Stuart Mason says…



Nobody likes being told their baby is ugly, do they?

You've spent months preparing for its arrival, years nurturing it, countless sleepless nights worrying about it, and an absolute fortune keeping it happy, healthy and growing.

In your eyes, it's the most beautiful thing in the world, and you're immensely proud of what you've created.
Then along comes someone who takes one look and thinks, "WOW, that is ONE UGLY BABY you've got there!"

Of course, they don't actually say that, because nobody wants to upset a proud parent, so they smile politely, make encouraging noises and tell you how lovely everything is.

Welcome to the wonderful world of business ownership, where the baby is your business, the proud parent is YOU, and the people too frightened to tell you the truth are your customers, employees and sometimes even your accountant.

Having spent decades in the print industry, building businesses, wrecking businesses and helping others avoid doing the same, I've encountered some truly beautiful businesses and some absolute horrors.

The worrying thing is that the owners of the horrors are often just as proud of their creations as those running genuinely outstanding businesses.  I know, I owned a multi-million pound “ugly baby”, and it didn’t start off that way.

So, let's examine three areas where your beautiful baby might actually be a bit of an ugly duckling.

1. The Customer Experience. Beautiful to You, Bloody Awful to Them.

You've got fantastic equipment, decades of experience, an impressive product range and a team who know everything there is to know about print.

Wonderful, but does your customer actually care?

They want their telephone calls answered, quotations returned promptly, promises honoured and problems resolved without having to chase you three times.

Yet I regularly encounter print businesses where getting a quotation feels like applying for a mortgage, placing an order requires endless emails, and finding out when something will arrive involves a game of detective.  You need to remove the barriers.

The owner sees a busy, successful operation delivering quality print, while the customer sees a frustrating, unnecessarily complicated supplier who makes their life harder.

Here's a question worth asking: If you were a customer of your own business, would you genuinely enjoy the experience?

And don't ask your favourite customer, because they're probably too polite to tell you the truth.

2. The Numbers. A Beautiful Turnover Hiding an Ugly Reality.

Nothing makes a business owner smile quite like announcing another record turnover year, particularly when they're telling their mates down the pub.

"We've just smashed through £2 million!"

Fantastic, but how much of that actually ended up in your pocket?

I've seen print businesses generating impressive revenues while delivering pathetic profits, with owners working ridiculous hours, carrying enormous overheads and congratulating themselves on being busier than ever.  Don’t confuse busy with “effective”.

The presses are running, the vans are moving, the staff are flat out and everyone assumes things must be going brilliantly.
Meanwhile, the bank account tells a very different story.

The real ugliness often hides in the jobs you should never have accepted, the customers who demand discounts, the machinery that needs feeding and the overheads nobody has questioned for years.

Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is what keeps your beautiful baby alive.

A business that looks impressive from the outside but cannot generate decent profits is not beautiful, regardless of how much equipment sits on the factory floor.  Sorry, just being honest.

3. The Owner. When YOU Are the Ugliest Part of the Business.

Now we're getting personal.  You've built the business from nothing, you know every customer, understand every process and can solve virtually every problem. Without you, the place would probably fall apart.

And you're PROUD of that?

From your perspective, you're indispensable, the driving force behind everything that makes the business successful.
From an outsider's perspective, particularly someone considering buying it, you're potentially the biggest liability in the entire operation.

If every important decision requires your approval, every major customer expects to deal with you personally, and taking a fortnight's holiday creates absolute chaos, you haven't built an independent business.  You've built yourself a demanding job with considerable financial responsibility.

And here's the uncomfortable reality: A business that cannot function without its owner is considerably less attractive to a buyer, regardless of how profitable it might be.  To say nothing that it’s not much fun to run either.

So, Is Your Baby Ugly?

The problem with ugly businesses isn't necessarily that they're beyond saving, it's that their owners are often completely oblivious to the problems everyone else can see.

Familiarity breeds acceptance, bad habits become normal practice, and the phrase "that's how we've always done it" becomes the standard defence against improvement.

Perhaps it's time to stop admiring your beautiful creation and start looking at it through someone else's eyes.
Ask your customers what frustrates them, examine your numbers without the rose tinted spectacles, and consider what would happen if you disappeared for a month.

You might discover a few ugly truths, but addressing them could transform your business into something genuinely beautiful.
Because the most dangerous thing about having an ugly baby isn't the ugliness itself. It's being the last person to realise it.

www.howtowreckyourbusiness.co.uk