So you failed HARD?

I’m a Contractor, a business owner and I’m making a lot of money. I would go out with my Toyota Hi-Ace and drop off numerous business supplies around the city. Every Friday I would go and meet with potential business customers and make numerous deals to put them on my books. I never considered failure but I hope you read “So you failed HARD” to get an insight on that to expect when you fuck up badly.

You see, I would deliver from business to business and I started with one van and also without a huge care in the world. My business grew as I took on more work, I also had to purchase a replacement van and more staff.

My business model was pretty good starting out as I didn’t need warehouse depots like those massive courier companies and I was loving the fact that I could beat them on price.

Things got really complex as my business grew within 6 months and I had to purchase 6 new vans and employ 8 staff members. Having to pay for wages, servicing, repairs and ACC, It started to get really expensive .

Fast forward 2 months and we had a few more challenges as 3 more competitors entered into the market with their unique offerings, I decided to price them out by reducing the price of my service by 25%. This was insane, however my business was barely surviving and I already knocked one of my competitors out of the market. They sold their business to the remaining competitor and I was certain that  what they brought was a burden and not a blessing.

Tragedy struck as one of my driver’s crashed one of my vans into a car on one of the busiest intersections, he forgot to give way and wrote both vehicles off. Sure I brought commercial insurance, I would be a fool not to! However what I didn’t know was that he was caught drinking and driving a few nights ago and as a result he lost his licence.

It was at that moment he rang me up and told me that he fucked up majorly. My heart sank after I rang up the insurance company and they declined my application due to my staff member not having a licence and told me I would have to pay for all repairs and replacements as well as any potential health care and raised the premiums to an astronomical level.

At the end, my company had to pay for a new vehicle, pay legal penalties and fees as well as having a health and safety audit in my workplace. The word was also out about the circumstances of my driver’s accident and I couldn’t drum up any more businesses because of it. In fact, my competitors launched a marketing campaign about company responsibility regarding driver safety and targeted this against my company, that was the final nail in the coffin.

It was pretty evident that as we grow there is a huge abundance of opportunities to grow into more niche’s, change the way we operate and not only do we expose ourselves to more client’s and more hustle but a lot more threats that can hurt us if we try to grow too fast.

Creative Start-up NZ has developed a programme that helps hustlers evolve their hobby into a Business at a faster pace and basically helps you build your hobby into a money generating machine. Yes our Rapid start-up membership does speed things up but this is at a pace you’re comfortable with. However, our aggressive development is intense and will require your upmost commitment, you will develop at a fast pace but we do monitor performance and simulate stress test on a regular basis to minimise your exposure to extreme risk.

Remember, what you’re doing does have risk but with the Aggressive development programme, you’ll identify the risks you encounter in advance & quick solutions as well as continuing your growth. Unfortunately my client joined us after he encountered his risk that made him fail, and he failed hard.

That one December morning I came into the office and started to cry, I realised after looking at my staff members starting up their run for the morning that this would be the last time they were hitting the roads for me. I started yelling as soon as they left ” what about their families! This is their only income!”

Feeling humiliated, I rang my competitors to pitch the sale of my company to them, I wanted at least 50K and for them to take on my staff as soon as possible. They asked me to throw in the vans also as they couldn’t hire my staff without the vans. They had me by the emotional balls and they knew it. So I threw in the vans and they said that they would start within a month.

The staff turned up at the end of the day and I had to tell them that this was their last day on the job, although I told them that their new job starts within a month I suddenly realised that I had to pay them out their termination notice. I took out a second mortgage to cover this loss. My wife and kids left me and I was facing a debt of 120K to creditors alone.

The pinnacle of failure.

At this moment I have sold my vans and covered my business debts and I was also able to pay the second mortgage with  hard work and everything that I have. I am currently staying with my brother armed with a laptop and a suitcase of clothes. I currently work as a checkout operator at a New World supermarket and I must admit I barely escaped bankruptcy.

Going through failure is not pleasant and I can testify that you’re guaranteed to lose something or someone when you experience a massive failure like I have. I can’t promise you that things will get better as you may still have to hit rock bottom but I can say that you will learn and this type of learning will be something that you will never forget.

If you can relate to failure or you’re going through it now, know that at some point you will hit the pinnacle of your failure and experience a transformational shift within yourself and you will suddenly learn fast about becoming resourceful.

Since I paid the business debts a short time ago, my old Accountant stated that I had some tax credits being refunded and I was able to pay off the remaining amount of my mortgage. Least to say that my wife and I are on speaking terms as we are mortgage free but I have a long way to go before I can resume a happy marriage.

The lesson with imminent failure is knowing the right time to fold, can you provide some sort of relief for the people that are going to be affected and how do you plan to absorb the financial hit when that time comes? Failure will happen at some stage and it’s up to you to decide on how to deal with it.

Look, at this time you may feel like crap, I certainly am and going through the stress really sucks! However you’re in the town of shit and right now your forced to face down the biggest demons that you never thought existed. You need to realise that you’re not alone and there is thousands of people that are in similar predicaments like you.

I am not saying that what you’re going through will be easy. In fact, you’re going to have a few battle scars on your way to the bottom and also a few more scrapes when you come out of that hole that you’re in right now. If you have a family of your own and you’re married then be prepared for them to take the brunt as well, I’m not going to give you that optimal solution to come out unscathed, but to give you advanced warning that this will hurt them as well as you, it is up to you to soften the blows and take the full hit.

How I did this was by selling all my assets, paying off the mortgage and telling the wife we are mortgage free. She responded by ” you need to sort your shit out before I even think of sharing a home with you!”. She was still hurt by the loss of our business and I still had to prove that I am the one that she would call husband.

This will test the sturdiest of relationships and it may not survive, but nonetheless you must do everything you can to protect the one’s you love even if it will cripple you detrimentally.

Be prepared to sacrifice a lot of things you enjoy, Sell all your assets and start from scratch.

You’re going to find it hard and well, you’re going to feel how hard a real struggle is too. I lost everything but the clothes on my back, I was recently homeless for a few months after settling all my debts but thanks to swallowing my pride and asking my brother for help I am about to get back onto my own two feet again.

It is important that you own up to the reasons why you failed miserably so you can start preparing for your revival, because it is going to be mother fucking EPIC!!!!