Nothing illustrates the ease by which we can get distracted than this part of a conversation between my own daughters. We were driving in the car when my 9 year old, blond, daughter started instructing her 6 year old sister on ways to make progress in life. I swear this is how the conversation went. “You have to concentrate and focus on what you are doing. You won’t get it right if you don’t … ooohh!! Look!! A pink truck!!”

My attention was as easily distracted when I started my business. Firstly I started a new business in a different province, coming straight out of a divorce, while also trying to restart my own training career which I had put on hold for a few years for my second child. And then my mom, who was running the business, had her heart attacks and ended up in hospital for months. My emotions were all over the place, I was travelling back and forth between two provinces. I arrived in KZN for business to hear that my daughter needed emergency, although minor surgery back home. When I was in one place I was thinking of the other and when I worked on one business I thought of the other.

But my concern since I started networking is the number of women I meet who attempt to run more than one business at a time. A phrase I came across to describe the phenomenon is ‘patchwork professionals’. These are people who have a profession or business, but still feel the need to add something else to the mix.

I could attempt to justify my position by saying that it was not my intention to get involved in the business and had my mom not got ill, then things might have been different, but I did say I would be attempt to be honest in this blog so I must confess that even while all the rest was going on, I bought another business!! It was an online regional advertising and event guide. Sigh! I did learn a great deal from that experience, but gosh the school fees were high.

Why do some people attempt to get involved in too many things, too many businesses, too many projects? I am sure there are different answers, and I would love you to share some ideas in the comment section. And if you are bold enough, let me know if you think that sometimes we add on a project or two to justify our own failure. “I couldn’t help not getting that done on time. I did my best. But I am so busy!” And yet we subconsciously got ourselves busy to provide an excuse when we needed it. Just an idea. I think I have done it sometimes.

This blog is an exploration of the lessons I learned when my business failed. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas, as well as your own experiences. It will eventually be published as a book – hopefully as a warning to new entrepreneurs to avoid some of these mistakes. Please see the first few posts as an introduction.

This blog is about lessons learned from a failed business. But I want to emphasize that I really believe that entrepreneurs are amazing, courageous and the stimulus that the South African economy needs. What we need to be cautious of, perhaps, is the business model we choose to operate with, or the paradigms we do business within. Maybe we need to just do business differently. And who better than entrepreneurs to come up with a new way of doing business!

This video is called “Entrepreneurs can change the World” and was made by Grasshopper in America, but could just as easily apply South Africa! 

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of a thriving economy. But there are so many failed businesses that some entrepreneurs are wounded, defeated and financially crushed. Please explore with me the mistakes I made in my business failure, so maybe your entrepreneurial venture will be more successful.

This blog is an exploration of the lessons I learned when my business failed. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas, as well as your own experiences. It will eventually be published as a book – hopefully as a warning to new entrepreneurs to avoid some of these mistakes. Please see the first few posts as an introduction.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. –Douglas Adams

Please remember that I am sharing about my experiences here, but I don’t think that everyone that goes into business in South Africa, should really be going that route. The ‘barriers to entry’ to starting a business are ridiculously low here, which is good for competitiveness. And I think South Africa offers a wonderful environment for creativity and entrepreneurial activity.

But it has been my experience that not everyone who is in business is either in the right kind of business, or has thought through the business model properly.

Robert Kioysaki’s Cash Flow Quadrant demonstrates that people are either an Employee, Self Employed, Business Owner or Investor. But he stresses that each quadrant requires different skills and that you have to educate yourself before moving to another quadrant.

As a trainer, I am self-employed. It is difficult and potentially dangerous as I am the sole source of income of my own enterprise. I ‘own a job’. And it is totally different from owning a business where there are staff, management, landlords, franchisors, suppliers, stock, machinery, business partners, lenders and opening times. To be completely honest, I naively thought that I would be an Investor – checking in every now and then on an investment business, rather than a Business Owner who was involved at all in business decisions. That is a failure to anticipate, to plan, to prepare for contingencies.

And the store business has left me with little time to pursue and develop my training business – which is a creative exercise requiring personal discipline.

There are many reasons we go into business. Sometimes we are attempting to move towards something like creating wealth or opportunity or freedom. Sometimes we are moving away from a previously repressive job. But I should have invested a great deal more time in investigating my motives, and anticipating the future before laying down that much money, and eventually losing it all. There are other ways of earning money and

investing time and different business models to pursue. Exploring those first would have given me more options.

This blog is an exploration of the lessons I learned when my business failed. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas, as well as your own experiences. It will eventually be published as a book – hopefully as a warning to new entrepreneurs to avoid some of these mistakes. Please see the first few posts as an introduction.