
until you design your very own personal secret formula that will lead you to
winning.
The first web server
worldwide (NEXT)
Image courtesy of
Henry Mühlpfordt
at Flickr.com

6. Here are the keys to deal with adversity
in your business
The main causes for companies to not stand the test of time are excessive
taxation, financing problems, lack of government support, lack of training in
sales, operations and management, among others. However, other causes can
be attributed to the entrepreneur, such as a lack of commitment and
persistence. Keep in mind that you may come across many defeats, but you
will not be defeated. In fact, you might need to face those defeats so you can
know who you are, how you can get up and how you can get out of that state.
Other entrepreneurs who were not so successful
 Federal Express’ Frederick W. Smith introduced Zapmail to
compete with fax machines. Zapmail was not widely accepted and it cost
millions to the company.
 In 1985, Steve Jobs developed NeXT, a computing station for educators
and large companies, which was expensive and had many software
vulnerabilities, so it never achieved commercial acceptance. Only about 50
thousand units were sold. Tim Berners-Lee famously used a NeXT
computer to create the world’s first web server.
 Walt Disney founded the Iwerks Disney Commercial Artists
company, which eventually had to close due to a lack of customers.