There are people who are excited by the thrill of starting up and running businesses, so much that they want to go through the same process over and over again. Although there are these “serial” businessmen who start, build and leave, there are others who prefer to keep running their previous ventures, while at the same time working on enabling new companies to develop.
This can be done, as there are many examples to prove it. However, it takes a lot of dedication and hard work. Here are some tips based on the experiences of entrepreneurs who successfully run a number of businesses at the same time.
Learn to manage your responsibilities
As you may have already learned from your past experience as an entrepreneur, running a business requires playing many different roles and doing multiple tasks during a regular work day. This is why it is essential that your know what your priorities are and organize yourself properly, so that you can stay on top of things – and this only applies to running a single business.
One of the biggest priorities of running multiple businesses is prioritization itself. If a person knows how to split his time effectively in order to make sure that all departments are operating properly, then you might say that this person is a skillful entrepreneur.
To achieve this, you will need to equip yourself with all the necessary modern software solutions. Find the right team of people and divide your obligations properly in order to make sure that every cog is in place.
One of the best methods many entrepreneurs use is to prioritize tasks so that they can tackle the toughest ones first. Once you’ve handled the most challenging issues, you can have an open mind and be creative for those not-so-difficult tasks (let’s not call them easy, shall we?).
Harmonizing different brands
If your businesses are similar to one another, or if they are in completely different industries, they always have one thing in common: their owner (you). Even if it’s not obvious at first glance, business partners and consumers alike can find out very easily who you really are. This is why it is important to have consistent values. In other words, it is crucial to avoid conflicts between business strategies.
If you are running an organization whose main brand values are all about protecting the environment and going green, while on the other hand, you start a brand new business that does the complete opposite, both of them, and you as an entrepreneur, will lose credibility. Evaluate yourself and see what your most important values are. Then, coat all your business ventures in them.
You will get the opportunity to learn new things
Most people I’ve had the chance to talk to said that one of the biggest perks of owning a couple of businesses was the possibility to gain new perspectives and knowledge concerning various business strategies. The ability to learn different methods of pricing, marketing, building and running teams is unparalleled. You will be given more elements to combine and experiment with than ever before.
This creates a lot of perspective. For example, if you run a food truck delivery company, you can always find some useful information coming from salespeople and customer service providers, even though handling food trucks is much different than any form of IT.
You can also learn a lot if you have friends in a related industry. Even though they are similar, you won’t do things exactly the same, and this can give you valuable insights that can be used for your other business.
Starting a brand new business while running another one is a hard thing to do, and you will never find that perfect moment when you are just sure that all conditions are ideal for such a move. If you wait for that moment, you will never take the next step.
Remember, when you first started your baby company, were the conditions ideal? You were scarred, uncertain, but you went through with it. It’s basically the same thing, only now, you already have some experience. Better something than nothing, right?