Page 193 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

Expert Advice
It took me a long time to learn to listen to those that have been there before and were more experienced than me, even if the advice was free. It also took a while to make the investment and pay the sometimes high cost of experts in their particular field. If I had listened to those wiser than me, it would have saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more). It is false economy trying to save on experts.
My good friend Richard Carver mentored me on and off for ten years. He sat me down one day and gave me a lecture on why I should have done what he had said to do. I had procrastinated and didn’t get the ‘mongrel’ out to sort a major issue. I felt like a small school boy, and I deserved the lecture. I should have listened to his expert, experienced advice and would have saved big time, and I also would have saved a lot of stress in the long term.
Note: expert, experienced advice, not opinion.
Nearing the time when I was selling my business, I had four lawyers, and it was ‘different horses for different courses’: the family lawyer, the franchise lawyer, the mongrel lawyer for debt collection and disputes, and at the end, the team that worked to bring the deal across the line in selling my business. Professionals are not experts right across their whole business sphere. They are experts within an expert field. Don’t expect one to be the answer to all your legal or financial queries. For example, there are accountants and there are accountants. There are your business accountants, and if they don’t have in-house expertise, there are other accountants that advise on tax and structures.
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