6 Steps To Surviving Your First Three years In Business In Nigeria
The statistics that about nine out of every ten new businesses fail within their first three years after start-up are very alarming. Therefore, surviving your first three years in business is not something you should approach with kid gloves.
Every new business has its challenges and hick-ups, it is now dependent on you to do the needful at every point in time in order to make that your own business doesn’t join the nine out of every ten businesses that fail within the first three years of start-up.
Related: 5 top reasons why outsourcing is good for business
The problem is not always lack of great idea or hard work, but rather, it’s lack of discipline on the part of the entrepreneur when it matters most.
Many of these emerging entrepreneurs pay little attention to things like market dynamics, having enough money and establishing a very good and healthy corporate culture.
Surviving your first three years in business has a lot to do with how you reduce the probability of failure so as to increase the probability of success.
This concept can be represented mathematically: P(s) =1-P (f). The mathematical equation shows that the probability of success is one (1) minus the probability of failure.
Steps To Surviving Your First Three Years In Business In Nigeria
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Be Innovative in Your Business
Surviving your first three years in business depends largely on your ability to be innovative in your business.
You must at all times have market appeal to last long in the business. You must know that eventually, no matter how great the product or service that you are offering is, it must lose market appeal with time.
Your ability to always have a new product to replace the one that has lost market appeal is central to your staying in business for a very long time to come.
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Have very good knowledge about the market
There is a saying that knowledge is power, but I say that knowledge and its application is the real power.
Your knowledge about the market and the application of your knowledge to the market dynamics will go a long way in making your not only survive the first three years of business but always making enough profits almost at all times.
Surviving the first three years in business is largely dependent on the amount of knowledge you have about the market you are operating in.
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Know the areas you have competitive advantage
Many times, emerging entrepreneurs just launch into the market with new products without knowing their strong points.
To be able to survive the first three years syndrome in business, you must know and always strengthen the areas you have a competitive advantage over your competitors.
If you don’t strengthen your selling point, you will soon find yourself not having anything to offer to your customers.
Surviving your first three years in business will be achievable if you always strengthen your area competitive advantage
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Be bold and confident about your product and services
You must at all times be confident and bold to always talk about your product and services to people. Confidence is key to leadership in all works of life.
There is no one that follows a coward into battle. Your employees will not strive to succeed when you are not even showing that you want to succeed in business.
Surviving your first three years in business demands that you be bold and confident to take control of your business.
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Get help from experts
You must know that there is no multinational corporation that doesn’t employ experts when the need arises.
You need these experts to make smart and positive choices in the course of your business whenever you know that your own ability is not enough.
You should never be afraid to seek or ask for help from experts because they will always lead to increase in productivity when given the chance to offer their services.
Surviving your first three years in business requires that you involve experts and professionals whenever and wherever you know that they are needed.
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Always give your best and never give up
Be ready to give your best and go the extra mile for your business. You are bound to encounter challenges and hard times, but at all times you must always have a positive mindset that you will come out on top. At the point you stop believing in your product and business, you should not expect your customers to be the ones believing.
No matter what the book is saying, know that you can turn it around to a better and greater business than it was.
The only requirement is that you must always have faith and believe in your business.
Great businessmen with great businesses have gone bankrupt only to come back stronger and better.
Surviving your first three years in business is something that will not be possible if you don’t believe in your business and product.
Make up your mind to be the one in every ten businesses that survive the first three years after start-up.
