People often ask how I've managed to found around a dozen companies without losing my mind. The honest answer is that I haven't always got it right. Over the years, though, a handful of habits have made the difference between juggling and drowning. None of them are glamorous, but they work.
1. Give every business its own home.
Separate bank accounts, separate bookkeeping and separate email inboxes. When money and messages from different ventures blur together, small problems hide until they become big ones. Clean separation also makes it far easier to see which business is actually earning its keep.
2. Know your one number for each venture.
Every business has a figure that tells you most of what you need to know. For a café it might be average spend per cover, for a salon it might be rebooking rate, and for an online product it might be cost per sale. I check that one number weekly. If it moves, I dig in. If it's steady, I leave the team alone.
3. Hire people who are better than you at the day-to-day.
You can't be the best barista, stylist, marketer and accountant across several companies. My job is to set direction, protect cash and remove obstacles. The people running each site need real authority, otherwise every decision ends up queuing on my phone.
4. Write things down once.
Opening and closing checklists, supplier contacts, how to handle a complaint, how to cash up. If it happens more than twice, it gets documented. This is the single biggest reason a business can run on a Tuesday afternoon when I'm somewhere else entirely. It's also a big part of what I wrote about in Launch Your Venue.
5. Protect your diary like it's stock.
I block time for each business rather than reacting to whichever one shouts loudest. Some days are for numbers, some for people, some for new ideas. Without that structure, the newest or noisiest venture eats all your attention and the steady earners quietly drift.
6. Be quick to stop things.
Not every idea deserves to become a company, and not every company deserves to continue forever. I set a clear test before starting anything: what does success look like in six months, and what would make me walk away? Having that agreed in advance makes hard decisions far less emotional.
7. Keep something just for you.
For me that's been acting and writing. Stepping onto a set or sitting down to write uses a completely different part of my brain, and I come back to the businesses with fresh eyes. Property investing has also given me a longer-term, slower-moving project that balances the day-to-day pace of hospitality and beauty.
The real secret.
Running several businesses isn't about working every hour available. It's about building each one so it doesn't need you every hour. Get the systems, the people and the numbers right, and you buy back the time to grow, or to start the next thing.
If you're planning to open a salon, café or bar of your own, Launch Your Venue walks through the practical steps I wish I'd known at the start. It's available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.