My name is George Patience. I worked for four failed businesses in four years and contained in this manual are what I learned. This, is a collection on why businesses fail.
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PATIENCE GEORGE
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This is a collection of everything I've
learnt from working with companies
that failed and projects that didn't
succeed.
You might make your own mistakes
but at least, it wouldn't have to
be these ones.
I hope this helps you make better
decisions..
3. A huge part of success is learning & growing from
failure.
Sometimes, it shouldn't be your own failure.
There are mistakes you wouldn't have to make if you
do your research and understand how certain things
cannot work.
Failure to learn from failure is a sure way to fail.
Visit www.failory.com
#BUSINESSESTHATFAIL
YOU DO NOT STUDY
FAILED COMPANIES
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4. Money will not move your business for
you.
You could have $696B in capital and it
would all slip down the drain if you own a
shitty plan or no plan at all.
You'll lose it to mistakes, repeated
processes, senseless investments &
pointless advertising.
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YOU JUMP FROM HAVING
AN IDEA TO NEEDING
MONEY.
#BUSINESSESTHATFAIL
5. JUMPING FROM HAVING
AN IDEA TO EXECUTION.
When you have no structure, you cannot
fool anyone. From your customer's first
interaction with your business, they'd
know.
The essence of planning is to create a
structure and most importantly, a culture
your staff and customers can understand
& adapt to.
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6. YOU THINK YOU KNOW IT
ALL
What you know is like a glass of water from an
endless ocean of knowledge.
Open your mind to listening to people, their ideas
and opinions about certain things.
If you run your business only on what you know,
you'd lose out on valuable insights which could
send your
business crashing to the ground.
Worst of all, you'd be silencing people you work
with.
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7. YOU LISTEN TO TOO MANY
PEOPLE
Listening to too many people is as big an issue as
listening to no one.
Everyone, especially family and friends would want
to give their opinion on how things should be.
Know when to listen & when to stop.
If you will not take medical advice from your
mechanic, know who to let influence your business
decisions.
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8. YOU HAVE A BAD
REPUTATION
Reputation is everything.
There are people whom probably were full blown
liars, cheats, men/women of no integrity before they
started their business.
If your network of friends cannot boldly recommend
you to their network, failure might be inevitable.
Worst of all, a person with no personal integrity and
good reputation cannot build a business with
integrity and reputation.
A liar in his day to day life will be a liar in business.
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YOU RUN ON ASSUMPTIONS
You launch in full
force thinking your product/service is
revolutionary and needed.
Unfortunately, you failed to realize that consumers
might need Amazon
with their flaws & all but no one would need you &
your supposedly flawless product.
Research & honesty with one's self is important to
the success of a business.
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People see businesses that have succeeded in other
parts of the world & they try to replicate it in their
own locale.
Imagine going to the U.S and falling in love with
Nandos. You then assume that everyone would want
Nandos & you create a similar brand in your
community where most people live on less than a
dollar a day.
It'd be totally foolish to apply the same pricing
structure of Nandos because no one would be able
to afford it in your locale.
YOU LEAP BEFORE YOU LOOK
11. YOU DO NOT PAY YOUR
BUSINESS
Especially as young people, the moment
we begin making profits, we're tempted to
splurge and instantly give ourselves the
instant gratification we've always wanted.
If the resources you had could bring you
to where you are now, imagine what more
money in the business could fetch you.
Not just money, knowledge as well.
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12. ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS SELL
This is 2019, consumers connect to the souls of
companies & their brand values.
When all you do is sell, you keep going after
customers & clients.
When you build a culture & brand values, they come
to you because they find a connection.
The products might change tomorrow but the
connection would remain.
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13. YOU DO NOT TREAT YOUR
EMPLOYEES RIGHT.
Your employees are the engine of your
business. Treat them like shit & they'd treat
your business like shit.
You might think to have robots work for you
in the future but they'd be fatal if you do
not maintain them and give them upgrades
when necessary.
Hit them & they'd malfunction. Overwork
them & same.
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Same goes for humans. If you do not give
them the necessary physical, moral,
psychological & emotional support needed
to run the business, they'd malfunction
Companies that always replace staff would
face the risk of stagnancy.
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15. YOU GROW THE ENTIRE BUSINESS
AROUND YOU.
A lot of people refer to their businesses as
"my baby".
But this is the thing, I doubt if anyone would
want a child who'd forever be dependent on
them.
If you do not build your business to function
regardless of your presence or absense,
you'll become a slave to your "baby"
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16. Imagine not being able to take a vacation or
go out with friends just because you have a
20year old who would only take a shower,
eat, or go to school when you're there.
Imagine the horror when you get sick or old
& can no longer be there.
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17. YOU GET TOO COMFORTABLE 16
Your customers came from companies who
probably were no longer serving their needs
because you had a promise of a better
offering.
Just like you offered something better, there
are people working everyday looking at ways
to create something better & blow your
business out of the water.
Never get too comfortable wherever you are.
Invest in more knowledge, more equipment if
it's needed, better techniques etc
18. YOU ARE RESISTANT TO
CHANGE
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There will come a time when you'd have to
let go of all you've known and all that you're
used to in order for you to grow and match
up to the ever changing trends.
Humans do not like change but the real
question comes. Will you choose your flawed
default setting over the need to grow &
evolve?
#BUSINESSESTHATFAIL
19. YOU DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR
CUSTOMERS
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Your business is nothing without your
customers. Therefore their feedback is very
important.
The feedback they give today is what will
help you build a stronger structure tomorrow.
You need to consciously design systems that
would get feedback from your customers.
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20. YOU'RE FOCUSED ON
BUILDING A BUSINESS NOT A
COMPANY.
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Businesses exist in the short term while
companies can exist for decades and
centuries.
A business is the area in which a company
specializes in. Overtime, a business's product
might become useless to the world.
It therefore becomes the job of the company
to find a business that'd keep its legacy.
Companies are a combination of abstract &
concrete elements.
21. What makes up a company are her people,
their values, culture & soul.
Hence the reasons why you should treat your
team right, build your company's structure,
create and market her values & give her a
soul.
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22. YOU LIVE ON DEBT 21
Just as debts are detrimental to the growth
of the everyday human, debts are also
drowning forces for companies.
The oldest company which was about 1400
years before it lost the fight had survived
countless political crises, wars, and natural
disasters. They survived the attempted
eradication of their industry and two atomic
bombs yet, the force that brought them
down was debt.
#BUSINESSESTHATFAIL
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YOU DO TOO MUCH TOO
SOON
Hiring more staff than is necessary, getting
a space that the business wouldn't be able to
pay for, packing all your ideas into one
business and running them all at once. These
are costly mistakes people make due to over-
excitement and a sense of false optimism.
Start within your means without
accumulating unnecessary operations costs,
manpower & debt.
Save your ideas and release them in phases,
updates & upgrades
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Your business is meant to be unique.
Creating fixed and unshakable standards
based on what the big guys in the game are
doing will only make you look like some
faded out photocopied document.
At the start, attend to each case/client as
the totally different one that they are.
Give yourself the time to understand how
things would and would not work then from
there, become grounded in a system that is
unique to you and your customers.
YOU START OFF RIGID