What Happened There, Then?

It’s been a while since my last entry, and I’ve been thinking about why I’ve been avoiding it.

It’s a bit of a difficult time at the moment – my main family income comes from my husband’s construction work.  We are very lucky that because of good word-of-mouth and excellent standards of work, we do still have work coming in, but people’s ability to pay is getting more and more… variable.

There’s a nasty trend doing the rounds at the moment, which is for individuals and companies to request and commission work which they have no intention of paying for.  I have heard of companies requesting complete overhauls on heavy plant machinery, only to sell the plant immediately after the work is completed and then file for bankruptcy as soon as the money is liquidated.  By the time that the 28 day terms on the invoices for the plant overhaul come due – there is no company left to pursue  for the money.

It sucks, quite frankly.

We are having to be quite careful about the jobs that we take on – sometimes we can see that a potential client’s ability to pay is somewhat … compromised.  Other times we don’t know until we have to write off a debt.

The real problem is that in the current financial situation, it really is very easy to panic and take any job that might be offered.  Lower pay might seem more acceptable than no pay, but don’t forget that in most cases, your bills will not have gone down, and the only way of making the figure that you need to break even is to work more hours.  Continuing this downward spiral eventually means that there won’t be enough hours left in the day.

So what’s the answer?

I wish I knew – we wouldn’t be having such a difficult time at the moment if I did.  The things that are helping us at the moment are:

• Pre-qualifying clients.  Can they pay?  Is the job one that we can do the best possible work on?
• Valuing our own skills as highly as we hope our clients will.  If we don’t think we can do a job, why would someone employ us?  Doing an excellent job is a surefire way to get repeat bookings.
• Not being afraid to identify loss-making ventures.  We know what our bottom line is – the amount of money we need to clear every month to maintain our current lifestyle.  We keep an eye on this and adjust expenses/incomes accordingly.   Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.