EP10: 7 Costly Mistakes Entrepreneurs Keep Making (and How to Stop)

Too many founders unknowingly sabotage their own growth—often in the name of survival. In this episode, Francois and Celeste break down the seven most common mistakes entrepreneurs make, from mixing personal and business finances to ignoring cash flow, undercharging out of fear, and flying solo without support. Whether you’re building your first business or scaling a successful venture, this conversation offers a practical wake-up call and a reminder: you’re not meant to do it all alone.

 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Personal and business don’t mix - Blurring the lines leads to messy books, inflated accounting costs, and a loss of clarity. Discipline here creates cleaner systems and healthier margins.
2. Cash flow is king—not profit - A “profitable” business with poor cash flow is a ticking time bomb. Secure at least three months of operational buffer to build resilience and peace of mind.
3. You need people in your corner - The lone wolf mentality is outdated. Strategic partnerships, advisors, and coaches aren’t a luxury—they’re the infrastructure behind sustainable growth.

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Let’s build better, together.

Transcript

hi and welcome to the Rev Room

where we discuss anything business um

hi I'm Francois and today I'm sitting with Celeste

a key account manager at Buzz Rev Advisory

welcome Celeste thank you Francois

so nice to be here excellent

so today

we're going to talk about the 7 mistakes

entrepreneurs make and we have quite a bit of insight

with regards to entrepreneurship and understanding

what happens

in this incredible journey of entrepreneurship

so Celeste

um the first mistake

we're gonna talk about today is the mistake of

mixing personal with business

so what's your take on that today Franco

unfortunately that's something we see every day

and a massive mistake that entrepreneurs make

it's so easy to swipe that business card um

but it it has various impacts on your business that um

negatively

impacts all the work that you're trying to do

so the first problem that I do see everyday

is that clients use their business cards

to buy personal things um

it could stacks up a loan account and uh

then in turn this generates interest payments

at the end of the day um

it incurs uh accounting costs

that's unnecessary because for every transaction

you have extra costs that you have to do um

and it gives you unclean books

so my personal approach is to have clean books

to have it really put together nicely

and having personal transactions

doesn't help with that great

but it sounds a bit messy

if you have a contamination

between personal and business anyway

it is definitely messy and um

definitely encourage not to do that um

keep your business separate

your personal separate put your money

your salary into your personal account

do all your transactions there

and business stays in business

excellent sounds quite simple

alright so

mistake No. 2 is ignoring cash flow

in favour of profit

it is a general idea to look at the bottom line

which is profit at the end of the day

but a profit figure can so easily be manipulated

and is not always um

the perfect idea

or the perfect picture of your business

cash flow is your everyday purpose

cash flow is king if your cash flow runs correctly

runs properly

you have space and money to generate more business

create products um

pay your suppliers

all kinds of different different things

um so

the philosophy we follow is that you should have

three months of cash flow

at least in your to cover your basic costs every month

so

the cash flow you're referring to for the three months

is your your overhead costs

so you keep three months of overhead costs

that helps as a buffer to protect your

your cash flow yes

and gives you the stability and

and space to grow and then

you know your bills are covered every month

okay

alright great

so let's so the third uh

a mistake is not keeping proper records and or backups

what do you have to say about that

it's so important and something that many people miss

um is to

to know that those little

small admin things that gets done every day

um have to be done

and those slips that you throw in the bin or get lost

and it's it's really important to keep them

so uh

we personally make use of zero

which is a cloud based accounting system

and it integrates with Hubdoc

which is such a fantastic program

you literally buy something from checkers

take the photo immediately

and the accountants link it all together

and years from now you can go back to that um

exact slip and you can pull it up easily

and you have all the information

so be it if it's

you wanna know what you paid a supply before

or vet orders or whatever you need

those documents are always ready available

excellent

um and so do you exclusively use zero

yes indeed

we exclusively use zero

it's really accounting made easy

it's easy for the entrepreneurs

for anybody that um

is not really comfortable with technology

it's not a big thing to learn

and it's quick and easy on your phone

accessible all the time

and the same with Hubdoc it takes one second

take a photo and the data is always there

great and it is quite reasonable yes

very reasonable for the all the functions that you get

excellent alright Celeste

let's have a look at mistake number four um

doing it alone

for the entrepreneurs to go on this journey

fighting on their own what do you think about that

entrepreneurship is a very lonely road

and that's why you get professionals

to walk this road with you

to take your hand um

it's something that we're really proud of

I think at bizref and that we

we do differently and I enjoy doing it

that's my my personal thing

is I love walking the road with my clients

be it hard times good times we're sad with them

celebrate with them work hard with them um

and the reason for this is that

you don't need to be alone

if you have the right advice

and you have someone walking the path with you

or that you can bounce ideas off of

um

and somebody that you can trust with advice and and um

opinions um to move forward and to grow

great

alright that's

that takes us to mistake No. 5

undercharging out of fear

françois so if you ask your question what is your value

what is the value that you are offering your clients

be it in a product or a service that you generating

what is the value that you giving

and then you put a price to that value

that is the value that you have to stand with

and you have to back your own value

and believe in your own value

um people so easily you give a quote and they say

oh no this is way too expensive

I'm not doing it I'm going to someone else

then stick to what you believe in

what your value is stay with it

believe in yourself

and in the product that you're offering

and people will come to you

and see the value that you have

we live in a very price competitive world

and that's why people want

a cheaper price for everything

and sometimes unnecessarily so

so stick with your values I like it

alright mistake No. 6

not having a basic um compliance plan

fraud and compliance is a big thing that um

many entrepreneurs are not aware of

small things like annual Crpc returns

if that's not done

you can lose the name of your company

it can go into deregistration

something

that you or your family have built for many years

and you're so proud of it's so easy to lose

if you don't do something as small

as do an annual return SARS returns

it racks up and stacks up payments

interest all kinds of different things

if you don't stay up to date with compliance

um that's where professionals come in

if you have the right advice

there's new things coming into compliance every day

new things that we have to introduce to our clients

like beneficial ownership that came in recently

that needs to be done and that's where we come in

is we give the right advice

and make sure our clients are um

compliant and the nice thing is also

that most of this stuff happens in the background

that it's not an effort for them

it's not um

something that they really need to spend time on

it's something that we make the clockwork at the back

and they get to do what they're good at

we're living in a very

very interesting time where compliance is

is a necessity in every aspect many

many times

you're not able to do business without being compliant

and um

we're the guys to help you with that okay

so our last one a very interesting one

the mistake No. 7

for any entrepreneur who doesn't have an exit strategy

or a continuity strategy

so something that everyone doesn't think about um

often business owners open a business

because they have an idea

and they just jump into it

and they don't really look or think about

what is their future planning for that business

what do they want out of it

what is the the personal value that they wanna see in

in that business um

and what we talking about is

are there an exit strategy

are you building this business to later on sell it for

a profit um

or are you creating this business to build an empire

for you and your family

do you want to leave something for your children

one day do you

what is the purpose of waking up every day

and why are you driving your business

what is your belief in what you want to see

where it's going um

and that you need to think about

it's not just waking up and

and going through every day

and not really knowing what your purpose is excellent

so do we have any stories that we can tell

way too many Francois ha ha ha

it's um I

I always say people don't think accounting is exciting

but um with our range of clients they

there are so many exciting things

and so many interesting people

and on a daily basis we get new clients

where I can pinpoint one of these seven mistakes

in every one of them

some of them have all of them some only have a few

so

if we get clients that you can see it's not compliant

or small things like moving their personal expenses

to their personal bank accounts or um

source debt or um tax returns that hasn't been done

there are so many stories

but that's where we come in that's where we take

we're the helping hand we take your hand

and we lead you into the right direction

we'll support you through it all and we love doing it

we love seeing our clients succeed

um we have people that we help in every industry

be it manufacturing service industries

farming um

and it's so exciting to learn what they do

and what their passions are

and to walk this road with them

excellent

thank you for tuning into the Rev Room

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