The Leveling Up Stage

You’ve built something successful. You probably have some people working for you, making it happen. Now you’re thinking about stepping up to a new level. Maybe it’s exporting, maybe a new line of business, maybe a new way of marketing. It may even be selling the business or transitioning to new owners. What you need most is to connect to the right resources.

Business intelligence

• Business Ideas: four reasons you need ’em
• The next wave of opportunity
• Franchise businesses in small towns
• The big secret to finding new product ideas
• 2 Business Intelligence Sources: local business demographics

Networking

• Who needs to meet you?

Selling a business

• Sell or close? A third option
• Creating a business that can thrive without you: Built to Sell
• How selling a small town business is like selling a home: a 6-part series from John Warrillow

Changing structures, adding a new business

• Can a sole proprietor have more than one business?
• Can you sell a sole proprietorship
• When not to be a sole proprietorship
• What a farmer can teach you about starting multiple businesses
• Chasing two rabbits as a business lesson
• Audio and slides: How to manage multiple businesses without going crazy
• Maybe it’s time to step aside and let another person lead

Difficulties and Failures

• What to do when sales are down
• Every week, I fail in business
• What if your business is not making it?
• Need business immediately? One way to find it
• What to do when competition opens in your small town
• Capturing the best ideas, so you can pull them out when things get slow
• How to respond to online flame attacks

We have an entire series on failure and one on small business mistakes you can learn from.

Secrets and Things No One Ever Tells You

• 3 Resources to get you away from your business
• Configure your business to serve customers
• Keep it simple
• Getting your money’s worth from conferences
• One mistake can kill your business: not preparing for disaster
• Is it time to rent office space?
• Competing with free by adding value
• Elephants are a bargain at 2 for a quarter
• The progression of engagement
• Why you should focus on the problems

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One of the Napkin Dad’s artworks (c) Marty Coleman, shared from Flickr

“I have had a LOT of failures and catastrophes in my life; schools I got kicked out of, a failed marriage, rejection in the art and academic world and physical disasters just to name a few.  If I had not had those ‘failures’ and not gained the resulting character I now have, I would not be able to take the successes I have had in a good, positive and mature way (which I attempt to do).
Our successes reveal the character we’ve built during our failures.”
Marty Coleman, the Napkin Dad

Part of our ongoing series on failure.

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“What made you choose acting as a profession?”
“Failure in all other fields.”

Harrison Ford.
(found on IMDB)

Part of our series on the importance of failure and how you respond to it.

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Failure is a friend and a teacher, but it can be mischievous. Don’t let it scare, intimidate, discourage, or sadden you. You are great, remember.
—Pastor WD Favour, Enugu, Nigeria, via Twitter  

That may be the most interesting view I’ve read in quite a while. Failure is a friend. It can be mischievous. Fascinating!

We’ve done a whole series on failure, and I explained why in the Redefining Failure Masterplan. Every entrepreneur has to face the possibility of failure. In fact, you likely will fail, repeatedly. Get ready for it, get through it, and get moving.

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It may help to know that Twitter is a messaging system, with a 140 character limit on message size and rather informal. You’ll find me there, too. These are unedited, just as they appeared. I bolded a few favorites.

ChrisBrogan: What do you do after you fail?

ChrisCree: I get back up! (Oh, sure I might wallow for a bit. But I don’t stay down for long.)

Graydancer: You just keep going. Everything else does, after all. Inching along.

MMcAllen: I usually retreat and regroup then attack from a different formation or position.

Pistachio: fail again as soon & enthusiastically as possible, until it works. ok that’s what i WANT to do, not always goes that way

KevinKS: I don’t fail. I “conclude a learning experience.”

Randelaw: you mean once the nightmare is finally over? Determine the errors in judgement and vow not to commit them again

ChelPixie: if I fail I look to make sure I can’t fix it, absorb, take a deep breath and move on.

Vaspers: we have nothing to fear but success (i.e. scaling) itself. Then again, I’m a Zero Defects perfectionist. Fail = an experiment

ConnieReece: sometimes learning how NOT to do something is an invaluable prelude to figuring out the right way.
ConnieReece: Thomas Edison did not get discouraged when experiments failed because each failure brought him one step closer to an invention that worked.

ChrisBrogan: Follow-up question: do you know when to quit? Do you know when to call the whole thing off?

ChelPixie: No I don’t know when to quit. Let’s just say I like to fix things. It takes me a while to give up on something as lost.

GrayDancer: of course I know when I should quit. Usually it’s a small-but-significant time before I actually do…

KevinKS: “fail” quickly and with thanks, then get onto the next attempt.

goodthingscomin I learn a lesson from failing. I adjust future endeavors. Quitting is something I have a hrd time with. But again, I’m learning

misc: as for quitting, as i was telling chelpixie earlier, i plan to throw in my towels as soon as i can procure a big enough hamper.

If you like those, read more of our series on failure.

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“Success is not just the crowning moment, the spiking of the ball in the end zone or the raising of the flag on the summit. It is the whole process of reaching for a goal and, sometimes, it begins with failure.”
– Erik Weihenmayer

I have written a whole series on failure, as part of my masterplan to define it as a positive concept.

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Even smart businesses managed by smart individuals and smart investors die. Businesses start and die every day. They always have. They always will. I am old enough – and have been fortunate enough – to have succeeded significantly and failed miserably and frankly, the failures have done more for me than the successes.

Rex has nailed why failure is an important topic. I agree. In fact, I have written a whole series on it, as part of my masterplan to define failure as a positive concept.

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“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm”
Winston Churchill

We are fascinated by quotes and stories of failure; we have a whole series on it.

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Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
– Dale Carnegie

Interested in success and failure? We have a whole series on it.

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