What to Do When Things Go Wrong in Your Business

You wake up feeling energised to start your day. After all your morning routines, you went straight into your laptop, opened your email, and started on your task right away. Suddenly, a strong rain poured out as if it’s purposely wanting to ruin a good day. You just hoped that even if it was raining so hard, there won’t be a power interruption. Then, it happened. Blackout.

When things don’t go as planned, sometimes we tend to feel discouraged, anxious, stressed, and even hopeless, having a hard time bouncing back to our feet. 

A very good example was when Coronavirus pandemic hit the world by storm, causing primarily a lot of concerns on our health but also has a very huge impact on most businesses and economies in general. It was something that we did not expect to happen so quickly that turned most businesses around, closing down factories, offices, and stores and for some, permanently lost their businesses. You can’t really do anything but adapt to changes and find new ways to cope and bounce your business back into the market.

But there are also things that happen because of the decisions and mistakes that we make in running our business. Even when we give it our best shot, given clients are best, and produce quality products and services, there are still issues we encounter along the way. 

So what do you do and how do you react when things go wrong outside and within your business?

1. Take ownership and responsibility. 

Back in 2017, Andy Rubin–the founder and CEO of a smartphone company– owned up the mistakes of the company in accidentally sending a lot of customers’ confidential information to strangers. He acknowledged the mistakes, took responsibility, and apologised to all the affected clients, giving them a free one-year subscription to an identity theft protection service.

This is a concrete example of how you should react when you make a mistake: Listening to your client’s complaints, acknowledging the mistake, taking responsibility for all the damage, and taking action to make sure that your customers will not churn after the incident. This would not only save you from losing your clients but also will save your reputation from bad reviews that would be seen by your potential customers.

1. Don’t feed your customers with your problems.

Things have been piling up in your work office. You have a lot of workloads, a lot of plans for your company, things to delegate, and much more. Sometimes, you just feel like sharing it with other people just for the sake of unburdening yourself with things to do, even with your clients especially when you’re close with them. 

While this seems to be okay and acceptable, sharing your problems with your customers is not really a bright idea for your business facade as well as your image as a professional. What we also don’t know is that they also have problems in their personal or work lives, that sharing your own would likely add up to the negativities they feel or some really don’t care about your own problems. It’s best to share your problems with the persons you really trust like your family members, relatives, friends, or even your life coach.

1. Learn something from your last mistake. 

They say that the best teacher is your experience, however, some really say that the best teacher is your last mistake. Why?

When you commit a mistake, you will most likely do something about it, right? Especially in your work or business. Just like my previous example, a company made a mistake in sending personal information. Instead of pointing fingers with your team members, you should take accept that mistakes are inevitable, take responsibility, and do something about it.

How you deal with all these mistakes will make you grow as a boss, an entrepreneur, or a business owner. You will eventually learn from your personal experience so you would not commit the same mistakes again or whenever you would face the same situation, you would likely choose another path or make another decision. 

Growing your business requires you to be patient not just with your team but also with yourself. We learn not only from the past mistakes we encounter within the business but also with other people’s experiences. The ability to accept that things will go wrong one way or another is part of running your business. Adapting to these circumstances is another thing and doing something about them would make your business grow stronger, better, and more successful.