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How do you gauge performance? Mark Louth – Mark Anthony Signs
There’s not enough minutes in the day to get the work done. When I’m busy, I don’t
measure it personally, but if I’m busy, then I know I’m making some good money.
It’s the quite days when you start to worry, when you haven’t had a good week, and you
know yourself you haven’t had the sales in that week and it does affect you quite
badly. You can have a great week, do twice the work and twice the sales followed by an
average week and at the end of the year it just averages out. It’s the toughest bit
I think about being in business. It’s about keeping the work going smoothly all the way
through, it never does, it swings in roundabouts, it’s fire fighting and you work for yourself,
but you have ten different bosses, because you have ten different customers all wanting
to be at the top, you know near the front of the queue to get their work done. Signs
have never been a matter of life and death, but you think it was sometimes.
Sharon Herron – Keel Row Pub I have quite an advantage as I do accounts,
the majority I do myself, I do have an accountant to verify my books at the end of the year.
I come from a big company before and it was a big business platform . I know when I’m
making money from day to day, I could tell you every week what I need to break even,
the overheads are massive in a pub my size as it’s quiet big, so I know what I have
to take. It’s like what you said, Monday, Tuesday Wednesday and last night I was closed,
doors were shut, but come Thursday, Friday Saturday and Sunday, my takings go through
the roof, so you have to take it on a week by week basis, or a month by month basis to
know exactly what you’re going to make, but sometimes it’s worse when you know how
to do it and think I have to do a bit better next week. You’re right the snow affects
things in my business, I don’t know how it is in your business but this really bad
winter we done so well, we did lots of covers and my takings were through the roof, staff
costs were higher, but the profit was through the roof, but come first two weeks in January
no-one could get to us as we were snowed in. So, what I made in December I lost in the
first two weeks in January. Then, you have to start again and think right, what can I
do now and that’s, you should know on a week or month by month basis whether you’re
going to be alright or if you are making a big loss as to whether you stay or go. In
the pub especially, it can be really difficult with the current climate, I think anyone who
has survived the last two years are going to be around a lot longer.
Barbara Wrathall – Luxury Digital Our products especially relying on other tradesmen,
so with the bas weather, for example builders couldn’t put roofs on houses, which meant
we couldn’t put equipment inside the houses and because of the size of the jobs we do,
as we only do five or six jobs a year, so if one job is pushed back by six to eight
weeks, we then don’t have any finances for those weeks and that can have a big implication
on our day to day lives and I think as a business person, we have had to look at digressing
into other markets to establish a more regular income and not be as reliant on large sums
of money which when they come in are great, but can sometimes take a long time to come
in. Ruth Baldaseria – Simply distressed
A lot of what I do is driven by the way people feel and that’s a very hard thing to do
a cashflow projection on. As, someone may have bad shoulders that they struggle with
for weeks on end, they come and see you three times, but then you fix them, they go away
and you don’t see them for another year, so as it’s driven like that it’s hard
to predict, so every time there is a lull I have to think of ways to market the business
whilst keeping costs down. I don’t advertise apart from having a website, I go into hairdressers
or, events or functions and offer my services free of charge in return for advertising my
business and I find I generate business that way.