| I've just started reading 'The Snowball' the biography | | | | selling in Europe and the United States; and all the rest |
| of Warren Buffett, 'Oracle of Omaha', written by Alice | | | | - awnings, battery chargers, kilowatt hours, air |
| Schroeder. It's difficult not to warm to a man who has | | | | compressors, engagement rings, leased trucks, |
| such a down to earth approach to business and life. | | | | encyclopedias, pilot training, home furnishings, |
| Who has an overwhelming desire to keep proving | | | | cardiopulmonary equipment, pig stalls, boat loans, real |
| himself and who has a deep reverence for his father | | | | estate listings, ice cream sundaes, winches and |
| whom he felt the world had treated unjustly. | | | | windlasses, cubic feet of gas, sump pumps, vacuum |
| At a time when most of us are worrying about the | | | | cleaners, newspaper advertising, egg counters, knives, |
| future, it is interesting to read about a man who has | | | | furniture rentals, nurses' shoes, electromechanical |
| amassed a fortune that is reputed to be in the region | | | | components. All the numbers on their costs and sales |
| of $30 billion. Well early on in the book there is a key | | | | poured into his office, and he knew many of them |
| message for everyone involved in business. Business | | | | from memory." ** |
| is essentially simple. It's about making things and doing | | | | Well, he is a very successful man. What sort of handle |
| services. Once it starts to get complex then it probably | | | | do you have on your business, on a day-by-day, |
| won't work and will all end in tears. As that other | | | | week-by-week basis? It is interesting that such a man |
| successful straight talker, Jon Moulton, the managing | | | | would choose so many tangible things to gauge what |
| partner of Alchemy, said of the recent bank melt | | | | is going on in his businesses that he has invested in. He |
| downs: "It would be amusing to hear some banks' | | | | is not waiting for the monthly balance sheet and profit |
| Boards explain a CLO Squared or, more simply, how | | | | and loss nor is he running some complex mathematical |
| they allowed their balance sheets to be filled with | | | | model understandable only to a few initiates. No, he is |
| products they did not understand and their auditors | | | | looking at the daily things happening in the real world |
| cannot value". * | | | | that he knows will eventually filter through into real |
| So what is a normal day like for Buffett? Well, he first | | | | results. |
| reads his favourite stock market writers then he gets | | | | He has set the bar very high. But what Warren Buffett |
| down to his daily business intelligence. He gets the | | | | does we can also do. We have everything to hand in |
| figures from the extending list of companies that | | | | our organisations. We just have to ask ourselves, can |
| Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's investment | | | | we have the discipline to do it? |
| vehicle, owns. . As Schroeder puts it he gets the | | | | * Moulton, Jon. October 8th 2008. Financial Crisis:UK bail |
| numbers on: | | | | out is too little, too late. Retrieved 5th November from |
| "How many auto policies GEICO had sold last week | | | | Telegraph.co.uk. Web site |
| and how many claims it had paid; how many pounds | | | | ** Schroeder, Alice. 2008. The Snowball: Warren |
| of See's Candies had sold yesterday; how many | | | | Buffett and the Business of Life. |
| prison-guard uniforms had been ordered from | | | | P28.London:Bloomsbury. |
| Fechheimers; how many jet time-shares NetJets was | | | | |