Throughout my years as an entrepreneur and businessman (there are differences), I have noticed two things that can easily make your life as an entrepreneur easier. If you are just starting your career as an entrepreneur, follow these two tips and your life will be much easier. If you have been an entrepreneur for a while and still do not abide by these tips, don’t fret. You can change. You have the ability. I know you do simply because that is one things entrepreneurs do. They enact change. The more hardened may just take a little longer.

The first one is to cover your personal expenses. I know that this may sound like an obvious point. But, truly many entrepreneurs do not follow this. You will hear other experts tell you to “pay yourself first.” That if you pay yourself first that you will somehow be able to pay all others. Or to pay yourself first because you are the most important person in the equation. I am not disputing either of these or the “pay yourself first” mentality. I find it to be valid. My perception of it is to cover your personal monthly expenses first. If you allocate enough revenue to you personally to cover your personal basic necessities, you will have a big load withdrawn from your shoulders. When you are worrying about paying your own bills, you do not perform at 100%. This only compounds your problem. You are short on covering your own bills and your stress causes you to under-perform at a time when you need to perform at your best. This is a recipe for a melt down. Simply add your monthly expenses up plus 10% and adjust your business to be able to perform at a level to generate this level of revenue for you. The 10% is for you to enjoy. Working all the time without taking time to enjoy life will lead to you hating your business. Do not give yourself pay raises until your expenses are covered and all long term debt is paid off.

The second tip is to only chase one rabbit. I am sure you have heard this phrase many different ways: too many irons in the fire, concentrate on one thing at a time, etc. But my preferred version is borrowed from a friend of mine (Dan Vega from Blue Star Business Institute). He says, “if you chase two rabbits you won’t catch any.” This is so true. Take it from a rabbit chaser extraordinaire. Chasing multiple rabbits normally comes in one of two forms. Either you try to add as many products and/or services as you can to your business or you strive after multiple opportunities at once (more than one venture). First of all, adding every service and/or product to your list of offerings will not generally bring you in more revenue. You are competing with too many other businesses that offer the same or similar product. Also, once you start down that path you begin to have product or service creep.

For example, let’s say that you own an automotive repair shop. You repair the mechanical parts of cars. You may be tempted to begin offering radios and cd players for sale. Then you will offer the installation. After that you will begin to offer repair of sound systems. People may ask you to begin to sell their music. Now you have an automotive repair, car stereo installation, sales and repair, music store. You are now competing with everyone from the other automotive repair places to anyone who sells car radios, repairs car radios, installs car radios, and sells music. Instead, you should have gone the other way. Rather than run an automotive repair shop, narrow the focus to what you are best at performing quickly. Hopefully this will translate into your highest profit item or service. Instead of repairing the whole car, specialize in brakes and exhaust. You just narrowed your competition tremendously. Just don’t take it overboard and only repair the front brakes on 1960 Ford Galaxies. Unless that is the only car in your town, that is too narrow.

It takes a certain talent to be able to juggle multiple entities or manage multiple, unrelated ventures at once. You may have a business with a tight focus, your personal expenses are covered and you are whacking away at your long term debt. Others will see your success and the opportunities will begin to flood in. You will be offered to be partners in this business or that business or a network marketing opportunity or some other business venture. Do not proceed unless your current business is on auto-pilot. This means you can walk away anytime you want and the business will maintain the same or higher revenue stream and profitability level. If you can’t do this, do not venture. I learned this the hard way. I was partners in seven different startups and involved in 4 other unrelated ventures. I was mediocre at them all at best. I was spread too thin. So, I made the hard decision that most entrepreneurs don’t want to make. I turned down all of the ventures, sold off my portion in some of the companies, put others in an inactive state and actively worked on one because one was already on auto-pilot. You see, most entrepreneurs don’t want to turn down an opportunity for fear of missing out our not having opportunity return. The fear is unfounded. If your ship does not come in, swim out to it. You can make your own opportunity and you can do it in your own company. I am not advocating not being involved in other ventures, just make sure the one you are working on is on auto-pilot before you do.

That’s it. It is truly that simple of a concept. They are easy to write, easy to understand and easy to do if you have not already been set in your ways. If you have been set in your ways, some of you are probably thinking, “that’s impossible” or “he doesn’t know me and what I can do.” It is possible and I know human nature. No matter how set in your ways you are or what habits you have formed, you can change your entrepreneurial life dramatically by following these two simple tips. If you need assistance, contact me. I’ll help you correct your course.

I call it “Grass Is Greener Syndrome.” I have heard others call it “chasing multiple rabbits.” Regardless of the vernacular, the point of the saying remains the same and many of us entrepreneurs (including myself) suffer from it. Going after multiple different opportunities either at the same time or starting one and before it is to fruition you begin on another.

Let me paint you a picture. I am partners in a data management company. We help maximize business continuity and initiate multiple levels of redundancy for your data. In other words, we keep your business going and your data backed up automatically. During the course of getting that business up and running, I helped to develop a fantastic process (currently patent pending) that secures your data. It is data protection on steroids. So now we do data management and I also have to start seeking avenues to promote data protection. Not a far cry from each other as they both deal with data.

About this time, one of my other companies, a web hosting and development company, began to take off. We took on two other partners and our volume, as well as services, began to grow. Because I am the partner that is sought for innovation and marketing, now I am faced with actively promoting and working with my partners to develop processes to handle the growth. So, now I have data management, data protection and web site hosting and development.

Not long after this, I had an associate from the northeast region of the US contact me about another opportunity. As I said, I am sought for innovation and marketing. They knew of this technology in Europe that will eliminate the need for landfills. It can process medical waste and the resulting processed material is non-toxic. When you combine this with a gasifier you can literally turn trash into electricity or remove landfills and make the area arable land again. So, I jumped on board and brought in a few other people. We acquired the exclusive distribution rights for the US and US Territories. We made appropriate partnerships here in the US with other companies that can enhance our solution and augment our offering. I got the ball rolling with strategic partnerships and started my marketing mojo.

Soon after this got started I was asked to (I am just going to list things now rather than full stories or we will be here forever) help with the sale of home medical equipment, limousines, promo gifts, glyconutrient supplements, video intelligence software, 3d technology, Bill Mack art work and some original plans for parts of the Panama Canal. I am sure there were more. But that is all I can remember at the time.

Slowly but steadily things began to spiral out of control. I went from doing a few things excellent to many things mediocre. I am not a mediocre person and this situation did not sit well with me. I suffered from Grass Is Greener Syndrome. Every single one of these opportunities were 5 figure and higher deals. They were all legitimate and not pie in the sky dreams. That is what sucked me in so quickly. As I got one started, I looked at the next and the grass looked greener over there where the new opportunity was. So, I would head on over there to the greener grass until my eye spotted another opportunity in an even greener pasture. A good friend of mine said that I was going to chase many rabbits and catch none.

After he told me this and I figured out why I was unhappy (I was unhappy because I was not performing excellent in any one category), I sat back and evaluated my life. I cleared the table and began to evaluate every opportunity that I had before me. I decided to put a majority of my effort into one main goal and effort into two other projects if and only if I had any down time. I picked the one project I had the most time invested in and the most experience. Then I picked two other projects in the same manner. I cleared my plate of all other opportunities. I didn’t thrown them away, simply put them on pause. And I began to pour all of my effort into that one main project and only working on my other two during times of inactivity with my primary focus.

Things began to turn around for me internally. I was excelling again and no longer performed mediocre. The project with my main focus began to flourish and will soon be on autopilot, not requiring my constant attention. When that happens, one of my other two projects will come to the forefront and another one will move into one of my two secondary positions for projects. I was told by people who had already achieved multiple millions of dollars to focus my concentration. I thought I knew better. They were right. I corrected. Now I am repeating what they told me and my experience.

All of you rabbit chasers and people who suffer from Grass Is Greener Syndrome, heed my warning. Focus on one business or main project at a time. Build it up until it runs by itself (off of processes) or you sell it, then move on. For those of you who choose not to listen because you know better. Please visit this post when you change your mind and leave your comments for others to learn from.