Manage more than one business without going crazy

It’s the stereotypical small town business: the bait shop, tire store, and gas station all in one. But multiplying your lines of income is much more than just cramming more businesses into your building. It’s also about businesses that stick to one niche, but find more than one way to produce their income.

Multiple businesses: hauling and barber shop,
all in one vehicle.
Photo (CC) by Justin Baeder

The trick is learning to manage more than one line of income at a time without getting scattered or distracted. So let’s talk about some of the productivity skills I use to keep it all together.

1. Know your mission.
I know that my mission is helping small towns build more successful entrepreneurs. Knowing that makes it easy to focus on just the most mission-critical items. I can say no to things I should never take on.

2. Know your goals.
For each business, I keep one page with the goals and next actions written out. I update these regularly so I can see what needs to happen next with each line of income.

3. Plan your week.
Each weekend, I sit down and plan out the coming week. I start with appointments on my calendar. Then I fill the rest of my week with actions from my goals pages. That lets me keep all the businesses moving forward during any week. And I can start Monday strong, because I know exactly what to work on first.

4. Be realistic.
When I’m filling in that weekly calendar, I restrict my goal-related tasks to no more than six on each day. That keeps my work load realistic. I don’t have to worry about all 30 goals today, just six. I know the others are scheduled for later in the week.

If you follow those four steps, you’ll be much more productive in all your businesses and lines of income.

Edit:
A recording of the webinar is now available.

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.