Networking Now

when is the best time to sell up, and try something new. This morning i had the pleasure of losing one of my clients, i say that as he has been running his own hairdressers for sometime, and a year ago we got together to help set him up for selling his business. Well he sold his business on friday and i couldn't be happier from him, as he now has the time to enjoy time with his grandchildren. So the big question is when is the best time to sell, and what position should you be in.

I guess for me it will be when I stop enjoying what I am doing. I'm in the position that I love the work I do and could not imagine doing anything differently, unless a job opens up for a professional grumpy person :(

I have never envisaged retirement or not working so its hard to say when the best time will be.

when you set up your company what was the dream of how it would change your life ?

Independence.

do you really have independance or are you a slave to your business

If I want to bugger off for an hour or two, or a day or two, I can, if I have a dentists appointment, I can go without needing to book time off, I enjoy working, and I enjoy working hard.

To me it is independance, if you are a slave to your company then you are doing something you should not be doing

i agree mate, but how long can you enjoy working such long hours, your the same age as me how many hours can you work and maintain productivity, i believe in manufacturing which isn't so mentally stressfull they say 8 hours

maxattitude wrote:do you really have independance or are you a slave to your business

You have two things:
1. Responsibility to your clients
2. The ability to turn away work you don't want

I can tell you although 9/10 enquiries are converted to orders...but, when a customer is difficult and is undesirable, they are recommended to another provider quite quickly.

This said, the art is having "control over your business".

maxattitude wrote:do you really have independance or are you a slave to your business

Not sure about everyone else, but I'm both! :lol:

It goes in swings and roundabouts. Generally speaking I have independance to fit my life around my work - if I want to finish off the sanding & painting in the hallway, I can take a couple of days to do it so long as the schedule allows - or I can make up the work at other times (does depend on the work to be done, of course).

There are other examples too - however there are other times (like now) when it's very busy - which is great - but that can so easily draw you in to the impossibly long working weeks of the self-employed.

That said, I've always been a "job done" man, not a "do the job" one - so long weeks are nothing new. Except now all and any benefit derived goes to the company, not someone elses company!

maxattitude wrote:when you set up your company what was the dream of how it would change your life ?

I have a great day job and get a ridiculous wage because I worked hard and made the credit department at the company I work for ($350M yearly revenue) produce results on a par with Microsoft and Google and even recommend some products to Google which they now use. I'm also a Director at a UK credit association and on the board of a credit group for the IT industry and I also work with the University of the West of England to help them develop their credit management courses.

I set up my company because I have seen so many larger companies offer "a service" that is just not up to scratch and I want to be able to offer a good service at a great price. I'm not after a life changing event or becoming super rich so I can retire (don't tell the wife though). My aim is to help SME's grow and grow with them; this is reward enough for me as I'm lucky to love what I do.

Earlier this morning I was on the phone to a small communications company who are trying to purchase some software from the company I work for. Their credit ratings are awful and their previous payment history with us is worse than that. However, after 25 minutes on the phone with the CFO I am happy to allow them a new order and I will break company policy to allow him to pay over an extended time rather than upfront. The reason is that he was open and honest enough to pick up the phone to me and discuss previous cash issues his company has had and ask for advice how they can improve, for me this means we have just converted a high risk customer into a potential profit center as they will never let us down in the future and if they are in trouble, they will call us before anyone else. This is why I do my job and run my own company.