51 www.printmonthly.co.uk May / June 2024 - Issue 348 INDUSTRY TIPS / THE ONLINE PRINT COACH 7 FINANCIAL LESSONS I LEARNED AS A PRINT BUSINESS OWNER In this month’s article, I wanted to share with you some of my own personal lessons from running a printing company. Many of us end up running a business for various reasons. Perhaps the family business baton has been passed on to you? Maybe you’ve been pushed into it through redundancy? Or, in my case, I simply saw an opportunity to give my clients a better service and had the backing of a few good clients to get me going. I was pretty good at sales so surely if I could just bring the work in, I could run a successful business? Wrong! In the years that followed, I set off on an epic educational rollercoaster that at times had tragic consequences. In my role as a Print Coach today, I see many other business owners repeating many of my mistakes and that is the very reason I want to share these lessons. This may seem like an obvious one, but I assure you, I see this far too frequently, and it terrifies me because I know where it leads if you let it go on too long. You can’t make proper and informed decisions about your business if you don’t know its current state of play. Every business owner should know their ‘break-even number’. That’s the number you need to hit each day/week/month to simply switch the lights on and start trading. It only takes several months of falling short of hitting that ‘break-even number’ and life can start to become complicated. A healthy cash flow is crucial and you don’t want to find yourself in a position of chasing sales to be able to keep trading. I used to believe that by having multiple companies I could call myself an entrepreneur but if I’m honest with myself now, anyone can run eight different brands badly. Every time a new idea popped into my head, I’d find myself hopping on over to 123-Reg and grabbing yet another domain name before someone else came up with the same amazing idea. I’m not saying you can’t have more than one successful business but running one is hard enough. Focus on getting the first one right before moving on to the next one. Like many businesses today, I was struggling month to month just hoping that enough sales came in to cover the outgoings and get me by until the following From making sure you have a buffer to refrain from making impulse investments, Colin Sinclair McDermott offers his advice and tips on the financial lessons he learned whilst running a printing company Having been in the print industry since the mid-late 90s, Colin Sinclair McDermott entered the world of self-employment in 2004 and over the years that followed, experienced a number of highs and lows running his own print company, learning what does and doesn’t work. In 2022, he trained with The Business Coaching Academy to become a fully certified corporate coach with the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches. Through The Online Print Coach, industry members can access private 1-to-1 coaching with Sinclair McDermott. Sinclair McDermott says: “I didn’t always get it right, I made mistakes along the way and one of the greatest motivators now is being able to give the support I never had to make sure others don’t repeat some of the errors I made. “My clients are seeing great results and it genuinely feels like I’m doing what I was always meant to do and making a difference.” www.theonlineprintcoach.com Lesson 1 – Stay On Top of Your Books Lesson 2 – Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thinly Lesson 3 – Build a Buffer
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjM0NDIxOA==