When Timing Matters!

From now on, I have to be quite firm about taking payments at the time an order is made or at the same time of a hand/foot print appointment.

Please don’t take it personally, it is nothing to do with any trust issues, in the whole, there is a fantastic sense of morality in Guernsey - the people here are extremely honest! In the 5 years I have been running Round Chimney Pottery I have only ever had one non-payment.

The reason I require payment at the time of order/appointment is purely down to timing. As my little business is what is known as a “micro-enterprise” there is never a lot of “contingency” and so cash flow is the absolute key to making it work. Credit terms for small businesses to “order now and pay in 30 days” are non existent in my trade - none of my suppliers offer it to any of their traders, so all materials and equipment have to be paid for upfront.

Up until now, I have been fairly relaxed about taking payment on collection, or relying on people sending cheques in the post. The trouble is even with the best will in the world, people have such busy lives juggling work and families and so often it gets forgotten about. That is totally understandable, but the other side of the coin from a small business’ point of view is that quite often, I have to chase for payment up to 3 months after the finished order was collected.

Last year, this happened: I had so many orders that I was waiting for payment for around 5weeks plus, for two months running it amounted to over half of my monthly income! Even though I’d had enough sales to cover monthly expenses - I wasn’t being paid for them on time! I had to do some office temping to kick start some cash flow back into the business. The overall effects of temping meant less time being spent on growing the business and developing new ideas, so not an ideal situation by far!

Despite this, I’m proud to say 2013 was the best year yet for Round Chimney Pottery!

There are a lot of business lessons I am learning along the way -  some of them not so easy, but then running a business is not all about painting rainbows!