In whatever business that you plan to go into, make sure you know the business like the back of your hand. If you want to open a restaurant, make sure you can cook yourself. If you want to be a plumbing contractor, make sure you are a good plumber yourself and if you want to be an electrical contractor, be an electrician yourself. That goes for every type of business that you plan to venture in.
Some people will tell you, “hey, why worry, you can always employ”. True only to a certain extent. Of course you need to employ. Even if you are a super plumber, there is no way you can complete a project all by yourself. Unless you don’t plan to go big and remain just a self employed plumber going around your housing estate repairing leaking pipes. Then you can be a one man show.
However if you have plans to take on massive projects, you have to employ. You must have skilled, semi skilled and unskilled workers. The skilled workers will make sure everything is done accordingly, the semi skilled workers can be trained to be future skilled workers and the unskilled workers will be trained from scratch. If you are really big, and employ many of each, you won’t feel the pinch when one or two leaves the company, but if you are a small timer with only 2 skilled workers, 2 semi skilled workers and 1 unskilled worker, the resignation of any one of the skilled workers will upset all your plans. It will be made even worse, if you don’t have the skills yourself to take over the responsibility of the guy who has left. If you know the job yourself, at least things can go on as planned. Only thing it might be quite taxing for you acting as the boss as well as a worker, but that would be temporary before you employ another one.
I have seen restaurants closed down because the boss cannot take over the chef’s place when he decides to leave. Employing a good chef is not easy. Once your customers have started to love his cooking, they will stop coming when he is no more coking for you. Things can be salvaged if you can cook better than him or at least as good as him.
It’s the same with all trades that needs specified skills. Know the skill first before you decide to plunge yourself in that particular business. If you are really confident that the line of business is a money earner but you don’t have the necessary skills, get a partner that has that skill. If you have no knowledge in that field and you cannot find a partner, avoid it like plaque. Unless you are very fortunate, the business will likely to fail.