Gordon Woolf's Blog

The need to make a profit

The radio caller was critical of banks, which is not unusual, but she put it in a somewhat odd way: 'I have to pay them interest, but what do they actually DO (for me?)'.

This may be partly the reason for the current Occupy movements around the world. To some youngsters it may just seem that if their parents run out of money, they just have to go to "the hole in the wall', but to those parents does it also seem that if they can buy computers, washing machines, furniture and so much more on "48 months interest free", why should the banks charge interest. After all they are only giving you money for a while, not goods permanently.

I know that doesn't make sense, but it kinda sounds logical.

The reason for the demonstrations that I have sympathy with is that it is no longer true that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer -- it is, some people have pointed out with figures and graphs, that the super-rich are getting richer, and that the rich and the poor are getting poorer.

I could claim that some of my best friends are millionaires, which is not quite true but I have known a couple well enough to visit their homes and have them visit mine. I don't envy them. Sure they make more money than I ever had but they do have to work unusual and long hours and the stress level is more than I would want, even though as a newspaper editor I once flourished on stressful work.

But we now have company directors who get pay increases by the millions and yet manage to do similar work for several companies at the same time. If their individual jobs were at the stress level of "my" millionaires, they'd have been dead long ago.

That's what I mean by things getting less fair. And therefore in general terms the Occupy movement has my moral support.

I'm not particularly blaming the chain store owner with his 48-months interest free and similar offers. The one I have in mind has said that people are stupid to accept some of the offers made in his stores as they don't suit everyone.

It is necessary for businesses to make a profit in order to reinvest but there is a big difference between making a fair profit and making the most that you can. Is the first aim of company directors to make the most profit for their shareholders or a profit which will ensure that the company continues to be viable into the future? Customers are important too, with the rest of the community needing at least a little consideration occasionally.

I don't think the unfairness claim can be made against more than a small number of the people who run companies -- it just seems like that sometimes.

Make sure you get paid on time

Being successful in a small business is not just reliant on making a profit on whatever you sell, whether it is goods or services. It relies also, and perhaps more importantly on getting paid for those goods or services.

I was surprised yet again this month to come across a small business owner, in this case a freelance designer, who had not thought to set out clearly just when he expected to get paid and ensuring that was understood by his clients.

He wondered whether he should offer a discount for payment at 10 days or 30 days. That, I suggested, would just mean he would be giving a discount to his current prompt payers and encouraging others by suggesting he was prepared to finance their debts to the extent of 30 days which could be attractive compared to bank overdraft costs. He also needed to make sure that he got invoices out immediately a job was done, and certainly not wait until the end of the month (and sometimes into the next month) as he had been doing.

Long ago I established a simple system with my clients: no job would be started until the previous one had been paid for. I did have a couple of exceptions for weekly jobs but on those there was a date for payment each month which I had got from the client and no future job would be started if that date went past without payment.

When you have your own debts it may seem hard to seemingly pass up the chance of more work, but if you are offering fair value in what you do you will find that clients will keep to agreed terms when it is in their interest. Those who do not may not be worth working for; it is no good doing work for which you will never be paid, or paid so slowly that extra costs in chasing payment eat away at all the profit and do not return your own expenses in doing the job.

Part payment should be normal in advance on first orders. In my experience as a publisher, most book printers now work on half payment in advance and the rest before the finished job is despatched. One large printer told me recently that is what saved them in the recent global difficulties.

Faced with such payment terms from printers I can understand that some publishers will be trying to delay payments to other suppliers ... will you be one of those?

Why is debt supposed to be good?

Why is debt supposed to be good? I had an accounts program for my business once which would warn me, whenever I did a "health check" on the business, that my level of debt in comparison to capital was "below an acceptable ratio". I did not take any action at that time, but have since noticed that the software company is now out of business. Debt is not necessarily bad, but there does seem to have been an assumption leading up to the present crisis that companies should have debt to optimise their profits. Now many of those businesses which had followed that trend are scurrying to replace debt with capital. I had four mailings from companies last week suggesting how I could benefit from buying additional shares in various lots from $500 to $10,000. They seem to have discovered that it takes only 100 small shareholders with $10,000 each to give them a million, 10,000 to give them a billion. One even suggested that I might like to reinvest dividends in new shares -- something I used to do but which most companies had stopped offering, presumably feeling that all those little transactions were not worth bothering with when they could go out to world investment banks and funds to borrow. I have to disappoint them. I started slowly converting from shares to cash around two years ago and am not planning to go back just yet. However, I am still reinvesting dividends with those companies where I have kept shares following the basic principle that Warren Buffett espoused of buying shares only if you'd want to buy the company if only you had enough money. But what of the smaller business? Basic principles remain as they always have. If you can buy something and then sell it for more and cover the total of your costs, including your own living costs, then you have a good business. Whether it is a market stall, an agency, a magazine, a newspaper or whatever, then a good business will survive. Some may have to adapt, but, for example, I continue to puzzle over why people will spend hundreds of dollars on a coffee maker for their own kitchen when for that they can buy hundreds of expertly made espressos and cappuccinos from friendly locals in their own high street. When families do not have the funds or security to go on an overseas holiday, they may well spend more on a coffee and cake and the occasional meal at a local bistro. And a business which starts now, offering goods and services which people want, will be ready to show its expertise when the good times return. That is, provided the business does not borrow beyond its means. Debt is for use when money is needed short term, such as for a new commercial coffee machine which will immediately boost daily turnover, or for other equipment or even premises which will continue to have a value greater than the amount borrowed. Just as a home mortgage remains a good debt provided you can meet the repayments and know that at worst you can sell up and have enough for the rental deposit on an alternative place to live, then debt is good for business if it is kept within similar bounds and you still make a profit after paying the interest charges. I mention in one of my books the colleague who sold his car replacing it with a new one on lease in order to get cash back to buy a piece of equipment. And that was someone who had worked in the finance and banking industry... who obviously did not know the difference between good and bad debt.