[TheForge]Cash Only Businesses

[Ries Niemi]

On Thursday, January 6, 2005, at 04:25 PM, Andrew Vida wrote:
>
>
> 	Be in a cash only business.
>

This is a subject that comes up once in a while, and I am interested to 
hear people's take on this.

It has been my experience that for me, anyway, a cash only business is 
a tempting mirage- that is, it always seems nice when you get paid in 
cash- you can just pocket it, and not tell any 3 letter government 
agencies about it.

But I find a few things happen-
One- I tend to just spend it- without actually using it for my business 
expenses. Cash in your pocket has a way of getting out, fast, whereas 
cash in my checking account seems to have a higher specific gravity.
Two- none of the jobs I really want, and know I should be spending my 
time on, pay in cash. The big jobs, you know, the 100 grand railing 
jobs where they say "do what you think would look good". Those people 
dont even know what cash looks like. Where I live, there is a direct 
relationship between the amount of cash in your pocket, and how much 
money you really have. As in, You got money, you dont carry cash. You 
on welfare, you dont have a bank account, all you got is cash.
The richest people dont even have wallets- somebody else deals with all 
that dirty stuff.

If I make a few candlesticks, I can probably have a sale, and sell em 
for 25 bucks. CASH.
If I make a $15,000 stair rail for a new house, its gonna be a lot 
better job, I am gonna make more money, its gonna get me referrals for 
more jobs, and it is always gonna be paid by check.
And from a career, as well as wife-retention standpoint, you know which 
kind of job I should be trying for.
Yes, it is a pain to have a real business, and a bank account, and fill 
out tax forms, and pay money in taxes. But I have found, for me, 
anyway, that you really do have to spend money to make money, and I can 
do much more fun projects when potential clients are convinced I am a 
"professional".

Now in the east, my old relatives carry big wads of simoleans- but they 
grew up watching Jimmy Cagney movies, and lived thru the depression, 
when banks failed. Only people I know on the west coast with giant 
rolls of benjamins are drug dealers.

Although there was that one job- this extraordinarily beautiful young 
woman, with very expensive clothes, tracked me down when my shop was in 
the Ghetto in South Central, and commissioned me to build a crib for 
her baby- very over the top, canopy style, with a bowl on each corner 
so she could put rose petals in it.  I kid you not. She shows up to 
pick it up in a white, Rolls Royce Corniche convertible, and hires the 
mexican grocery tortilla delivery man from across the street to take it 
back home to Beverly Hills in his funky old van. She paid in Cash. 
Crisp Hundreds. Turns out she was married to one of Micheal Jackson's 
brothers.
But that was a fluke, and hasnt happened since- mostly I get boring old 
checks, and even worse, often I have to fill out W-9 forms to get em. 
Which means I can go to their bank and cash em all I want, but the IRS 
already knows I have the money.

ries