Office Time

Last week was one of those times that an overly active person such as myself dreads.

It was the week where there is a bunch on contracts out, the work is boiling and of course you know it will hit all at once and there was not much to do except admin.

Admin as mundane as is it is happens to be a huge part of business. Back in the days of many employees my office manager took care of all of that and I never had to deal with it. However today things are a lot different especially since I am an army of 1 now.

The whole admin thing consists of filing, catching up on doc's such as waivers, stuff for the cpa, field folders, bills etc. and the most important part, Quick Books.

I had failed to reconcile anything in over a month so Thursday was bank day.

I have to tell you that over the last 5 years my accounting skills have sky rocketed to a level it never would have if things had remained steady and we avoided falling into a sucking vortex from hell.

I have always thought that the most important thing about a business is the cash flow because it is truly the life blood. I also have always wondered how these guys get by having someone else do all of their books and never looking at a thing. I often think they are most likely getting ripped off because they fail to pay attention. It actually kind of scares me.

Even when I did not do all the other stuff I always paid attention to the books by requesting daily balances, monthly P&L's, weekly out going and receivables. By doing so I ensured that I was always ahead of the game and could make split second decisions if I had to. Another thing I have always done is have the bank statements sent straight to me and always be the first to review even though the office manager would do the reconciliations.

So as a business man I have adapted to all of it, boring or not it must be done in order to be effective.

I had an excellent teacher who was a surveyor but also a business man that made a fortune in other areas. He always told me that no matter what anyone tells you most small business are 3 months from going under and the second I take my finger off of the life blood pulse it will kill me.

He was right. There where times early on that I failed to pay close enough attention and almost wiped myself out. Fortunately he was still with us and I was able to ask for advice.

I was taught early that people who are older by virtue know more and I should listen especially if they have had the same type of things happen. Sometimes that statement is false but for the most part it is right.

Because of that, I have been successful and will continue to be in every venture I step into.

Oh and the lack of trial and error fear helps a lot and the occasional get your own ass handed to you really helps to

It takes balls to run a business and anyone that speaks to the contrary is obviously very naive.

Here's to all of the Cowboys and Oldsters that spent time schooling us Youngsters.

Make it a great week surveyors.