5 things I’ve learnt since starting a business

5 things I’ve learnt since starting a business. I wish there was one thing I could tell you that would make starting and running a business easy, but there isn’t. Every business is different, and every business startup is its own voyage of discovery. Sure you can learn from experience, but all we can really do is react in real time to things as they occur in front of us, and hope we don’t mess it up too much.

1. Focus is important

The most important thing my Prince’s Trust mentor has taught me in business is focus. I’m not just talking about it in a specific sense but in every sense. Focus on what your good at, focus on actions which are most profitable, focus on detail, focus on your core services or products. Focus focus focus.

2. Cash is King

It doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it, what matters is; is that cash appearing in your account? You could be building the best business relationships and doing what makes you happy, but if there is nothing coming in, you don’t have a business.

3. Don’t chase vanity metrics

So many people care about high numbers of likes and followers. How many people visit a site, how many pages of google am I at the top of. I would rather have 10 good, responsive, engaged followers that will buy from me, then 10,000 unresponsive followers who never look at my posts, let alone interact with me.

4. Business is tough

Business is a constant game of fighting fires. As soon as you resolve one problem, another emerges. Competitors with dirty tricks, customers who want to take advantage of any situation, the constant Spector of bills to be paid, Suppliers that let you down, and just when you thought you were getting a grip on it all, COVID-19 smacks you in the face like a wet salmon. You need to be tough and keep going no matter what get thrown at you.

5. You can’t do everything

The more you grow your business, the more time you spend working on things which are not “work”. This is a problem as you will need to employ more people to do the work you should be doing, then employ more people to look after the people you just employed. Then you realize you can’t afford all these people, so you bring in more people to generate more revenue streams, and so it continues. But seriously you can’t do everything yourself so get help.

There are my 5 things I’ve learnt since starting a business, I hope you found it interesting. Please follow this blog for more posts straight to your inbox.