Three Key Survival Skills for New Business Owners

The first year of a new business is the toughest. It's the
make-it-or-break-it year. The challenges a new business
owner faces on a daily basis require three key survival
skills: self-reliance, self-direction, and resilience. No
matter how brilliant the business idea, without these three
skills entrepreneurs risk failure.

Self-Reliance

It's a fact of life that every small business owner wears
many hats to fill all functions: operations, sales,
marketing, finance, human resources-even janitor and chief
coffee-maker when needed. Unlike life in corporate
America, where each employee has a specialized area of
expertise, a new business owner must excel in all of the
disciplines required to keep a small business running
smoothly. The revenue drain of hiring employees can spell
disaster for struggling new businesses.

Self-reliance means more than wearing many hats. It also
means depending on self for motivation, discipline and
decision making and accountability. The true entrepreneur
doesn't need a cheering squad to keep going. The
self-reliant business owner is highly skilled at "picking
himself up by the boot straps." Without that all-important
sense of self-reliance, critical decisions will be delayed
and opportunities will be missed.

If you find yourself lacking self-reliance, do a total
skills inventory to identify the gap that is holding your
business back from prospering to your expectations. Rate
yourself on a scale of one to four on each skill needed to
run your business. Identifying which skills you are
deficient in is the first step toward getting help to solve
the problem.

Self-Direction

One of the toughest challenges for new business owners is
strategic planning: the ability to plan for multiple
contingencies to reduce risk of failure. The self-directed
entrepreneur analyzes market conditions to anticipate
setbacks and defines alternative revenue sources to avoid
costly earnings slumps.

Equally important, the self-directed business owner should
be efficient in executing daily, weekly and monthly
activities crucial to maintaining a continual sales
pipeline and revenue stream. A successful entrepreneur
needs no supervisor to keep him on track.

Unfortunately, not many people excel at both strategic
planning and day-to-day tactical efforts. If you are an
entrepreneur who gravitates to "the big picture," daily and
weekly task lists will help keep you on track toward your
revenue goals. Invest in tools to minimize your busy work
so that important data like customer contact information
can be easily accessed, yet maintained with minimal effort.

On the flip side, highly detail-oriented business owners
without a strategic plan suffer from lack of direction.
Make time at least quarterly to consider questions like:
"What could I do long-term to improve the efficiency of my
operations?" or "What could I be doing differently to
attract the kind of customers I prefer?"

Resiliency

While it is often true that persistence pays off,
resiliency is a more essential skill to new business
owners. Resiliency is the ability to change direction when
needed. It is the 'bounce back" effect that is truly
necessary to avoid business failure.

In business, change is constant:

* Economic conditions can reduce consumer spending

* Shifts in consumer tastes make your product out-of-date

* Improvements in technology make your inventory obsolete

Any or all of these things can mean increased competition
and loss of market share for your business. You have to be
prepared to deal with them--before they happen.

Those who lack resiliency fall victim to self doubt that
all too often means the end of a promising new business.
To increase resiliency, practice the old-fashioned skill of
"getting back on the horse." When things don't work out as
planned, do not stop to anguish over the situation.
Immediately consider the best alternative actions to take.
Take action as soon as possible. Even a less-than-perfect
action plan will get you moving in a positive direction and
avoid the stall of self doubt and despair.

A new business owner who builds up his or her
self-reliance, self-direction and resiliency will greatly
increase the odds of surviving that first year in business.
And after the first year, your survival skills will ensure
that you are well on your way to many more years of success.

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Deborah Walker is a Small Business Coach specializing in
revenue growth strategies. Her career-long experience as
small business owner provides insight to the do's and don't
of starting and growing a new business.
Visit Deborah at her site
http://www.RevenueQueen.com