Saturday, August 28, 2010

Knowing When to Quit

Quitters never win, winners never quit, that is a great motivational quote for anyone who strives for success in any given field of their life, my personal interpretation of this saying is quite different to what you see and may understand.

The problem with never quitting when it seems obvious to you that events no matter how positive you think and feel are not going favourably is that you are going to continue to remain static or worse, move backwards.

I would think most people including myself have been in a situation were they wanted a romantic situation to happen but try as you may the other person is not interested, if you continue you know you are only going to get yourself upset and in a negative state of mind, to let go and make a fresh start is a positive step forwards.

What you have done is changed your perspective, taken a step to one side and moved on to your next goal, I find a great way to think about this is to say to yourself, " I am in the process of", if you say this to yourself it is then impossible to have actually failed or quit, you are just changing your prospective.

Exactly the same situation happens in business, day in, day out worldwide.

If your new venture or existing business is struggling, you have tried everything to keep trading but you are losing money at an alarming rate, then sometimes it is good business sense to know when to quit.

This is a situation I know only too well, a couple of years ago I leased a very busy bar-club in the Canary islands, business was outstanding and so was my lifestyle, the banking crises happened and suddenly many people stopped taking vacations or the ones that did certainly spent less, the result for me personally was takings down 75%.

That is a huge amount for any business to weather the storm, I made cuts wherever possible but still the bottom line was I was losing money at an alarming rate.

The only decision I could make was to quit while I was still ahead, knowing when to quit while I still had capital is a decision that I did not take lightly but one that I knew was the right thing to do.

To have carried on would have meant me going into my savings and probably bankruptcy eventually.

This of course is my own personal experience of knowing when to quit and I hope many people reading this do not have the same problems as I did, you may have a sales campaign that is not going the way you planned or you are paying for software or an advertising agency and it is not working out, my advice would be re-access the situation and take the necessary action.

By taking action you have not failed, you are still "in the process of", you may have to change your perspective and then move towards your goal again.

In business we all take a gamble or that is what most people would have you believe, a gamble as far as I am concerned is a 50-50 bet or when the odds are against you, do not gamble, take a calculated risk were the odds are more in your favour!

I wish everyone the best in their business ventures and sometimes we all need the wisdom of Soloman, but by implementing "I am in the process of" when situations have not gone your way you are always moving forwards.

By : Mark_S_Jackson

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