Running my own business.
I'd worked for large corporate for about 15 years and worked with good, bad & indifferent marketing agencies and brand consultancies. I knew I had a good career history and that if I set up my own agency I would have credibility with potential clients. As a client I'd worked with enough agencies to know what clients did & didn't want.

I knew that running my own business would be hard. Long hours, stress etc. I also knew that I lacked some of the skills (selling to large companies) so after writing the business plan I invested in quite a lot of money in training and then shared the business plan with a few people who I trusted to give me honest feedback.

I had THE VISION. I was going to build up an amazing business, sell it to WPP, complete my earn-out period and retire at 45. I'd have potential clients hammering on the door once they'd heard about the fantastic results we delivered!

I set up on my own. No staff, no office and no clients. After five months of no work I thought I'd fucked it up and that I'd have to start looking for a job again. Then finally work started to come in. Small projects at first, most of which led to bigger ones. I started to hire people, rented office space and slowly began to make a profit. As the reputation of the business grew we managed (by now I had 11 employees) to get work with larger & larger companies. The company had made it throught the first couple of years. I started looking at sports cars.

That's when it turned to shit. Payment terms. Fucking payment terms. I had to make payroll & pay all the other bills every month. Clients wanted 90 days or in the case of one big retail chain 120 days from date of invoice to payment. The banks weren't lending or offering overdrafts, factoring was expensive and I lacked enough capital to manage the cashflow. THE VISION had turned to shit. Pebbly, smelly, runny shit.

I found some professional advisors to gain an understanding of what my options were. The last thing I wanted was to wind up as I didn't want to make my team redundant. It was time to sell. Would I make my envisioned millions? No. Would the cashflow issues become someone elses problem? Yes.

After 4 months we found a buyer. My team secured their jobs and I started to look for a job. I started to sleep again. I got a job.

Would I do it again? Not a fucking chance.
( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Mon 12 May 2014, 14:43, 33 replies)

it's a good job you understood the concepts of cash flow, revenue and payment terms before you took on the liability of a payroll
otherwise you'd have looked a right divvy in this story ...
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 12 May 2014, 15:09, closed)

^
What he said.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:00, closed)

It's more about companies moving to longer payment terms when you've already been working with them & you're locked in to needing the revenue.

( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:18, closed)

if I were to be serious for ten seconds I would mention that when I was doing due diligence for investment it was almost inevitably naivety about getting cash from customers that made companies a liability
but this is qftw so instead I'm going to post another picture of an otter.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:35, closed)

Due diligence? Pizza boy? Lol!
That's the best one this week!
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Mon 12 May 2014, 17:07, closed)

don't wear out the F5 key, billy
your mummy wants to play online bingo after she put you to bed
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 13 May 2014, 18:35, closed)

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:37, closed)

Invoice Discounting
Can be from as little as 0.35% of turnover and interest between 2-3% above base with 90% of the money paid immediately on presentation of invoice and interest only charged until client pays up. Often a better and always cheaper option than factoring - as you retain control of payments and collection of debts, rather than paying a factoring company over the odds to provide those services.

Also found that offering a discounted rate for early payment helped - even with large organisations.

HTH
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Mon 12 May 2014, 15:18, closed)

I call bullshit, it is Confidential Invoice Discounting. Rates of payout depend on the credit worthiness
of the customer and also whether your company is of good character. It is not a given that a company is given a CID facility. Note to small/medium/large business people - go with Handelsbanken and then you won't need silly facility agreements.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:07, closed)

Company has made it past two years and I assume posted profits for that period. Clients include blue-chip high street retailers, a decent bank could have easily arranged a discounting facility.

Sounds like the OP had his fingers in the till, speccing up sports cars when he should have been making a sound case to the bank to arrange a discounting facility.

Also have struck many a 'time to pay' deal with HMRC to delay PAYE payments - though these days they're nigh on impossible to obtain.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:17, closed)

I wasn't really looking at sports cars.

( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:18, closed)

two years, yeah the big players will be flocking to your door.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Mon 12 May 2014, 17:12, closed)

See also - length of trading history. Typically small businesses won't be eligible until they've been trading for longer than I had when I needed something like this.

( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:17, closed)

That would be covered on character of the company. Only companies I know that get CID
are ones with a credible FD and truly epic rises in sales.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Mon 12 May 2014, 17:10, closed)

why are you even bothering ... it's billy bedroom bullshit
no matter how many holes you poke in his poorly googled twaddle, he'll just keep on keeping on
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 12 May 2014, 16:46, closed)

I like it.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Mon 12 May 2014, 17:07, closed)

pervert

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 12 May 2014, 18:15, closed)

Never a truer thing said on QofTW

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 13 May 2014, 10:48, closed)

Someone calls bullshit on a liemallow post?
I'm glad I was sitting down when I read that, otherwise the shock could've made me keel over...
(The Magic Number is neither magic nor a number, Tue 13 May 2014, 8:31, closed)

You obviously missed the point.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 13 May 2014, 10:47, closed)

Tell us the bit about how you were prosecuted for fraud.

( tangledupinblue hairy badge with moving eyes, Mon 12 May 2014, 15:57, closed)

Fair play for having a go.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 12 May 2014, 22:17, closed)

it's exactly this sort of wishy washy 'it's the taking part that counts' nonsense that has let the wogs and fuzzy wuzzies take over as industrial super powers

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 13 May 2014, 12:45, closed)

Sounds like an illegal organ donor transport service.
"It's the taking parts that counts."
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Wed 14 May 2014, 8:02, closed)

Or the mathematically competent sphincter of a homosexual man.

(Andrew Avetoom, Wed 14 May 2014, 8:30, closed)

Good point, well made.

( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Wed 14 May 2014, 18:07, closed)

typical Happy Phantom TTTing!
Alright The Mock Turtle.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 15 May 2014, 7:03, closed)