A Piece Of Business Advice I Was Given
Discussion
Another thing i was always told by a sucessful american friend was not to fear failure but learn from it. He said in Texas you were not considered a sucess unless you had previously been through at least one failure.
All the sucessful people like Branson, Sugar, Dyson, Jobs have all experienced failure but have had the drive to get back up and try again.
Mind you i think in the UK it is even more difficult to recover from failure than in the US. A friend of mine was made bankrupt 10 years ago and is still treated like a leper by the banks. This is in sharp contrast to the US where my wifes cousin went bankrupt for £250k and within three months started with a clean slate and was being offered credit cards.
All the sucessful people like Branson, Sugar, Dyson, Jobs have all experienced failure but have had the drive to get back up and try again.
Mind you i think in the UK it is even more difficult to recover from failure than in the US. A friend of mine was made bankrupt 10 years ago and is still treated like a leper by the banks. This is in sharp contrast to the US where my wifes cousin went bankrupt for £250k and within three months started with a clean slate and was being offered credit cards.
singlecoil said:
It's not ridiculous in any respect whatsoever. Maybe I shouldn't have chosen the word 'luck', there are alternatives that maybe wouldn't have put people's backs up so much.
It's as simple as this. Someone wants to start a shop and the only way he can do that is to take a three year lease. He can do all the research in the world but he cannot know that the shop will be successful until after it's open and has been for some time.
Not only can he not know how much trade he will get if things stay as they are, he can't know what the market conditions will be in the future. If things go his way, then great. If they don't, then he will be offering a reverse premium (just like Tesco did to me once) to get the lease off his hands.
What's the thing that everybody says to everybody else when they are about to undertake some venture such as take part in a contest or start a business?
It's a two word phrase, and the first word is 'good'.
Just because you don't know the outcome of something 100%, it doesn't make it luck if your considered opinion is then correct. Thats what business plans and forecast are for and why they exist. That's why your 'luck theory' is ridiculous. It's as simple as this. Someone wants to start a shop and the only way he can do that is to take a three year lease. He can do all the research in the world but he cannot know that the shop will be successful until after it's open and has been for some time.
Not only can he not know how much trade he will get if things stay as they are, he can't know what the market conditions will be in the future. If things go his way, then great. If they don't, then he will be offering a reverse premium (just like Tesco did to me once) to get the lease off his hands.
What's the thing that everybody says to everybody else when they are about to undertake some venture such as take part in a contest or start a business?
It's a two word phrase, and the first word is 'good'.
I had some pieces of luck when I started in business 15 years ago but they weren't important, they were just nice additions to the solid business I'd created with my own hard work.
You're right though I doubt we'll agree as our experiences are clearly totally different and I assume you got very lucky when you started up.
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