Hello

[Mark]

Hello everyone, my name is Mark and I'm an avid researcher...Hence how I found this interesting forum.

Briefly, I have been in the Security Industry for 21 years and after managing a Company from $3,000,000 to $16,000,000 in six years and then becoming part of the partnership fall-out, I started my own business.

I broke one of the golden rules and bought myself a job....Not many General Manager's positions around. Although the second and more important reason was for my kids and lifestyle....not wealth.

I have been in business for nearly 2 years, so I'm beating the statistics. I originally started in security manpower (Guards & Patrols) but have since invested more than $100,000 in an Alarm Monitoring Centre, so we now provide, alarm monitoring, CCTV monitoring, vehicle tracking etc throughout Australia. We have also recently ventured into Home & Building Automation.

I also added a Cleaning company to the portfolio so now we are more a facilities company.

I could go on but I won't.

I have found this site to be very informative, and I have already adopted some of the ideas put forward.

[gerryonline]

Hi mark, welcome to the forums! It sounds like your business is really going on leaps and bounds which is great news. What has been your biggest challenge so far?

[Slade]

Welcome to AT Mark,

Your businesses sound great and it certainly sounds like they are growing rapidly! How did you decide what areas to focus your growth on? Did you research your market, or was it purely demand driven from your clients?

Great to have you here.

[Mark]

Hi mark, welcome to the forums! It sounds like your business is really going on leaps and bounds which is great news. What has been your biggest challenge so far?

Hi Gerryonline,

Thanks for the welcome, my biggest challenge....cash flow.

When you supply services such as manpower 86% of costs is associate to wages and on-costs. So when you win a new contract for instance, that ranges in the vicinity of 18k per week, you pay your employees fortnightly however your client base generally pays 30 days on invoice so you have to come up with somewhere between 70-100K. Imagine if you had a good month and won more than one contract

The challenge is really three part... you have to keep or reinvest every dollar so as to have the cash on hand for new business...naturally not being able to spend money is not much fun...that's certainly what my wife thinks anyway.

The other challenge is to resist some form of funding....I've managed to resist so far but naturally if it means that I need to do it to manage a really big contract then so be it.

[Mark]

Welcome to AT Mark,

Your businesses sound great and it certainly sounds like they are growing rapidly! How did you decide what areas to focus your growth on? Did you research your market, or was it purely demand driven from your clients?

Great to have you here.

Hi Slade,

I think your last answer was about spot on, no matter what profession or Industry we are in it's service driven... I have a brief background in Quality Assurance and I am a great believer in conforming to the customers requirements and doing what you say you will do.

However sometimes when you have to rely on others (suppliers) then that's where the wheels have the possibility of falling off, hence I've generally become a one stop shop. Naturally, I still use suppliers but if I can do it myself I will.