The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Don't

Chapter 1

The Facts of Business Life

Just as there are facts of life that affect us on a personal level, there are facts of life that affect us as businesspeople, and business owners who ignore them are essentially setting their businesses up for failure rather than success. These Facts of Business Life apply to every aspect of owning and managing a successful business—from maintaining control to strategic planning, from protecting assets to marketing, and from leadership to establishing and managing appropriate policies and procedures. And when these facts are recognized, understood, and acted on appropriately, they can literally make the difference between success and failure.

The sad truth is that less than 30 percent of businesses last more than 10 years, and most failures occur in the first few years of operation. Some of those businesses are doomed from the start because they are ill-conceived, poorly planned, or lack the working capital to attain success. Still others fail because their owners sabotage their chances to succeed through arrogance, lack of ethics, or misunderstanding what the role of an owner actually is. There are, though, other businesses—which I believe to be the majority—that could be successful but aren’t, simply because their owners don’t understood these Facts of Business Life.

And what are these facts? They represent the seven business concepts that every entrepreneur or business owner who hopes to succeed must have in his or her toolbox, including ...