Money

Some children who are careful with their limited pocket money decide to get an ice cream. They join the queue and wait patiently for their turn to be served. One of them drops theirs on the floor and is swindled by fate.

Are you interested in making money, big money? I am going to give you a list of reasons why you won’t succeed, and it won’t have anything to do with luck, or the fact that you have come from a deprived family. The most offensive comment some monkeys make about the well-off is to say they were lucky. Lucky that they had to study instead of enjoying lots of nights out on the town. Lucky to endure a long period of time earning very little. A doctor could spend seven years studying and then years learning the ropes on the job before getting a salary to compensate. Good fortune, serendipity and hustler’s luck mentioned in the Laura section may come into it, but luck no, not really. You may get lucky with your third attempt, your third business. You may fail over and over learning as you go. Some will strike lucky first time, but very few will get their first business to work well enough to become rich. Most fail, fail and fail again before they hit on something good and get the formula right. I see it like throwing dice. You want a six but are unlikely to get that six first time. However, each time you throw it, it gets easier because the dice changes. The lower numbers get removed and replaced by bigger ones in effect because of what you have learnt.

If you anticipate life as a businessman is going to be wonderful, think again. It can be good, but for most it is a long hard grind. You like flowers and have dreams of spending all day arranging them. You think about all the people that will come to get bouquets for birthdays and celebrations. Hence, you set up a florist. However, the reality kicks in when you spend most of your time dealing with complaints, miss-deliveries, fraud, theft, tax accounting, administration, advertising and getting technology to work as desired. The actual amount of time you have, to be hands on with the flowers themselves gets less and less to the point of zero if the company gets large. The headaches and levels of commitment reached are near impossible to envisage until you are in the thick of it. Some wonder why they went down that path when they could have had a sheltered life working for someone else.

Sacrifice, sacrifice and more sacrifice is the only way. Not much time for the kids, partner or meddling with the décor of your house. Forget about working 9 to 5. You are unlikely to get anywhere unless you work 9 to 5 and evenings and weekends for a good few years. Lots have used their evenings and weekends to build a business, prove that it is viable before resigning from their stable day job. I semi-retired quite early so there was a payoff for all those years of commitment. The stress takes a toll though. Stress makes you ill. Believe me it can make you unwell in peculiar ways. In the long run it is worth it, and money gives you choices and freedoms like nothing else. Happiness though will evade you if you believe that money is everything. It is not.

Most are unwilling to put in the hard work and sacrifice needed to become rich. In a way that is useful to those that want more. If everyone were rich, nobody would be rich. Wealth is relative. If a taxi driver who used to charge 20 for a typical trip came into a fortune and had millions in the bank, I doubt they would continue to charge the same amount. If they like everyone else was equally rich, they would raise the fares to 2000 to make it worthwhile. If we all had piles of money, then we would want more for our services. Although some may continue to drive for the fun of it, on the whole people would sit back and relax and maybe explore other non-money-making adventures. It only counts if you have more and can therefore afford to offload all the menial jobs to others who are willing to be paid comparatively small sums.

Reason two for your failure will be none other than hiding from the truth. You will not examine your profitability properly. You will do anything bar examine the numbers. Some of the things you sell will be making a loss when all costs are taken into account. Some things you think are worth doing aren’t. Whilst you are selling something for 40 and making 2 you could have been using that time to sell something else for 40 and make 6. If you offer a good service that people want, profits will follow. That is for sure, but no one can keep losing ad infinitum. I found myself revaluating what I was doing. I was absorbed by mending and selling small clocks for 5. Lots of them. Then it dawned on me that I could mend items worth 50 in the same time as that of the cheap clocks. The scale of profits was so different. I could make 10 per item rather than 2. Whether it is low margin – high volume or a small number of sales but huge margin, those that succeed scrutinise what they are doing.

So not only will you cower from the commitment, ignore the reality, and refuse to close a futile business or morph it into something else, but you will be one of those that will talk it to death and do very little. We must shift from endless talk into endless action. It is much better to have some negative input and continue despite it. You will have people advising against your scheme. That is not a bad thing. It can be worse having lots say it is a good idea and not point out the problems. Either way, get on with it.

There is only one rule in business; get others to do the hard work.

Delegate. Many do well, but not really well. They fail to get others making money for them. Your workers will do things a little different to you and you will find that unacceptable. It does not matter if they are a bit slower. So long as they get the job done and they make you money that is fine. Micromanage at your peril. I put as many things in place as possible to ensure workers could not make mistakes. However, tolerance and a degree of flexibility is paramount. They do the overwhelming amount of the graft, whilst you deliver the tiny but vital craft. Many of us are good craftsmen but deny being ropey managers. They need a small amount of money and lots of credit and praise. You are not there to be liked. Your workers are not your friends. Remember as said in the section Children, we like the strict teachers the most. Even adults need boundaries. Get that right and a good working relationship will come about.

Clear hierarchies work best, always. A collaboration with like-minded people who all share in the profits can be appealing. It works for some. However, you need to contend with a lot of politics and find people that are as self-motivated as you. That is not easy in every industry. To add to your woes, will you ensure everyone in the supply chain is not subjected to what you consider to be, exploitation? Somewhere along the line, some group will not feel the same level of benefits that your success brings you.

Going without, then going without some more. This will separate the donkeys from the racehorses. Your partner wants the kitchen renovated and four holidays a year. In time you can, but beforehand money is king. Money makes money, new furniture does not. I liken it to a farmer. She plants a tree and waits for it to fruit. Then she sells the fruit. She spends the proceeds. Her neighbour plants more trees instead. Her neighbour ends up with so much fruit she has no idea what to do with it. What we go without today comes back tenfold in time. It is not complicated. You don’t need to be a wizard who invents something. We can simply find a market and operate in it. Maybe we can do it better, do it in a better location or just be more diligent.

To summarise, think of what service/business/product you are going to offer. Put a plan in place. Implement it. It is nothing more than that. The plan will invariably overestimate the number of sales and underestimate the hidden costs. The plan will probably aim too low. If you aim to make 1,000,000 and make half that, that it is better than aiming to make 100,000 and making half of that. Has the plan considered the realistic maximum potential? Can it be expanded? Can you use the power of duplication? Are you just messing about?

Those that end up wealthy have a different mentality to the peasants. Even the poorest of the poor could save a small percentage of what they receive to gradually build an investment pot. However, the attraction of spending what they have for the needs of today overrides the potential for longer-term prosperity.

One might question what all the work is for though, if you end up too old and worn out to enjoy it. Unless you truly get more pleasure from work than play then you could be fooling yourself. When on the entrepreneurial road we are investing in the future. However, a good few become blighted by too great a workload. Some are not able to resist that extra deal, to make even more money which may be surplus to requirement in hindsight.