Ian Harrold
The first thing I learned from the money course was that I realized that my business just didn’t have as much profit in it as I thought it did.
But unless you are prepared to be totally and brutally honest with yourself, it's not going to work.
I'm terrible with percentages, I really am. But using the templates and calculators in the course for breaking down all the costs and working out my percentages was easy and importantly it shone a light on just how little profit there is in my company. And when I lost two members of staff I was panicking, but understanding the real financial impact really helped me to address the issue and kept me on an even keel.
The money course and the steps in it, helped me get to grips with the numbers in my business and I couldn't believe just how easy it was to see so many flaws in my company from a monetary point of view.
For example the amount of shaving product we go through [and the wastage] was absolutely obscene, but by drilling down into the numbers and understanding the true costs we were able to focus on training and standardizing measurements and the result is we’re now making savings. It's frightening. Because the experience for the clients is no different, but it has a positive impact on the profit in the business.
Another positive benefit is that since the course I actually trust my accountant more. We now have much more professional discussions and I am not afraid of challenging him on things and that is something I’ve never done before.
Whereas I used to just sign it off at the end of the year and say, thanks very much. Now, I'm asking him what things mean, because even if I don't really understand it, I'm at least now being much more inquisitive and I feel I've got the confidence to ask more questions especially when it comes to the profit and loss accounts.
When I question him, his response is, “You've been on your course again.” So he comes back to me with something for me to go away and think about, that tends to be what happens.
Whereas in the past, I would just sit there, and take what he had to say on the chin, but now I find myself putting lines through things and saying, well, I want to talk about this, or I want to talk about that. And I'm almost making him feel uncomfortable!
I'm starting to be very conscious of where the money in my business is [or in larger part isn't]. For example, our growth in retail has gone from two percent of our total sales to 4.5 percent now, which I know isn't a massive number, but is quite significant in a barber shop, so we’ve more than doubled our retail sales.
I think that's down to elements from each of the courses we've done. Starting with the Super Stylist course, which made it apparent to me that retail wasn’t something we did well, if at all, and the course put the emphasis on what, when and how.
Then moving into the Management course, it made it more apparent that I addressed retail results with the staff in their one-to-one conversations which has helped me build a better relationship with them.
The Money course has helped from a measurement, waste and profit point of view. So, because we're tracking expenses and product usage, and not wasting as much product, we've got more inventory on the shelf which turns into profit when we sell it.
I know they are small metrics, but they all matter in the long term. I go back to the course all the time because if you don't hold the reins tight, you lose money through unnecessary waste. It's quite obscene. It really is.
Definitely from the men's side of the business, when you're trying to run a proper legal business where no one gets paid cash in hand, and you're paying the correct taxes, pensions, holiday pay, and staff correctly, the profit margins are slim.
So if you don't have your figures, right, then, you're not gonna make any money.
The investment I made in the course has been a thousand percent good value!
Nobody can do any of these courses, and not take some golden jewels out of them. Even just the smallest thing makes the biggest difference. And I'm still really enjoying doing them.
I love the accountability that it gives me.
