It’s been well documented in the media lately how banks are causing many business to go bust and generally making SME life hell, the there’s a group of ninja bankers that seem to have almost invisibly slided by without barely any notice hidden behind confusing legal documents and the assumption that “thats just how it works” and leaving bodies of dead SME’s in their wake..

Yesterday the latest start up in my portfolio of businesses which sells Satellite Dishes was suddenly struck with a potentially fatal illness, someone had been sucking the life juice from her for several days and unfortunately like many diseases in was in an a very problematic stage before we noticed anything. The Merchant bankers, Elavon, had decided they would keep all the money from the sales. Thats right they just decided, no warning hell they didnt even tell us after they did it. It was kept a secret from us. As it happens I am in weekly contact with our rep there regarding our next start up, but no apparently them stealing money from us wasn’t worth a mention. Seriously they didn’t notify us in anyway at all, they just helped themselves to an increasingly sizable chunk of money.

Now having been screwed by AIB Merchants several years in the past who tried their own little version of the kiss of death by asking us to spend €20k+ to fly in an onsite PCI auditors to Ireland and later asking me to send them the meaning of PCI DSS as they didn’t really know what it meant. I had already spent sleepless nights reading the rules of the financial regulator (when that doens’t put you to sleep you know things are bad!) so this morning I was straight on the the financial ombudsman.

The problem is that like myself most SME owners don’t have time to learn off every aspect of law and standards as to do so would take tens of thousands of years. Therefore we assume that the bankers decisions are probably correct and it rarely occurs to us that they could be making up the rules as we go.

Another great example from boards.ie of a business whos Merchant bankers recently tried to force in early grave. A merchants decided they’d decrease their “risk” by taking €100,000 from an SME in the form of a “deposit” to continue doing business with them. This sort of money to many SME’s means closure there is not other alternative. Apparently they took the money without permission and gave the alternative that the business could get the money back by closing their account – IE cutting off their income stream, so suicide or be killed your call!

At the moment getting a new merchant account has never been more difficult. Even with my track record for successful launches I found it difficult so one can image how nearly impossible it would be for a first time Entrepreneur starting out on a shoe string budget to gain the ability to get paid for their business. Grounds under which applicants will be refused a merchant account would be things like using a residential address for registering their company or being involved in any aspect of an industry such as the lucrative wedding industry. It’s ok for our government officials to have a home office but if you want to try and start your own business god forbid you can’t afford rent for an office – even if you don’t need one! By this logic I would never have been granted my first merchant account, nor would Richard Branson for that matter.

This needs to stop, governments need to assign a specific overseer of this cloak and dagger section of the banking industry and give businesses in Ireland a fighting chance. If they want Irish businesses to export – Let them sell to our neighbors up north in the format they want – debit card, don’t insist businesses open an office in the UK there before we can compete for sales on an equal footing!!! In this day of e-commerce and high tech business that they are apparently supporting how about helping the SME sector which is where the real bulk of the export potential clearly is! It’s the small fixes would have the biggest impact!

I find it so Ironic that there really is no real competition in the merchant banking industry but their close partner companies Card Processors Such as Worldnet TPS and Realex are one of the most innovative sectors with the best customer service available.

A great example of how messed up our country is at the moment can be summed up with one term Preliminary Tax. The double taxing of new businesses to stunt their growth.

Some idiot in government during the boom years decided to increase the tax take they’d ask companies to pay next years taxes in advance and somehow the country awash with money let it slide by into law, after all banks would easily loan you the funds to pay off the burden, especially in the first year if you turned a decent profit. But what does this really mean for start up businesses in today’s economy? Well even extremely viable businesses can’t get credit from the banks, hell new businesses can’t even get bloody over drafts without jumping through hoops of flames. We just spent the next generations rainy day fund on, new businesses are being asked to pay TWO YEARS TAX in their first year of business, effectively stunting their chance of rapid growth.

The government needs to get behind new business and with SME’s accounting for the most of the potential jobs that will eventually get the country out of this recession, it’s farcical that their first years profits – the ones which are the most likely to be reinvested in the business, which in turn creates the jobs so desperately needed are being sucked up by the government. Ironically then simply passed back to unemployed pool, who would have had a job if the SME’s we’re allowed to grow and compete on the same playing field as a business who has been trading for several years. Talk about biting the hand before it feeds you. This seriously needs to be re-addressed in the current financial climate.

*Preliminary tax must be paid in its first accounting period for all new businesses that earn more than €200,00.

Today at Lunch I got more than I bargained for, a guy two tables away from me shared his personal finances with absolutely everyone in the restaurant. It was incredible how much information was divulged in a short space of time. Strangely it kind of motivated me if someone that stupid can be successful then success can’t be that closely correlated with intelligence. This wasn’t a case of listening in on someones conversation, simply the conversation on our table (and most others) stopped because the person was so loud we’d have been shouting just to be heard by the person next to us.

I don’t feel the need to paint the picture because you already know the type, you’ve met them before no doubt. They are certain the world revolves around them and the louder they talk the clearer people will understand their point.

As their meal started Mr. Loud lets call him, received a call from his investment fund manager. Through the next 20 minute conversation I knew absolutely everything about the state of his finances. The conversation revolved around the guy not wanting to pay his fund managers administration charges on the basis that his investments hadn’t been successful in the last few months (recession anyone) and therefore he didn’t deserve his fee’s (idiot!!!). In some odd way of trying to impress his fund manager (who works for one the banks) he was telling him of all the business he’s done with his bank and all about how negative performance in his business would not be rewarded with any pay.

Very quickly one could deduce this less than socially aware person has two mortgages hence owned two properties, invests in blocks of 30-50k without understanding the investment vehicles he invests in, is a founder and managing director of a technology company and then by giving his email address he gave away his companies name and his own. It was car crash TV, think the MTV jack ass of corporate stupidity. Knowing the field he’s in the competition would have definitely paid for the information he was throwing away. All in all, one could deduce the companies financial situation, his personal asset base and have enough data to preform identity theft.

So next time your out and your phone rings, remember that something as simple as calling out your email address in public is giving away a lot more than how to contact you.

Social Media has become a buzz word in board rooms across the country, county enterprise boards are including in their news letters why everyone should be on twitter and it’s seen as the thing to do… even if you have no idea how to use them.

So stupid courses on how and why to use twitter have popped up (If you’re considering taking any course that in itself is a red flag to run the other way!), the random cafes i’ll visit and interiors designers i’ll never end up engaging with decide to add me to try increase their reach. They think the more followers they have the better… in essence its becoming like those business networks I hate so much everyone’s there to sell instead of collaborate.

This really came to a forefront today when a business replied to a job offer I sent through twitter saying they we’re new and didn’t read my message until now, two months later. I had assumed that since I reached out with two mediums they were uninterested. Instead by posting regularly to twitter but not reading their time-line or messages they looked unprofessional and ultimately lost money. If they were not on twitter, I would have used the phone instead.

Now obviously I’m a big fan of social Media, but like giving any sales presentation it’s better not to do it at all then to do it wrong. I do a huge amount of business via my small network on Twitter, I’ve hired services, consultants, bought products and even hired staff. But there is not short cut to relationships and for every post I make I read about 500 posts by other people.

So remember although it might seem like a great idea now, if you decide you don’t have time to continue checking the twitter account after a few months / years, you probably will end up worse off than if you never started out. In the same way as you might think it’s cute for all of two seconds for a stranger to gift a child a puppy without asking the parents first.

So what to do? Start a personal Twitter Account and be upfront that you work for your company, offer to help and join in the conversation. That way when people approach you they approach a person… because people is what twitter is about, not brands.

The Costume Shop has moved home. This coming Thursday is our official launch party for our giant new warehouse and office head quarters. It’s an exciting move as we quadruple the total of our combined warehouses for The Costume Shop under one roof.

I’d like to invite all of my blog readers to come to the launch party if any of you are in the area and would like to join us for what is a landmark occasion for The Costume Shop and the rest of the Zatori Brands. If you’d like to come along drop me an email, twitter DM or leave a comment below.

A huge personal thank you to all the team in charge of the move and the contractors that did such an excellent of building and designing work to get the business to where it is now. Love you guys!

So far 2010 has been an interesting year. Ernst & Young called out recently to Interview me for the Entrepreneur of the Year 2010 which turned out to be a really interesting process of looking back on the Zatori Results brand from inception to where we are today. Its funny how things that seemed such big hurdles back then, no longer phase us and how much our focus have changed as we’ve grown. The Ernst & Young Shortlist will be announced in May so fingers crossed big time on that one.

Also the Irish Internet Associations, Net Visionary – Entrepreneur Awards we’re announced this week and I was really chuffed to be nominated In their Internet Entrepreneur of The Year category.

There’s some great people nominated in the IIA awards so i thought I’d mention a few:

First off if I were a betting man I’d say the safe money for the both the Internet Entrepreneur of The Year and overall winner would go to Amy Dillion of MakeUpAndBeauty.ie who sells soaps and banner ads, as well as being an Avid blogger and Video Blogger. With over 255 votes / comments on her blog post about the awards / Mac make up give away, her absolutely massive active fan base will really pay dividends in these awards. She’s a great example how being passionate about a topic can create a full time job of love.

Also in my category is Chris Watson from Chain Reaction Cycles, a former E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and a fantastic E-commerce Entrepreneur. His site sells specialty bicycle parts and is a must shop spot for serious bike enthusiasts. Darren Grant of the Organic SuperMarket sells organic food in the difficult area of online food sales. An area that the big supermarkets have really struggled to make head way in so it’s great to see an Irish company doing well in it. Last but not least in the category is Dr. Des O’Mahony from BookAssist.org an online booking system for hotels to take orders on their site.

In other categories two people I have great respect for are also up for nomination, Michele Neylon from Black Night – an Irish web hosting company are up for best use of social media. Michele is a guy who’s often online at 1am in the morning and makes himself available on Twitter on boards all through his work day to help his customers. The second is one of the partners we heavily rely on in several of my businesses – John Clarke, from WorldNet TPS. John and his team developed the first ever I-phone virtual payment terminal, basically it turns any I-phone into a device to accept credit card payments.

The Unique thing about the IIA awards is that it’s a bit of a popularity contest. Unlike the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year which about business fundamentals and strategy, the IIA awards however are about how your community perceives you and how much networking you’ve done. I definitely wouldn’t have the same internet following but if you have the time you should check out the awards online and vote for your favorite people.

http://www.iia.ie/net-visionary/vote/7

At €395 to attend the full day or €250 to go to just the dinner, per person, it’s an expensive day but for those planning to attend I look forward to seeing you there. Best of luck to all the nominees.

Tony Hsieh, without doubt one of my favourite CEO’s had his people send me me two copies of his new book being released in June 2010 (In America at least might take even longer to get over here). He suggested I should give away the second copy of here on my blog.

Zappos sold out to Amazon for 1.2Billion last year, which I love since after all Amazon already we’re doing everything Zappos we’re doing, just in a different way. Tony is a serial entrepreneur and really gets that working shouldn’t be a chore, all of his employees love the company. The sheer atmosphere at their Las Vegas head quarters is insane. Getting a job in Zappos for many is a dream come true and to ensure they haven’t hired someone without the love they offer $2,000 for new employees to quit.

The two people who i’ve heard talking about the book (Tim Ferris and Kevin Rose) both rave about it and have just started the first few pages, it only arrived this morning, but trust me it’s full of great insights. The book is available to pre-order Amazon.

I’ll update the post in a few days once i’ve read the whole book but in the mean time, I have this second book to give away. Simply post a comment below and I’ll choose a winner at random in a week.

In my opinion the second half of the recession kicked off today. After a brief rally in confidence on the day the banks get bailed out by the Government (they need €22 billion to cover losses on property!), Quinn Direct and Quinn Health Care were appointed a administrator on the back of an application from the Financial regulator. Basically public confidence went down as fast as the bank shares did today.

With prices in property still being held up by the hope that they could ride out the down turn and banks increasing their charges to normal people on stupid things like current account fee’s to circumvent the income from not issuing enough new loans, things are looking grim. Think of it like after pulling on a bandage called the recession since 2008, today they finally just ripped the last bit of bandage in one fast pull and although there will be more stinging in the coming weeks and months. It’ll soon be done with and things can finally return to normality.

So whats does this mean to Joe Public?

Well a few people have been heard that they wouldn’t be receiving their wages on time from businesses who are struggling to meet payroll, other SME owners are telling horrendous stories about selling family treasures to meet payroll things look fairly bleak for some businesses of yesteryear success. Business like all living creatures die naturally or get eaten, if they didn’t the appreciation of living wouldn’t be matter so much and people would expect rather than enjoy or earn success.

But there was always going to be a rally before the final drop, this is fairly standard graphing on stock market trends. People see the light and run for it, others pull back with rational and take some of the capital off the table and catch out the short term gamble investors.

Its unfortunate but things are going to get a lot worse in the coming 6 months, many businesses will close, more jobs will be lost, I hate to say it but increases of suicides from people who’s personal measurement of worth was measured in Euros and cents, but not sense. While all this is happening however the buds from the flowers that never had the opportunity to take control of their destiny and launch a business will begin to emerge and with it once again an age of adding value in exchange for reasonable compensation.

Tonight as I ordered take away i came across an enlighten concept from an unlikely source – My local Chinese takeaway. As i finished ordering the phone operator informed me that i should collect the food from the competitors take-away and gave me directions. I was a bit surprised and she explained how the restaurant I had called was closed for renovations and they had agreed to sever their clients during the interim.

So was this a good or bad marketing strategy?

Effectively they were giving the customers to the competition was my first reaction. But then I realised I would have gone to the competition anyway, the restaurant was closed and they were the obvious second choice. So why forward on the number and encourage the competition? Well I only have one take away number in my phone and this is now still the case. I surely would have looked up and saved the alternative if this were not the case. When they reopen i will still call that number when the need arises. Also they could / should have monetarised the customers by forwarding to a traceable phone number to get commissions.

They have a now strengthened a healthy relationship with the competition and even shared staff to help them with the increased business, keeping the staff in wages during their closure.

So by passing the sale to the competitor they lost the sale and kept ownership of the customer. By putting the customers needs first they conceded a battle and won the war, in my opinion at least.

So how can you apply this to your business? Can you establish your firm as the one that your customers turn to for all their answers? Do you make friends or foe of your competitors?

I’m was really annoyed (and slightly worried) this evening.

I got a call on my private mobile this evening, a gentleman wanted help from customer service at one of my businesses. As its outside of business hours this gent decided he’d call me on my mobile… now I don’t know this man and my personal mobile number is something very very few people have and although i like to work long hours… on a bank holiday like it is now i switch off from work, totally off.

So the obvious first question was – “Ofcourse i’ll can help you. But would you mind telling me where did you get my personal number”. He told me he looked it up. I explained it’s ex directory and not listed anywhere, thinking someone might have published it online . “Listen, it’s none of your business where I got your number, I have a problem and your gonna sort it out” – He was a Guard.

Now its not that i ever mind helping a customer, but no one likes been spoken down to, especially by someone ringing you in the middle of dinner. Since this guard has gotten my number illegally through his capacity as a guard (Is there no data protection anymore?), I was worried. Not that anything was wrong, but if a cop is the type that will break one law who knows i might find myself getting pulled over every ten minutes or worse.

So i left my dinner, luckily i hadn’t sipped the wine yet and drove into work. Traced his order and called him to tell him that it has been delivered this afternoon (it was only ordered yesterday) and was signed for by… and gave him the name of the guard on duty.

So that’s how i spent my bank holiday evening and now i’m in a foul mood….