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

in charge of the mailroom. He made money on the side by systematically changing

the values on invoices and pocketing the difference. Actually, this practice did not

last long since he omitted to alter the VAT total pro rata. So, it can happen. Guard

against it and insure against it if necessary. The key is at the planning stage of any-

thing to put in such safeguards as seem like a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but that

might be in five years' time a very necessary procedure.

We have 20 people in our investment club. We wrote the original rules with, for

example, four people, one of whom is not the treasurer, required to sign a cheque of

any size. 'Anyone would think that there was hundreds of thousands of pounds at

stake here', grumbled one member who thought we were overdoing it when the

fund scarcely exceeded two thousand pounds. He does not grumble now when the

fund is worth a quarter of a million.

The easiest way Be sensible - trust people but get the security of formal agreements

to borrow round you at all times.

money for a

new business is

to agree that /c/eo 31 - Don't bet the house

the owner's

houses should The easiest way to borrow money for a new business is to agree that the

be mortgaged owner's houses should be mortgaged against the loan. You should resist

against the this at all costs. If your business does not make it, it will be a nasty time to

loan. You be homeless. If it all goes wrong at least you could sell or let your house

should resist this until you got yourself fixed up with another source of income. It can be

at allcosts. done. Use your track record as a businessperson to persuade lenders that

you are likely to make the dream come true. Make the dream look achiev-

able and not pie in the sky. Speak to more than one potential lender, play one off

against another and negotiate a different kind of guarantee.

Be careful, banks will sometimes only ask for a personal guarantee rather than a

mortgage on your house. If you own your house it has the same effect.