American Prudential Capital, Inc.

Yesterday the folks at American Prudential raised over $1,000 in honor of my birthday and sent it to My House Ministries.

This $1,000 will build a whole house in Africa for a widow and her children.  If you go to www.myhouse ministries.com you will see the kinds of lean-to shelters the women are used to living in.

You will also see what My House Ministries can build for only $1,000.   It is the desire of my heart that we be instrumental in building 100 of these houses.  As you know from our website, this ministry is very dear to our hearts.

Sometimes the need seems overwhelming but My House Ministries has designed ways for us to meet the needs in “bite-sized” pieces.

In the book of James, the author says (in Brenda’s unauthorized translation!) “Don’t tell me how religious you are…show me”

I think at times I have not lived up to James’ challenge.  Perhaps you feel the same way.

I haven’t given as much as I could.  I have not taken care of any widows or orphans.  I have accepted one more unneeded birthday gift while my sister around the globe didn’t even have a house to live in.  I have done that.

But this was the greatest birthday of all…no unnecessary presents, just a very grateful heart…MINE.

Blessings,

Brenda

I heard a story about a business owner the other day and the story was too familiar.  It seems that the business owner needed working capital in his business, working capital that he could not get from his bank.

So, he sold a piece of property that he owned personally and put all the money into the business to meet his company’s short term capital needs.  Now, you may say, “What’s wrong with that?”

What is wrong with that is that he is wearing pants with only one pocket!  Anything he gets goes into that one pocket and out of it he pays both his personal and his business expenses.

“Well,” you might say, “what could he do?”

Glad you asked.  He could make his business pay its own way.  While it is fortunate he had the land to sell and could use the money to meet payroll in his business, he can only sell that land ONE TIME.  He will have to meet payroll again, soon.  Where is that money going to come from?

What he should have done is to take a look at his hidden assets, his accounts receivable.  Since he has good accounts receivable to credit worthy business clients, he could have sold those and created immediate cash flow to meet his short term needs.

Funny thing is, next month or next week in his case, he will have more receivables to sell again to meet the next payroll, and so on and so on.  Thereby, his company pays its own way in the world and he could have kept the land on his personal balance sheet.

Last week a new client came to us and he had discovered his “hidden assets” because a very alert banker pointed them out to him.  You see, he was also having cash flow issues.

Oh, he had the money  to make payroll it just wasn’t “there” in the bank.  Like the man with one pocket, he had good accounts receivable but they never quite collected on the same day his payroll checks hit his account.

His banker saw the consistent and expensive overdraft fees the client was paying and suggested that he call us.  We went to his business on Wednesday and by Friday we had moved money into his account to fund payroll…no more overdraft fees!

Does it cost money to sell us your accounts receivable?  Of course.  But it does not rob your personal balance sheet and it does not cost $35 for every check that clears.

When a business is growing by leaps and bounds or when a business is new or when it is coming out of the greatest recession since “The Big One”, you have to be creative.  Look to the assets you have and use them to make your business independent.  Make it stand on its own, pay its own way.

After all, that is what we make our kids do, right?

Give us a call.

Brenda

I just read an article by By Scott Anderson, Director and Senior Economist, Wells Fargo Securities.

Usually big time ECONOMISTS just don’t have much to say about small business that a small business owner would believe.  But this guy gets us.  Big Time.

Among the relevant things he said were the following comments:

“The Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business sentiment index hit a record low in the third quarter of 2010, as small businesses continued to struggle to grow revenues and manage their financial condition.

Their future expectations plunged in the third quarter and many reported scaling back on hiring and capital spending plans over the coming year. Anecdotally, many remain uncertain about the economy, bank credit, taxes, and healthcare expenses, and thus do not feel comfortable aggressively expanding their businesses.

Small businesses historically have created almost half of all net new jobs in the United States, so their lack of participation at this stage of recovery is a big deal.”

The condition of small businesses is a Very Big Deal and Mr. Anderson has plainly stated why:

1.   Small businesses create AT LEAST one half of all new jobs.

2.   Small businesses are scaling back because they are concerned about the coming tax increases to small businesses, the increase in the cost of health insurance, the lack of available financing, and the chance the economy will tank, again.

3.  Small businesses are struggling and as long as they do the economy will hang from a cliff.

If Small businesses are not hiring, and they are not, then who is?  According to Mr. Anderson,

“…this recovery is already the mother of all jobless recoveries, and many of the jobs created over the last year, being temporary in nature, could disappear as quickly as they were created.”

The jobs that have been created have been “temporary.”  Mr. Anderson went on to say, “employment declined by 8.4 million jobs and the U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 10.1%, and increase of 5.7 percentage points from May of 2007.”

If small business is responsible for one half of all new jobs created, historically, and small business is not creating new jobs, then it follows that any recovery is going to be jobless.

If you are unemployed, this is not good news.  It sounds so impersonal, unless you are unemployed.  Then it IS personal, very personal.

So….Stop Looking For A Job.

Let me say that another way.  Chances are the job you got layed off from still needs to be done, by someone.  Why not you?

You have skills and importantly you have insider knowledge about what could be improved in your former industry.  So why not take that knowledge and start your own business?

We are working with a new client who is doing just that.  Is she scared to death?  You bet.  But she is surrounding herself with advisers and helpers who will guide her along the way.

The personal solution to the jobless recovery is to recover from being an employee and get out there and build, buy or start your own business.  What have you got to lose?  Chances are you have already been looking for that invisible job long enough.

If your business is what they call B2B, (business to business), then we can even show you how to get your business to pay its own way.     We can show you how to buy competitors out of cash flows.

If you want to meet other like minded folks…well, you now who we are.

Brenda Standlee