Why is it that the people who most need protection and help spurn it? We wait until the faeces hit the fan before calling for help, and then spend the next few years blaming everyone except ourselves for the overwhelming problems we now have. Honestly, when last did you hear someone say: “I was too busy with the daily urgent stuff to sort out the really important stuff. I learnt from that and I won’t do it again.”

Yep, that’s what I thought! This weeks diatribe is the result of a bunch of folk choosing winter to close their businesses, and calling for help. But if we’re not prepared to do a few preliminary things to protect ourselves, then nobody will be able to help us when the business loses a wheel or two.

I regularly receive emails asking for help. Usually the email will start with the words “I’d love to attend your seminar on marketing, but I’m way too busy right now trying to improve sales. Won’t you tell me how I can do that?” Even better: “I’ve been reading your emails for a couple of years. I’ve been too busy to attend a seminar, but right now my bank has just pulled my overdraft – what should I do?” Or: “My accountant tells me that I don’t need a trust. But you have a seminar that I am too busy to attend. Please answer the following 6 questions!”

Our world is changing. It’s no longer like it was in the days before TV [pre 1973] when anything took months to happen. Most of us are living at a pace our parents never nightmared of in their worst dreams. Yet most of us feel that our learning days are over - that when we left school [or university or technikon] we could finally relax and stop learning.

Maybe that was OK when we entered a career for life. Maybe that was even OK when we still worked for someone else [before we got fired or retrenched]. But now?

If I choose to run my own business then I have only one resource that determines how well I do, or how badly I fall, or how much fun I have en route. That’s my brain. More specifically, it’s the knowledge I have in my brain. And the only way to get that knowledge into my brain is to feed it.

That means we need to read – everything. Hell, I even read spam! Not just stuff associated with our function or task, And we need to look at what’s happening in the world around us – and consider how it’s going to impact on our own future. And we need to do a few business what-ifs. What if my biggest client goes bust tonight? What if my banker pulls my overdraft? What if my premises burn down? What if the government slaps a 100% duty on my biggest import? What if the Rand slips 100%? What if the Rand gains 100%? What if my best salesperson leaves to start up in opposition to me?

Since our businesses exist for just one reason – to make us rich, maybe we should do a few personal what-ifs as well. What if I lose my house? What if I lose my furniture? What if someone take judgments against me? What if I can no longer open a bank account? What if I lose everything I have worked for until today?

I ask these questions today because these are the questions that get raised whenever someone asks me for help. At which point it is almost always too late.

So here’s my advice to cover 90% of all the challenges you will ever face when your business stumbles: get a trust in your life. I cannot conceive of a business owner not having a safe place to hide stuff when it gets all stormy outside. A trust is just such a safe place. And if you don't have one in place I can't help if things go wrong. Nobody can! That means you're going to be on your own at the loneliest time of your entire life.

Please don’t listen to anyone who advises you otherwise. I’ve had 10 years of intense business hell because I didn’t have a trust protecting my stuff. I’ve saved hundred of families since 1992 – simply because they took some advice and set up their own trusts. The next time you’re told you don’t need a trust – and you’re a business owner – check the source of your advice very carefully. It’s bad advice!

And the tougher it is; the less you have to lose; the more you’re riding the razor blade of survival – the more you need a trust.

© Peter Carruthers, www.petesweekly.co.za

Back to www.bizland.co.za