Imagine watching your business plummet – over night – from $20,000 a month – to $1,000?
That’s what happened to “Matt” in 2008 when his business was hit hard by the financial meltdown.
Ouch.
So Matt resolved to never be caught unprepared again. Security was important to him and being too dependent on any one business just wasn’t very secure. Or so he concluded…
While rebuilding the first business, he entered a second, unrelated business.
All would be fine, except that from the two businesses Matt is currently in, he’s earning less than half of what he earned pre-2008.
And it’s taking him 12 – 14 hours a day to do it!
“Why did you go into business # 2?” I asked.
“Because I don’t ever want to have all my eggs in one basket again,” he said.
In Business # 2, Matt offers two services. One he loves and the other he hates. The one he loves, is a small part of the business. The one he hates takes up most of his time and energy. And has him working with clients he doesn’t really want.
“Why don’t you get more of the clients you love and drop the service you don’t really want to offer?” I asked.
“Because I don’t know if there are more of them out there. And if they are, I don’t know how to find them.”
And so Matt finds himself overworked, stressed and frustrated. He knows he’s capable of much more. He’s stuck.
“Matt,” I said, “Take this as the tough love I mean it to be, please. In 2008 you learned the wrong lesson. You came away believing that the way to have security is to have more than one business.
“But the truth is, before the crash, you were doing well because everyone was doing well. And when everything crashed, you were stuck because you hadn’t developed the most important of all business skills: The ability to attract your ideal clients in a consistent, predictable, systematic way.
“If you can’t build a consistent flow of clients in one business, you’re not going to be able to build it in two businesses. And that’s why today you’re working so hard – and have so little to show for it.”
Until you’ve built a consistent flow of customers for one product or service, you shouldn’t diversify to another. Why not? Because the process is the same, no matter your business. And if you don’t have the skill to do it here, you don’t have the skill to do it there.
Does this ring true? Share your experiences below.
Dov Gordon
