See also Finance Management (Research on Bad Debtors in NSW) | Sydney/NSW | Queensland
As you read below, we have had plenty of bumsteers in NSW especially since the dot-com crash in 2001. Now we are finding QLD is a much easier place to do business in open source-based software development and are slowly heading up there for more and more business leads and as our new base.
Over the last 10 years, we have come to detest NSW debtors as they create a very stressful environment for our small IT business due to high debt costs being moved onto us by them making everyone fight over money and savings to survive.
On 10 Oct 2008 the music stopped with an 8% drop on the Australian Stock Exchange as part of the worldwide financial meltdown and now we are all fighting for the last chair or dollar to survive.
We have had nothing but misery and hardship since we based our business in NSW due to
Due to constant losses through bad customers nearly 100% from NSW, we are looking for business in other states like Queensland, South Australia, West Australia and Tasmania which are more productive for our line of business - IT via the Internet, not face to face - with better profits and prospects. About 20% of customers in NSW are any good. The remaining 80% just create ongoing debt problems for themselves and all they deal with because they want more than they can afford or have no contingency plans - 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!' (1 Corinthians 15:32)
As of January 2008, after waiting out the months required to get slow payers to pay, and becoming mainly an accounts receivable department and not doing any new work, we moved to South-East Queensland for a period. Working on another job in Queensland while waiting for late NSW payments reduces risk and makes the most money as overheads decrease, giving a shot in the arm to our weakened business. Our attempt to move to Queensland has started to pay off but also had some risks from locals attacking our expertise which set us back and made WWWalker take off again on its own, not in partnership any more. We also successfully worked on our NSW slow payers and got some money owing and will now get the final amounts with gradually more success so that we won't have to wait much longer (it took 4 months till the first payments arrived!). We may catch up in a year or more then attempt to move to a better location either interstate or back in NSW under our own steam. Because we are new to Queensland, we will work on interstate work and not local jobs as locals are against newcomers.
We will work on not just being a programmer as people seem to kick programmers round as they undervalue them and it is easy to cheat them by not paying or delaying payment. Being someone higher up the chain like a project manager or lead programmer would give us much more power over what we are paid and how the project pans out rather than wait and hope the customer will be fair which they rarely are. Small customers are the pits and have caused us endless lost income and pain in retrieving income and they come thick and fast despite attempts to not get that sort of dodgy customer again.
Being more positive about the direction and prospects of our business we believe will attract more high quality customers with a win-win situation to us and them. If we are down, the poorer customers are attracted to us leading to a downward spiral for all concerned.
In June 2008, we managed to connect to several entrepreneurial (Sydney OpenCoffee) and NSW State Government (Western Sydney IT Cluster) gatherings in Sydney that have helped our business refocus and start getting on top of bad customers and find good customers in NSW.
Home-Based Businesses, of which we are one, are 70% of the NSW small business community in 2008 and contribute a large part to the economy of NSW. These microbusinesses are helping my business develop and go somewhere, not the dead-beat small businesses!
"When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so that he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." (2 Kings 6:16-17)
Created: 4 Dec 2007 23:04
Last Updated: 16 Oct 2008 12:50