Shrugging Off

A Drive to Achieve Is NOT Greed

2008-01-31T03:46:00.001-08:00

Let us concede for the moment that at times something that might look like greed can help us do good things, after we have given up any semblance of being greedy. Greed in and of itself is not good. That is a lie that has been repeated so often that a lot of people now believe it.

Mantras work that way. They wear grooves in our brains that then feed us an answer every time we ask ourselves a question. While chanting the mantra; “Greed is good,” minions of many big companies have looted and defaced our society and economy. If you think greed is good then you should applaud the former leaders of such giant failures as Enron and even Citibank today.

The reason the leaders of those companies failed their employees, shareholders and customers and even the public at large is simple. It lies in the fact that they freed up their greed at the expense of their good sense. Any idiot could have seen that what they were doing was not sustainable. Greed blinds us to the consequences of our actions.

The drive to achieve something substantial is not the same as greed. It can easily be misconstrued as greed by people with a faulty moral compass. But the drive to achieve is never greed; it is simply embracing the hope of doing something meaningful with our life.

Hope is a funny thing. It uplifts us and makes us strive to be better in some way. In the end what we make of ourselves is our own greatest creation. A case in point is a person I once knew. We will call him Larry for the moment.

Larry had a father and mother. Most of us do when we start out. His mom died of something we used to call sleeping sickness. That was a disease spread by mosquitoes and rare where Larry lived. He was seven years old when she died. His dad drank a lot of alcohol before that happened and abused Larry a bit.

By current standards most people did some tough things to their kids in those years. They were not the best of times, a depression was raging and many families were stretched as badly as they are today. After his mother died Larry got a lot more abuse and a lot less love.

Larry grew up fighting for his space in the world. When he was a young man he learned that love was hard to hang onto but precious. He married early and went into the business of drilling water wells. That was the family business and he made it more successful in his first ten years at the helm than it had ever been.

He married a kind and gentle woman who was tough as a good file. She worked on his rough edges and he became even more successful. Then the oil boom hit and he bought an oil drilling rig and made some real money. Those were pretty good years.

He still bore the scars of his father’s abuse but he learned a lot of things over the years. Forgiveness was one of them. Larry reached middle age and he had outstripped his peers in financial success and happiness. He was still unsatisfied. Money was nice but he wanted to do something that made a difference.

He hunted as a hobby. He even made a trip to Africa and Hunted Big Game there. While he was there he met some people who were trying to build wells that could provide clean water to rural villages. He helped them a little before he went back.

His wife came along with him to see Africa and she fell in love with the people. They went back to the town where they had always lived and looked around. Their kids were grown. The town was doing OK everyone in their families was doing just fine. They had a lot of money and were restless with all of that free time.

So they contacted the people that they had met in Africa who were trying to drill wells and provide clean water to people. They signed up to help and brought their own equipment and support system along with them.

They are still there and still working to improve the lives of people that are suffering from poverty that most of us cannot imagine. Larry would be about eighty or so today but he is still working hard physically and loves it.

Every once and a while they come back for a few days to see old friends and family members. The last time I saw him Larry told me something I had never heard him say before.

“The people who need me the most are the ones that keep me going. Those are the children who give their love without any restraint or selfish reason. I used to think my childhood was bad. They suffer losses that I could not have imagined and keep on smiling. If you want to find unselfish people then just go where I have been and look at those kids.”

That came from the heart of a man who had what most of us would consider a horrible childhood. The world can use any amount of good we want to do in our lives. Greed is no part of doing good; not now, not ever.

This is Your Brain on Drugs

2008-01-29T06:32:00.001-08:00

If you really want to screw up any chance you have of succeeding then drink alcohol take drugs and stop exercising. Your body may be in pain some of the time. We all have more days like that as we age. Learn how to deal with it without drugs if you want to succeed.

At thirty I could move concrete using a loaded scoop shovel ten hours a day. I almost never hurt and could live on four to five hours of sleep. I was lucky to have that much energy. Few people actually start with that capacity for physical work. You don’t need that to succeed.

Working at the computer for a few hours burns up enough energy to tire me these days. Part of that is the fact that I am fighting to lose quite a few pounds. I stopped exercising for a long while and gained too much weight. Part of it is also related to my age, I am in my mid-sixties.

I am working with a doctor who has told me in straight terms what is going to happen if I don’t lose the weight and exercise. It is not a pretty picture. This is simply a cautionary tale by someone who knows by sad experience. I can tell you what age and even the simple drug of too much food can do to you.

I can also tell you horror stories about entrepreneurs who made some money and bought into the idea that drugs could improve their lives. I’m sure that you can probably tell me a few more. Success is great. Handling it can be hard. Never getting there in the first place is tragic.

Nutrition is vital and good food in moderation is part of the recipe for success. Don’t hesitate to spend money on good food. Do not pick up the fast food habit as a way of saving time. If you doubt how bad that can be for you read “Supersize Me.”

There are lots of good ways to learn about proper nutrition for managing a life of stress. Health is one of the cornerstones of success in business. Some people are so brilliant that they get there without taking care of their health. Don’t try to imitate them!!! They never really get to enjoy it for long.

Lust and Loneliness

2008-01-28T03:03:00.001-08:00

It is a major joke on Human Beings that nature eventually takes away the ability but seldom removes the urge. A lot of men and some women crash and burn over sex. That is a human constant that has been around forever.

I remember a time when nothing was more urgent than finding a woman who would use and abuse me. So do most other men. I can say from observation that the same is likely true of women. There are no human drives more compelling than the urge to procreate. Not that the child is the point of all that effort in most cases.

Even people who are old enough to know better get caught up in that little trap. A grand old case in point was a fellow I knew when I was a lot younger. Swede was a big guy and he looked like he moved slow because he was so massive. When he was young a lot of fellows made the mistake of believing those surface appearances.

There were two things that could make Swede move fast; money and a good looking woman. By the time I met him he was well on his way to old fart status. He was also the proud owner of a lot of stock in some of the fastest growing companies around. Swede had never been a brawler. If he hit someone they stayed down to avoid repeating that experience. He was so big it was stunning. I saw him push a truck that was stuck in the snow uphill twenty feet over the crest of a hill. He made the truck look small.

Women liked Swede and he returned the favor. He was married but that never slowed down his libido one iota. His wife was a woman a lot younger then him. She once said, “My friends and sisters all agree that Swede needs to be shared. I don’t mind, there’s certainly enough to go around.”

She of course didn’t mean his money. She protected her hold on that part of Swede more carefully than any of his more intimate parts. She was an eminently practical gal. Swede was 16 going on seventy five when he finally put his big paw in the wrong honey pot.

He must have known that the hard facts of living with a big body that had a pretty thick layer of fat by then. He had always been on the obese side of huge. By the time he was nearing retirement he had already passed the three fifty mark. He was well on his way to four hundred at this point in time.

There were probably a more than a few little Swedes that never knew their papa by then. He had been spreading around his bounty for a long time. He was usually careful to only make his carnal appetites known to married women. He figured that was safer than trying out some untested model.

Swede owned a business besides all of that stock. His business was a great little bar where he met a ton of women. They were his only hobby; he didn’t have time for another.

He hired a new waitress. A tiny little woman with some outsized assets above her waist. I could be talking about her brain you know. A few of us speculated about how they managed the process. Not in front of Swede you understand. He tolerated no disrespect of his “girls,” as he always called them. We took it for granted that there was only one reason he hired her.

Then his problems started. She was jealous and possessive and vindictive in addition to being cute as hell and as sexy as a succubus. She even actually managed to anger his wife by turning up at his house and watching for signs that he had taken up with another woman.

The gal in question was not only single but she was going to law school. She had nearly finished when Swede came into her life. She graduated and passed the bar shortly after he hired her. Then his eye actually wandered and she noticed.

The sexual harassment suit was no joke. We all laughed but Swede actually cried when she served the papers on him. He felt so betrayed. The mess was too much for the old boy. In the middle of it all he had a heart attack. He lived but his libido took the final insult seriously. He was never the same after that.

He settled the suit and the paternity suit that sealed his fate. At seventy five he was about to be a proud poppa again. The little lady had trapped him good. He paid for a lot of his sins all at once. It cost him a lot of money and his sex drive and his marriage before it was over.

He finally sold the bar and retired to a warmer climate. He spent most of his time sitting on the beach reminiscing about his life before he lost his lust. That was no fun for a man of action like Swede.

Carry on No Matter What Happens

2008-01-22T08:56:00.001-08:00

I am certain that there must be an entrepreneur somewhere that had everything go along exactly as planned. I’ve never met that person but I’m sure that they must exist.

The type of small business developer that I have always met is more like me. They have had to adjust to almost any change that comes along and carry on like nothing really happened. While cases of this abound we’ll use Phil to illustrate this particular point.

Phil loved sports. He was a jock of no small accomplishment himself. He hung out with others who also loved to grunt and get dirty together in pursuit of nothing serious. He worked for years as a fireman and saved his money to buy his dream, a sporting goods store.

Now Phil was a guy who believed in manly arts. He boxed and played softball and hockey in the winter. He had been an all star hockey player in high school. He even went to Notre Dame on a hockey scholarship but grew homesick and left after one year.

Eventually Phil met his match. He found a woman who wanted to own a business and married her. They put together their resources and started a small sporting goods store in a building near the high school that Phil attended.

Phil kept his job as a fireman. That turned out to be a good thing. The storefront they had chosen had some hidden liabilities. Some old wiring was hidden from the inspectors under a plasterboard facade. Phil never noticed it nor did any of the other people who should have caught it.

The store opened with a great promotion. One of the local professional hockey greats agreed to make an appearance. That same week Phil had scheduled visits from the local baseball announcer and a couple of other notable sports figures.

That night, after the grand opening, the gremlin in the store worked late. Phil was off duty but heard sirens off in the direction of the school. The store was burning merrily when he drove up. I know he had to feel despair at that point. But Phil carried on with a little help from his friends.

The publicity around the fire made a lot of people aware of Phil’s new business and what had happened. A local TV station put together a real nice story about the destruction of Phil’s lifelong dream. The local newspaper also gave Phil a lot of good press.

Phil put up a big tent in the parking lot the next day and moved all of the water and smoke damaged stuff that was recoverable into the tent. He held a fire sale and sold a lot of the remains of his stock.

The insurance paid for rebuilding the store and a part of the cost of replacing all of the thousands of dollars of really ruined stock.

Phil’s friends took up a collection, held a couple of sporting events and got together enough of a bundle to pay for the rest of the replacement stock. Phil was back in business within a few weeks. Everyone knew where his store was because of the fire.

Today Phil and his wife are retired. Their son still runs the store and has expanded it to four new locations around town. He’s a fireman in his spare time. I guess you could say he’s a chip off the old jock.

Borrowed Time / Borrowed Money (Part 2)

2008-01-17T08:59:00.001-08:00

When we left Randy he had assembled five hundred thousand dollars in available credit on new credit cards. After all, he just needed to borrow money for twenty five days and then he would be able to pay it back from his incoming cash flow. He was borrowing time, not money.

The cycle proceeded as planned for a few months. He was paying very little interest on his loans via credit card and things looked pretty good. Then he got one whopping order from a government agency. He had been working on that order for a year. Man did he feel great when he got the order.

The amount of the total order was eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He figured out that he would net nearly half of that after all costs were paid. Then he got another order for over five hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment from the state government.

When he got the funds from those two orders he was going to be in clover. The sea of green money was all around him and he felt vindicated for all of his hard work. He ordered the equipment from his vendors and waited for the shipments to arrive.

When they got in his technical staff loaded the operating systems and put all of the software that had been ordered in the boxes. Then he shipped the goods for both orders within a week of one another.

Randy sat back and waited for the money to arrive. The federal client informed him that they had ordered a different version of the operating system and were rejecting the shipment until he could provide it to them. He negotiated a deal to reload the software at their location and sent his techs out to take care of that.

It took them a week to get that done. But that was no real disaster. The clock was still ticking on the receivables in Randy’s mind. After twenty more days the funds to pay his vendors came due and Randy paid them using the credit cards.

He was stretched to the max on all of his lines of credit. Then he got a letter from the government stating that the systems had a smaller amount of memory than was specified in the purchase order. Again they were rejecting the order.

He got his techs on the phone and they ordered the memory modules needed to upgrade the PCs in question. That took another ten days to fix. Meanwhile Randy was starting to sweat. His regular clients were waiting for their orders so he ordered a batch of systems to fill that requirement.

By now he was beginning to feel the cold winds of time passing on his neck. The pressure was mounting.

Then he heard from the state. They had a problem with several of the PCs that had been shipped to them. They wanted him to correct the issue which was a power supply problem before they would release funds to pay for the order. That was going to take two weeks to fix.

At this point Randy was totally freaked out. He had no more credit to use. His company was unraveling before his eyes just when it should be prospering. He called on a friend who offered this consolation. “Well Randy, you just hit the wall.”

A few of the people who knew Randy were trying to solve his problem by the next week. A finance guy at IBM finally helped him get a cash infusion from a hard money lender.

By the time the interest on that loan was paid Randy’s net take on those two huge orders was less than one quarter of what it could have been. Randy’s company survived but he remained constrained by his cash flow and had to cut back on growth.

His credit card companies then started to raise the interest rates on his cards. He had gone past due on payments on a couple of them. The limits got lowered and his problems with finance grew.

By the time it was over Randy had to sell a controlling interest in his company to a cash source that sucked most of the value out of it over a couple of years. Randy went back to work at IBM for a while.

Then he started another company. This time he pulled together funding sources before he got stretched out too far by his success. He’s retired now and lives in a grand house on the seashore. He made a lot of money in that second company. But he still shakes his head when he thinks about using credit cards to finance his first business.

Borrowed Time / Borrowed Money (Part 1)

2008-01-16T06:29:00.001-08:00

If as we have so often read and heard in the recent past, “Time is money,” then borrowing money is the same as borrowing time. This can be true and should help you guide yourself as to when to borrow money and when you should not do so.

Money is a useful tool for developing business. I have never met an entrepreneur that didn’t have a use for more of it than they had at the moment. That said, inappropriate borrowing can cause a whole lot of trouble for the unwary.

Most businesses that are started these days are funded by a combination of savings and credit card debt. Credit Cards are not a good way to finance your new business. They may be the only way you have available but they are still a bad option.

Let’s talk about a fellow named Randy for a bit and see if the point does not become clearer. Randy had a big appetite for success. He had sold a lot of high end computer systems in his sales job at IBM. His income was in the six figure range and not the low six figure range.

When the PC (Personal Computer, not Politically Correct) revolution came along he saw an opportunity that could not be resisted. He left IBM with his reputation and bridges all intact in case he had to return to the old market.

Randy started his own Personal Computer sales organization. At first he sold only IBM PCs but he soon saw the way the market was developing would require him to do more than that. He sold PCs in large numbers and needed a large credit line to finance his purchases from all of his potential vendors.

IBM offered a credit facility that supported his purchases for thirty days. After that he needed to pay off that line. His other vendors gave him the same terms but for smaller amounts.

The problem Randy had was the period beyond thirty days until his clients paid for the equipment that they received. That could be as long as sixty days more. He was caught in a classic credit crunch.

Randy went to the bank where his accounts were held and asked them if they could offer him a line of credit. He had several large accounts receivable to offer as collateral. The bank officer shrugged and told him that his business was too new to qualify for a credit line.

Randy was pretty blunt at this point. He said that the bank was useless to him and that he was going to look for a more accommodating lender. The bank VP only smiled and said, Good Luck” Then he offered Randy a large balance credit card to help with his short term cash flow needs.

Randy perked up and took the bait. He filled out the application. Then he went home and collected every credit card application that he had received in the mail that year. He assembled eight of them, filled them all out and waited a short time to get all of his new cards.

When he was done he had assembled five hundred thousand dollars in credit cards. A large sum but not unmanageable if he was careful. His cash flow was running twenty five days behind his payment requirements at that point.

In plain English he needed to borrow money for twenty five days and then he would be able to pay it back from his incoming cash flow. He was borrowing time, not money.

Fear is NOT Your Friend

2008-01-15T06:45:00.001-08:00

Fear is not your friend. Feeling secure is an illusion but a useful one. Stress can kill you and fear creates stress. So how do you manage to feel secure while taking chances that could lead to either success or financial ruin?

It is genuinely a good thing when an entrepreneur understands the risks that they all have to take. There is no risk free way to success. Anyone selling the idea that their method will get you to prosperity without any risk is selling an attractive fantasy.

The world outside of our mind is beyond our control. The ability to take advantage of changes in our environment is what has made human beings the dominant life form on the planet. Growing comfortable with change is vital for anyone starting a business.

The recycling business is one case in point. If you look around you will see a lot of waste. This society is so rich that it wastes a lot of resources. This is not a sermon about waste. The point is that those wasted resources can be recovered and generate a profit if you know how to take advantage of them.

Tom was a guy who never worried much about where he lived as long as he had a car. He would sleep in the car if he had to but a lot of options existed. He found part time jobs where the rent on his living space was low or nonexistent.

Tom never had much doubt that he could make enough money to get by. He didn’t need a lot of cash. He liked simple food and drinking was not a problem for him. He would take pretty much any kind of liquor and convert it into a happy feeling.

Tom wasn’t exactly fearless but he had nothing much to lose. His only concern was that he might lose his car.

Tom noticed that a lot of bottles were going out of the back door of his favorite bar. There was a small deposit paid on each of them when they were bought by the establishment. He thought about it for a few days then he decided to take advantage of the opportunity.

He found a large unused lot in a low rent part of town with a fence around it. He rented the lot and put a lock on the gate. He then started collecting the bottles from all of the bars in that part of town. He found a broken trailer and bought it for twenty bucks.

Tom fixed the trailer up with the necessary lights to make it street legal. He used it to haul his bottles to the local recycling center. Viola, Tom had created a business. He was the middleman in the waste stream.

Years later Tom owned several warehouses and a junkyard. He had never married but there were several children in the neighborhood that looked suspiciously like him. His life was still pretty stress free. He never suffered from much fear because all he ever needed was his car.

Need defines fear. Need creates fear. Need and stress are two sides of the same coin. If you want to avoid fear keep your needs simple. Tom told me after all those years of building his business that he was still happiest when he was in his car going someplace.

Oh yeah, and today his diesel Mercedes runs on waste oil from restaurants and bars. It smells a little like French fries but he still loves it.

It IS So Simple, Just Don’t Do It!

2008-01-14T05:05:00.001-08:00

Every person that ever built a life around owning their own company has had to make a lot of choices. If you have trouble making decisions quickly then work at learning to do that. It will stand you in good stead in your life as an entrepreneur. One of the choices is often to sue or not to sue.

I have watched a lot of people screw up their best chance for a good life by making a wrong decision about that issue. I have also watched destruction follow a failure to make any decision just as swiftly and certainly.

Learning when to be decisive and when to let things ride is a real asset in the game of running your own life. If you get good enough at helping the right things resolve themselves without drastic action you will only need to be decisive when it really counts.

I had an old friend, let’s call him Harry for now. Harry was a past master at not paying the bills he acquired. Harry had a lot of money but he hated paying for anything. I went on a trip with him once and watched as he ran up a bill at the hotel that seemed very substantial at the time. When it came time to check out and rejoin the real world Harry left early in the morning.

This was in the days before instant credit checks were part of the society. He had paid a bit on the bill the day we checked in and left a credit card number that had no available credit line left. When the hotel submitted the bill to the card company it was refused.

The hotel called me as I was in the same party with Harry and a couple of lady friends. They asked nicely if I knew how they could reach Harry. I gave them his phone number and forgot about the issue.

A month later I was looking at my credit card bill and found Harry’s bill on my account. I called the hotel and told them I had no interest in paying for the deadbeat’s good time. The hotel manager apologized and offered to take it off my account. Harry had apparently told him I would settle the bill for him.

Harry owed me a small batch of money by then and I thought that maybe I could collect it easier than the hotel. I made a deal with the manager for a substantial discount any time I used their hotel and left the bill on my card.

Then I called Harry and told him that his money had arrived. He said what money, in the voice that only his friends knew meant he was worried. I said that I had remembered a ten buck bet we had made, a little white lie, and that I had the cash to pay him. I told him he better come get it while it was still in my possession.

One of my best drinking buddies was a detective on the unit that investigated fraud. I told him to come over that night and we would play some cards while having a little fun with Harry. He had been burned by Harry in the past and thought it would be fun to get him back a little.

Harry came in the door and four of us were sitting there playing cards. Of course Harry wanted to join in but he needed a loan. I sent him down to the store with a check of mine and he came back ready to play. Everybody there was in on the deal. We cold decked Harry all night long. He never won a hand.

At the end of the night we all took checks from Harry for what he owed us. The amount he owed me came out to slightly more than the hotel bill and the other money he owed me. I put it in the bank and waited for it to bounce. It did.

Then I called Chuck, the detective and said, “How’s your check from Harry working out?” He told me his had bounced too. We gathered all four of the checks together and they made a total amount over the limit for larceny by check in those days.

Then Chuck took out a bench warrant for Harry’s arrest on a charge of grand larceny by issuing bad checks. We went over to his house to collect him or the money. Harry was not really happy to see us. He tried one ploy after another to get out of paying us the total amount of the checks.

That part was the most fun, Harry was really sweating. He knew Chuck didn’t love him. Finally he went to the stash he always had in his house and bought back all of the checks. Chuck tore up the warrant and we left with our money. We laughed over that one for years.

The deal I made with the hotel paid off too. I saved thousands of dollars for myself and my clients over the next several years by using that discount. That was a lot more fun than suing Harry. And I never had to pay an attorney. Don’t sue if you can avoid it. Try any other way you can think of before you do that as long as it is legal.

Finding Joy in Being Patient

2008-01-10T05:11:00.001-08:00

A startlingly simple way to be comfortable with living like an entrepreneur is to use patience to approach the process. Building a business is a process. Rushing it is possible but exceedingly stressful. To illustrate this point it is appropriate that we call upon Joy’s experience in building her restaurant business.

Joy was a girl who liked men. She never really felt like she needed to own one as long as there were a few loose ones around her. She always attracted more than her share of loose characters. In all the time I knew her that never got in her way. In fact she turned it into an asset. Joy was half owner in a small beer joint when I met her. She had tried marrying the guy who owned the other half but that had lasted a really short time. He was now a silent partner in the business. She let him drink there as long as he kept his mouth shut.

Joy liked to cook but her kitchen in the bar was limited to a small grill and a microwave that worked part of the time. She decided to do something about that problem. It took her a couple of years to figure out how to do that. She talked about remodeling the bar for that long before she took action.

When she noticed a project going on in a nearby restaurant she moved into high gear. Joy went down the street to where they were taking out all of their old equipment. She bought all of the used stuff up for a few bucks. We all helped her move it into her little back room. Then two of her customers put it all together for her. That took months. Joy was patient.

When the kitchen was finished she could just turn around in it. The permits in those days were handled more informally. The health inspector was happy enough to pass her changes without much fuss. She kept things clean and made a nice meal or two for him to show how nicely the whole thing worked. He took to hanging out there with the rest of us. At least he did until his wife found out about his new habit and cured him of it. I don’t know how she did that; but whatever she did it worked.

Joy now had her kitchen. But the bar was too small for the number of tables she needed to make it pay really well. The little bakery next door was owned by an older couple. Joy was patient. She wanted that space for her next expansion.

A couple of years later the couple finally decided to give up getting up at three in the morning to do their baking. Joy cajoled the landlord into fixing it up for her. There was just enough space for her new dining room. That took a few months. Around then she applied for a full liquor license. Her silent partner couldn’t afford to put up his share of the cost for expanding so he took a smaller share in the new operation. Eventually she bought him out entirely. Joy was patient.

Today Joy owns a restaurant that seats three hundred people. Her employees include her former partner and a couple of her former customers from the beer joint days. Joy still likes to keep a few spare men around in case she needs one for something. But then Joy is still really, really patient.

Never Get in a Bidding War

2008-01-09T07:00:00.001-08:00

It is often possible to acquire some very valuable parts of businesses at auction or a real going out of business sale. I have several acquaintances that stocked their new restaurants with equipment that they nearly stole from failed businesses. The thing about buying your equipment on the used market is to really know what it would cost you to buy the same stuff new. Before you go to a sale of used equipment get the prices of what you need from more than one new equipment supplier. Then, armed with real knowledge you can go out into the real world and find what you are looking for from ten to thirty percent of the cost of new stuff. Never buy new when used will do. And never, ever, ever get in a bidding war at an auction.

I had a friend in the used farm equipment business. He used to live off money he made from what he bought at auctions. We’ll call him Sam for the time being. Sam had a long history of buying equipment at auctions all over the five states around the upper Midwest. He squeezed nickels until the buffalo had a bowel movement. Sam was in fact the cheapest guy I knew for many years.

He had a few rivals in the used equipment business. He always got to auctions a couple of days before the bidding started. He always tried to buy up the cherries before his rivals got there. Sometimes that worked. When it didn’t he had a few tricks. He carried a squeeze bottle of hydraulic fluid and would leave a little on places where a leak could be costly. He also had a little bag of metal shavings to make it look like a shaft was grinding itself up. He sometimes carried a bag of metal rust to spread out on a shiny part so it looked like it had been mistreated.

Sam loved to beat his competition to a bargain. His duplicity knew few bounds. But he had one man that he particularly hated to lose to. One of his former employees knew a lot of his tricks and made it hard on Sam when he could. Let’s call that guy Morris.

One day in early springtime there was an auction in the rain. Sam loved rain, it kept the prices down. Morris and Sam and I were the only real bidders in that small crowd. There were three tractors for sale and one of them was only a year old. Sam started the bidding low and Morris responded. I made my only bid of the day and pushed the price right up to where it should have ended. Morris upped it ten dollars and Sam pushed it up ten more. I backed off and watched the steam coming out of both of their ears. Morris would go up ten, Sam would go up twenty. Then Morris went up fifty. Sam responded by upping the bid by a hundred. The auctioneer was loving it. The rest of us were just watching.

When the bidding ended Sam had paid forty dollars more for the tractor than he would have paid to buy it new at retail. Morris was still angry as hell at Sam after that but I pointed out to him that he was the winner. He kept his money in his pocket.

Never treat an auction for used equipment as a competitive event. And never, ever, ever get caught up in a bidding war. By the way Sam defaulted on his bid and I got the tractor for my original bid. Morris was too irritated to stay around to see what happened after the auction.

Governments; Money and Desperation

2008-01-07T13:55:00.001-08:00

Most businesses in this world economy are built on OPM (Other People’s Money). There are a lot of ways to get investors or creditors hooked into your businesses success. You seldom get into trouble if you just remember that the money you are using to build your business belongs to other people.

It is possible to get in a lot of trouble if you try to use unconventional sources of financing. Some options are better than others. Desperate attempts to raise money do often hurt entrepreneurs’ chance of success.

It is quite hard to get enough money to build an automobile plant unless you are one of the major auto companies. The following story illustrates the problems related to maintaining enough financing to reach success in the auto industry. Even when you are very sophisticated and experienced starting a new car company is very difficult. John De Lorean tried to get an automobile company going based on building a better vehicle . I never met Mr. De Lorean but I admired him for his fortitude and brilliant design. His car remains a classic today in spite of the failure of his company.

De Lorean had spent his early lifetime learning the automobile industry. By the time he set out on his own in 1975 he had the reputation of a brilliant maverick. His acumen led him to believe that planned obsolescence was a bad idea. He also had some very definite opinions about a lot of the baggage that automobile companies had acquired. By the time he set out to start his own car company he had many admirers and critics in the world of business.

He negotiated a complex deal with the British Government and built a plant in Northern Ireland. That was possibly his first mistake. The British Government turned out to be a bad partner as most governments eventually will. Going into business with a government, any government; is a risky tactic for any entrepreneur. It is always extremely risky to partner with a government unless you are very well connected with the people who are in control of that government.

De Lorean built his factory but ran into problems with his untrained work force, his creditors and both the British and US governments along the way. The SEC eventually forced him to cancel a stock offering in the 27 million dollar range because of questions about his company’s viability. That led him to a mistake that cost him everything.

Mr. De Lorean apparently discussed a drug deal large enough to raise a lot of capital with two FBI agents. Thee agents were posing as possible investors. They taped a conversation with De Lorean and arrested him on international drug charges. The charges were thrown out when his attorney proved that the agents had coerced De Lorean into participating in that conversation. Even though the government’s case was thrown out of court De Lorean was ruined. His company went bankrupt in 1982 and he spent the rest of his life fighting one battle after another related to that failure.

There is a lot of money out in the world that is available to entrepreneurs. Everything from Venture Capital to private equity funds to individual investors can be tapped for funds. If you know how to raise money you can get some. If you don’t know how find someone who does and work with them. Do not ever become desperate enough to even listen to an illegal scheme.

John De Lorean died in 2005. His car and story live on. Unfortunately his story is a cautionary tale instead of the brilliant beacon it might have become. There is more about John’s life and story on the Internet in Wikipedia and other places.

Want More Money? Change Something.

2008-01-03T07:03:00.001-08:00

All of us need to make money. The richer you are the more you need to make just to stand still. Inflation is built into this economy. It is also built into human expectations in our consuming world view.

If you really want to be a big spending consumer then start a business. My wife once spent a million and a half dollars in less than an hour and a lot of people were happier that night. Even her, all of our bills were paid.

If you think doing what you love will bring you money then you are really lucky to love work. I don't love it but my tolerance level for work is pretty high. Yours will be too after a year or two of running your own business.

This is not to say that all of the garp about doing what you love and the money will come is totally fiction. If you chose to do something that you love to do and it is something that other people pay someone to do, that works. Then you have a good chance of living your dream life.

Meanwhile running a business, any business is work and usually hard work for most of us. It is also rewarding if you really want to be your own boss bad enough to work for a real slave driver. I would have said prick but my wife would have corrected me before this got to print.

Here is another exercise for you. Try reading all about the most attractive product that you can imagine owning, a car, a computer an ego boosting vacation, whatever you really lust after. Really study that product for a week.

Then try telling yourself why you shouldn't buy it. If you wind up owning it then you may need to stop buying things and start selling them. You sold yourself on changing your life in at least a small way. The hard part about changing yourself is to get the result you want after you make the change. That is a hard thing to do even when you view the change as desirable.

The urge to buy is tied to your sense of self worth in this society. That is far from universal but it is the predominant tendency in our social system. So indulge that urge at a new and higher level and start your own business. It can be fun and even occasionally profitable.

If All You Want Out of Your Life Work is Money Read Something Else

2007-12-31T04:18:00.001-08:00

There are a huge number of books out there that profess to help make you rich. Some of them have even actually helped a few of their readers. Mostly they have helped the author. Note: One of the first lessons about being an entrepreneur is to be a seller when the public is buying.

This is a daily blog that will run for months or even years. Books or blogs that actually help you obtain a good life are rare. Most of the people who can tell you how to get that good a life are too busy being happy to write a book or even a blog. Aren't you lucky that I happen to have a little free time right now?

The heart of the matter is defining by what you want out of your work life. Think about these questions for a moment:

Do you approach it with energy enthusiasm and hope?
Do you have goals that take you toward greater success and enjoyment in your work and your personal life?
Are you doing something that makes it hard to leave your job after a long day?

If you do not love your work, and most people do not, you are normal enough to probably be boring. Another Note: When my wife met me she told me that if I ever bored her she would be out of here! Now she prays for boredom -- daily.

If you don't answer yes to the three questions above you probably need to change something you are doing. You may need to change your job. You may just need to change your approach to your job. On the far side of reality you may even need to change your approach to life.

All of that fun stuff is difficult to accomplish. Change is hard, changing yourself is even harder. Ask any one year old how hard changing yourself is; they already know the answer. Of course you might have a little trouble understanding them, but they do know this much -- changing yourself is hard!

We all have a built in conservative that hates change. Change is also inevitable, just like death and taxes. Try not doing something, anything that you really like doing, for a whole week. Then try for the next week not to think about your failure or success at that effort. That experience should be enough to tell you how much of your life that inner conservative actually controls.

Yep! Change is hard. Major change is even harder. Entrepreneurs learn to live and even thrive in a maelstrom of change; it is one of their most essential skills.

They may be crazy at the end of a life lived that way but it is often a happy kind of crazy.

Earning a Living vs Making a Life

2007-12-30T06:48:00.001-08:00

The term, "Earning a living," is a telling statement in and of itself. Life is your gift from God or if you insist the universe. Keeping it viable is however sometimes a lot of work and hard cold cash.

Earning the money to survive can be done a lot of ways but you do not need to earn the right to live. You got that at birth. It is not earned, and it can not be taken from you lightly even if you refuse to work. The means to live in our society can be obtained without working a day in your life. I don't recommend that style of life but it is attainable.

Some of us are even born with the funds in place to live in style without working a day in their life. I have known a few poor bums, people who don't work at all and are experts at avoiding that wicked four letter word; work. I have also known a few rich bums, people who lived off their parents' wealth for a full lifetime.

This blog assumes you want to make your life more valuable than just having money will accomplish by itself. If gratification for you is just in ownership then find another author to be your guide. I neither want the job nor do I feel qualified to tell you anything about living that way.

I am qualified to help you become an entrepreneur. I have helped start businesses or rescue them for over forty years. I have learned a lot during that time and even remember some of it. This blog is my way of sharing that experience with you.

If what you want to do is discover who you want to be in the event that you grow up, even if you are in your eighth decade of life. If you find that you want to change the world starting with yourself, then we can go on this journey together. Let's wander around exploring possibilities together for a little while and see what happens.

This blog is designed to stimulate you toward adopting change as a way of life. It will also offer you ways to change your life. I have learned to find change enjoyable. Perhaps you will too, that could be entirely for the best. Change will come whether or not we want it to or are ready for it to take over our lives.

Life is about change, not money or power or ownership! Let us change ourselves. In learning to change ourselves we will change the world around us in gratifying ways.

Surfing on the waves of change is a fine art and a powerful experience. It is worth learning how to do that and feeling the exhilaration it can bring to our lives.