Unique Beautiful Fun

      16 June 2017 by Sarah-Jane Smith

Should've, Would've, Could've

There's an old saying, 'Don't look back, you're not going that way!' While we should all be careful not to spend too much time and energy hand-wringing about mistakes of the past they are worth noting for the lessons they can teach us.

Some of my best lessons have come from old mistakes.  Back in our early days we had a client who was an unreliable payer.  Every invoice had to be chased up for being overdue and we were laughingly told that 'you always get paid eventually!'.  When push came to shove and we insisted on payments being brought up to date they dismissed us from site - no notice, no nothing.  It was a tough time.  Out of the ashes of that came a new found steeliness to tighten up our handling of debtors.  It has been incorporated into our terms and conditions.  It also means that our cash flow is steadily maintained (mostly), and we have clear procedures for dealing with overdue accounts.

We also had a new customer sign up for a years contract.  We did the initial cleaning for free in return for a 12 month contract.  Less than a month later the business was sold and the new owner would not honour the contract because they said they hadn't signed it.  Quick re-write of terms and conditions has now eliminated that happening again.

A change of government meant that award wages rose by over 16% overnight. Luckily, we already covered this in our contracts from day one but some of our competitors were unable to pass this unexpected hike on.  We still lost a lot of work due to the price hike but those that stayed knew that a legislated increase was beyond our control.

Dealing with problems is part and parcel of running a business.  Finding the lessons quickly and implementing strategies for change is one of the keys to surviving those hard times.  And if you're not looking at as a problem as a way to improve things, there really is no point in looking back (or even very far forward)!

Till next time,

Sarah-Jane X