Steps to Growth Capital Investor Readiness Skills

4.2 Don't Avoid Problems; Conquer Them

As an entrepreneur, you identify and solve problems every day. And chances are, you're the one responsible for coming up with solutions. Knowing how to make the right decisions is crucial for your company's growth and future success. If you're seeking risk capital and are in the process of developing an investment proposal, you may face problems at each step of the process. Your ability to resolve those problems efficiently and effectively will be critical to successfully acquiring capital.

Your goal shouldn't be to ignore problems or to steer clear of opportunity just because problems may occur. Drysdale and Blau, authors of Creative Problem Solving for Entrepreneurs: A Creative New Approach to Overcoming Your Business Problems, state:

"Your business will not grow if you arrange your actions around the attempt to avoid all problems. Acting out your fear of problems will only make them worse, as will ignoring them. The entrepreneur's goal should be to learn to approach problems in a way that allows the best possible benefit from each solution."

In other words, the growth of your business depends on the risks you take. Fear of failure isn't a good enough reason to stop taking risks. The probability of success and growth will increase with every risk you take and with every problem you solve and conquer. Think back to when you decided to start your own business. Wasn't that the biggest risk of all? It was the first step in the growth of your company. Now look at yourself - seeking risk capital and still growing. Learning to deal with and resolve problems is an important skill if you want to continue to be successful.

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