June 2011 Update

So, after frantically scratching around I managed to find the money to pay off the debt I was sued for, but I still have to find more money (a long long story).

I have managed to get my company closer to breaking even. Just a bit more cost cutting, allied to achieving our drastically reduced revenue targets and we should put ourselves in a position to break even/make a profit this year. If we do, perhaps I can finally look at paying myself a salary, which would be nice after 3 years of living off my savings.

Actually, on second thoughts, that's a nice daydream! I won't be able to pay myself a salary because it wouldn't feel right when I still owe money to friends and banks etc.. I'll have to put any surplus into reducing debt first and just hold tight for a while longer.

But, you know, Hope is a strange thing. It is a great gift. If I have hope that I can turn this around, thereby managing and hopefully reducing my debt levels, it would constitute an improvement in my general situation and that alone would be a great step forward.

If I achieve it, I'm going to give myself the nickname of the "Turnaround Guy". When I became the boss of the company I ran before, it was losing over €500,000 a year and was over €2 million in debt and when I left it was making over €2 million a year profits, had no debt and had literally millions in cash in the bank.

Now this business that I am currently running was losing over €750,000 in 2007 before I took it over and, fingers crossed etc., should break even this year 2011. However, I couldn't do it without the people that are working with me in the company. It's a small team but they have been very loyal and hardworking and I feel like I finally have the right person running Sales. Of course the other vital ingredient was my friends and family whose support has provided a great foundation from which to build.

Now, not to get too much ahead of myself, it's back to the grindstone to make all of this come true.

"and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep"

April 2011 Update

You have to laugh...............if you didn't you'd cry!

Someone I always thought would have my back and be there for me in thick and thin, has sued me for a debt I owe him. I was negotiating a payment plan and working hard to figure out how to pay him faster than the plan offered. Next thing, he rejected it and went straight to court. This is going to do wonders for my credit rating.

I guess I'd feel better about it if he wasn't the person who introduced me to the deal that created the debt in the first place, and persuaded me to get involved. Come to think of it he's also the guy who persuaded me to buy the company which has sucked up all of my cash, thus preventing me from discharging this debt...............TO HIM. There is an odd kind of logic at work here.

I think it was Mark Twain who said that "Big shots are just little shots who kept shooting". I wonder what happens to 'little shots' who keep shooting while the boat is sinking.! Maybe one should start swimming! It's a poor metaphor but it serves.

March 2011 Update 2

Did I say "one step forward - two steps back?"

Ye Gods. My departing Finance guy left me a little six figure present! A debt to the Taxman. And if I can't work something out fast, they'll shut the company down. Everything gone in one fell swoop.


The really tragic bit is that it was avoidable. They sent a letter to us and it went to the wrong address and someone there sent it back to them saying that there was no company of that name at that address, which was accurate but which they misinterpreted as they didn't know that it had been misdelivered! So they acted.

Oh Boy! Now what do I do?

March 2011 Update

So where are we? Well I managed to get some cash to pump into the company by securing a loan against the last asset I own - a tiny site in the back end of nowhere (left to me by my father). Unfortunately revenues are down year on year and the disparity has swallowed the capital injection I just made in under 2 months.

The other directors are now gone and I'm saving their salaries and other costs which are substantial enough for this tiny business to be very close to breaking even. I've restructured and not replaced certain people who thankfully left of their own accord. I may just be able to save the jobs of the remaining staff. The problem is that I'm doing 75% of the ex-Directors' jobs right now and possibly not very well, or not well enough (time will tell).

A quick and nasty summary of life right now is:

• one step forward,
• kick in the face,
• pick your self up,
• dust yourself off,
• realise that you are now two steps back and
• start trying to move forward again.

Woodrow Wilson was right. It's about perseverence. Not giving up. Not giving in. Damn fool stubbornness. And maybe when your back is to the wall it changes from being your worst to your finest hour in some indecipherable way I've yet to figure out. I certainly know that if I go down then I'll go down fighting. But we're a long way from that.

Maybe I'm deluding myself but I think that we may just be closer to success than I think. I've made some good decisions and the team that's left are good and loyal and hard-working and they have pride in our little business.

I'm learning too, about the corrosive quality of worry. If I allow anxiety and concern for negative outcomes of events and processes then I'm shooting myself in the foot. Worrying never fixed anything.

By just focusing on where I am, what I am doing and dealing with what is in front of me I can make myself impermeable to worry and crucially, to its negative impact on my efficacy.

Earthscape

A simple picture taken by an Astronaut. It stimulates one to look beyond the immediate.

How small and insignificant we really are, obsessed with our petty problems. Strangled by our ability to make mountains out of molehills. Our arrogance is huge. We are the centre of our tiny universes. Taking time out to stop. Just stop. Smell the flowers. Look at the snow. Quieten our minds and see beyond our little existence. Step into the vastness of Life and gaze with awe on the glory that abounds.

August 2010 Update

So the company has survived thus far.

There were genuinely moments when I thought that I was staring ruin in the face again.

It's funny how it is the element of fear that causes one the most stress and discomfort. Yet once you have faced the monster a few times and survived, you begin to realise that what you have to do is to not allow fear to control you, that wasting your time worrying is just going to keep you paralysed and unable to think your way through the problems that may beset you. I'm certainly far from sorted but at least I'm moving forward again. At least, if I go down, I'll go down fighting, and will not have any regrets on that score.

In my attempts to move from being a "one-trick pony", I have initiated a new joint venture which I signed contracts for recently and am looking at beginning the process of launching another tomorrow.

I am going to try and sell off one part of my business as I have finally gotten it to a point where I should realise a good price for it. Furthermore I have now run out of money to keep it funded and have had to work really hard to keep it going and pay the salaries. Amazingly I encountered some decent guys in my local bank who have really done a lot recently to help me secure funding from the bank. They have certainly helped to restore my faith in people (especially bankers!).

Anyway If I can sell this asset at the right price then I will hopefully achieve my twin objectives of paying off all of the debts I have incurred and preserving the livelihoods of the staff under my stewardship. If I can achieve those targets then I can begin to move forward again and know that I have done the right thing by the Team. Fingers crossed.

May 2010 Update

So it's what, 6/7 months since my last post? A lot has happened since then. I merged my company with another smaller company and the person who ran that company took over the Sales of both businesses. I replaced the "lazy" salesperson and have someone who's actually hungry and talented. I had to borrow money from friends in order to fund things and keep going but if the second half of 2010 goes according to my hopes then I will be able to begin paying them off but without jeopardising the cash position of the company.

I have some tough decisions and negotiations ahead but I'm going to persevere and keep working to try and turn things around. At least I have some support from my partner, who is very committed and hard working. The bottom line is I'm going to give it everything.