When does a business close? I always thought it was when the doors shut for the last time, but thatís not quite true. A business closes the moment the captain gives up. That might be months before the physical doors finally close, but during those last few months the captain is simply too tired to eat. Let me explain.
Each time a wild African beast ñ of the lion, cheetah, or cat genre ñ contemplates a snack ñ it must do a quick calculation to establish whether the energy gained from consuming that sweet smelling gazelle with lemon and herb basting is higher than the energy spent on chasing it down and appropriately preparing it for dinner. That difference in energy gained vs. energy spent equates to what we entrepreneurial beasts call ëprofití. If our bestial hero chases too many gazelles before finally making a catch ñ itís going to get mighty thin.
This starts to happen when it gets old, or hurt. That ñ in modern business parlance ñ means that it is becoming less competitive. It doesnít really matter what the reason is. Whether it is because our lion hero only likes white gazelles,
and this season only black gazelles are allowed to grazeí; or whether it hurt a leg and canít run as fast; or whether some filthy hyenas stole last weeks supplies in a beastly midnight attack ñ the bottom line [to use another very popular business term] is that it is hungry and tired and weak.
When all else fails, lower your standards ñ and our hero does just this. Instead of that succulent gazelle with lemon and herb sauce and peri-peri potato wedgies on the side, our hero starts to chase mere chickens at the local supermarket ñ even trimmed of excess fat! But those small birds are barely worth the trouble and our hero keeps losing weight. [Thatís like an entrepreneur constantly losing a little bit of money ñ strangling the business slowly.] At some point our hero gives up ñ and gets too tired to eat. And then itís just a matter of timeÖ
I received 3 or 4 emails this past week from folk who were too tired to eat. They had allowed their financial resources to run down so low that they didnít have enough cash to do any marketing, or anything much at all. They were simply waiting for bankruptcy ñ yet too tired to deal with it, or even to just run away.
This same week I received a few emails from folk who had followed some suggestions in the free Money 4
Nothing section of the Petes Weekly site ñ and had invested in a number of credit cards ñ and they had all been baled out by these cards when their business bankers hit a wobbly streak. Having enough credit cards in your business arsenal is almost as important has having a proper Trust structure. If you havenít already applied for your Barclaycard ñ go here now and put another brick in your wall. About the ONLY reason a business closes is because it runs out of operating funds ñ working capital ñ the cash needed to meet this months outstanding bills.
Surely itís our responsibility as lions in the entrepreneurial wilds of
Many of the folk who followed this advice a couple of weeks ago have already received their cards, and their major decision right now is whether to go with the mild or the hot peri peri. I currently have 10 cards, and am constantly on the lookout for more.
And finally, the StreetWise Business Weekend Experience - kind of like a MBA for small business owners and comprising almost all the streetwise knowledge I have accumulated these past 20 years. Click here to check out the website, the details, the dates, your investment & how to find the funds if you're a tad tight rght now, the special for CrashProof members, and a few hundred reasons why you - as a small business owner - will benefit.
August 4th,
2004 - Umhlanga Rocks in my bikini
PS I will be on the Sanlam/3Talk Business Owner of the Year competition
on SABC 3 at 17h30 on August 5th [tomorrow evening].