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114 • The 100 Greatest Ideas for Building the Business of Your Dreams

of the two. If you do not know how to do this, get your accountant to show you and
don't leave his or her office until you can do it - it is the only sensible way to meas-
ure any form of return on investment and an absolutely essential skill for a builder of
a dream business.

Idea 68 - Fix your costs and know your costs

The next golden rule after understanding discounted cashflows is to have the tightest
possible grip on your fixed costs. Try to take any variances or guesswork out of this.
Some people, for example, believe that it is worth paying a little more to have a fixed
rate of interest if they are borrowing money. The benefit that makes it worthwhile is
the complete removal of uncertainty. Interests rates may go mad, but your loan will
be exactly the same for the period of the loan, and therefore the period of the plan.

When you know your fixed costs per month, or even per week to begin with,
you are in control of your business. You know exactly what the customers need to
pay for you to make a living. Your living expenses, if you have to draw them, are part
of the fixed costs. If for the first six months you are going to live on your savings, it
makes a more impressive spreadsheet for the bank manager to look as if you put six
month's worth of drawings in as capital, knowing that you will take it out as salary
over the period.

Idea 69 - Treat your customers as what they are -
your purpose in life

'Everybody lives by selling something' is a quotation, not from a red-clawed indus-
trialist, but from the author and poet Robert Louis Stevenson. Only your customers
will enable you to fulfil your dreams. In the early stages you will have to spend a high
proportion of your available cash on marketing. The guy who runs the art gallery