So, you don’t have to be a marketing genius to do it and you may not even have the skill to do it at all, but if you understand that the lack of sales is a huge problem when it comes to cash flow and if you don’t have cash flow, well, you don’t have a business.

So, that’s something you need to seriously give a lotta thought to, that the moment you see sales are kind of lagging or maybe you have a product that’s seasonal or something to that effect, you need to get out there and make sure you’re doing everything you can to sell, sell, sell. All right, so number five.

Think of this. You need to understand what you’re really good at. You may be good at a lotta things, but maybe something that’s underestimated, you need to understand that administrative tasks, the day-in, day-out bookkeeping, for instance.

Maybe it’s working with customers, maybe it’s answering emails, anything that’s administrative that maybe you’re not strong at doing, you need to find someone who is and you need to get them in your business and you need to have them do it, because they can add up very quickly.

For us, for instance, I’ve been trying for years to try to maintain the books, until just recently we started incorporating some new software to keep track of sales and to do a lotta that administrative stuff automatically, which has worked out really great, and we’re still learning to do it.

But know the things that you’re good at. And if you’re not good at administrative things, that can be a problem and create a business that would ultimately close its doors if you’re not maintaining it, if you’re not doing it day-in and day-out.

So, if you’re not good at doing the administrative stuff, don’t bother. You can definitely find someone to do it for you. That leads me up to number four. Trying to do everything and be everything to everyone, that’s going to make your business drag and it’s going to create a really bad way for your business to grow.

And if you try to do it all when it comes to, (laughing) I can attest to this, trying to do everything myself along with my wife, just the two of us, it creates this environment of ultra stress and you’re pulling yourself in so many directions, which you don’t need to do that.

So, again, knowing what you’re good, things that you’re really strong at doing, maintain those and do them, but don’t be afraid to bring other people onboard to help you do the task or do the day-in and day-out work or expanding your business and you wanna bring more employees.

You can’t do everything, especially when your business begins to grow and it’s expanding, you can’t maintain that for a long time. I’ve actually attempted that myself and it’s burnout, burnout, burnout.

So, anything that you’re good at, always give yourself a thumbs-up and focus on that and do those few things that you might be good, but don’t try to be Superman every moment of the day because you will burn out and that means your company will. It won’t be around.

So, number three, as time goes on, this is something that I’ve actually talked about a lot with many of my clients, as time goes on, you need to evolve. Your business will change. For instance, our product lineup, the things that we have right now, I’ve learned to adapt and to change. (coughing) Sorry about that.

All right, so, and yeah, and you need to understand that you need to evolve. And as your product lineup changes or if you wanna add new products, or maybe even go in a different direction, be flexible and be willing to do that, because if you don’t have the ability to do that, then there’ll be other companies who have similar products, and they will eat you up.

You need to understand that every single, especially this day and age with the internet and having the ability to change a business very fast and you can get an almost-instantaneous response from every corner of the world.

For crying out loud, you have to be able to be flexible with what you’re doing and have the ability to let go of certain things and not have such an ego about it and just being able to change as it comes, because every business that does not goes under.

You’ve seen that happen with retail stores, even Toys R Us. It’s unbelievable what happened to them because they didn’t evolve. They coulda had a huge presence online. They coulda been the biggest toy-seller on the planet, but they didn’t.

Because of that, they relied on their retail stores and no one came into their stores, so they closed up. So, next up is information. Lack of information. So, even if you’re a small business and you’re starting online, or anywhere for that matter, if you don’t have enough information about what you’re selling.

Who’s buying it, where are they buying it, and everything in between, the data and statistics and all of that information, all of that stuff is extremely important, especially today, because if you don’t have the right information, you can’t make the right decisions, and you can’t expand a business if you don’t understand the customer and how they’re buying a product from you, where they’re buying it from, when are they buying it. All of that stuff is ultra important.

So, if you don’t have enough of that information, you need to start diving into it and finding out. This kinda goes back to the original thing I talked about where you have to have a little bit of research.

You need to look a little bit into it, what you’re gonna be selling, when are you gonna sell it, how are you gonna sell it. Everything that you need to know to make truly informed decisions, that’s something you need to make sure you have.

So, number two is you definitely wanna have the right information and you wanna have enough of it about every aspect of your customer and your business. So, number one, this is one that is a ongoing learning process, especially for me; I will tell you that. You wanna make sure that you’re managing your business the right way.

And what I mean by that, and I know it sounds kinda vague, is that you want to make sure, if you’re not good at management, meaning everything from sales, money coming in, money going out, payroll, knowing who’s here, who’s there, you’re going to be multitasking, trust me. It’s gonna happen.

But if you can’t manage everything in a successful manner, if you can’t manage it in a responsible way, if you can’t manage it in a way that’s profitable, your business is gonna fail. It’s gonna go under. So, it’s a super simple concept, but— (clearing throat) Excuse me.

What’s most important is that it’s not only a simple concept but implementing it is the most difficult part. But having the ability to manage everything that comes in and goes out. You don’t necessarily have to look over everyone’s shoulders.

That’s not what I’m talking about. You don’t have to micromanage. But it’s just that if you’re not overseeing your day-to-day business and you’re not seeing it going in the direction that you wanted it to be in, then your business will not be around very long. So, management and management skills are something that are super important.

And if you’re not good at it when you first start it up front, that’s perfectly fine. Don’t expect yourself to be. Like I just told you, I’ve been doing this for 11 years and I’m still learning.

This is not something that— Even though I’ve been doing it for quite some time, I still have quite a lot to learn; I’ll be the first person to tell you that. So, with all of those being said, you want to make sure that you keep an eye on them. If you’re not good at something— If you’re not good at something, that’s fine. Find someone else who is.

If you are great at certain skills, make sure you try to better them, try to perfect them, continually becoming better and better at them, because those are the things that are gonna ensure your success as a business owner, especially when you’re just starting out.

So, if you have any questions about those, I hope that they actually give you kind of a framework to understand why businesses do fail and why they can actually be saved or they can actually grow.

Let me know down below if you’ve got any comments, and I’ll definitely get back to you as soon as possible. And I’ll see you guys on the next video.