Where are the Angels?

[paul case]

we have a few real succesful people near here, who ask people to pay them not to work. they stand on a busy corner with a sob story sign that usually ends with''God bless''.
i would imagine the lady who wouldnt hire your daughter was real sincere but $20 is not a job. i wouldnt have taken it. it could have been a test. pc

[Patty]

Or maybe she was just being nice, felt sorry for the daughter, and was trying to help her out a little.

Just saying....

[paul case]

could be,
i know it must take a lot for a person to look and look and look and not find a payin job.pc

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

I really think the lady was being nice to here and truly felt bad about not being able to hire her. She is a lovable kid, full of excitement and energy and very good with customers. We often eat at that restaraunt and the lady that owns it knows my whole family for at least 3 years now. When this daughter was a few years younger, the lady would say to here that when she finished school, she would love to have her come work for her. Now that she is done with school and needs a job, I think she felt bad that she could not come through and offer her one and just hated to keep turning her down, but the economy has just about cut their business in half and they are just making it as it is.

When we start bundling wood in a few weeks, I am going to let her give that a try to see if she can do it, but I have my doubts as she is very petite and in some cases would need to lift bundles of wood that weigh half as much as she does and repeat that 300 to 400 times in a 3 to 4 hour spell.

[SwampDonkey]

Living in small towns around here you notice one thing, they are full of aging baby boomers and older folks. Something like a restaurant, as long as they have good service and value, do well around here. The pension cheques keep coming even if the remaining work force are suffering. That's just the way it is. In Woodstock the service industry in stores and restaurants is all that expands in the town. No one comes here to build cars, to make photoelectric cells, or refrigerators. Most of the economy that has anything to do with producing a product is based on farming and natural resources and the services behind it. But everyone eats, and most that eat out are the older folks unless your after your morning fix at Tim's on the way to the construction site. When they were building dad's home in Woodstock, they needed a dumpster to collect the coffee cups. I swear, Tim's made a fortune on those carpenters.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  I get about 10 people a week stopping in looking for a job or 10 calls a day to see if I could buy some logs from them.  I know they are hurting and need money but I just can not buy the logs or hire anyone.  Matt has only worked one day this week.  Right now I am only turning down about 3 jobs aday.
  Just got to get through Feb with out the Bank pulling the note on me.  March will bring better weather and people with income tax checks and maybe the over all economy will pick up.

[isawlogs]

 Can't you strike a deal with a logger to bring in logs and maybe pay a premium on them if you could pay for them once you have them sawded and shipped till you get turned around. Seams to me you need logs they need a market , you said you have the market but no logs ...

[D Hagens]

  Just out of curiosity what exactly are you doing with your profits? Not once have I read that you’re funnelling your profits back in to your company.
  As any business person knows you have to spend money to make money! If you take your profits and spend it on yourself then the company starves and down the tube you go!
 No matter how good or bad things are my company always takes  20%, no ifs or ands about it because that 20% adds up for when the company needs it.
 Reading your posts, not just this thread but your many posts you have a tendency to place blame on politicians, the economy and the minorities.
 Please tell me how either of the three mentioned above stop you from running your saw daily.
 At the end of the day the only one that makes your business sink or swim is yourself.
 Put a positive spin on things, change your outlook and post a positive and I bet you will get some excellent response!

[ARKANSAWYER]

   Reading your posts, not just this thread but your many posts you have a tendency to place blame on politicians, the economy and the minorities.
 Please tell me how either of the three mentioned above stop you from running your saw daily.
 

  I do not blame minorities but the system has tilted so that they have a benefit over others.  Why then would someone suggest that I make my Wife CEO if there was not a benefit.  If you go to the SBA website they have programs for everyone but poor white southern men.  If you can not speak english they will fill the paperwork out for you.
  The rules are made by the politicians that effect the Banks and Wall Street.  The economy is affected by the policies of the Politicians.  The GOV is the one who mandated that banks loan money to minorities to buy homes and the greed of Wall Street pushed it along because they could make money.  So maybe you can explain to me how a couple who brings home $30 grand a year can afford a $300 grand home just because they are black?  The bank dare not make the loan to them for the law suit would cost more then the foreclosure.  Thus we have the housing bubble that popped.  I saw prices rise here more from 2001 to 2008 then from 1976 to 2001.  In 1976 I bought my first truck and was paying $0.75 a gallon for gas, in 2001 I bought my last truck and was paying $0.95 a gallon for diesel and only $1.10 a gallon for gas for my new sawmill.  I am now paying $3.39 for diesel and $3.15 for gas for my sawmill.  Quite a change for just 10 years compared to the 25 years before.  Most of it can be blamed on the policies of Politicians. 
  I understand that the economy will go up and down.  Most businesses will have boom and bust just like farmers will have good years and bad.  You asked where my profits went?  They went back into the company.  My wife and I live in a shack and drive old cars and grow or kill most of what we eat.  There are several FF members here that have been to my house and will tell you that while I may eat the hog I do not live high on it.  Several say that you should never borrow money to go into business.  If that were the case there would be very very few businesses.  WalMart would not be what it is today if Sam had not been able to borrow money (and by the way he lost the first store)  But then again WalMart would not be what it is today if the banking rules and trading rules had not changed.  When I started I borrowed $22 grand and did about $50 grand in business and worked me and one little dog.  In 2008 I owed about $189 grand and did close to $400 grand in sales and employed 5 people and two little dogs and pumped close to $180 grand into my local economy of only 16,000 people.  Today I employ just 1 person and 3 little dogs and monthly sales drop every month.
  I did not lose my line of credit because I could not pay it back.  I did not lose my line of credit because my land is not worth more then what I owe.  I lost my line of credit because the housing bubble popped and banks are left holding notes on homes that are not appraised at the same value they were 3 years ago and the new bank rules say that they have to have as much in assets as they have loaned.  So if I have $40 grand worth of equity in my land they use it to cover loses in homes that they hold the notes on.  I can not use it to have a line of credit of just $10 grand because they never know when I will use it and it throws their books out of balance and the new rules kill them.
  So maybe then you can tell me where my problems come from?  Some will say I tried to grow to fast.  That may be true but in this business it comes in leaps, not steps.  If we all stay at home in port and play with our toy boats, who then will brave the ocean blue to chase the far horizon?

[Chris Burchfield]

I've been there, eaten well, enjoyed the conversations with he an his family, learned a lot in a short time, continue to learn on several of his post and offered to help him where I could.  I'll go shoulder to shoulder with him or clear the way for him with just a nod.  ARKANSAWYER is telling it like it is, where he is at, and I don't mean behind the "A" and the "T."

[stumpy]

Before this thread gets ugly and is sent to the woodshed, I suggest we go back to the beginning.  It seems he was just venting out of frustration.  I pictured him sitting at his home, head in hand, trying to figure out what to do and decided he'd just vent his frustrations with friends.  I met him once and he seems like a hard working decent man who is trying to make it.  As is usually the case when a discussion lingers on, it will drift into many different directions and uncover many different opinions.  In the end, I think he would rather come up with a solution than to just sit and complain.

[Kansas]

Arky, if the only thing standing between you and prosperity is a 10,000 dollar line of credit I would suggest the following(Assuming you have more assets than liabilities)

1) Start talking to different banks. Find out what they need.
2) Find out what government help is available to write a snazzy business plan to give to the banks. Dept of commerce, SCORE, economic development people.
3) Think credit card. I once financed feed for 130 calves all winter charging against credit cards and moving the charges around to different cards. This is a last resort move, but it can be done. Just be careful.
4) Sell unemcumbered assets and use that money as your line of credit.

Also, there is absolutely no truth to the notion that banks have to sell a 300,000 dollar home to a family making 30,000 dollars, black or otherwise. Banks rarely keep mortgages anyway. They make the loan and that loan gets sold to big banks, freddie mac, etc. Local banks got in trouble financing commercial loans. Most of those crazy loans were made by people like Countryside that wrote up "liars loans". Where the person claimed to make 100,000 dollars and only made 30,000. The FMHA has strict guidelines for banks writing mortgages for people of modest means.

[D Hagens]

 Arky, $369,000 in sales last year and you can’t afford to buy a few logs?
A few months back you posted that someone gave/lent you money to get back on your feet. What ever happened to that venture?
 You sound like a hard working guy but yet I’m trying to figure out where you’re doing wrong.
Post a positive, it will get you more than the negatives.

[Brucer]

Well, I took Arky's numbers and plugged them into my own business model and I came up with the following choices ...

1) pump money back into capital equipment.
2) pay myself 25% of what the employees are getting.
3) Buy enough logs for 3 days of production.
Choose one only.

Now you can't compare our businesses directly -- my volume is a lot less, my product is different, logs costs and selling prices are different. But his numbers and his problem seem pretty reasonable to me.

If your business model relies on a line of credit to buy raw materials and someone suddenly pulls the credit, then you have a serious cash flow problem, no matter how profitable your business is.

[Roxie]

Brucer, I agree with you, and the problem that Arky is having is the same problem that is keeping small business owner's from adding employees all across the country.

As a nation, we were assured that bailing out the banking industry was going to prevent this very situation from happening.  We saved the banks and financial institutions from their own bad decisions, and now they aren't lending money even when it's warranted. 

[ARKANSAWYER]

  I have recieved several e-mails from people who have read this post as a guest and told me how they have been ripped off by some of these "Angel Investor Firms".  One of the worst is GoBig and Funded is not far behind.  Just take a line from the Koran:  "Trust in GOD put tie up your camel".
  When you look at the site they are really helping people.  When you try to find the businesses most are out of business or do not exist at all.  Then there are some and when you call them they have never heard of the Angel Investor company you are asking about.  I just want my brothers and sisters to becareful out there.  As soon as the Widow gets with her barrister I have some money comming to the US and all will be good.   

[SwampDonkey]

Not directly related to this thread, but I'm saying it anyway. When you think about it, when we invest in Wall Street or Toronto stock exchange it's helping that region and not your own (assuming you don't live in Toronto or NYC). Even our own government didn't invest it's pension money in NB, it's in the above two exchanges. When we don't invest in our own region than no one has much grounds to complain. When the government here in NB throws money at a dying business it only prolongs the inevitable. I can't recall too many successes because the recipient didn't loose their money, it was the tax payers. A little different when you have to worry about your own dimes.

If you don't believe there are some prosperous companies not on them exchanges and in NB just look at two $multi-billion companies that are not even on those exchanges, privately held. 1) McCain and 2) Irving.

Citizens Irving

[stavebuyer]

Do you have any other mills in the area that you can re-sell logs to? It's not uncommon here for some of the larger grade mills to buy a tally. It wouldn't cover the logs you keep, but would allow you to buy the whole load without fronting the money for the logs you don't have immediate lumber sales for. I have done very well just buying, sorting, and re-selling logs. Most loggers don't do a very good job merchandising logs. As you have noted...logs are a cash business..if you can turn your log inventory over every week; even at only a .05 margin..you'll soon be able to hold enough to saw. I say this from experience as I was a salaried log buyer until sept 2009. A victim of the market crash myself I was laid off and started out with a cell-phone, a 98 nissan pickup with 150k miles, and 3k in my checking account. I bought and sold over 2 million bd ft of logs last year. Nine months into it I helped finance a used frick mill for a guy that contracts yarding logs for me. I now finance his tie logs and take payment back in sawn crossties.  There's angels out there..I had one help me and I guess I am paying it forward. Your angel won't be found at the bank or on wall street. Look closely at you current suppliers, customers, and people already in the wood business and propose something that will in some way aid or enhance their business in order to get your operating capital.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Here we had 5 large mills in the area and are now down to just 1 large mill and a guy and his wife with an LT40 who do mostly custom sawing, a 70+ man with a manual mill and LeeB when he is home doing mobile sawing and me.  Some of the older loggers just parked their equipment and two younger ones are trying to hold on.  The large mill still standing does 90% of his own logging.  There are no other mills in the area that even saw pine.  Fifty miles away in two different directions are cedar mills and both of them are just getting by and have plenty of logs but are not interested in helping any competition.  I can sell logs to either one of them but with hauling fees and no real mark up on the logs it is a losing deal.
  I am however getting phone calls from people who have lost their suppliers because they went out of business.  One man from Little Rock said he called 25 sawmills and 18 had numbers no longer in service  and out of the others I was the only one who called him back on his order.  Some of those may have switched to cell phones but either way they are missing business.

[LeeB]

I haven't sawn for money in months. Haven't really done any kind of sawing in months. Been laying low so the guys that need the work can get it. I have a good paying job and saw becauase I like to. I have been sawing some walnut 50/50 with a friend just because he has it and I don't have any.