Being an entrepreneur is seen as the best alternative to finding a source of income. Entrepreneurs are often seen as those who are financially capable and also at a time when they are likened to ‘employers to themselves’.
The status of ‘own business’ has always been a dream of many people. With weak economic conditions, many are starting to get involved in business either full -time, part -time, online or by owning a physical store.
Unfortunately, not many entrepreneurs who are just a year old know that only 80% of new entrepreneurs, can survive up to a year of their business age, and only 50% percent of entrepreneurs are able to survive until they reach 3 years of business age.
Many lost early on the journey and returned to work. This is because the challenges in the world of entrepreneurship are actually very high. It involves mental, physical challenges and resistance from many angles! That is the reality of the entrepreneurial world.
How many of you have ever run a small business and after a while, had to close the business? How many of you are unwilling to work as hard as an existing entrepreneur? How many of you have ever started a part-time business but ended up with only ‘part-time’ results?
We share with you 5 challenges as a new entrepreneur will face when starting a business:
1. Challenges in relating to others
When there is a business, you must connect with others. This includes customers, suppliers, manufacturers, your own family and people around you. The way you deal with them determines your credibility as an entrepreneur. Some people are very good at dealing with customers, but fail to convince families why they want to start their business.
There are people who get the support of family and close people to start a business but fail to build good relationships with customers. You also need to know how to deal with vendors, suppliers and manufacturers, how to build relationships that can provide long -term benefits to you and them.
2. Challenge with competitors
Competitors are not enemies. That too if you are good at dealing with them. The mistake many entrepreneurs make is to be hostile to competitors. So much so that some are willing to do things outside the boundaries of religion.
Competitors can actually be teachers. Competitors can also be used as ‘business partners’. In fact, competitors can also serve as a healthy challenge to make us better day by day. The issue is how do we manage this competition in the best way so that it does not consume ourselves? You need to be smart and good at communicating.
3. The challenge of managing business money
How many of you have ever traded before, but often failed? What is the cause? The mistake many entrepreneurs make is that they fail to manage their business money. When they start to see the money coming in, the challenge of controlling the desire to spend becomes a major factor because they do not realize that the business money coming in is not their money 100% percent.
When they fail to manage business money, they will have problems for lack of cash or cashflow that they need to use to ensure the smooth operation of the business. They will have problems buying stock, adding stock, paying employees’ salaries, paying business operating costs and more. These mistakes can cause entrepreneurs to go into debt.
4. Challenges in marketing
Entrepreneurs need to know the science of marketing. The challenge faced by entrepreneurs is whether they do not know how to do marketing, do not know how to do marketing cost-effectively, or they just do marketing to follow people. They have no target for every marketing strategy they want to use.
Most unfortunate when they make the mistake of incurring high costs for marketing, but it does not work and does not help in increasing sales.
5. Challenges in managing stock
Out of stock and difficult to restock, suppliers who are unable to produce stock as the amount requested and stock that does not follow demand. There are also entrepreneurs who do not have the right marketing knowledge have to keep a lot of excess stock because they do not know how to spend it. Undiluted or unsold stocks will disrupt the cash flow of the business.
Business is good, but business without knowledge will only make a living