One of the worst mistakes you can make is booking too many jobs at once. There are only so many hours in a day, and you'll only have access to so much kitchen space. You'll have to learn quickly how much you can accomplish in a day and how many jobs you can manage. You never want to have to call a client and tell him that you made a mistake and can't do the job that you've promised. That's close to professional suicide.

On the other hand, working around the clock trying to do four jobs at once is killing yourself too, only slower. It'll be impossible for you to supervise the necessary level of detail if you have too many jobs going on at once and don't have a high-caliber professional staff to help you. The quality of the jobs will suffer, and that will reflect poorly on you. Until you expand your business and are large enough to hire full-time professional managers and chefs, don't risk taking on too many jobs at once. In the catering business, your reputation depends on doing jobs consistently well. You're only as good as the last job you did, and if it ends up being a disaster no one benefits except your competition.

Never agree to an event before carefully looking at your calendar. Tell clients that you'll check your bookings and will get back to them the next day if you're busy preparing for another event.