The present job situation sucks. That sucking sound may create an opportunity
for a person who is smart enough to turn it to his or her advantage. Smart has nothing to do with how much
education you have. In the course of my
life I have met people with college degrees who were not smart enough to pour
piss out of a boot. Even if the
directions were written on the sole of the boot. Steve Jobs was one of the richest men in the
world and he was a college drop out.
Another of the richest men in the world was John D. Rockefeller. A story I heard about him sort of says it
all. He had never gone to higher
schooling but was a genius at business and marketing. Supposedly one time he was touring one of his
refineries and had some of his new employees with him. One of the employees took the opportunity to
beat his own drum by stating, "Mr. Rockefeller I recently graduated from
Harvard before coming to work for you.
May I ask where you graduated from?" Mr. Rockefeller looked at him and stated.
"'Son I did not have time to go to college. I was too busy creating you a job."
Business is often about knowing how and
when to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself. I was a high school dropout who went into
the Army. However after leaving the
service I understood the value of an education. My high school and first year of college
were finished via the GED program. Being
somewhat older and knowing what I wanted to do, which was be self-employed I
took courses that furthered my goals and did not necessarily follow the
prescribed curriculum. I have an
associate degree in business and one in recreation and leisure services with
the balance of my hours in commercial art.
The management degree was of course to understand management. My goal in
the rest of my classes was to make playground equipment, the rough timber kind,
and to be able to do my own advertisement.
I worked my way through college tending bar, doing yard work and
landscaping with a little bit of commercial tree trimming to make ends
meet. My education ended in the middle
of one of the worst recessions since the great depression. At least until this
one came along. This meant it was a dead
job market. So I created my own
business. I did part time work for a local
mobile home dealer and managed to turn it into a very lucrative business. I did mobile home repairs and service and
also expanded into building wooden decks which were the rage at the time. It was not that I was that smart, but I saw a
need and met it. That is half the
secret of getting a job in hard times. The job eventually went belly up. Not because of a lack of business. It was a combination of two other
problems. One was not managing my money
and too much celebrating of my success.
The other and more critical was being to honest.
Long story, short my celebrating caused
me to get a divorce. Then I went to the
bank to restructure my debt so I could pay all my bills on my own. My whole story was poured out to the loan
officer, who I thought of as a friend. I
had never missed a payment and over a couple of years had built up a $15,000
line of credit. This made me able to go
in and get the money just based on my signature. It was always on 90 day notes, which was no
problem. My system was to go out and
take orders. Then get a check to pay cash and get a major discount on my
materials. The stuff was already sold on
contract. It was just a matter of going
out doing the work. My system was to
mark up the materials, add in my labor and then when it was all done take the
bank its share and pay off the note and pocket the difference. This habit later came back to haunt me, as I
had a run in with the IRS over three years of back taxes. Never fear the IRS,
they will work with you and set a payment plan you can afford. Just believe me if you do nothing else, pay
your taxes. In all the time I ran my
business, there was never a late payment.
That is how my credit line grew from the original $1000 to $15,000.
A
couple days after the meeting with the loan officer I had an order
inbound. As usual I went to the bank to
get my money to pay the delivery truck driver which was how my contract was set
up. It was a cash only business. The girl at the counter informed me my line
of credit had been closed smiled. There was a little bit of irony to that
situation. I used to go in and get my money in my normal attire which was a
biker denim cut off. When I was going to see the loan officer I always wore a
suit and she was always sweet and nice. I don’t think she ever figured that the
biker and I were the same person. I
asked to see the loan officer and he told me he made the decision based on the
fact I was getting divorced. He no
longer felt I was credit worthy and cut me off.
His actions literally put me out of business. My half truck load of supplies were on the
back of the truck and the driver had to return two hundred fifty miles to Nashville,
Tennessee and unload my order so he could get to the remaining orders on the
truck. My supplier cut me off over that
screw up. Having never missed a payment
or being late I was suddenly out of business.
A small note about justice...The bank later went out of business and the
loan officer started his own business and he went bankrupt. There is justice in the world. Sometimes you have to wait awhile to see
it. It has to do with reaping what you
sow.
There were a couple of lessons learned from
all of this. First never, never ever
give a bank any more information than you absolutely have to. Keep your cards and your problem to
yourself. Know what the bank wants to
hear and say it in a way that makes them happy.
Generally you will get what you want.
They want to make money and "that is all that matters to
them." As long as you present
yourself well you will get what you want.
I know this is true because later in my self-employment career I used
that system to balance my books more than once.
If the banks had known what to look for and had paid attention they
would have known I was totally over extended, but I played the system and
won. The second thing I learned was
that you should never mix your private life with business and never, ever let
your bad habits guide your business decisions.
Had I known more and not had my vision obscured by my bad habits I would
never have gone to that loan officer. My
business was seasonal and what I should have done was used my credit line and
resources to develop other enterprises to carry me through the off season. The resources were available to me. It was my own incompetence that cost me. Not properly using every advantage you have
available to you will cost you in the long run.
Budgeting also can cost you. Just
because money seems to be flowing like water does not mean that the well will
not slow down or go dry. If it does you
have to understand and know how to turn the water back on. You can only do that if you are totally
focused and bad habits tend to make you very unfocused. No matter how smart you think you are the
system changes and so does what is needed to survive.
This is the first of several posts I will
be doing on how to start your own business.
The topics will be. Finding Your
Idea, Getting a Loan, Staying In Business.
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