Reflections from a Bowl of Fruits

I just bought a handful of plums for 100/-. Just a bunch. Why would plums be more expensive than grapes? I get, they're seasonal but hey? Doesn't add up. 

Be that as it may, this reminded me of our growing up days in a farm. With some fruit trees, we had more than enough plums; and it got me thinking:

1. Never take for granted what you have. The wise would say, you never know what you have till you lose it. Well. The eyes of the wise then will be open to treasure what they have and not wait till they lose it.
2. Tomorrow may be different from today. How prepared are you? It all depends with how much you see. George S. Clason says that opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with the unprepared. 

Living on that farm, it was hard to fathom a day when I would have to buy those same fruits so dearly. There are two types of conditions here that changed. I'll call the first micro i.e. The personal conditions involving my family's rural urban migration: hence no more fruit trees. The second I'd call macro i.e. Inflation in the country pushing the prices of plums high.

Both are in a way representative of changes we all go through. Micro changes at personal and family levels. Macro changes at national and global levels. But they all affect us. They affect the ease with which we can access "fruits", no?

Well. What do you have in your life that you currently take for granted? Family? Good health? Peace? Don't take it for granted. Be grateful.

How could your tomorrow change from today? Are your eyes open to the shifting landscape? How would you be more prepared? 

May 2018 find us more grateful and alert.

Image credit

A Letter to My Niece Starting Her Cake Business

Dear Stella,

It gives me great joy to hear that you have decided to venture out and start your cake business. At first, I feared for you when you said you had left employment. But then again, I really have to admit we are living in different times than the ones our parents lived in and as Bob Kiyosaki would say, there is no longer such thing as job security. 

I don't know if you find this a cliche but let me say this: starting a business is not just a walk in the park. But let me not be the one to discourage you so early in the journey. So let me put it as I have found it to be: starting a business is like mountain climbing. Not that I have ever quite climbed one but from what some of my friends who have climbed mountains tell me: it is both a tasking and enjoyable business. You will undoubtedly have your fair share of challenges in the business, but there will also be lots of moments to celebrate.


The Ultimate Gift
I think the greatest gift that I have gotten from running a business is the growth in my character. The first thing that a business builds in you is discipline. Discipline in management of two critical resources: time and money. Let's talk about each one:

1. Time: Many people want to leave employment and start a business to be their own boss. It ideally means that you no longer have reporting time to the office. If your boss was like the lady boss in that movie you had brought me to watch (was it called The Devil Wears Prada?) - then you feel that you are finally out of hell - starting a business then feels like your journey to heaven. And this is where discipline comes. It will take discipline for you to still give enough time to your business as if you were actually employed there. If however, as you have told me before, baking cake is your passion, then this should not be much of a problem. After all, the desire to bake will be pulling you as opposed to you being pushed by any other external force. But then as the business grows, you will find another side of that very same coin. You will find that the business will want more and more of your time - more time than you can ever afford to have - and that's where again, you will need more discipline. You will have to learn to tell the business, enough is enough; I've done enough work for today. It's time to rest. If you don't learn to do this, you will be like the foolish man that Steve Covey said was too busy driving that he didn't get time to stop and fuel. There is no prize for guessing what happened to his journey. Of course to do this, you have to build the kind of systems that Michael Gerber talks about: the kind of systems that ensure you do not just work IN the business, but you mostly work ON the business. If you promised to buy me coffee I could tell you more about that - but it just helps to know that you will need to be disciplined about your time. 
2. Money: money, money, money! We're always looking for more. I think money plays a critical role in informing one's decision to start a business. First, many are held back by the comfort provided by employment. It is quite understandable. If my monthly salary is not nearly enough to cater all my expenses, what happens when I face certain expenses and uncertain incomes when I leave employment? So in that way, the fear of the unknown holds back many from jumping ship. I must therefore commend you that you have been brave enough to venture into the world of business. Now, what I found upon leaving employment is that money cycles for a business person are quite different from when I was employed. In summary, I can tell you that when employed, money cycles are quite regular. I knew how much to expect, when to expect it and could predict where to spend the money. I could even afford to borrow and give an almost definite date of repayment. Not so running a business. With a business, I'd say the money cycles are irregular. Whereas some expenses are constant, not so with incomes.  So what do you do? You have to try and regularize your money cycles. How do you do this? There is so much I could say here - as you know it's my area of work and I risk boring you with too much detail. So let me simply summarize this and say: in the days of plenty, remember there will be days of lack. Develop a discipline around your finances. 

I could probably write endlessly but then; no matter how much reading you do, how much advice you receive, you still have to chart your own path and discover your unique lessons. Nevertheless, I think it does no harm to hear a word from those who have gone before you and avoid reinventing the wheel.

Stella dear, I think enough said for today. I wish you all the best. As Uncle Sam would tell you, the best time to start this business was yesterday. The next best time is today. So congrats for the big step of faith. Oh yes. It is a step of faith. Calling something that is not as if it is and seeing it come into existence. I look forward to seeing your business grow into a household name. (and of course I'll love for you to hire Prolific as your accountants :)

All the best,

Uncle Jeremy

Honesty is the Best Policy

As part of our company policy, we generally insist on a down-payment for any work before we start - with only a few exceptions. A client may therefore send all requested documents to us but we make them understand we will not be starting until they have made a deposit. Similarly, once a client has paid up their deposit, we know it is their expectation that we embark on their work at the earliest possible opportunity.

So there is this time when a long time client (one going back many years and who is familiar with the policy) promised to send us her documents for annual accounting work. She also promised to do a bank transfer but encountered some challenges as she was out of town in an area with poor Internet connectivity. Eventually, she e-mailed the documents and let me know that the wire transfer was effected. True to her word, I received a confirmation message from the bank that the money had hit our account.  Now, had she sent the documents just a week earlier, we would have embarked on her work immediately. However, the delay meant that by the time she sent them, it was already the end of the month/beginning of a new month.

Now, the first week of every month is usually the busiest for us - as we generate the previous month's reports, finalize reconciliations as well as file PAYE, NSSF and NHIF returns for our clients - in other words, routine work. Having paid, there was an unspoken expectation that we would start on her work right away. However, given that this was the first week of the month, this was going to be a really tall order! I must confess that on my side, there was the temptation to tell her that we would be embarking on her assignment right away. After all, we never start on an assignment before payment, and once you pay we start on it right away. There was however another voice urging me to just be truthful - let her know that we were going to delay by a week. The voice of truth prevailed. I e-mailed her noting that given the timing, we could only manage to start her on her assignment the following week. She was okay with it.

Come the following week and as promised, we were keen to get down to her work. We opened the files and, alas! To our amazement, she had sent us the wrong files. Instead of sending 2017 statements, she had erroneously sent 2016 statements. Though marked 2017, they were actually 2016 statements. I wrote to her to let her know of the mix-up.

"My bad," she said, and sent us the correct files.

It did not seem a big deal but I could not help to think: supposing I had succumbed to the temptation, a week earlier, to lie to her that we had already embarked on her work? What would I have said, one week later, on realizing that these were wrong files? I was quite grateful that in spite of the perceived pressure generated by receiving the down-payment, I had chosen to stick by the truth. It had really saved my face when eventually it became apparent that we had the wrong documents. It had served to confirm that indeed, honesty is the best policy.

image credit