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Closing Your Failed Business - Difficult But Necessary Featured

Closing Your Failed Business - Difficult But Necessary "We\u2019re Closed | Instagram: @timmossholder"

It's difficult but necessary to close your failed business. Business closing is one of those things that has been around for a long time, but mostly by people who have no idea what they're talking about; or, more likely, are talking about it badly.

That's because while there's no perfect way to close a business, what you need to do is get your business in good enough shape so that you don't have to close it. I like to think of it as "not closing your business." For example: You've built an awesome new product or service that could become wildly successful -- maybe even revolutionize the $1 trillion global market for financial services -- and you're ready to take that next step forward. You've spent months planning how you'll sell this new product online. You've created all the marketing materials you need and have acquired all the customers who will buy from your site when they turn on their computers tomorrow morning… Now what? The next step is already in place: You're ready to go live! But something isn't quite right yet: You haven't received enough sales leads from potential customers who want your product because there aren't enough qualified buyers for your service yet! Worse yet, none of these potential buyers either know or care about your company name! And before you know it... you've closed down the company! And now where do you go from here? No matter how bad things are at this point, there are four factors that must exist before any action can be taken: 1) The existing customer base needs its own website 2) A phrase in the marketing materials needs tweaking 3) The marketing materials needs updating 4) A logo needs making 3 years after opening And guess what? None of these factors existed three years ago! So here's my advice: If your company has not succeeded long term due to lack of sales leads or products or whatever else (and let’s face it – how many companies do?), then take some time off until those factors are in place. You might start with having just one sales lead per month — if they’re qualified – and gradually

What to Do When You Know it's Time to Close

From a business point of view, it’s a very difficult decision, and you need to be careful not to make the wrong one. If you can’t come up with a good reason, it probably means the business is too small for you to justify giving up on your dream. It’s difficult to say goodbye for a true reason. But there are many other ways to say goodbye — which is why I think it’s important for startups in particular: It means: “We tried, but we didn’t succeed. We chose not to pursue this path because we had no idea how we would do it. And now that we know exactly what we want, we have nothing left to prove. It’s time to move on and start something new that better suits our needs. Let go of the idea and let go of the dream. The sooner you do this, the sooner you can start again with a fresh perspective.'

Closing Your Business the Easy Way

Not closing your business is as bad as not shutting it down at all. Many startups mistakenly believe that they can just sit on their cash, cash-to-cash, while they help other companies grow. However, it’s really the exact opposite. It’s a question of “how?”. When a company grows too big and its revenue becomes too large for its own good, it will quickly lose its competitive edge and become less relevant in the market. If you are certain that your business is completely unprofitable, stick with that approach and don’t try to sell it off. It might be tempting to lose money because you are confident about your business model but that confidence is misplaced and probably won't last long anyway. The best thing to do is close your business down as soon as possible so you can focus on growing other businesses instead of losing money on a failed one.

Deciding on a Target Date for Closure

If you're facing the prospect of closing down your business, there are a few things you need to do before you do: 1. Create an exit strategy. It doesn't have to be just an exit strategy, but it should be something that gives you confidence in your ability to close down the business before you get too far into it. 2. Get some professional advice on what your business should do after the sale. 3. Measure the success of your business in terms of its profitability and growth over time, with a view to closing down when it is no longer viable or efficient for you to run it any more. 4. Determine if this is a completely new company or if this is simply another step in the evolution of existing businesses that were previously part of the same entity/corporation structure, as many companies are (e.g., several years ago I sold my last small software company to a large software company). 5. Determine what financial benefits are available to you at this stage in terms of cash flow and future capital generation opportunities? 6. Find someone who has experience in running successful sales operations, such as someone who has actually sold businesses before - perhaps someone who was successful selling businesses outside their own knowledge area before they went into sales? 7. Set up a meeting with potential buyers so they can see how they will benefit from working with you - perhaps by achieving higher margins, improving customer satisfaction, etc.? 8. Determine whether there are any other potential buyers who would be interested in purchasing your business prior to closing? If so, create a deal structure that allows for both parties involved to go their separate ways once this interest has been met (as each party may wish not to have anything more than an agreed-upon amount paid upfront). 9. Determine whether there are any other steps required by legal or tax authorities / regulators which will affect how quickly and easily the sale can take place - e.g., can there be an option for investors / shareholders / creditors / creditors' lawyers to buy out all or part of your business at a discount? 10. You can also calculate how much time and money has already been spent on preparing for this sale - is there anything left over? 11 . . . And so on!

Creating a Re-Closing Plan

It's a sad day when you need to shut down a failed business, but here’s what you need to do. How many times have you heard someone say, “I tried that and it didn’t work!” or “I tried that last year and it went nowhere!”? I have too many friends who were burned out, who gave up on their dreams, and gave up on their careers. They are the people who are asking for help. It’s not easy to walk away from a losing venture if you still want to do something with your life. But it is necessary. In the old days, companies were built for the long haul — they were built to succeed much longer than they did. Today, most startups are built for 24 hours, or even 12-24 hours — some days are all about growth, some days are all about getting things right. Sometimes it can be tempting to continue working through the bad days because someone else is doing so well. But after a while you may find yourself in over your head because of the demands on your time and attention (and money). You may also find that you have no idea how much work is left on your plate and that tasks have become impossible (or at least futile) because there is no time left in the day to get anything done. If this sounds familiar then this is where I come in: I'm here to help you close your failed business and get back into action with a brand new startup in 12-24 hours (or less).

Establishing a Re-Closing Budget

Businesses close all the time. In fact, roughly one out of every three in the U.S. closes each year, and for most companies in 2017, over 80% of their business is shut down at some point during the year. Most business closures result from lack of profitability, but not all closed businesses are profitable - some are high failure risk businesses that have experienced high churn, failure to meet unmet customer needs, or other issues. The problem is that many business owners don’t know what to do when their business does close. They’re busy trying to figure out how it will happen at a time when they are busy trying to figure out what’s wrong with it! In this article you’ll learn how to close your failed company without having to shut it down entirely and how much you should be charging for closing your business. Even if you aren’t sure if your business is a true failure or not, this article will tell you how well it worked for me and my startup before I closed it in late 2015.

Closing Your Business the Hard Way

In my experience, the most commonly failed businesses are those where the business owner has been unable to execute on his plan. In fact, I sometimes wonder if more of these businesses aren't doomed than successful. But in a perfect world, there would be no good reason for these businesses to fail. The goal of business closing is not to save money but to make money. However, there are often reasons why a business will fail and how you can reverse this trend. To me, the most common reasons for failure are excessive growth - when growth wasn't needed . As long as your product or service was growing faster than demand, you weren't making enough profit to cover your expenses and could only go so fast; the market wasn't changing quickly enough to keep up with your speed; or you had too many customers (see: Boozehound). However, it's not always about being able to sustain such rapid growth - for example, e-commerce companies that have found success starting as a small storefront with no presence in physical stores can also be slammed by competition from brick-and-mortar retailers by simply opening up another storefront - they just need one more store! I've seen this happen multiple times where I've been involved in industry closures. In fact, I often point out how companies that have been around for decades will eventually crash and burn because they don't know how to scale their business properly. Soaring expenses are another common reason for failure though it's usually not intentional but rather organic: there's just not enough supply or demand - e-commerce companies that have found success starting as a small storefront with no presence in physical stores can also be slammed by competition from brick-and-mortar retailers by simply opening up another storefront - they just need one more store! This happens because they added too many new features without adequately reducing existing features like price cuts and discounts. Another common problem is when products don't work as expected - e-commerce companies that have found success starting as a small storefront with no presence in physical stores can also be slammed by competition from brick-and-mortar retailers by simply opening up another storefront - they just need one more store! This happens because they added too many new features without adequately reducing existing features like price cuts and discounts , and then advertised them heavily without fully testing them yet in order to avoid having dissatisfied customers who would complain about their new features .

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Scott Koegler

Scott Koegler is Executive Editor for PMG360. He is a technology writer and editor with 20+ years experience delivering high value content to readers and publishers. 

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