Money
Earners, feeders and bets: tracking several small businesses
In short
Label each business, hold a monthly money meeting, keep your hands on the money and know when to stop something. No income promises.
Running several small businesses changes how you read money. Chapter 8 is honest about it from the first page: there's no promised income, because nobody knows your ideas, market or luck. What it offers is a way to track a group of small streams without the money side taking over your life.
Many small streams
Instead of one big bet, a one-person conglomerate is many small streams. In the book's story, a shop sells a few planners a week, storybooks sell a few copies, a store sells a few mugs, a channel sends people to the others and a free email keeps an audience close. None alone may change your life. Together they can add up, and if one dries up for a while, the others keep going.
Label each business
- Earners sell things. Watch what they bring in and what they cost.
- Feeders bring people in and send them to the earners. Watch reach and how many end up buying.
- Bets are new. Watch whether they're trending up or flat.
Write the label next to each business on your org chart. It changes how you read the numbers.
Checklist
- Label every business earner, feeder or bet.
- Hold a monthly money meeting. The bookkeeping Bot prepares one page: money in, money out, and how it compares to last month, per business.
- Make two or three decisions from it, then stop.
- Give each business a monthly budget. Any proposed spending must fit it and come to you.
- Ask for three-month trends in plain words, not daily numbers.
- When a number surprises you, ask why before you react.
- Keep clean records all year and see a real accountant or advisor who knows where you live.
Hands on the money
No Bot moves your money without you: not supplier payments, ads, sign-ups or refunds. Keep accounts in your own name with logins you enter yourself. Bank details, passwords and identity stay with you.
When to stop
If a business has been flat for a few months, costs more attention than it gives back and doesn't excite you anymore, it's probably time. Retire its Bots, save their notes and move on. Stopping one small business doesn't break the rest.