Why you should focus on one business idea

I meet many business owners who have two or more businesses or ideas. They may be working on opening a cafe while selling alternative therapies or doing PR while also doing coaching or have several internet sites selling very different things.

Several businesses are often started at once because a business owner believes that if one doesn't take off maybe the other one will. It could also be that one business isn't bringing in as much money as it should and so the business owner starts up another business that can supplement the income. Or it could just be that they've got bored with the first business and another idea that looked more interesting came along at the right time.

I can completely understand the attraction to starting more than one business, but it also has it downsides too. For a start, you're splitting your time, energy and money between two or more businesses - it's impossible to do them all properly and often end up where one idea is neglected or worse all the ideas are just picked up and put down occasionally.

Also, it's difficult to tell what someone does if they have lots of business ideas going on at the same time. How can someone possibly refer a customer to you if they're not sure what you do? It also weakens your credibility - how can you be an expert in all of those fields (P.S. it doesn't matter if you are an expert in all of these fields, it matters that people don't BELIEVE you are).

I know it's hard and I know it's scary but focusing on just one business idea will actually create more results than if you spread yourself across many ideas. You'll be able to concentrate on it properly and give it the time and energy it deserves. And yes, it might not work straight away but you'll be able to tweak it until it does rather than focusing on something else.

Give it a go...you might be pleasantly surprised!

What do you think of the 2.5% VAT cut?

What do you think of the 2.5% VAT cut? It seems to have sparked a lot of debate on other sites. I think the main issue with it is the inconvenience that it will cause to small business owners for not much benefit. For instance, many small businesses will:

• need to update price lists
• need to update literature
• have to upgrade accounting software to ensure 15% is included in there
• lose additional cashflow that VAT brings

And I'm sure you can think of half a dozen more disadvantages. Not to mention the fact that very few larger businesses will pass the saving to their customers while many small businesses, particularly those in service businesses will have no choice.

I know there is not much that I, or anyone else can do about it now, but it would be interesting to hear your views.

The Lowest Form of Marketing

I had an experience the other day that I hate with a passion. I consider it to be the lowest form of marketing and what's worse the person doing it often has no idea that's how they're coming across.

The technique is to pick holes in what someone else has done in an attempt to sell their own products and services. So for instance, if you ask for comments on your new website (as I did once), these people would tell you how terrible it is and pick hole after hole in it and then point out how they could do a better job for you.

The other day it was presentation skills - unfortunately the person concerned then had the cheek to follow it up with an email reiterating what she could do for me. And received quite a curt response from me explaining why I wouldn't be using her services, but that I could help her improve her marketing technique (let's see how she likes it).

So, if you ever get experience of this marketing technique in the future, please don't put up with it. It's a terrible form of marketing and the person concerned deserves to know that it's bang out of order. And if you've ever done this yourself (which I hope you haven't), make sure that you never do it again in the future...

The Art of Setting Goals

I was with a client the other day who was talking to me about setting goals for her business for the coming year. She was pretty stuck on how to do this - from how she should word the goals to what they should be. So let me explain:

Goals in your business help keep you motivated and focused. Whenever I don't feel motivated, I know that 9 times out of 10, it's because I don't have a clear goal to achieve. When I set a goal, I always feel much better.

Goals should be for you and you alone. Don't worry about what anyone else might think. You don't have to share them or let anyone see them. I recommend that you write them down and then carry them around with you (in your wallet or your purse) so you can look at them often.

When you write them down, they don't have to look pretty or be spelt correctly - as long as you can look at them and know exactly what you mean, that's ok.

But, and this is a big but - you must BELIEVE that you can achieve them. If you find yourself writing down a goal and then thinking 101 reasons why you can't achieve it, scrap that one and start again. In order for goal setting to work for you, you must believe that you have a fighting chance of achieving them - if you don't believe this, who else will?

They must be goals that you are really passionate about and want to achieve. When you write them down, they should make you feel excited and feel that you'd happily get out of bed for no pay to get them done.

Feel free to set personal goals as well as goals for the business - make them challenging, but believe you can achieve them. Set some, but not too many - more than 6 or 7 in a year may make you lose focus.

And remember that Barrak Obama had a dream too - to become President of the United States. Now, I'm sure that he had people saying to him "you'll never achieve that" or "what if", but he believed and his dream has come true. So what's your dream?

Do you watch business programmes?

I've just finished watching "The Restaurant" and along with programmes like "The Apprentice" and "Dragon's Den", they provide a great insight in how not to do things.

But, I'm constantly amazed by how many business owners don't watch them.

I know that we've probably had enough of reality TV shows in the UK and I know they can get a bit repetitive too. But, if you're in business, they can give you ideas, provide opportunities and most of all help you learn what not to do.

After all, they're on TV - let them make the mistakes and you learn from the experiences and put the right stuff into practice in your business.

Top 10 Tips on running a business

At a networking event yesterday, we were all asked to share our top tips for running a business, so here are mine:

1) When you're running a business, it's really important to brush up on your time management. Turning up late to meetings is not going to do you any favours and neither is not doing what your customers have asked you to do. Make sure that you prioritise your work and leave plenty of time to do things. It's always better to exceed expectations.

2) Do some marketing each week - the more marketing you do, the more you will see results in your business. Put aside some time to do marketing every week. I personally find it's better for me to do 1/2 an hour a day rather than 2-3 hours a week.

3) Do what works for you. We all hear that x, y or z has worked for someone else and feel that we should be doing that for our business too. Rather than doing that though, do what works for you. If someone else has tried cold calling and it's worked really well for them, but you hate the thought of it, try something else.

4) Do bits of tasks regularly - rather than letting your finances, marketing, admin etc build up and then have to spend ages and ages on it, try doing small bits of tasks on a regular basis. That way you'll get it all done and it won't stress you out.

5) Team up with similar businesses that share your target customers - what can you do together? How can you refer business to each other?

6) Get out there as much as possible - go to networking events, meetings, workshops - whatever you can find. Not only will you learn something, but getting out there really helps you to stop feeling lonely.

7) Be passionate about your business - the more you enjoy running your business, the more this will come across to others. Who doesn't want to work with someone who's energetic and loves running their business?

8) Never, ever give up. No matter how tough things seem, there is always a way through.

9) Have a hobby. Running a business can be all consuming. Develop another interest for yourself - it will help you to take your mind off the business and will give you a break.

10) Trust your instinct. If something 'feels' right, go with it and if it doesn't, stay clear. You'll be amazed how often you'll be right.
8)

You go Peter!

I don't know whether any of you heard Peter Jones from Dragon's Den speaking on Breakfast this morning. When asked about the economy, he said that it wasn't as bad as everyone was making out, but that if we carried on we would talk ourselves into a recession. He was challenged quite heavily on that point by the presenters and said that yes the banks are in trouble and the share price wasn't great, but that wouldn't have an impact on the vast majority of us. Peter said that we needed to maintain confidence to keep spending, but we were in danger of talking ourselves into a recession if we were not careful.

I couldn't agree with Peter more and he echoes the sentiments I've been saying for some time now. So ignore the news and let's be positive!