How to Save a Struggling Business: Finding Meaning Beyond Sales

Running a business is not easy.

There are so many moving parts: advertising, setting up a platform that customers can actually use, building a content system so you can post consistently. And even after you do all of that, it can still feel… empty. Like you’re posting for a month straight, getting no orders, and seeing no real symptoms of growth.

It sucks.

But I’m not writing this to list every thing that didn’t work. I’m writing this because I’m trying to save a struggling business—and I think I’ve found a clearer way to name what’s actually happening.

A struggling business is often a feedback problem before it’s a skill problem

For a long time, my primary motivator was money. I wanted regular sales. I wanted to build something where I could reach people and people would respond to what I make.

But on Instagram—where I primarily post—it felt like talking to the void.

No feedback.
No conversation.
No signal that I’m reaching anyone.
No signal that I’m getting better.

And that’s the real problem. Not failure.

The real enemy is silence.

Silence is brutal because it removes two things humans need to keep going:

• Relatedness: “Is anyone there? Does anyone care?”

• Competence signals: “Am I improving? Is this working? Is this worth it?”

When you don’t get either, motivation doesn’t just drop. It decays. You stop feeling like a builder and start feeling like you’re doing meaningless labor.

That’s what “apathy” is, at least for me. Not laziness. A lack of feedback.

The burning question: what’s the dam?

A business can feel like it’s one solved problem away from flowing again. Like there’s a dam somewhere, and if you just break it, sales will finally start happening.

That question feels valid for me because I do have a solid platform. In theory, it should justify at least one sale a week. But nothing is happening.

So what’s holding back sales?

When I try to answer it empathetically, I imagine the customer story:

An Instagram user is scrolling. She randomly finds my page on her For You tab. She loves the photos and reels. She follows. Now she’s a warm lead.

That’s a beautiful story.

But then I look at my data and I see something harsher: people are seeing posts and not following. My follower growth is low. A meaningful chunk of views are from non-followers, yet those views don’t convert into follows—let alone sales.

So the dam candidates become clearer.

Here are the main places the flow can break:

1. Discovery: not enough of the right people are seeing me consistently.

2. Follow conversion: people see a post but don’t feel a reason to stay.

3. Trust: they like the jewelry, but don’t trust enough to buy (or even DM).

4. Checkout friction: they want it, but something about price, shipping, or checkout makes them hesitate.

5. Measurement: I’m not tracking the right “scoreboard,” so everything feels like guessing.

When I don’t know which dam is real, every solution feels vague. Post more. Run ads. Experiment. Sure. But… why?

“Just post more” isn’t a plan if it doesn’t create learning

One possible solution is volume: upload so much that eventually the right people follow. And I can do that. I have a backlog of decent photos. I can add quotes to them, schedule them, and keep the account active.

That’s a good operational plan.

But my apathy still remains.

Because posting more is only motivating when it creates one of two things:

• feedback from people (comments, DMs, orders), or

• feedback from reality (clear learning about what works)

If it creates neither, then more output is just more emptiness.

Ads are not the answer if they don’t come with a learning loop

I could run ads and maybe people click and buy. I’ve tried ads before and it didn’t work. People tell me to experiment more—try different carousels, different combinations, find the optimal setup.

That’s reasonable.

But I think I was treating ads like a slot machine: spend money, hope for sales, feel disappointed when nothing happens.

A better approach is to treat ads like experiments:

• one hypothesis at a time

• one variable changed at a time

• one metric that decides whether it worked

That way, even if I don’t get sales immediately, I still get something I desperately need: evidence.

The repeatable method: one experiment per week

If I want to save this business without burning out, I need a system that creates feedback. Something I can repeat, not something I have to emotionally brute-force.

Here’s the method I’m committing to:

One experiment per week.
Smallest possible test.
One metric.
One decision rule.

Example:

• Hypothesis: My profile doesn’t clearly communicate who this is for, so people view and leave.

• Test: Update bio + pin 3 posts that clearly state what the brand is and why someone should follow.

• Metric: Profile visits → follows percentage.

• Decision rule: If it improves, keep it. If not, change it.

Do this weekly and something important changes: even if sales are slow, I start getting my scoreboard back. I stop being stuck in silence.

Why should I keep going?

This is the part I kept asking myself.

Why post? Why run ads? Why keep pushing when nothing is happening?

Because quitting isn’t actually blocked by anything. I’m financially stable. Quitting wouldn’t destroy me.

But quitting would cost me something I care about: opportunity.

This business has taught me how to solve problems, how to market, how to create content, how to think in systems. I actually enjoy learning these skills. I’m not ready to give that up.

I want to keep learning how to make content that is challenging—eventually viral.
I want to keep learning how to run proper ads.
I want to keep problem-solving.

And I’ve realized something that reframes everything:

If you’re financially stable, your business can be a laboratory

If you’re not fighting for rent this month, you can treat your business differently.

Not as a survival machine.
As a laboratory.

Meaning doesn’t come only from outcomes. It comes from learning loops. From running experiments. From getting sharper. From hearing reality talk back to you.

That’s why writing this blog matters to me—it creates feedback. It turns vague pain into clear questions.

Conclusion

If you’re a business owner struggling with a quiet business, consider this:

Your business might not be failing because you’re unskilled.
It might be failing because you’re stuck in silence—no relatedness, no scoreboard, no feedback loop.

Try building a system where you run one small experiment per week, measure one thing, and let that decide the next move.

And if you feel lost, try writing about it.

Sometimes writing is the first place the silence breaks—because it forces you to name the real problem, and it gives you a reason to continue that isn’t just “sales.”