Two years ago Dave opened a marketing company. He was great at his job and able to grow his company to two dozen employees. When needed, he used consultants and coaches to elevate him to the next level so he could continue to successfully manage his company. However, the last two months have been especially challenging and Dave is questioning if this is the right business for him.
Feeling stuck when building a business is normal. Maybe you’re not sure how to move forward, or if it’s even worth it. In these desperate moments, it’s hard to think logically about the problem and find a way forward. Keep these tips in mind to move your business forward.
Tip 1: Persist
There is a solution to every problem. Most of the time our perceived problems are future worries that will never come to pass. If you give up each time you hit a rough patch in your business it will never migrate to greener pastures. Sometimes the easiest approach when you hit a rough patch is to just muddle through it—persistence can be your greatest advantage. The only way out is through.
Tip 2: Organize important goals
Business owners and managers often feel like their main job is to extinguish fires started by their employees. Falling into this pattern can make you feel stagnant, focusing on keeping the business together rather than helping it grow. To refocus on what’s important, organize your weekly to-do list into two categories: important vs. urgent. It will not be an even split, nor should it be, but to move your business forward you should ensure the important tasks also get completed.
Tip 3: Learn from failures
Learning from your failures will propel your business forward. There will always be mistakes made and it’s more important to learn from them than try to avoid them. Each time a mistake is made, by you or someone else, analyze it. If it’s a one-off mistake you can probably ignore it as an accident; but if it’s more persistent or catastrophic, design systems to ensure it won’t be repeated.
Tip 4: Disregard sunk costs
As human beings, we get personally and emotionally invested in what we do. And when you factor in monetary investment, it’s hard to get out. In business this is called sunk costs: what you already spent you can’t get back, and since you can’t get it back then it should not impact your future decisions. If you find yourself saying something like, “But we’ve already invested so much time and effort,” you know you are dealing with sunk costs. Learn to identify and disregard them.
Tip 5: Analyze future benefit
One business metric that can further a financial decision is to analyze future cash flow. This point can also be expanded to include analysis of any future benefit. Using this method helps you better disregard sunk costs and focus on what brings value to your business. You can analyze future benefits for your whole business or parts of it.
There is no easy path to business success. In our social media highlight reels, we see only the illusionary perfection of plans that bloomed into stellar successes. The reality is that there were multitudes of rough patches, stumbling blocks, backward steps, and repositionings required to reach that success. There isn’t a simple solution for everyone, so you have to develop your own way to keep going.
After discussing his issues with his coaches and management team, Dave decided that his current rough patch didn’t require a major intervention on his part. He followed the first tip and persisted. Sure enough, after another week the problems smoothed out and Dave was able to enjoy running his business again. Sometimes the best solutions are the simple ones.
This article originally appeared on Forbes