I was talking with an acquaintance and he told me of a restaurant that typically would get 35 customers. Through some good marketing, they doubled their business, but they weren’t ready to handle that much business and were out of food by 2pm. So they stopped the marketing…They were getting too much business and they hadn’t examined their business from a holistic perspective to determine if they could handle the business.
In this culture, the perception is that a business owner should always want more business, but that doesn’t always realistically scale with what they can actually handle…and there’s something to also be said for knowing how to maintain work-life balance so you can enjoy life. If we work all the time, we quickly get burned out.
If you do want more business, you need to ask how much more you can handle and what you are willing to give away in order to have that business. You also need to know what your hard limit is and you need to stick with it. While I enjoy having clients, I also know that if I get too many, my ability to take care of those clients will decrease. In the case of the restaurant, having to close at 2pm actually hurts business more because it means that there are hours they would normally be open for business, and they are missing customers who’d come in.
Growing your business isn’t always about having more clients. Sometimes its about having the right clients and knowing what to do to keep those clients happy. And when it does involve getting more clients, then spend some time calculating the number of clients you’ll need and stop when you reach that number. Success isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality and part of quality is giving your best to the people who’ve invested in you.
