Are you running your business, or is your business running you?
This week I went to visit a client at 8am on Saturday morning before he openend his pharmacy, he has been working hard in the same location for nearly two decades. The reason for my visit is he is a man whom you can never have a proper conversation with during working hours. Why? Because he is serving customers from morning to evening.
The level of service he delivers is impeccable hence he has an international base of clients who only use him regardless of price. He has built his business on top class service. The issue is if you remove him from the business it will slide down.
This is a 6 day a week man who has been working hard since the age of 11, it’s in his blood, true of many an Indian. Also true is his family help him run the business, so this obviously reduces staff costs but also there is no issue of lack of trust, generally anyway. Consequently he has a thriving business, but very little time to himself let alone time to assess
where to invest and how best to structure and to strategise on how best to go forward.
This is our typical client, cash/asset rich but time poor.
Unfortunately many owners of business think they are running their business. Often the business is running them sometimes right into the grave, or in our case the crematorium.
The business is centred around him, through the hard work and high level of service, the business has thrived but has become dependant upon him.
So the business is him.
This means if you remove him the business cease to exist in the same form.
The danger with this model is the owner cannot remove himself from the business to enjoy his hard earned wealth. It is a common mistake which many self employed people make.
Property has some interesting attributes which serve to balance and rectify the above.
One is you are not required to work or even be alive for the property to rise in value or be rented, it will generate income passively.
The price of something is determined by supply and demand. The supply of land is finite but the demand is increasing due to various reasons such as a migrating and mobile work force, no one stays with the same company for life. The same is true of a wife now a days, divorce rates are increasing. people are also marrying later on in life.
The family nucleus is breaking down, increasing the number of single person households.
The net inward migration in 2009 was 198,000 compared to 163,000 in the previous year. Over 500,000 came to live in the UK in 2009 allone.
The Barker report commissioned by the government shows that over all the number of households are growing.
So above and beyond any temporary peaks and troughs certain pockets of the property market may go through, property is always destined to rise because of fundamentals.
The client completed recently a purchase in Central London for and had it rented within 24hrs of completion this experience has now whetted his appetite for another bite.
If you are time poor or just can’t be bothered with all the hassle of buying property and the games agents play, call us and see how we can help you.
Suresh Vagjiani
MD Sow & Reap
