Show me the poor entrepreneur

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

Founder
Messages
52,280
An interesting programme. Good analysis by Eddie, but poor advice.

The subject runs 4 "businesses" and had no idea how much profit he is making. One of the businesses is community radio, which I thought was supposed not to be a business. His two other side interests were web design which I didn't fully understand.

His main business was a property maintenance company. He had no idea at all how much he was making out of it. He thought it was around €50k a year. Eddie got him to do his analysis and it turned out that his revenue was €50k, his costs were €35k, so his earnings for a 70 hour week were €15k a year or around half the minimum wage per hour.

Eddie and a guy from BDO Simpson Xavier concentrated on doing a business plan. But that was not the problem for this guy. The problem must have been that he was not pricing his jobs properly. I don't think he had any concept of charging on a time basis. Eddie should have taken one of his projects and analysed its profitability. It could have been that he had a few profitable contracts and a few loss making ones. But I suspect that they were all low profit contracts. If you know how to price your work properly, you don't really need a business plan.

Two good quotes:

From Sam: " I deserve to be comfortable because I am a good person".

From Eddie: "I know that being told to prepare a business plan is as welcome as... as welcome as...passing a bowling ball".

It's a long time since I visited the bowling alley in Stillorgan, and I couldn't figure out why it would be unwelcome to be passing a bowling ball to someone else!

Brendan
 
Another quote from Eddie -

"Roy Keane said" -
PHP: 
'If you fail to plan, you plan to fail'

A nice chap but he seemed to have delusions about being a visionary, a leader and an entrepreneur - yet no sign of it yet and he's pushing on. I was surprised Eddie didn't tell him to give up the non-paying Community Radio job and the Web Design plus teaching and get a real job that paid a salary while building up his Property Restoration business. For the first time Eddie seemed to have come up against a brick wall since Sam didn't seem to be open to receiving advice. Not focussed at all and living on Cloud 9 would be my assessment!
 
He certainly didn't do his company any favours by appearing on the program did he?
 
Everyone's mind isn't wired the same eg dyslexia etc and maybe he is one of those people with lots of intelligence, energy and enthusiasm but just can't plan and keeps putting things off. Likeable guy I thought. BTW not saying there's anything wrong with him just that judging people at a distance by how we problem solve ourselves mightn't always be fair.
 
Lauren said:
He certainly didn't do his company any favours by appearing on the program did he?
Click to expand...

I agree - thb I don't know how they manage to get anyone on the programme. The guy on last night has to cringe when he looks back . Bad enough to be clueless financially but why you would want to share that with half the country is truly beyond me.
 
I just don't understand how someone thinks that they can run a business without knowing costs & revenues.......it seems upsurd to me that he was just going along in ignorance for so long.
I don't think that you need Eddie Hobs to tell you to do up some sort of accounts........
 
I thought the guy was so far up his own This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language that his head will be coming out of his mouth shortly.
He had such a high opinion of himself that he couldnt see that he had problems with his businesses.
That guy need a salaried job i think.
 
I thought he was a decent fella. Had obviously been through a bit in childhood with his parents breaking up. Personally saw no evidence him being up his own This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language or having a high opinion of himself.
 
Thought the guy was a bit scattered in the way he ran his business. I don't agree with the suggestion to ditch the "non-paying" radio service. It's not enough to simply seperate our lives into what's work (paid) and leisure (non-paid). This leaves no room for community service without which there is no real community. He did present it as if it was a business venture of some sort as opposed to community service. With the way he ran his accounts possibly he thought he was getting paid?
 
This guy lives in cuckooland where he feels the world owes him not just a living but riches as well. He seemed to be more interested in psychoanalysis than financial analysis. If I want to hear about some poor person's sad early life I tune into "Dear Frankie" not "Dear Eddie". I think other posters on this thread are right when they say that is soon going to be impossible to get anyone to appear on the show. This series is definitely not as watchable as last years IMHO
 
You may be right and viewer numbers will tell the tale, any take on it? BTW what does IMHO mean it keeps coming up and I'm stumped! Also what's (sic) that little fella does my head in as well.
 
What I felt was that by the time the programme had ended, the guy was no better off (and neither were we) than before it started. A large part of his problem was that he was unwilling to do anything about the situation, despite the advice. I felt it was a waste of a programme.
 
Thats interesting about sic (thanks clubman) I often wondered what that was about :)
 
I can feel a follow on series to this....... a six months later if you like. I have watch the last three shows and they all ended t he same way. There are no conclusions and I feel that you are no better informed that at the beginning of the show.
 
I just don't understand how someone thinks that they can run a business without knowing costs & revenues.......it seems upsurd to me that he was just going along in ignorance for so long.
I don't think that you need Eddie Hobs to tell you to do up some sort of accounts........
Click to expand...

It's not as rare as you would think. The owners of good businesses know the numbers very well. A lot of people are simply not numerate. In my experience, some very talented sales people have no understanding of margins or profitability. All they could think of was getting the sale even if it meant selling at a loss.

You might not need an Eddie Hobbs to tell you, but you do need someone charismatic to tell you and to persuade you.

These programmes are a little bit artificial in that the dramatic tension comes from the person ignoring the advice of the advisor. There can be no doubt that Sam is a lot better off after meeting Eddie. At the start he could not understand why he could not make ends meet on an income of €50,000 a year. Now at least he knows that his income is only €15,000 a year. Identifying the problem is a good start.

Brendan
 
I agree with most of the posters here. The chap was definetely a nice guy. However he did have a hang up about his friends having nice cars and owning their own homes when he worked just as hard and had nothing to show for it. I suppose being your own boss can have its downfalls if you have a tendancy to delude yourself.
I didn't really learn much from the show and i don't think the subject did either. I think the show would be a lot better if it had a 1 hour slot. At the moment its too short and tends to gloss over ethe issues.
SMTM probably appeals more to audiences from a voyeristic point of view as opposed to a show where you can get detailed financial advice to apply to your own situation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top