Why do some small businesses succeed while so many fail?

There's no easy answer to this, of course. However, I think almost all businesses have the potential to succeed. Unless you're trying to sell ice cream at the North Pole, there's a way to make your business work. You just need to figure out what you need to do.

Growing a business is a constant process of experimenting to see what works, throwing out what doesn't work, and doing a lot more of what does work, over and over again. If you stay at this process long enough you will succeed. If you're not able to keep at it long enough you fail.

___

I believe that it is very difficult to create a unique business which means that there will always be competition. As a result (what I saw from my own experience) small business fails if it is not persuasive in answering the question "why us?" Why clients should buy from YOU? Why the best employees should come to YOU? etc.

It seems like a lot of it has to do with great marketing and networking. Great marketing will help you to sell ANYTHING, networking will help you to build the circle of people who trust you and who will eventually become "ambassadors" promoting your business (Word-of-mouth)

In terms of Marketing "secrets" any marketing text book will help with that at least to some extand. As for networking, I added a link to this answer which might help (for those who are located in USA)

_____

All business owners need to set goals. 90% of all business owners who set goals were successful. 90% of business owners who did not set goals were unsuccessful.

Hiring great employees and treating them well will lead to happier employees and better customer service. Many businesses have average customer service at best and will not go out of their way to "WOW" a customer.

Give the customers more value than the competition. This does not mean the lowest price, but can include a quality product at a fair price with great service.

--------------

Answer Added by Corrisa.....

Businesses Fail for a variety of reasons, some of which are:

Lack of an infrastructure to support the business i.e.

Lack of capital

Lack of planning

Lack of marketing know-how

Lack of research into their market

Lack of a business-mindset

Clearly all of those above can be overcome. Unfortunately, by the time people realize their mistakes and poor judgments, it's sometimes too late to save the business.

Corrisa :-)

Few of the reasons were provided by the respondents already. It is also of great value to have a unified communication system in a business because this can be a good reinforcement in advertising and promoting the products and services.

The #1 reason why most small business fail is due to the lack of basic Foundation (Market Research). A lot of small biz owners jump into business without first of all doing proper market research or analize the niche market to find out if there is consistent demand for such product or services. A good marketing assistant or SEO will help you to analize the market, find out if there're much demand to sustain your biz, also figure out your competitor and their marketing strategies. Lastly, he will help map a way for you to dorminate the niche market. To make sure the biz does not fail.

The #2 reason is Fund. Lack of sufficient fund has kept many online buisness stagnant. Starting up in auction site such eBay & Amazon is less expensive. You have the opportunity to test drive your products on this auction sites before making big investment .

Thanks

Chucks(seo)