Being a business owner means dealing with challenges all the time. At best, this can be exhilarating, but sometimes it’s just exhausting and stressful. The tips below can help make coping with challenges an overall more positive experience for both you and your company.
Expect Challenges
One of the biggest obstacles that many newer business owners face is that they think that once they get their company off the ground, there won’t be many or any challenges. When those problems do come along, they panic and assume they must be doing something wrong. While it is certainly true that owner error can be the cause of some challenges, it’s important for business owners to understand both that they will sometimes make mistakes and that issues are not always a result of something they did. Having the right mindset can make challenges easier to overcome when they do occur.
Identify the Correct Problem
Another potential pitfall is failing to identify the correct problem. You have to know this before you can find the right solution. If you work in fleet management, and you may have an issue with goods that are spoiling before reaching their recipients. You might incorrectly identify the problem as being one of quality, the packaging, or the speed of your delivery.
However, if in fact the issue is that you are not keeping temperatures consistent to protect the product, these solutions would do little to address it. Only increasing the speed of the delivery might, but it could introduce an additional problem of safety and compliance with regulations. Understanding that the problem is a failure to maintain consistent temperatures could lead you to reefer monitoring solutions, which are cost-effective ways to monitor refrigerated assets.
Have the Right Team
It’s also important to understand that not all solutions have to come from you. It can be tough to let go of this idea and put challenges in front of a team of people, but if you have hired or contracted with the right ones, this will only enhance your ability to problem solve and deal with whatever arises. If you want to be sure that you are making smart hires from the jump, improve hiring with background checks to be sure that the person behind the resume supports what you are trying to achieve.
Keep in mind as well this doesn’t start on the day that the problem crops up but on the day you first begin working with someone. Create a culture of trust in which people feel that they can speak freely to you. An additional advantage of this approach is that others may identify an issue before you become aware of it. Being able to get ahead of something early on can make dealing with it less costly in time, money and stress.
Look at the Context
One way that having a team examine issues can be helpful is that others may also be able to bring more context to an issue. It’s not uncommon for someone to identify a problem as having a single source when in fact it may be tied into issues across multiple departments. When you have input from a variety of people, you are less likely to fall into this trap. In fact, depending on the nature of the problem, you may find it valuable to get feedback from customers as well.
