Who said it is easy to run a business?

Who said it is easy to run a business? Before i got into business i thought it was very easy to run a business, i was thinking like a ninja in a movie. A ninja always wins, but when it comes to business you do not always win. I thought having a great idea or great product is all you need and everything else flows like water but that is not the case. In the business world nothing flows like water, nothing goes straight. There are obstacles from the first day you decide to start the business.

Yes you might have a great idea but putting one client onto the table is not an easy thing. When i started out i had to write down my strategy and how many clients i expect the first month, after six months and after a year. I was thinking like a “ninja”, little did i know that it was not easy even to sign up one client.

I shared my business idea with friends and many people, and most of these people promised to support but when the business started no one showed up. I thought i had a backing of people but only to realise i was all alone, and the reality of business had kicked in. Those who promised to buy your product never showed up, those who promised to refer you 5 clients never showed up. You try to call them they never pick up their phones. Then you realise you have to make it your personal business to make your business successful.

Your business is a new kid around the block, nobody knows about it, nobody trust it so nobody is willing to do business with you. Every client you meet is talking about risk. This is your biggest challenge as a new business owner. You overcome this, i call you a successful business owner.

When i started a Vehicle Tracking Business called The Tracker (www.thetracker.co.za), we were new in this kind of business not that i was new in business. One client who owned a security company phoned our sales guy and asked about our product and what it can do. Our sales guy explain how our product works and why the product is good for her security business in terms of monitoring and reporting. The client was satisfied and she asked, “How long have you been in tracking business”, the sales guy answered “6 months now”. For sure we were 6 months old in the tracking business by that time so the client asked to speak to the boss.

I picked her call and she asked me what guarantee can i give her that we are not going to close the business after 2 months, why should she trust our company and risk her business buy taking our product since our company was not one year old by that time. These were valid questions and i had to answer them so i had to tell the client that we might not be a year old but i do trust our product and i promised the client that this business was not going to close anytime soon because my vision is to conquer the whole of africa and when i do so then lets start talking of when will this business close. She laughed but she didn’t seem convinced so i had to pull my short gun, i do not refer to a real gun, i refer so something that could make her convinced that we are the real deal. I told her that i will give her 1 month free testing of our product and once she is happy we can sit down and talk more business. She agreed and after one month she came with 10 more cars, she was happy with our service and she now trusted us.

As a new business owner you are going to face these questions everyday and the way you handle them determines how fast you can overcome this obstacle, if i had not given this client a month free test i wouldn’t have closed the deal. In your case you might not be able to give 1 month free service but you should have something to offer the client so that they can trust you business.

Everytime i see a big company i always give too much respect to the owners of such companies because i understand what most of them went through to be where they are now. How many challenges they went through, how many obstacles they overcame, what they have lost in their lives trying to build such a business. If you hear some of their stories you will cry. Who said it is easy to run a business?

My greatest advise to you as a new business owner is that, never give up, continue pushing sooner or later clients will start coming. Don’t give up because no client is coming according to your plan because your plan is not always going to work the way you planned it. Its not easy to overcome business obstacles especially when you are starting out but its possible to overcome them if you believe in yourself and in your business. I will talk about some of these obstacles in one of my next articles.