Your Business

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

Rob Belfield

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781639038237
• eBook ISBN: 9781639038244
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Some Mistakes You Learn From...

Some You Never Recover From

There is a learning curve in every sort of endeavor. Business is no exception. You may have a business background, but so much of your experience will be gained through trial and error. But what if you could eliminate the fallout from trial and error that seems inevitable?

Rob Belfield has been a business owner, a business analyst, and runs a consulting firm that has helped hundreds of businesses just like yours. At last, someone addresses and explains the day-to-day practices and leadership standards necessary to find success at what you do!

In his book, YOUR BUSINESS - You Don't Know What You Don't Know; Rob pulls no punches as he lays out the information you need in an easy-to-understand format. It's written in plain language and explains business concepts to real people... real business owners like yourself.

You'll learn about the pitfalls that you may encounter on your entrepreneurial journey. Some of these are avoidable if you see them coming or know they are there. Learn how to recognize symptoms within your business that let you know there's a problem in your company.

Benefit from Rob's experience as he reveals the standards and practices you need to ensure that you can run your business smoothly. Cut out much of the painful trial and error process by partnering with Rob and his Team at Belfield Management Solutions.

If-

You are awake at night worrying about the operations of your business

You cannot seem to get or keep good people

Your business keeps growing, but you are not making any more money

You find it impossible to step away from your desk or take time off

-This book was written just for you

Get your copy today!

1

Why Do You Own a Business?

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes into poverty.

—Proverbs 21:5

The simple answer is to make a profit, so you can support your family and to run the business in the way that you think is right. This statement is partly true. If you are a business owner, the answer should go much deeper than that. As the owner, you want to provide a fair wage for your employees for the task that is performed, enabling them to support their family and tithe to the church of their faith. By doing this, you are helping to support your community and hopefully becoming a leader and a mentor.

As the business owner, you must realize that you are part of a community. The business you own helps support the community in which your business is located. Any city in the US is comprised of small and large business owners. Without you as the business owner, our way of life as free citizens and as members of our republicis not possible. Your business is not only important for you to have the ability to support your family, it also serves as a cornerstone of support for your church and the church that your employees attend. Your business also provides revenue for the municipal, state, and federal government in the form of taxation.

The United States and our form of government as a republic is the only example in the world where any individual can start a business, create a product, market a good or service, or perform a service based solely on the desire of that person to be successful and take the risks associated with the ownership of that business. You can create and start a business no matter what your religious beliefs are, your social standing, pedigree, color, creed, or sex.

Yes, you must get permits and business licenses. Yes, you must pay taxes on the revenue that is earned, purchase different types of insurances, pay your payroll taxes, buy equipment, and all the other necessary expenses that are applicable in whatever type of goods or services you manufacture or sell. So what? You, as the business owner, can determine what your income is going to be. This is not only true now, but for the next twenty, fifty, or one hundred years. You as the business owner can create a legacy for generations to come. That is what is amazing about the country in which we live.

Successful people do what unsuccessful people are simply unwilling to do.

—Jesse Doe

It is quite easy, as an owner, to get caught up in what I must do ten minutes from now or tomorrow or next week. This is an easy way to lose sight of the big picture. You have the stress and strain of getting your product or service out to the market in a timely manner. And you need to do it at a profit margin that is above and beyond the cost incurred to produce that good or service. Once you have your product or service sold, the next battle is the cost that is incurred to collect the revenue from that sale. You now have accounts receivable. We will revisit revenue collection or accounts receivable as they are known in future chapters.

Owning a business is the hardest or the easiest career you can ever have. The reason I call it a career instead of a job is simple. A career portrays your ability to be a professional and have the knowledge and experience you would expect from an individual who is dedicated to a path in this area. A job is someone who works to complete a task. A job normally is not a profession or long term. I look at a job (just over broke) as something an individual would have to get them to the next paycheck or until something better comes along.

The typical start-up business is financed by 401K from the owner’s previous employer, a home equity line of credit, household savings that was ear marked for retirement, a credit card or several credit cards that are secured by the person who owns the business and not the business itself. The reason for this is because financial institutions do not provide financing since this start-up company does not have a Dun & Bradstreet rating or any business history. A large percentage of business fail within the first two years. The banks do not gamble. The banks always want the sure thing. A typical start-up is a poor risk for the portfolio of the financial institutions.

Through my years as an analyst, the scenarios below are what I typically come across when I am asked to come into a business to find out why the businessis not operating at its full potential.

Owning a business that has employees is an exercise in adult daycare.

—Robert Belfield

Scenario #1

Many small business owners have started by working from the back of a truck in the trades or service industries. This group would include HVAC, plumbing, electrical, or even landscape and yard services. You have worked for someone else and believe that you can provide a better quality of service for a better price. With most start-ups, this owner works until he has so much work he/she cannot get to all the work. The decision is made to “bring on some help.” This new help works side by side with you in a helper position or an apprentice type of position depending on the service that is offered.

This helper or apprentice you have brought on as your first employee is probably your adult child who hasn’t found their path in life, someone from church that you know needs a hand up and promises to be a hard and dependable worker, someone referred to you by someone you trust, or someone who has worked in the same skill set you are needing who responded to your ad on Craig’s List.

Now as the owner of this business, you have an employee. You’re excited you have someone to shoulder part of this burden you have been under. He/she works great as long as you are standing there telling them exactly what to do. Sometimes they work out to be an added asset to your business. Most of the time you are banging your head against the wall wondering why they cannot complete a simple task or take initiative for themselves.

As a start-up business and as the owner, you cannot afford benefits, payroll taxes, or any of the other mandatory items the state you are working in may require. As the start-up owner, you agree to call this new hire “contract labor” and you write him/her a check every Friday for the hours they have worked during the week. Sometimes this is done out of the family checkbook.

Scenario #2

As a new business owner, you have come into some information or a source that can provide you a product at a wholesale price. The employer you worked for before has given you the ability to learn the marketing process and you believe you can enter into the market and compete against your previous employer since you do not have the overhead or expense he/she has. A lot of times as unethical as it is, you go after the contacts and customers of your previous employer. You may also target the employees of your previous employer. If this is you, you have started out your business without integrity and honor. If you’re honest with yourself, you are committing theft.

Example: A foreman of an electrical contractor decides he can be more successful starting his own business. He has a relationship with his current employer’s customers. He talks to a few of them and asks if he could give them a better price and he did the work himself would they do business with him. He has his own tools and can get a deposit from the customer to purchase the materials. At that point, it is his knowledge of how to install the needed work. He doesn’t have insurance or the overhead of an office. He is looking at the short-term gain. This person may even go after the employees he managed and ask them if they want to go to work for him. He promises them a higher hourly wage and more benefits. He believes he knows more than the employer he is working for and can do it better.

Scenario #3

You have worked in the family business since you can remember. You are there because of the family name and your parent has always expected you to take over the business when they retire and cannot continue. Maybe you have into the family business, a family member has become ill and you are the next logical individual to take over. Or you might feel that it’s just simply better to work with the devil you know instead of the one you might find working somewhere else. You have learned how to run the business from your family, and it has worked because you have done it that way. If it isn’t broke, why fix it?

You decide to leave the family business for whatever reason and go out on your own. You might do a similar type of business somewhere else, go out with a completely different product, or you just want to try do it yourself without the family ties that have always been in place. You are in a business with several siblings or relatives and you will always be the low person on the totem pole because of what branch you have landed on the family tree.

Scenario #4

You have worked in the corporate grind for years. You’re tired of the constant strain and stress of the position you are currently in. You believe that you have topped out in the ability for you to get promoted and you want to simplify your life and take control. You have a decent nest egg and you want to put that investment to work for you in a more productive way. You may have a want or desire to create a legacy for your family members so that they may secure their family income. Everyone who owns a business has a reason that is personal to themselves as to why or how they started into business. No one owns business by accident. No one stays in business by accident. I hope a few of the examples I have laid out have you say, “That’s exactly right. How did he know that?”

2

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

“You don’t know what you don’t know.” What does that mean? Let me explain. Most small business owners have never been taught the right way to run a business. They have learned from family members or from experience working as employees or managers in other businesses. The first question you should ask is, who taught them how to run and manage a business? Was it from years of trial and error? How long did it take the person you learned from to truly be profitable? How do you know they are truly profitable? Did/do you have...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20