By Rob Severson on March 16, 2010
I worked with a woman many years ago who really loved her children. One day we were talking about a recent death and I recalled an old adage: “live each day like it your last”. She quickly responded that it was impossible to do that because if she knew her last day was here she would spend all of her time with her children. I was stumped for a response.
I have thought about this quite a bit lately. Yes, it is impossible to live each day as though it will be our last, we just cannot do that. But we can live each day trying to meet our priorities so that if we do have our last day that we make the most out of it.
This woman had just built a house, much more expensive than the one they were living in. She and her husband both worked but I think she was the main bread winner. I have no problem with that, but was she really meeting her priorities of spending time with her children?
I submit that she was more concerned about the material lifestyle for her children than spending time with them. She had alternatives such as staying in her existing home and re-setting her budget to meet her main priority, spending time with the children.
Many of us think we can have it all, but in my opinion, not many really do. We can argue about quality time and other factors, but if we look deep into our priorities I think we would do some things differently.
I often wished that we had a large, fancy house but didn’t want the debt and stress that came with it. I am very happy now that I did that because when my work situation changed I would have needed to make some tough decisions. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do recommend that we all look to our higher priorities when making financial decisions.
Posted in General | Tagged life priorities, make a living, money priorities, prosperity, success |
By Rob Severson on March 9, 2010
Business financial projections
I need to make a confession. In the late 70’s I went to a commercial lending school in Norman, Oklahoma. We spent two weeks doing case studies and other technical studies on the business of lending to businesses. Among them was a study on cash flow analysis. As a CPA I was one of the few who really understood the computations of the changes in the balance sheet and earning effect on cash flow statements. I was surprised because I soon found out that bankers regularly ask for this information when considering new loans or changes to existing ones.
Later in my first job on the lending line I discovered an RMA form that businesses could use for estimating their cash flow for lines of credit or debt repayments. The irony was that very few lenders knew how to prepare this form either, which was a simple version of a cash flow statement. I soon learned the real kicker; many bankers (me too) used to request cash flow statements and projections as a way to get rid of loan requests they didn’t want to deal with! It was the “bum’s rush”! If you want to call it self righteous behavior you may; but it is the real world.
Then in the 90’s the PC’s came along and with them spreadsheet capabilities such as lotus and excel made these analyses more possible. By the late 90’s and forward, bankers began asking for these reports along with business and personal financial statements to analyze loan requests. Many bankers still could not do them themselves, but demanded them of their customers and prospects.
After leaving the bank I began to work with businesses to secure financing for them. Projections were always key to getting loans; either for turnarounds, new businesses, or renewals of existing lines of credit. In this time I learned another thing; many controllers also didn’t know how to do these projections! The real problem is that they didn’t want to admit it in front of their boss and we ended up wasting some time before we brought in folks who knew how to do them in a proper, understandable format.
Today they are a critical part of any financing request for any business loan request. When I work with a new client I always ask if they know how to do them, and ask more questions to make sure they really do know how to do them. If I learn they don’t, I bring in someone who does and can do them quickly and accurately.
Many owners still do not think projections are important because of all the variables of their business operations. When they do get projections done for them I am very careful to be sure they understand how they were put together as well as the key things that have to happen in order for them to meet their numbers and be successful. My best clients catch on quickly after having it explained to them by someone “on their side” and the ending result is usually that they get the money they are asking for.
Posted in General |
By Rob Severson on March 2, 2010
I have often heard that our goal should be to take care of #1, meaning ourselves. I believe it is important to be conscious about our well being but also have come to believe that we do better in life if it isn’t totally “about me”.
The best example of this is how good consultative sales people. They are skilled listeners and spend a lot of time learning about the customer’s issues and problems before presenting how they can help solve them. When they put the customer first the customer starts to trust them and knows the solutions being proposed have their best interest in mind, not the sellers.
It is also true in jobs. In my first job I thought it was about me, what I could learn and how much I could get paid. I think I had an entitlement mentality of what a college degree should give me, but it didn’t last long. In my next job, I learned that if I put my employer (customer) first I could learn what their needs were and gained promotions and salary increases when I found solutions for them. On the other hand, if we wait for our employer to do something for us we can wait a long time for any furtherance of our careers. This often results in job dissatisfaction, anger, worry and sometimes loss of jobs that defeat our ultimate goal of pursuing peace in our lives. This is also true for supervisors. If they coach and train their subordinates properly they can improve their productivity and build people for more value to their organization. If they can produce winners they will also win.
Most of our money problems can also be traced to the “I” centered mentality. Many things we buy just create more wants of more things. Then greed grows from insatiable needs to satisfy ourselves with things we think will bring us happiness. It isn’t just a malady of the rich; it affects all of us.
I think one trait we can develop to avoid that is to learn to give to the less fortunate. By so doing we can learn to control the self centeredness that we all have plus see and help others less fortunate which not only makes us feel good, but also shows us how fortunate we really are. I don’t see greed so much as a measure of income, rather a measure of giving.
Posted in General |
By Rob Severson on February 26, 2010
I think many think it is cool to be a risk taker. Slogans like “you only go around once”,
“take a chance, Columbus did!” and others promote the idea of taking risks with our money and careers. Some are very successful when they take risks; others fail miserably. I have heard it said that entrepreneurs are risk managers, not risk takers. I’m not sure all are, but I have met many who did manage risks very well.
When I opened a brokerage account I was asked to indicate my penchant for risk, low, medium or high. The implication was that reward is proportional to the risk. But it is also proportional to the loss.
I see little wrong with risk taking only if we understand it and can live with the downside. We are in an economy right now where many are in trouble due to loss of jobs, loss of one job in a two job family, and market downturns. There are many people very stressed about their situation and rightfully so. There is much we cannot control and we re-learn that in times like these.
I don’t have a conclusion on this, but I do know that the low risk takers are doing quite well even now. I am reminded of another saying, “you meet the same people on the way down that you passed on the way up!”. Are you prepared to go down?
Posted in General | Tagged risk taking, success |
By Rob Severson on February 23, 2010
I have been very fortunate in my career and have had to overcome some obstacles to do so. I am at the stage where I want to give back to others where I can. I am open to emails, networking ideas or meeting face to face if it is feasible. I have done a lot of this and am willing to do more assuming I continue to have the time to do it. I have lots of good contacts to share as well as lots of experience in different fields.
I would appreciate it if anyone bought my book on the subject, but it wouldn’t be necessary to get any help I can give.
Posted in General |
By Rob Severson on February 20, 2010
In my last article I wrote about running one’s life like a business, with mission, core competency/product, sales and marketing and money management. In this one I will discuss the idea of transferrable skills and obsolescence.
I define transferrable skills as core competencies that we have developed that can be used almost anywhere. Thing like sales, accounting, customer relations, use of computer work applications like excel etc., and many more are examples of transferrable skills. Obsolescence occurs when one’s core competency skills are no longer needed by the market.
Many people learned their core competency in college or trade schools which is a great place to start. The problem I see with this is that many also fall in to the trap many businesses have, lack of or change in the market demand for those skills or product. Business must constantly be aware of the demand for their product, watch for trends in it, and improve it or add to it over time in order to survive. So, what can an individual do?
I admit that I was lucky! I stumbled in to having transferrable skills. A lot of the reason i did was that I had been fired once and didn’t want that to happen again. I also saw a lot of people stuck in their current job with no way to transfer to another one so I focused on moving around the corporation. I worked in the same bank for 18 years and public accounting for four during which time I earned a CPA certificate. I learned that the CPA certificate was worth far more in a field outside of public accounting than it was there; it was expected there but in other fields it was viewed as a badge of knowledge! So I was distinguished by that in my banking career and it gave me much more credibility among my peers. At the bank I worked in many different disciplines, auditing, data processing and programming, systems project management, commercial banking, business development and management as president of a subsidiary of the corporation. This diversity has helped me in my consulting business, but even better, gives me the luxury of being able to choose among many different jobs should I choose to seek one. I was fortunate to have developed many skills that can be used anywhere.
I like to say that my main core competency is problem solving; that is how I got all my promotions and transfers in banking. Being known as someone who get the job done or solve problems is the main thing supervisors look for and need. As I learned how to seek out problems I recognized I could use skills that I had learned in past assignments and built on them. And not staying in area too long helped me to not become obsolete.
If one hasn’t been this fortunate there are many things we can do. We need to watch the industry we are in and look for changes that may impact our current job role. For example, when I was involved with data processing COBOL was a widely used programming language. In the mid 90’s it changed and the COBOL experts soon faded away except for some Y2K needs. Now there is little need for them. Some of these folks missed the trend and didn’t expand their programming skills by learning the new languages where the jobs were going. Some firms offered training to people, but probably only to the stars that they wanted to invest in for the future. Those left behind needed to invest in themselves, but many didn’t leaving them without jobs.
A lot of us wait for our employers to invest in us because we are conditioned to believe that is their role. As I said, they frequently do invest in their top talent but that leaves many of us out of the equation. I invested in a CPA review course on my own and it was the best thing I ever did. Had I waited for the bank to further educate me I may have still been there as an auditor and beeen stuck there forever.
In these times there are many places that offer re-training for folks out of work. I have no idea how effective they are but hope that they solve people’s problems. But I do know that if these folks had watched the market for their skills, made sure they were transferrable or not obsolete, they could have been ahead of the pack when the job market went away.
Posted in General | Tagged attitude, careers, jobs, life priorities, prosperity, success |
By Rob Severson on February 18, 2010
There is a bank ad on right now that I get a kick out of. A man asks a girl if she would like a pony; she says yes and gets a toy pony. He then asks the other girl if she would like a pony; she says yes and a real pony comes walking out. The first girl is crushed and says, you didn’t say I could have a real pony! The man answers, you didn’t ask for a real pony. Then they go on to talk about their bank.
While it is funny, I have also seen it happen. If businesses don’t know what to ask for, how to ask for it, and present a case for it, they may not get it. So they settle for what they get.
That is one of the best reasons I can think of to hire a pro to assist in these events! And that is how I have chosen to use my 40 years of experience for; to help businesses at the best value I can.
Posted in General | Tagged attitude, business finance, careers, financial prosperity, life priorities, prosperity |
By Rob Severson on February 8, 2010
Obama recently gave some advice: if you are saving to send your children to college you should probably stay out of Las Vegas… or something like that.
Predictably he got criticized, by Las Vegas for hurting their business and people on the right who don’t think he should be telling folks what to do. And, if he does, he should practice the frugality he preaches to others with our money.
Well, maybe it wasn’t his place to say that, but I agree with him.
So I will help him out as no one can go after me: If you are saving money to send your children to college don’t fritter it away in Las Vegas. Unless you can well afford it.
Posted in General |
By Rob Severson on January 29, 2010
We all know the value of first impressions. If they are good we create a relationship; if bad we have repair work to do.
As a former lender I succumbed to making quick judgements many times, especially if my prospect was poorly prepared with their financing request or didn’t have any idea of what I was looking for. Call me judgemental, but I was typical.
Today it is much more important to make that good first impression in order to get financing. If you aren’t sure how to go about getting financed check with me. I can save you time and error and maybe even solve your financing problem!
Posted in General | Tagged banking, business finance, finance, loans |
