Kundun Consulting

I spend day after day giving advice - and being paid well for it!

Personally I really don’t care whether a client listens to my advice and uses it or not. I find it frustrating that I have worked pretty hard to provide the guidance which I believe is the best solution to their issue. Sometimes I even promise myself to move that client on - as they obviously wouldn’t know good advice if it jumped up and bit them on the posterior!.

And then i realise that sometimes my advice is used as a clarification of what the client is already thinking. They are asking me to support their own proposition - i.e. to prove that they are right.

And I understand that this is sometimes the best advice that I give.

I would never presume to know my clients business better than they do. I may know more about the real estate industry per se` but I would never know more about a real estate business in Sunbury where a client has been working for the last fifteen years.

The point being is that the advice that you pay for is not always the best advice.

Sometimes your own advice - that has been clarified - is more relevant to your decision than any advice that a trusted advisor can provide.

There is however a line that you must draw to ensure that you are treating the advice correctly. If passion overtakes common sense and good business practice then you may need a reality check. Ignoring advice is not what you should ever do - whether paid or otherwise. The most successful businesses that I have come across utilise the services of a range of associates to bounce ideas off. Never believe that you are alone. There are many people out there willing to assist you with your issues - as you will be able to assist them with there’s.

Take the time to strengthen your netwrok and en>sure that you use it effectively - this also means giving something back to them.

I was reminded of a Winston Churcill saying today which I had forgotten but which I have always found very sound.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give!”

Good advice and great people go hand in hand - make sure that you take and give and your business operations and your personal growth will benefit exponentially..

In my role as a trusted advisor I often am asked to provide my advice on how a particular issue should be dealt with. I often have to ‘adjudicate” on whether I see the merit in pushing an issue to a level past “comfort”

All too often the answer - yes but NO!.

Justice is a word that we all like to think actually occurs. We want to believe that if we are doing the proper thing and if we are “right” then we will triumph in the end.

Well unfortunately the pursuit of justice often ends in a big screaming heap!

I would dearly love to tell you a glowing story of how the underdog came out and took on Goliath and beat him. I would love to tell you how they received everything owed to them and some more to compensate for the discomfort of having to enforce their rights and I would dearly love to tell you about the lawyers whose advice ended in smiles all round. But that is a story that I tell my daughter before she heads of into the land of nod.

Sometimes even when you are right - you lose.

The moral of the story is to always take a position that lets you live to fight another day. If you are a real estate agent and your competitor won’t hand over the authorities that they are required too, or if you are a lawyer whose client has elected to go to a new practice headed up by your recently resigned senior associate - sometimes it is simply better to let it slide.

Long drawn out legal battles only ever make one group of people happy - the legal profession. I definitely tale the position that a bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush - so keep our hard earned cash in your pocket and live with the irritation. Let them think that they have been able to get one over you - then go out and take market share - hurt them where it really matters.

You never know - all that bitterness, anger and frustration may have a silver lining after all if you channel it into the right areas.

And finally a word of clarification. There are times when you will have to enforce your rights. You will have to sit down with your lawyer and work out a strategy. Just be sure that it does not consume you and keep it in perspective. Unless it is earth shattering sometimes a compromise is the best result.

I have worked and operated with payroll frequencies at all the levels - weekly, fortnightly and monthly. My clients are always asking me what the best timeframe is. My answer is always fortnightly.

Of course you can pay any method that you want to however experience has been that fortnightly is the most efficient for the following reasons:

- It is just he right timeframe. People get enough pay to splurge or pay larger bills and don’t have to wait too long for their next pay.
- It is short enough for everyone to remember what has happened.
- It simply stops complaints. The other frequencies get too many questions asked and complaints made.

People don’t like monthly. They get too much money into their accounts, spend it quickly and then struggle for the remainder of the month. Complaints and “whinging” occur too frequently as they make an unsuccessful attempt to change the process.

Weekly is too short and just forces people to plan too much to meet their larger expenses. It also creates too much work for your payroll processor and should be avoided at all costs.

Ultimately your staff will tell you whether they are happy or not, but getting this right is critical to a happy workforce.

Well it has been a little while and I must apologise - but my world has definitely been on a roller coaster lately.

The financial market issues that we have at the moment creates a real challenge for many businesses - mine included. But it does also create real opportunities.

Please if you are in small business stay away from the media - it is just too negative - and you need to stay positive!

Instead focus your energies on your business. Make sure that you have your processes and systems in place. Everything from sending out statements, to interest rate and exchange rate management, to looking at how and what your people are doing to help you through this short short term glitch.

I read a very interesting statistic the other day care of Seth Godin .

Apparently Time Inc has previously reported that the majority of top 500 companies in the US started after 9/11.

Now that got me thinking. If your business is not taking an opportunity because of fear - maybe the right time is now!

This probably goes beyond the normal accounting conservatism approach but these are not times for conservatism. Getting into a position where the cycles of business are not so difficult to navigate, is a scenario that we all should be tying to achieve. Risks , that are calculated, are worth pursuing, if you have made the right analysis and have control of where your business is heading.

To highlight this fact I must rekindle my fond memories of Brownie - my favourite barrista! He decided to shut his small kiosk and has taken ownership of a brand new shop around the corner. He is now operating a thriving business again - and serving his loyal customer base. I asked him why he decided to take such a risk in such uncertain times and his answer was:

“Simple really, I couldn’t meet demand and needed to give my customers a better experience. I had built up such a custom that people were prepared to spend a lot of time waiting - but they deserved more. I looked at what I thought would fix that and went and took the lease out on this place.”

He then went onto tell me that he had in fact partnered up with a caterer who was sharing the kitchen. Together they had created a business that served great coffee and great food - basically he has spread the risk and doubled his income. Not bad for these bad times hey!

There will be many opportunities to come the way of those businesses that are willing to take a stake in their future. Why shouldn’t it be you.