Success Stories

No hard cash is not a hard problem
The crisis hit Sergey Melnikov really hard. His printing shop’s revenues were falling down, customers weren’t paying, receivables hanging, no money, and to top of all his girlfriend’s birthday was approaching.

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New, loyal, everlasting customers
Vika Nadezhdina never had problems with new customers. They came to her fitness center called “Deeper, Wider, Stronger” near Skhodnenskaya in crowds thanks to ads in the Internet and over the radio.

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Get rid of surplus goods non-liquid assets
Like most entrepreneurs, Viktor Rogov often fell in love with some idea, thought over it daily and nightly, purchased equipment, started production, but then abandoned it equally as quickly due to circumstances or of boredom.

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Cut the costs and save the cash
Arkady Lifshitz has been a tightwad from the childhood! Wouldn’t give you snow in winter. Following his parents’ instructions to save every kopeck he’s made a pile by 30 years.

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Raise the profit!
“10% for framework, 10% for mechanism, 20 – 30% for fabrics, the rest is the premium of the sellers,” for the thousandth time thought Nadezhda Anatolyevna to herself.

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Cut the costs and save the cash

I won’t subscribe to nothing. I will be saving up

Three from Buttermilk Village (cartoon series)


Arkady Lifshitz has been a tightwad from the childhood! Wouldn’t give you snow in winter. Following his parents’ instructions to save every kopeck he’s made a pile by 30 years. His consulting company was one of the most successful in city N. He started with legal counseling and assisting in opening companies and registering offshore firms with further legal support. With time he started provisioning HR and management consulting. The business of his company, Lifshitz and Partners, was growing like a house on fire, and several new business development directions were opening each year. But, as usual, the screw-up crisis came like a bolt from the blue. As you understand, crises make businesses forget about consulting. Arkasha faced the question: to take arms against the sea of troubles, or to sell everything immovable and movable assets at half-price and move to relatives to the Land of Canaan. 

Our hero, of course, did not want half-price, there was no way such idea could fit into Arkady’s curly head and he decided to cut costs. Surely he did not want to cut living tissue, and he decided to go its own way. From his very childhood he perceived the power of barter, when he gave his Salyut bike to guys from the neighborhood and they gave him useful stuff from their homes. Some brought cards with nude girls, some brought stamps and antique coins, some – cigarettes. And Galka Yegorova, the beauty of the yard, in exchange for half an hour of bike riding let the ever snotty and disheveled Arkasha put hickeys on her graceful neck. One day, recalling Galka and the school farewell party, Arkasha surfed the classmates website and ran across his old friend, who, you guessed right, worked for the Open Barter System and did his best to praise its capabilities. Our hero, having got to the heart of the deal and applied all of his tightwadiness, became a real “costcutter”, as the system encouraged this in every possible way.

Having started with rental and beaten down the cost by 35%, Arkady was not fully satisfied and knocked out 10% more (which is 39 400 rubles per month) in exchange for a marketing research of the market by one of B2B.RU members. Now, using the research, the owner of a business center, capably and based on the facts stated therein, negotiates with businessmen disappointed with high rental prices.

The second “cost” is people. But after Arkady told them that they have two options: to quit or to get 30% of their salaries in B2B Money, which they can spend instead of hard cash, only one of 25 employees left. The smart consulters easily replaced cash with the B2B Money alternative. They understood that each of them spends around 13 100 rubles for business lunches alone! Plus cable TV and Internet at home – 3 300 rubles, fitness and beauty salons – 5 000 rubles, sauna, bowling and other entertainment – 3 300 rubles, subscription to newspapers and magazines, cinema and performances – 3 300. This altogether makes 28 000 rubles! And even this isn’t all, during the year each employee bought a personal computer, a Toshiba laptop and a plasma TV set – all for B2B Money. And now they travel to Turkey and Egypt only to five-star hotels contracting with B2B. 

But most of all Arkasha is surely glad for himself, for multiplying all the above by 25 employees makes decent cash saving. Looking ahead, we may say he managed to save cash on conference rooms for presentations to customers, maintenance of office appliances, software, office cleaning, Internet, advertising and office supplies; to install a video surveillance and fire protection system in his cottage, as well as a water filtering system, a billiard table and Jacuzzi, and now seriously thinking of building one more house using B2B Money. You will surely ask, where is the hard cash required to maintain the business? It’s very simple, the crisis choked off 40% of Arkasha’s clients, while the rest were still using his services. He managed to cut the costs by 35% on the average, while the flow of customers from B2B.RU brought additional 20%, which allowed him to earn half of the profits lost due to the crisis, as consulting businesses seldom work with less than 50% return.
The one question left is how does Arkady Lifshitz maintain the accounting records for all this? The answer is very simple – a pretty girl named Olya from the Open Barter System helps him Улыбка



(c) B2B.RU 2009