One thing at a time

In the last year and a half, I’ve given advice to several business people to either abandon their investment and expansion plans or get out of the deals they were already in before it’s too late. They all thanked me for giving them clarity of their situations and saving them tons of money and headaches.

These people are all successful business owners. But they all made the same mistake: biting more than they could chew.

Surprisingly, this is not uncommon among successful and growing businesses, small and big alike.

It is normal that virtually every company wants to expand their existing business or invest in new businesses. But if you are not ready, you can be doing it at your own peril.

To be ready means you have sufficient expertise and can afford to take away from your existing demands the amount of time, energy, and financial and human resources required by the new venture.

People running successful businesses tend to be overly optimistic in their ambitions and do things beyond their means without cool headed calculation. Big companies sometimes acquire too many clients than they have capacity to serve, which leads to deteriorating service and eventually hurts their business. Small business owners can easily get bogged down and find themselves no supermen in handling the impossible demands of two, three or four business operations at the same time.

It is therefore wise to know one’s limitations.

Being ambitious is important to achieve business success. But it’s advisable to focus on one thing at a time, do it well and develop strong enough wings before you jump off the cliff.

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