You’d be very hard-pressed to find anyone that is ultimately successful in everything they attempt in life, especially for the first time. Everyone has weak spots, a lack of experience, and even if they’re otherwise talented, they can make mistakes.

This fact can feel oddly reassuring in a roundabout way – that you don’t need to be perfect because no one on this planet is. After all, how boring would perfection be in the first place?

That being said, this adage is hardly too comforting if you’ve been building an operation that now looks set to either fail or to move on without you, as you might not be able to keep up with it. 

From personal difficulties to unfortunate circumstances, from a missed market to a lack of opportunity, business enterprises can fail every day, and you don’t always have to be mistaken in your approach for that to happen. Think of how a restaurant might be successful until a new road bypass redirects 70% of the usual passing trade. It’s not always your fault, and even if it is, that’s not necessarily a fact to condemn you with.

So, if you think you need to start over in business life, consider these reassuring perspectives to help you do so:

Failure Can Be Learned From

It’s so easy to think “failure” means starting out from square one, but that’s not the case at all. If an Olympian fails to receive a medal that year, does that mean all the training and investment in their sport has come to naught? 

Of course not, it means they’ve had another year of training and experience. From this perspective, you have a great number of lessons to consider for your next outing. Planning your newer approach around that can be helpful in more ways than one, and give you the confidence you need to keep moving.

So – write those lessons down, and condense them into principles. They may just help your next outing become a success.

Your Business May Still Have Worth

You may not see a way forward for your enterprise, but that doesn’t mean others won’t. In fact, many services help selling a business to interest parties, which may include those who have more resources to keep the process going and potentially seek a return in the future. 

But you don’t have to be drowning in the potential to offer something worthwhile either, sometimes the branding, location, goodwill, IP, assets, or other value-added components are appealing to a possible buyer and may help you move on being able to manage the costs associated with your business, perhaps freeing you of long and tiring liquidation process. Moreover, here you don’t have to necessarily consider the business “a failure,” as it still retains its presence, you just moved on. Perhaps, if you’re lucky, that can provide the energy for a fresh start.

Fertile Markets Are Still Available

The interesting truth about markets is that they can be “overfished” in certain areas, while almost completely underserved in others. It may be that taking your approach and moving to international opportunities could be just what your business idea needs. From opening your enterprise in Asia to heading to an untapped market and serving a niche, sometimes you were at the right time, but in the wrong place.

For example, consider the exploding Mexican food scene in London. England has never been a ripe area for fantastic Mexican food, and demand is calling for it. As you recalibrate and consider your next step, you can use this principle to commit to further market research, and consider how to best cater to them.

Reputation Renewal

You don’t have to suffer a particularly denigrated reputation to seek renewal and give yourself another chance. It might be that your past business underwent difficulty and, unfortunately, wasn’t able to satisfy client demand or keep up with your supplier contracts. This affected your position in the industry and perhaps prevented you from finding and assisting new clients.

Having another chance to recalibrate your brand image and start with a brand new business can be enough to motivate you to fresh success. This won’t be an effort you’ve focused on alone, this is quite a common practice, even among larger international firms. Refreshing your brand identity helps you to look forward as part of a new year, and introduce yourself to new clients with a fresh face.

With this advice, you’ll see that starting over doesn’t always mean starting from scratch, especially in commercial life. We wish you the best of success going forward.