Have you ever watched a business with loads of potential flail around ineptly, only to slowly fade into failure?

Most of us have seen this happen because 50 percent of all businesses fail within their first five years.  After much research Gallup went so far as to define the top 10 talents an Entrepreneur needs, but the truth is actually much simpler than that.

Why Businesses Fail

Businesses fail for a very simple reason: they don’t have enough money. Money is necessary to pay bills, pay staff, and invest in marketing and other developmental needs. Without it, you are toast.

Why do businesses lack money? It is almost categorically because they do not have people who can sell. And in the beginning, it needs to be the owner. You cannot hire someone to sell something that you can’t, because if you believe in a business enough to start it, you’d better be committed to selling its offering yourself.

Why You Can’t Sell

Most businesses that don’t drive sales don’t for one reason: fear. The fear of failure and rejection can stump even the most passionate evangelist from successful selling. Without sales, there is no cash coming in, and after your seed money is spent, you die.

The only way to avoid this is to overcome your fear and go out there and fail, again and again, until you have failed enough to learn and become successful. Your customers are not going to come to you and ask to buy your product. It doesn’t matter how great your marketing is, unless you’re an e-commerce business you need to actively and personally sell yourself. It doesn’t matter how much thought leadership and dynamic writing your blog demonstrates, you need to find leads, convert them to opportunities, and close deals.

Without sales, you have no cash. Without cash, you can’t pay bills. If you don’t pay your bills, you fail. If you really believe in your idea, you need to muster up the courage to do the thing that scares you most and SELL your idea.

 

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Photo credit: Welcome to Keflavik, ghost town via photopin (license).