Author Archives: Admin

Whether work is a blessing or a curse depends on what you are working on and your attitude about it. James Matthew Barrie, the Scottish novelist said, “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”

Many hard working entrepreneurs were once unproductive employees, but now, with their wagonhitched to their own star, work is the stuff of their dreams. Many productive employees – once unsuccessfully self-employed – now understand the blessings of employment, and become the most valuable of resources: the entrepreneurial employee who loves his or her work.

Work feeds our stomachs with food and our spirit with accomplishment. Work creates, produces, energizes and fulfills all things humans need for survival and happiness.

If work is not a blessing for you – whether owner or employee – the problem is not work itself, but the work you are doing. Lebanese novelist, Kahlil Gibran wrote, “Work is love made visible.”

Life is short. Keep searching until you find work you can love. I did.

The military has produced many acronyms, one of which is RHIP, which stands for, “Rank Has Its Privileges.”

RHIP is the unofficial way to point out when a person accrues some benefit by virtue of their position. Mel Brooks’ character said it another way in his comedy “History of the World” with, “It’s good to be the king.”

“Time Is On My Side,” is the title of one of the classic rock ’n’ roll songs performed by Mick Jaggerand the legendary English band, The Rolling Stones.

This bold statement works in a song, but for small businesses … not so much. The reason is because of the complicated dynamic between time and our most precious asset, cash.

In the marketplace, there are actually three different clocks at work that every business uses: one for operating expenses, one for sales and one for cash. Let’s take a look at how these three clocks impact your small business.

Operating Expense Clock
Every month like clockwork, regardless of sales volume, cash collections or profitability, payroll must be met, rent must be paid, taxes must be remitted, plus phone, utilities, insurance bills, etc., must also be paid. The Operating Expense Clock is hardwired to Greenwich, England for accuracy within a nanosecond per millennium, and nothing stops it short of a global, thermonuclear holocaust coinciding with a direct hit from Haley’s comet.

The only way to influence this clock is through operating efficiencies – you won’t be billed for what you don’t buy.

Sales Clock
This clock is powered by the customer relationships you’ve created so sales result each month. You project when each sale will occur by qualifying prospects and attributing a clock to each potential transaction so that you can budget future sales volume and meet your cash requirements.

How the Sales Clock operates is completely logical and intuitive, but it only works in your favor when the purchase requirements of customers have been met.

Cash Clock
What is not logical or intuitive is the Cash Clock and its relationship with the other two. Think of it like this: Cash is to sales as snow is to cold: You can have cold without snow, but you can’t have snow without cold. You can have sales without cash receipts, but you can’t have cash receipts without sales. And expenses are like weather – you get some every day.

But what hits small business owners hard is that for every glitch in the mainspring of the Sales Clock, there are 1,000 potential sprocket failures that slow or stop the Cash Clock. Consequently, the Cash Clock requires constant maintenance.

Murphy’s Law lives inside the Cash and Sales Clocks, but the Operating Expense Clock is immune to this insidious law and rocks on just like The Rolling Stones.

Small business success requires understanding the three clocks of the marketplace.