Having observed successful entrepreneurs and business owners for years, James Sinclair has realised they all have one thing in common – they’ve all developed strategies to avoid four common business mistakes.
And these four mistakes all relate to the number one, for example relying on one big customer or one person running everything.
“We want multiple revenue streams, we want a brilliant management team that continues running the business for us, we don’t want just one product, service, revenue stream or big customer," says James in the latest instalment of our Business Class video series.
In this video, James explains how success as a business owner ultimately depends on building a commercially profitable enterprise that works without you in it.
How to avoid common business mistakes
“Your business is an asset," says James.
"It’s not a 'solo-preneur' venture, it’s business under management. You’re building a business to sell even if you have no intention of selling it. And, after a period of time, you should be sacking yourself from every role in the business and putting people in place to run it.”
As a result, strength in numbers is the key theme that informs all four of his strategies for avoiding making classic business mistakes.
Keep watching as he talks about the importance of increasing your revenue by setting up other streams of income that feed into your existing ecosystem. It’s a process he calls “sweating the asset” and, as an example, he cites his decision to add a childcare centre to his existing leisure business.
Talking of diversifying your offering, he goes on to talk about another common business mistake, which is only offering one product or one service. To avoid doing this himself, he added a bakery to the ice cream parlour he owned and, in doing so, gave customers more choices and found a way of ensuring a steady income all year round and not just in summer.
As he recognises: “It’s so much easier to sell to your existing customers than to go and find new customers. And they will probably buy your other products and services because they know, like and trust you.”
In this way, it’s possible to increase your average customer value, which can have a direct impact on your business’s bottom line.
Find more of our Business Class with James videos here.
