Fly by the seat of your pants and learn from your mistakes.

Over the many years that we have run the business we have made many mistakes, but if you think about it if you don't make mistakes then you are not taking risks.

If you were to ask any successful business person they would admit to making mistakes but it has helped them to move forward.

Often in business we have found that you make decisions by "flying by the seat of your pants" , I think thats it's more fun! But this is often when mistakes are made.

The key thing that we have learnt is that you need to keep reviewing what you are doing.

Question yourself about what you are doing and is the result what you want to achieve. That may be from a financial point of view, a staffing view point or quality of life view point or something else.

Don't be proud if you are making a mistake ask for help from friends, professional advisors, staff or even using your extended group of contacts i.e from networking etc.

Don't try and put it off "by burying your head in the sand", the issue does not go away.

The sooner you review your actions the quicker you can take action to sort out the mistake.

What we have found that it's often best to take time out of the business ie have a weekend away, go for a walk in the fresh air and talk about the issues. Then you can do a full review and an action plan for the future.

It may sound sad but one thing that we have learnt duing the recession is to work out how much profit we need to make per hour, per day and per week. The great reason for this is that it is easier to take action if you have not achieved the profit in a week than leaving it to the month end.

Another thing is not to look back on the mistakes but focus on the future. 

Remember always look at reviewing your business on a regular basis to make sure that you get out of it what you want your lifestyle to be, but most of all keep smiling as one day it will be worth it.