How to survive a business crisis and come out stronger than ever

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog entry about a really interesting article ex-Dragon’s Den and Red Letter Day entrepreneur, Rachel Elnaugh, had written in the Franchise Magazine (Franchisees are entrepreneurs too). In this article, Rachel made a really good case for considering franchising as a way for anybody considering self-employment to flex and develop their entrepreneurial muscle.

One of the main reasons for this is that being part of a franchised network means you will have access to support and mentoring from people who have already experienced many, if not all, of the same issues as you. For stand-alone entrepreneurs it can be extremely lonely, especially when things start to go wrong. Rachel herself experienced this when her company went into administration in 2005 but while this was a bitter blow, it was actually the two and a half years she spent trying to save the business that really took their toll. It was only later that she realised, from conversations with other entrepreneurs (many now extremely successful house-hold names) that it is far from unusual to experience problems and difficulties in business. In fact most successful people have ‘failed’ many times before they get it right. Rachel has now written a book about the experiences of some of these people, called Business Nightmares, which despite it’s rather scary title is about how to cope when your business hits a crisis point and, more importantly, how to turn the dark days into even greater success. Her interviewees include business rockstars such as Donald Trump, Stelios, Karan Billamoria, the Innocent boys and Ivan Massow who all prove that before you get it right, you’ll probably get it wrong.

To hear a really interesting interview with Rachel talking about her Red Letter Days experiences, how she sees business and entrepreneurship evolving in the future and the inspiration behind her book, go to the Smallbizpod.co.uk website and download their podcast #68.