If I’ve learned one thing after 20 years as an entrepreneur, it’s that you can’t wing it forever.
If you’ve read any of my recent articles, you may be aware that I’ve run businesses across seven different industries.
Since March 2020, with events being restricted and many venues being forced to close for over a year, I’ve been thinking about my experiences running businesses in that industry.
Business is not always plain sailing
I’ve written a couple of articles about the learnings I’ve had from my events business, but they both provide a positive outcome.
I’m hugely thankful that both of those events, which you can read about here and here, ended successfully, but it’s important to note that it wasn’t all plain sailing.
In this article I’ll explain why you can’t wing it in business forever, and what early-stage entrepreneurs should focus on first.
The importance of structure, foundations and your vision:
Just like many of the clients I work with, I thrive on my ability to spot and act on opportunities when they present themselves.
What I’ve learned though, is that if the structure’s not there from the outset, then what might start off as an opportunity or even a side hustle, often becomes a nightmare priority.
In both of the articles I linked to earlier, which focus on experiences running my events business, that lack of structure caused me unnecessary stress time and again.
It got to the point where we were winging it with some of the biggest artists in the world, without having a limited company or even a business bank account.
The business was never streamlined or organised properly, so we were always behind.
I was always having to react, rather than act, and that impacted the growth we could achieve.
The day-to-day stress of a business without any structure meant that we were setting ourselves up for stress.
Don’t lose sight of your vision and values:
You might have read my article from a few months ago, where I spoke about an issue with a headline act for one of our events.
Even though we ended up with a successful outcome in that case, my overall reaction to what happened meant that the events business became unsustainable longer-term.
My reaction, which I’ll share in a moment, wasn’t in line with my own vision and values, which centred around my love of music and my vision of improving the experience for our guests. Read here
At the time I took the artists cancellation personally, and took my eye off the ball. I ended up investing, and wasting, a significant amount of money on advertising.
Worse than that though, my reaction meant that we struggled to attract high profile artists to future events.
That, coupled with other business opportunities and priorities (both for me, and my business partner), stopped the business in its tracks.
I sometimes think about what might have happened if we’d had more structure in the business and if I’d reacted differently. What would have happened if I’d had someone to support me and someone to learn from?
One of the first things I focus on with my clients is having that clarity of vision and a strong foundation in place.
I know too well that without these things, you’re likely to come unstuck and cause yourself unnecessary stress later down the road.
That’s why I now work with entrepreneurs who are, in many ways, similar to me in the early days.
And that’s why I’m on a mission to help early-stage entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes I’ve made, and grow their business.If you’d like to find out how I could help you, please click here to book a discovery call.
