I have a client that is on the brink of losing business number two in eighteen months.  Now, there are lots of reasons this is happening but all those reasons share one common thread:  lack of business skills.  This guy literally grew up in the business.  He can do his specific trade better than anyone out there.  Really, really smart guy.  So why didn’t he learn the lessons he should have learned from the first business closure and be failing for a second time?  And maybe the more relevant question is why is he seriously going to start over AGAIN?  When is enough enough?

I listen to a lot of books on CD during my commute into the city each day.  One of the most recent books I’ve listened to was a very uplifting, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”, by Dale Carnegie.  One of the best parts of these kinds of business books are the anecdotal stories you hear about how someone beats all the odds and rises to success—Colonel Sanders at Kentucky Fried Chicken is a classic example.  These stories can be a fantastic source of motivation.  Until I think of the above mentioned client. 

How do some people overcome the odds and achieve success while others refuse to learn the lessons from “failures” and insist on doing things the way they always have?  I think it comes down to ego.  One’s ego can get in the way of accepting the fact that you may not be a good business owner and that you should get out of the role of business owner and back into the field, so to speak.  As small business owners, we’ve all felt this way before.  I know I have.  What makes us keep going then?  We all believe that success (whatever that means!) is just around the corner.

Much success can come out of failure, as seen in the examples given in countless motivational books.  I’ve learned that the secret of succeeding from failure is learning.  The minute you stop learning from your failures, well, you might as well pack it in.  That is my “enough is enough” threshold. 

And so, the blogging begins.

I’ve learned a lot about internet technology since James came on board as our Business Manager, most of which I’ve found very interesting in a very passive sort of way. Passive until the day he suggested blogging. Blogging? Blogging! What on earth could a geeky accounting type possibly blog about that wouldn’t bore an audience, assuming there was one, to the brink of exhaustion? Well, that social experiment is about to begin here.

It should be said that I don’t consider myself a “typical” accounting type personality. While it is true that I love working with numbers (not in a creative manner, mind you), I don’t shut the door to my office and bang on a calculator all day long. I don’t read GAAP manuals all day long (just part of the day!). And I don’t get the joke about introverted accountants who are considered extroverts because they look at YOUR shoes instead of THEIRS. That’s just not funny. Or true.

There will be no talk of debits and credits here. Instead, I’d like to share with you stories and thoughts about easy it is to feel “on your own” as a small business owner. It is my hope that you’ll share your stories, too. There is strength in numbers (no pun intended) and I know that I’m not the only out there that occasionally feels stranded.