As the owner of a business, you are in a unique position. You have already devoted your time, resources, and energy to creating and growing your company. When the challenges of a tough economy occur, it can seem frustrating, as conditions beyond your control start to erode the strong foundation you have built. For example, customers may order less because the overflowing budgets they used to have no longer exist.

      To make matters worse, even if you want to leave your business, that doesn’t mean the stress will go away. Folding a company is sometimes as difficult as starting. You have to decide how to leave, what to sell, what to negotiate and in the end, you may still be left with a lot of debt and possibly even continuing expenses.

      Many small-business owners waste time when their business starts to wane trying to decide what to do next. Instead of solving the problems and facing the new challenges, they waste their time thinking about whether or not they should get out. They sometimes second-guess whether they should own the business at all.

      Some owners go as far as to research how to sell the business (which can be difficult and require a great deal of financial preparation), or even worse, they immediately look for a job outside the business to make ends meet. In the end, these tactics stretch already strained resources. There are plenty of examples of successful businesspeople who only achieved success following many failures; for instance, Walt Disney went bankrupt before the Disney we know today succeeded.

      However, it is not possible to execute two opposite plans effectively — the company must have only one direction and it is necessary for you, the owner, to decide which direction to choose. Commit, succeed, and grow; or quit, fail, and close. You can’t do both.

      1. You Can’t Learn to Swim in a Classroom

      Think back to how you learned to swim, ride a bike, or catch a ball. These activities require active participation and can’t be learned in a classroom. While it is possible to memorize the state capitals without visiting each one, no one would every claim to be able to swim without having been in the water. To learn any activity you have to start somewhere — usually by just trying it. You may have had someone helping you who was able to give you advice, show you what you were doing wrong, and prevent you from getting hurt, but for the most part, it was up to you to learn from your experience.

      Let’s be fair — you don’t learn new skills immediately. For most of us, we didn’t get the hang of swimming on our first try in the water, or our second try, or even our third try. Instead, it probably took quite a while to learn to swim and even longer to master the various strokes. However, this is expected, and understood. For most of us, learning any new skill requires patience and practice. Very few people become experts at anything without a few failures under their belt. Failure, however, is part of the path to success and very little is learned without it.

      2. It’s Okay to Fail Sometimes

      For some reason, we are repeatedly taught not to fail. In our schools and in our jobs, risks are generally discouraged. If a risk doesn’t result in an immediate success, we are condemned as having failed. When you were in school, the questions were generally straightforward and someone (usually the teacher) always had a simple, correct answer. Later, as you left school and went into the business world, you may have found that large companies have a very similar philosophy. The jobs are very well defined, the processes are usually documented, and your boss usually has rigid ideas about how everything should be done.

      As if that weren’t enough, since many large companies are on the stock exchange, stringent government regulations usually mean the company has massive policy and process documents that each employee is expected to follow. Just as schoolchildren are expected to get the “right” answer, if an employee fails to get the right answer or follow a detailed rule, he or she is immediately condemned for not completing the task correctly.

      The world of schoolchildren and employees is not the same as that of business owners. After you become a business owner, these archaic rules are turned on their head. Very often, what makes a business successful is an owner who is willing to fail; what makes a business a failure is an owner who won’t take any chances.

      3. Risks Lead to Rewards

      Business owners that profit the most are usually those who take the largest risks and are willing to accept failure. Most small businesses that grow to become large companies started with an idea or product that was unusual and had owners that took a risk.

In 1978, two small-business owners started a homemade ice cream shop after taking a $5 ice cream making correspondence course from Penn State University. They were able to start their business with $12,000 and somehow were even able to borrow $4,000 of that money. Many people would not have invested in such an unorthodox business, especially with two owners that were obviously building it in an unusual way. However, the company turned into one of the most well known names in ice cream: Ben & Jerry’s.^[1]

      There are many success stories like this throughout large companies and they all trace their roots back to entrepreneurs that were willing to take a chance, make mistakes, and learn from their experiences. It is impossible for any owner to grow his or her business, try new things, and never fail.

      4. Mistakes Mean You Are Learning

      In order to be successful it will be necessary for you to be willing to adapt and learn. Unfortunately, the only way to learn is to find a problem and try to solve it. When you fail, you have the opportunity to learn. Every mistake you make shows that you stepped up to a problem and ran into a situation you weren’t expecting. It is only then that you have the opportunity to learn from that experience.

      If you’re going to grow, you must expect to recreate and redesign your business over and over to adapt to various market conditions. Today’s problems may be different than yesterday’s, and nothing like tomorrow’s. Throughout the journey of owning a business you will find that some decisions you make yield poor results while others are more profitable than you ever expected. Just be prepared to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and use those experiences to become even more successful.