Although it is a challenging thing to do, some entrepreneurs can own multiple businesses. There are certain strategies that you can employ if you also want to live a lifestyle of running multiple businesses at the same time.
People who have ideas for multiple businesses, or owning multiple businesses at any point in time, need to be incredibly organized. They have to manage their time very wisely or are on the verge of incurring big losses. Hiring the right people for different positions is key for running multiple businesses successfully. If you have efficient and suitable human resources available, you can manage the workload by leveraging the expertise of others.
This post is about tips for owning multiple businesses. Having multiple businesses is not easy. First you need to build them, and then make sure they all operate smoothly so that you are able to make profits from each. In this post, we will discuss the strategies that you can adapt for making sure you are able to handle the pressure and workload and make all your multiple businesses sustainable as well as profitable.
How to Structure Multiple Businesses Legally?
If you are having multiple businesses, the first thing you need to do is structure them all legally. To do this, you need to be aware and knowledgeable about the different types of business ownership structures. Small business owners need to select one of the following approaches for structuring their business initiatives.
1. Create Separate Corporations
For running multiple businesses, the best option is to create a separate LLC or corporation for each. There is no limit to the number of corporations that an individual can register. The greatest benefit of this approach is that each of your multiple businesses will be independent of the risks of the others. All your businesses will be financially and legally protected from each other. A disadvantage of this approach is that you will have to deal with a lot of time-consuming paperwork to incorporate the businesses separately. That might incur a significant amount of costs as well.
2. Create Multiple DBAs Within an LLC
The second approach that you can adopt for owning multiple businesses simultaneously is to create multiple DBAs under one corporation or LLC. This means you need to form one LLC or corporation and then set up separate DBAs. DBA stands for ‘Doing Business As’. It gives legal permission to each of the multiple businesses to maintain a separate identity and name. The advantage of this approach is that you get to run each business with a unique brand identity. At the same time, save the cost and time on paperwork by going through the corporation registration process only once. You will also be paying the fees for only one LLC in this case. However, your businesses will not be financially protected from each other with this approach. This means if there is a lawsuit against one company, it will affect the other businesses as well.
3. Create Multiple Businesses Under One Holding Company
This is the third approach for owning multiple businesses. In this approach, you create separate corporations or LLCs for each business and then place all of them under one holding company. This is the most commonly used approach for people who are used to running multiple businesses simultaneously. It is also the most common method used by small business owners looking to get their corporations acquired by larger organizations. It is a complex and expensive method for registering companies. Therefore, it is best to consult a lawyer and accountant before you formulate multiple businesses in this way.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
How to Own and Run Multiple Businesses Successfully?
Now that you know how to structure your corporations if you own multiple businesses, let’s look at the different ways of running multiple businesses successfully.
If you are a smart entrepreneur who can multi-task in various aspects of a business. In that case, you can turn each of your businesses into a profit-making machine by getting a little bit of knowledge on operating multiple businesses simultaneously. All you need to do is focus on maximizing the resources among your different companies. Here are some helpful tips that will allow you to do that.
1. Choose Your Projects Wisely
Before starting a new company, you need to make sure that your business idea has the potential to make a profit. You must also make sure that you have the necessary resources available, which are required to manage the new company. If you realize that you lack the time and resources needed to get your new business idea off the ground during your research, it is better to reevaluate your decision. Maybe you need to wait a little more before spending time and money to start this new business. Suppose you are already running multiple businesses and want to start an additional one. In that case, the success or failure of this new initiative will affect the rest of your businesses as well. It is, therefore, wiser to reconsider your decision. Starting a new business is not easy, especially if you already have multiple businesses running that require your time and focus.
2. Share a Location
The next tip for successfully running multiple businesses is to consider sharing the location of at least two of them. How do you do that? Well, if you are in the retail business sector, you can simply share the space of your retail outlet among two or more of your multiple businesses.
Sharing space like this will allow you to be equally involved in all your ventures so that you can switch back and forth among them as and when required. It will help you with your time management to a great extent and will prove to be a much better option than having to commute between two or more different business locations daily. If your multiple businesses can't share a space, you can at least try to locate them as close to each other as possible.
3. Schedule Your Days and Timings
Running multiple businesses simultaneously requires you to distribute your time, resources, and focus towards each. People who like to juggle multiple businesses and projects have to be on the run at all times. They need to be highly efficient in the way they manage their time to be able to fulfill their obligations towards all their initiatives. Preparing a detailed schedule for your days can help you ensure you have enough time every week to devote to each of your projects. Some projects might need more of your attention than others for effective project management. Certain clients require more in-person meetings than others. Analyzing what’s the most efficient way of handling each business and client is the key to success in running multiple businesses.
4. Leverage Your Assets
Leveraging assets among your multiple businesses can help you save a lot of time and money. For instance, you can share the administrative tasks of businesses with similar operations. In some cases, you can also share the purchasing and payroll functions. Marketing campaigns can be spread across different brands and multiple businesses. At times, your campaign for one business might even complement the campaign for another.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
This means you can get more results, in the form of leads or sales, by spending the same marketing budget. As a result, you will have better and faster returns on your marketing expenses.
5. Consider Running Your Multiple Businesses Online
One of the best strategies for running multiple businesses is to shift some of your business operations online. For example, if you have a boutique business. In that case, you can turn it into an online boutique shop or a fashion website with a negligible amount of investment to sell all your clothing items online.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
Building an online store is a quick and straightforward process if you do it on Strikingly.
Image taken from Strikingly
We have lots of ready-to-use templates that you can choose from, which serve as ready-made website design. This means you do not have to spend time and money creating a web design from scratch. Our tools are user-friendly enough to enable any layman to create an online store independently without having to write any code or take the help of a professional web developer.
Once you have an online store, you can sell products from multiple businesses on the same platform. All you need to do is select suitable payment gateways, create appealing product pages, set the prices for all the items, and start promoting your eCommerce website.
Most of the features required for building a basic online store on Strikingly are included in our free plan. This means you will not have to spend extra money to make this shift. Your website can also serve as the one-stop platform for marketing and promoting your multiple businesses on the internet.
