If your business is not making you money, its not worth saving…Kill it.

Perhaps the greatest waste of assets, and time, and the cause of way to much personal sacrifice and damage to your self and family is the protracted running of a failing business. If your business is not making you money, and its not a start up, if its not worth saving…kill it, quickly.

There is no question at all, that an astute business owner with a marginal cash flow can juggle his revenue, duck his creditors, get new vendors, robbing Peter to pay Paul, eventually failing to pay 941 payroll taxes, maxing out credit cards and then going into default, yet remain in business tenaciously week after week after week…year after year, waiting for something to happen to change his luck.

I have huge respect for such a business owners commitment. I understand the mantra…I will not give up! I get the belief that tomorrow the big order will come in. I understand you are loyal to your workers who are depending upon the paycheck you are generating even if they cannot cash it until Monday. I get the fact that you are committed to your mission

I understand your ego driven decisions to hang on and anticipate miraculous growth and development … tomorrow. I applaud the attitude but beg for some intelligent analysis.

If the business requires a significant investment to succeed and the capital is unavailable, then success is probably impossible, as a business plan based on a miraculous savior is a deficient plan and ought not be followed. You, your employees your creditors and your family deserve better, it is a foolhardy person who follows this agenda.

I see so many business owners hanging on, wasting assets, working without taking a check home, sacrificing themselves and their families well being…for what I ask? If it cannot be done, why pretend it can.

Some businesses require inventory, others require consumer advertising. Some require a tight price point as competition is fierce and thus large volume is required. Others require expensive equipment. Most businesses require growth capital as payday comes every Friday yet revenue may take months to develop.

Many marginal businesses simply require a sales and marketing plan and then a way to implement it, but it isn’t done at all. Others simply carry too much overhead or are pricing too low and are unprofitable.

Without the appropriate or necessary resources and strategies the business is doomed from the first day, its just a matter of time until the business owner is forced to accept reality, when the phones are shut off, or the tax man knocks on your door, which ever comes first.

It is perhaps the most difficult decision a business owner has to make but it remains the most basic and important. If a business cannot be profitable because of reasons beyond the owners control, and if the business is draining capital and other resources without hope of a turnaround, then it is the business mans responsibility to liquidate it and try something else. Death by slowly bleeding, a drop at a time, is no different then death by guillotine, other then how long it takes.

Worse yet, you may be wasting valuable assets that could be applied to another business format, or plan that could work, after all, we learn more from failure then from success, so the next rendition may be better then the first because of what was learned.

Many feel that it is a personal failure, a reflection on ones character, capability, and skill. I say ridiculous, and furthermore while reflecting on what went wrong is important so the lessons are learned, the bottom line is relevant, after all it is business, and continued losses need to be stopped and shut down.

Let me state the principle clearly, a smart man knows when to fold his hand and when to make a bet and play the hand. A not so smart man plays a losing hand hoping to bluff his way to victory or pull the inside straight. It may work occasionally in cards but it seldom works in real life business.

Know when to fold your hand and kill a business that cannot work. Its the second most important decision you will make. The first was opening the business in the first place.

Follow the plan, if you had none then make one and then decide what to do. Kill the nonperforming business, its wasting your time and resources.