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Building A Dream Business

A Look in My Tool Box at the Tool I Use to Save Money

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Having the Right Tool and Knowing How to Use It Can Make Life Much Better

Over the last couple of weeks, we have discussed why it’s critical to save money for those big irregular expenses and unexpected emergencies. Next, we began the process needed to start building a “Rainy Day” fund by determining how much and for what. The Savings Transfer Sheet is like any other tool, it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t use it.

As is the case with everything that’s worth doing, starting is the hard part. Saving money is no different. It’s like digging a hole.

What if there’s an underground water line leaking in your back yard. You can see that spot where the grass is green in an otherwise brown lawn. The water bill is more than ever before and getting bigger each month. That doesn’t matter, the prospect of getting your shovel out of the tool shed and digging is more than you can bear to think about. So, you put it off and pretend that it’s not a problem.

The green spot in the yard keeps getting bigger and greener. The water bill keeps getting bigger too. You decide to cover the spot in the back yard with an above ground swimming pool. That took care of it…no more green spot. You know what they say. Out of sight out of mind.

Then one day you get a water bill that is so big you decide that you’ve got to do something. So, you drain the pool, get a shovel and start digging. Then before you know it, you’ve uncovered the pipe, found the leak, made the repair and filled the hole.

That wasn’t near as bad as you thought it was going to be. Once again you are aware that this is one of those times when the overwhelming dread was way worse than the actual process. The next water bill is back where it used to be, and you wonder why you weren’t more proactive.

A shovel is a simple tool that’s easy to use. It can fix a problem before it gets too big, but only if you use it. If you don’t the outcome can be devastating.

The same thing is true about the Savings Transfer Sheet. If you will take the time to get it out of the tool box, spend some time learning how to use it and use it regularly, it will make a significant difference in stopping your financial leaks.

Wouldn’t you like to have your money filling up the pool rather than leak under it.

 

Here are links to the Savings Transfer Sheet template and the Savings Transfer Procedure, free for your use. (expected to be active week of 5/21/18)

How to Build A “Rainy Day” Fund for Your Business (part 1)

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The Nuts and Bolts for Saving Money

 

Last week I wrote about the importance of having a savings, both individually and in business and the high percentage of people who don’t. This tendency to spend everything you have is a problem when the unexpected happens. This isn’t to say that you should put all your money, after paying the bills, in a savings account hoping to retire someday on that savings. What I’m talking about is having money ready for big planned purchases or unexpected emergencies. This way you can use your own money and don’t have to pay someone else to borrow theirs.

Last week I told you about the tool that I use for this, the “Savings Transfer Sheet”. This spreadsheet is easy to use and makes saving simple. What it doesn’t do, is force you save. Maybe I should figure out a way to hook peoples’ deposit tickets up to electricity so that they would get a shock when depositing money without saving.

The biggest problem with saving money is not having a plan to do so. It can be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out how much should be saved when depositing revenue. One of the things that makes it hard is inconsistent amounts. If every day or week you deposited the same exact amount, you could decide once and always put aside a set amount for savings.

It’s rare in business that every job or every customer pays you the same amount every time you do business with them. There are some businesses like lawn mowing, hair cutting, pet boarding, etc. that a preset recurring price has been established, even so the number of recurrences each day or week is going to vary.

The purpose of this spreadsheet is to provide a simple accurate way to know how much money the right amount to save is, regardless of the amount being deposited. The most difficult part is the initial set up. This part requires some research, thought and time.

First – look back through your financial records of the last several years. The more research you do the more accurate your understanding will be of your financial history. Even if you’ve only been in business for a short time it will give you a place to start. This will let you see areas of unexpected expenses as well as dollar amounts.

 

Second – determine what things or areas that need to be saved for. Some examples of what these could be are:

Repairing and/or replacing equipment

Equipment increases or upgrades

Repairing or replacing vehicles

Large building repairs or maintenance items (HVAC, new roof, etc.)

Building or facility upgrades, expansions or purchases

Taxes (income, property, sales, etc.)

Irregular payments (bi-monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.)

Retained earnings (emergency fund because they are going to happen)

 

Third – take the dollar amounts for the different areas that you have determined to be above or outside your normal operating costs and figure the percentage each one is of your net revenue. This will give you a place to start when setting up the “Savings Transfer Sheet” for the first time.

Building a “Rainy Day” savings is critical to the foundation of your business. It is one of the solid cornerstones that will help your business weather the storms of life.

Next week we will go into the “Savings Transfer Sheet” deeper still and see how the information we gathered fits in to it.

 

Why It’s Critical to Save Money in Business and How to Do It

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Setting Up a “Rainy Day Fund” for Your Business

 

Currently it is common for people to spend everything they earn and not save anything for future investments or emergencies. For the most part, as a society here in America we have become comfortable. We have forgotten how important it is to save money.

There have been times through out history when things weren’t good financially, i.e. the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Enough time has passed since then, that for most people it’s become a distant memory. If you have ever talked with someone who went through the depression or a similar experience, saving money was more than something that needed to be done, it often was the difference between life and death.

As reported in a Market Watch post* from December 2015, approximately 62% of Americans personally have less than $1000 saved and 21% don’t have any savings. Businesses aren’t doing any better and it’s every bit as important. Part of a good business financial plan includes saving money for those irregular and unexpected expenses.

Just like in our personal lives, in business we get busy with the process of daily living. We work hard at the normal operation of the business and we neglect to intentionally plan for those “rainy days”. Things like; equipment maintenance and repairs, building maintenance and repairs, quarterly and annual taxes, irregular payments, etc.

When I started doing construction work I learned the skill of building from some of the best craftsmen. When later I went into business for myself I thought I knew everything that I needed to be successful. The problem is that while they taught me how to build a solid, well built structure, they neglected to teach me how to build a business that way.

Early on in my business career one of those business building lessons learned the hard way, was the importance of saving money.

I was working hard to keep construction moving forward. The material figured, ordered, and suppliers paid. The subcontractors and employees organized, having what they needed and paid. Things were going well and there was even some money left over. So, naturally I spent it. Then it happened…the accountant showed me how good my year was by telling me how much I owed in taxes. How was I going to pay them? I didn’t have that kind of money. What was I going to do? I was going to have to make payments. Just so you know, tuition to Hard Knocks University is high.

That’s why over the last 35 years of learning lessons the hard way I designed and developed a system to help me avoid pitfalls. I needed to find a way to separate money that would be needed later. How was I going to do it? Several years ago, my wife and I found out about Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace Program**. It is a program that teaches you to, “Live like no one else, so that later you can live like no one else.” The very first lesson he teaches is “Super Saving”. It is a common-sense approach to saving money and the reasons it is important to do so. This was great for my personal finances but wasn’t an exact fit for my business.

So, using the basic principles of Dave’s plan for personal savings I began working on a way to do the same thing in my business. The “Savings Transfer Sheet” is the result and a small piece of the bigger Business Blueprint puzzle. The “Savings Transfer Sheet” is a simple spreadsheet that with a few basic entries will give you the dollar amount that needs to be separated from any received gross dollar amount. That separated money can then be put into a different account or turned into cash and put in a safe. This way that saved money won’t accidentally be spent on the wrong thing.

After talking with a lot of different business owners I realized that every business could use a solution like this. That’s why in the next few weeks we will be making available a free downloadable “Savings Transfer Sheet” including instructions.

 

Next week I will go into more detail about the “Savings Transfer Sheet” and how it can help you solve your business money problems.

 

*https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-have-less-than-1000-in-savings-2015-10-06

**https://www.daveramsey.com/

How to Determine If a Business Size Fits “Just Right”

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The Goldilocks Method for Deciding What Size Is the Right Size

 

You’re probably asking yourself, what does “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” have to do with business. Let me see if I can explain. As we work on expanding our business to add coaching and consulting to the construction, I have been thinking a lot about what size is “just right”. I have experienced too small and too big. I know how uncomfortable either of these can be. So how do we determine what size is “just right”?

In the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, a little girl named Goldilocks, has been walking through the forest when she comes across a house. She knocks, but no one answers. She smells the warm porridge and realizes the walk has made her hungry, so she goes in. Inside she finds three different sized bowls of warm cereal. She tasted the big one and it was too hot. Then, she tried the next one, but it was too cold. The small bowl was just the right temperature, so she ate it.

After she finishes eating, she finds herself getting tired. So, she goes into the living room and finds three different sized chairs. She tried the big and middle-sized chairs, but they were both too big. She found the small one to be a good fit, so she sat down. Just as she began to doze off, it broke.

Now she really needed a nap. She found three beds, all different sizes. The big one was too hard, the middle one was too soft. The small one was just right. So, she lay down and went to sleep.

While she was sleeping the bears came home to find that someone had been eating their porridge, sitting in their chairs and sleeping in their beds. Just then Goldilocks woke up and ran screaming from the house.

There are several business lessons to be learned from this story. First is Goldilocks skipping through life without a plan. Second is Goldilocks having helped herself to the bear’s things (this is a business lesson for a different blog). The one I want to focus on today is the bears having figured out what temperature, size and mattress support was the best fit each of them.

I have done business when I was the only one. I did everything; sales, marketing, admin., finance, the construction, all of it. This can work, but there is a maximum that one person can do. A maximum number of people that one person doing everything can help. This business model is neither right nor wrong, it just needs to be the right fit.

I have also been a partner in a small construction company that was doing great. Because we were doing excellent work and were filling a need, we began to grow and GROW…and GROW. This high-speed growth is a common situation that I have experienced and seen happen over and over. It often ends in disaster with unhappy customers and/or going out of business.

This brings me back to Goldilocks and the bears. Being successful in business is less about the size and more about the fit. You need to be intentional about what fits you, not what fits someone else or what someone else tells you should fit.

As Goldilocks grows up she will mature and need bigger bowls and furniture. This growth happens gradually and with intentional purpose. This is why I am working hard to surround myself with quality people that are a good fit. In order for these people to know what is expected of them and how the different positions fit together, there needs to be an intentional plan. This is the piece that is missing in most companies as they go from the small to the big.

As Goldilocks matures hopefully she will make good decisions and take advantage of the Solution Building “Business Framework’, go back to the bears for some experienced advice and to repay them for the food and the chair.

Trying to Spin Too Many Plates at The Same Time Can Make You Dizzy

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The Same Thing Happens When You Try to Run a Business Without a Plan

 

Most of us have seen plate spinning acts done in some form or another. When I was growing up I remember seeing Erich Brenn performing his plate spinning act http://www.edsullivan.com/artists/erich-brenn-plate-spinner on the popular Ed Sullivan Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ed_Sullivan_Show. I remember the running back and forth, trying to keep all the different plates spinning at the same time. It was really pretty amazing.

I’ve concluded that most businesses are being operated in a way that feels a lot like trying to keep all those plates spinning at the same time. Just like the performer who keeps putting more and more spinning plates up on the end of sticks, we keep trying to do more and more.

There is a limit to how much a single individual can do. We can only run back and forth keeping the plates spinning for so long before they start falling and breaking. This means there is a maximum number of people that I can provide my services to by myself.

As I have been looking to serve more people, I have been adding more help in the form of assistants and subcontractors. The difficulty with this is that my business system has been developed and stored in my head for forty years. It’s hard to present a clear plan to others when it’s in my subconscious.

This is why I’ve started the process of sorting through the system in my head and putting it on paper (and in there is a scary place to work). Just like constructing a building can be done with a plan in someone’s head, it’s much easier to share the plan and the work when it’s drawn out for others to see.

 

Most business systems are going to be very similar. They are going to consist of the same basic areas of operation.

Sales/Marketing:

  • Prospecting for customers
  • Follow up on leads
  • Meet with prospective customers
  • Pricing and Proposals
  • Sales Reports
  • Advertising/Promotions
  • Marketing and Sales Planning
  • Customer Relations
  • Market Research
  • Public Relations
  • Product Development

 

Production/Operations:

  • Project Management
  • Project Assignments and Scheduling
  • Productivity Monitoring and Control
  • Quality Control and Documentation
  • Production Team Prep. & Development
  • Communicate with Team Members
  • Project Troubleshooting
  • Inventory Planning and Control
  • Purchasing and Vendor Relations
  • Customer Service
  • Equipment Maintenance and Repair
  • Facilities Maintenance & Repair

 

Administration/Finance:

  • Computer Systems
  • Team Member Records
  • Team Member Policies and Benefits
  • Office Support
  • Office Maintenance
  • Information Archiving and Distribution
  • Data Processing
  • Communications
  • Contract Preparation
  • Budgeting
  • Invoicing
  • Cash Flow Forecasting
  • Financial Reports
  • General Bookkeeping
  • Accounts Payable
  • Taxes
  • Banking

As you can see here, even just the basics are a lot of plates to keep spinning and there are a lot more to spin than just these. All of those plates going around and around are making my head spin.

I plan to share my adventure as I get this system out of my head and on to paper, so that I can get those spinning plate neatly organized.

Keep following along if you would like to know how to organize your plates.

 

Building Your Business Is Critical to The Survival of The Business

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Just Like the Construction of a Building – You Need a Blueprint for Your Company

 

If you own your business and aren’t being intentional about the organizational operation of your company, it is likely that you won’t make it past your 5th year. This is according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/bdm/entrepreneurship/bdm_chart3.htm. Just think about the number of businesses that you have seen come and go.

Whether you are a solopreneur or you have a team. It doesn’t matter if you have been in business for 30 years or just starting out. Regardless of the kind of work you do, the organizational plan is just as important as the work you do…maybe more.

I know in my 40 years of being in business I have learned some lessons the hard way. Let me tell you, the tuition for ‘The School of Hard Knocks’ is expensive. There were times when I got behind on taxes to pay bills and times that I got behind on bills so that I could pay taxes. Neither of these is a very good business plan. One of my SHK professors once told me, “that when you steal from Peter to pay Paul, you make Peter a Paul bearer”. If you want to avoid the need for a pallbearer for your business…you need a plan.

It is common for people to start a business without a plan. Generally, someone has learned a trade or a craft and for whatever reason they decide to go into business on their own. Most of the time they have given little, if any, thought to business structure. They show up every day working hard and then…surprise, you owe some taxes and haven’t saved any money to pay them. They needed a plan, a blueprint for building the business.

Being in the construction business I see a lot of similarities in constructing a sound building and a constructing profitable business.

  • Both need to start with design plans – the thing that gives you a clear direction of what you want the outcome to be.
  • Both need an architect – the person that can see the vision of what the finished product will be.
  • Both need a good solid foundation – the thing that will support you when the storms come.
  • Both need good framework – the thing that holds everything together.

     

  • Both need a builder – the person that reads and understands the plans and puts all the different pieces together correctly.
  • Both need the proper tools – these are what allow the pieces to be shaped and fastened together in the right places in the right order.
  • Both need a good team – these are the different people with the different skills and knowledge needed.

It doesn’t matter if you have been in business for years or are just starting, YOU NEED A PLAN. If you would like to minimize the time you spend attending ‘The School of Hard Knocks’, then keep following our blog. We are working on some Business Building Solutions for just this purpose.

 

What areas of building your business would some ‘higher education’ be helpful.

The Importance of Helping Your Customers Dream Big

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Building Your Very Own Barbie Dream House

As builders it is important to encourage your customers to dream big. Sure they may have a budget that won’t allow them to do everything they want, but it’s also important to not begin the dreaming process with a limited belief. Our job as the contractor should be help them find the design and build their dreams. Today’s post was written by Shannon, my Professional Assistant and soon to be customer.

 

 

Guest post By Shannon Martin

For Christmas I bought my granddaughter the Barbie Dream House. Yes, it was expensive and yes, she loves it!! My daughter says she plays with it all day, every day. So, in my opinion it was a great gift for a three-year-old who loves Barbies. The Dream House has an elevator, swimming pool, fireplace, three stories, huge bedroom and top of the line accessories. I jokingly said that I was going to write a Blog post about the Barbie Dream House. But when I thought about it more, who doesn’t want a Dream Home of their own?

I’m in the middle of planning/designing a room in my house. Our one and only bathroom was added onto our 1880 stone home in the 60’s and has an odd layout. The bathroom is very simple and functional but time and hard water have created some issues. There has been a water leak under the floor for a while that has rotted some floor joists. Water pipes are corroding. The bathtub is starting to have some cracks in it. So, we have decided to build a new bathroom.

As a Pinterest lover, I started with pinning ideas for the room and discussing my issues with Mark Eastman of Timber Creek Construction. Mark is good at knowing what you need before you even know it!! He suggested that I dream big and asked if had considered adding another bathroom to our home. It would be nice to have a bathroom on the 2nd level and it would increase the value of our home. By putting one bathroom on top of the other, the plumbing could be done at the same time and all in the same area.

So, I’m getting my own Dream House and I’m very excited about it! Watch for more posts and pictures as we work through the process.

What are your ideas for your Dream House? Think about your future. Do you have or plan to have children? Do you have aging parents? Do you often have guests? And give Mark a call at Timber Creek Construction for a fun discussion, great suggestions and a contractor who wants to help you.

 

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this Shannon.

As a builder I have seen way to many people who have been disappointed by their contractor. It doesn’t have to be that way. At Solution Building we are currently working on some business systems and production programs to remedy these problems. We will be offering these products later this year, so be watching.

Sharing the Shovels

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Moving the Mountain One Shovel at A Time

 

One of the most difficult things that I struggle with is delegating. By nature, I try to do everything. It is my business and serving my customers is my responsibility after all. This can only work if I limit what I’m going to do. I can’t use more than one shovel at a time.

The last several years I have been working hard to figure out who exactly God has designed me to be. What are my strengths and what are my weaknesses. As I have worked through this process I have reached the conclusion that God’s intended purpose for me is helping as many people as possible find solutions for building their dreams, even when they may not know they’re looking for them.

There is a limit to how many people I can help by myself though. In Exodus 18:13-26 Moses was trying to solve all the issues of all the people. There were so many people that needed help and he couldn’t help them all. His father-in-law saw this and recommended that he share the load and put his energy and focus on what God had designed him to do…not everything. If I am going to help more people and help them well I must share my load, just like Moses.

One of the problems of delegation is that too often sharing of the load is done without much clarity or planning. Positions are just filled with the first warm body that comes along and says yes. Rather than helping to carry the load, this often just makes it heavier. If you have ever had this experience, it makes it that much harder to share the load the next time.

There are some towering mountains on the horizon that need moved. As I move forward into this new year I am going to pass out some shovels. I am going to be careful and intentional about who gets what shovel. I need to make sure that the shovel and the person using it are a match.

One of the mountains that needs moved is delegating. Just this week I passed out a couple of shovels. Even if it is not natural for me, it felt good. We are going to move big mountains this year.

Opening the Tool Box & Looking at OneNote

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Computer Tools Are as Important to Construction as a Saw or a Hammer

 

Being a self-employed small business owner is a difficult undertaking at best. This difficulty increases exponentially when organization and communication are operating poorly or not at all. This problem only increases when you’re successful and there are more things to organize and more people to communicate with.

During my thirty-five plus years of continually working to achieve and maintain some level of control I have used a whole lot of different tools. Some were old school some high tech. To this point the best tool I have found for organizing and communicating is Microsoft OneNote. This tool is great for organizing and communicating. It does so much, so well, that I don’t need a bunch of different apps that do different things and don’t sync well across different systems and devices.

I would equate OneNote to a three-ring binder on steroids. Maybe we should call OneNote the ‘Six Million Dollar’ binder. I have used binders for my organizing for years and still do to a small degree. A good comparison of OneNote to a binder is the way I used to have a project binder on site at construction projects. This was a place where things would be kept so that as different employees, sub-contractors, management, architects and the customer could all have access to the specifics of the project. OneNote is organized very similar to a binder. You can have different ‘note books’ and each book can be divided into multiple ‘sections’ and each section can have bunches of ‘pages’.

Just like “The Six Million Dollar Man” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man this computerized version of a ‘note book’ has superhuman bionic computerized capabilities. Here are just a few.

  • Share with other people across multiple devises.
  • This can be as simple as sharing a shopping list with your spouse or as detailed as an entire note book with colleagues on a big project.
  • Syncs automatically across multiple devises.
  • If someone adds to the shopping list or checks something off, you will know it in a matter of seconds as long as you are connected to the internet. If not, it will sync as soon as you are.
  • When changes are made they are highlighted until read.
  • If one of my virtual assistants makes a change I will be able to know that, go to the specific change and know who did it.
  • Insert almost anything on to a page.
  • You can insert copies of other documents, screen clippings, photos, audio and video recordings, links to other pages and/or web locations and this is just part of what I’m currently using.
  • Link from and to multiple locations.
  • I can put a link for a specific OneNote page in a task reminder or calendar event or on a word document and click on it and it will open up that page, even if I haven’t opened OneNote yet.
  • Edit things really easy.
  • Things on a OneNote page can be clicked on and moved to a different place on the page. This feature is great for prioritizing a list. If I want to move something higher on the list I just move it there, no cutting or copying or pasting.
  • It’s always ready to open up and use.
  • It doesn’t require the opening up of a program and folder a file before you can write something down. Once you open OneNote it just takes a couple of clicks and you can write down your note before you forget it.
  • Great place for filing and storing.
  • If I want to save an email from a customer with a picture and a link to a web site, I can do that right from Outlook.
  • Can protect sensitive info with in a shared note book.
  • If I have a page that has ideas for my wife’s Christmas or passwords to my bank account, I can password protect those pages. This means that if my wife accidently goes to her Christmas page when she meant to go to the shopping list, she can’t open it without the password…which she doesn’t have.
  • Can draw or write on it just like paper.
  • This feature is great for getting down quick information with my tablet. I can draw the floor plan for a room addition and write dimensions and notes right on it.

 I know that there is so much more that this tool can do and a lot that I don’t. Some people will probably say that it has too many bells and whistles or it’s complicated. I’m sure that this isn’t the best tool for everybody and that’s okay. Not every person uses the same cordless drill. I think this tool is simple to use and it makes it easier for me to be organized and to communicate.

A New Year, A Clean Slate

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Why Did the Turkey Cross the Road?

 

It’s just a few days until the start of a new year. This start represents an opportunity for new possibilities. The thought of this can be exciting. The chance to do better…to be better. This is what encourages us to make ‘New Year’s resolutions’. The process of making resolutions and failing at them over and over, makes us hesitant though. Most of the time people give up on resolutions after a few weeks. Only about 8 percent of people that make resolutions will stick to them. Most resolutions are really good, and if kept, would make us better.

 

Okay, so if the possibilities are exciting, we want to be better and most resolutions are admirable, why don’t we keep them?

 

I think most of the time it is the lack of a clear plan. It reminds me of some wild turkeys that were crossing the road near my home. There were fifteen or twenty birds going across as I approached them in my truck. Some continued on across, some turned and went back, but one couldn’t decide which way to go. It ran back and forth going in circles in the middle of the road. This indecision and lack of clarity put this bird at risk of failure…and in this case, failure could have been really bad. Good thing I was driving slow.

 

The first thing to do is determine WHY. WHY do we want to accomplish this thing? The WHY will be the motivating factor. The WHY gives us the reason to move. For example, WHY do I want to cross the road?

Next we need to know the HOW. The HOW gives us the map from here to there. The HOW gives us a direction to go. Now I know HOW best to cross the road.

This is where things begin to get tricky. There are a lot of different systems that you can use for this. The problem is that what works for one person may not work for another. I have used several, some I paid for and some were free. The conclusion I have come to is, it matters less what the system is and more about whether you use it or not. You have to move or you will be left standing in the road.

Currently I am using parts and pieces from Michael Hyatt’s, Five Days to Your Best Year Ever; Donald Miller’s, Creating Your Life Plan; Andy Andrews, The Seven Decisions Perpetual Calendar as well as things I have designed myself. Each year I modify and tweak my system so that it works better for me. Every year I schedule time between Christmas and New Year’s Day for working on my Life Plan. Scheduling it on the calendar is critical to being intentional.

The plan needs to look back at the past to see what worked and what didn’t. It needs to look to the future to see where we want to go. Most importantly it needs action now. It also needs a way of measuring progress so you can see how you’re doing. Resolutions are only as good as our actions. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in the Christmas Carol, we have to decide to be different if we’re going to be different.

Don’t be a turkey. Make a plan before you start across the road and stick with it. Don’t stop in the middle of the road. You can continue to improve on the plan every day if you keep moving.

MAKE A PLAN AND GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!