4 Ways to Get Through Challenges in Business

I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time and what I find is that you’ll constantly be going through challenges in business. It kind of ebbs and flows. At times, things are really great, and other times you have to deal with a lot of issues.

Sometimes, the challenges you deal with are from outside sources and situations. Other times, your challenges are on account of the mood you are in and the state of your mindset. When you are in a poor frame of mind, small things that wouldn’t usually bother you tend to bug you more than they should. It’s easy to run away from conflict, but you shouldn’t.

It’s no secret that small business owners have to overcome obstacles. No matter what kind of difficulties you are dealing with, here are a few things I’ve found that helps me work through some of my biggest business challenges and I hope they help you, too.

1. Accept That Challenges Are Part of The Journey

The first place to start is to acknowledge and accept that challenges are part of the journey. This helps you develop a resilient mindset because you are preparing yourself for challenging times. You accept them and don’t let them bother you as much. A positive reaction to the challenge can help build company culture. After all, it’s your reaction to the problem that is the issue…not necessarily the problem itself.

2. Don’t Ignore The Problems 

When dealing with challenges, whether it’s in your own business or personal life, you’re going to experience a range of negative emotions. Pay attention to those emotions…don’t ignore them. When you ignore your feelings, they just grow. Instead, notice those feelings and put together a game plan on how to deal with them. 

The game plan I have is to not let my reactions to things in life get too high or too low. Of course, if I have a good thing happen in my business or life, I’m going to celebrate it. But I try not to go overboard with it. And on the bad side, I don’t let the challenges I face get me too down. I can’t say I’ve always been this way…or that I’m perfect at it…but it’s a lot easier now.

3. Identify The Problem 

Take the time to sit down and identify the problem. With my job at Ballantine, we have to do this often. We are a marketing agency that has many clients…and if we ignore our clients, we’ll lose business. For example, one business challenge we had to work through was setting the right expectations for our clients during their first month with us. 

With our business model, the first month of service has a lot of setup steps before we start producing the key deliverables. So we are busy on the backend, but the client isn’t seeing anything. After we got a few complaints, we figured out that we weren’t preparing them enough on what to expect. Once we set up those processes and laid out the expectations in our contract and during onboarding, everyone was happier. It was satisfying to resolve that issue and the team and clients are happier…it’s also amazing how hindsight is 20/20…this was such an obvious change to make that we didn’t see until we had to resolve a challenge.

These are the questions I ask myself when I’m trying to identify what the problem is: 

• Is there anything I can read or listen to solve the issue? 
• Is there anyone I can speak to solve the issue? 
• Have I gone through something like this before?
• What is my gut telling me? 
• What does my team think?

4. Don’t Procrastinate

Good business leaders don’t procrastinate on solving the issue. It’s a horrible part of your business strategy. I’m talking to myself here, too. I tend to have this issue because I used to shy away from confrontation. If you ignore the problem, it is like a screaming toddler. The longer you ignore them, the louder they get. And the longer you wait, the more work it is to fix the problem.

With entrepreneurship, you have to accept that it’s a journey. You have to reframe your challenges and look at them as part of the journey. Accept that challenges will happen in business and that you are going to be a problem solver. 

I’ve dealt with many challenges in business and continue to all the time. I’m not void of negative emotions and I take my own advice to resolve those problems. When the issue is resolved, it feels really satisfying. Not only that, each experience helps to build up knowledge and a callus for future times. Business challenges, especially big ones, are what help you to become successful…they force you to grow.

Key Takeaways

• Accept that as a business owner you will go through challenges.
• Understand that overcoming challenges is the key to success.
• Don’t ignore problems or procrastinate in solving them.
• Find the information you need to fix the problem and move quickly.