One thing that I have never understood, is why managements of companies across the board take great umbrage when I compare their business to a lemonade stand…….I cannot tell you the number of odd looks I have had from very smart people who come up with a wide variety of retorts about why their particular business is not comparable to a lemonade stand…….

I have found this to be a particularly useful technique to quickly understand if the guy sitting across the table from me is a bullshit artist or not, it is just too fat of a piece of bait for them.

It goes something like this:

“Hello Sir, thank you for your time today.  We are here to tell you about our company.  We make Retro-Electro Laser Gizmodos for Kimodo Tomatoes, we are an innovator in this field because we don’t require cash payment.  We take promissory notes which we repackage and sell on as collateralized receivables which we sell via our web-portal for coupon credits from major loungewear manufacturers, which we carry forward as deferred gold due to their undervalued nature and our highly skilled management’s ability to generate shareholder value but it’s really too complicated for a mere mortal like you to understand so just take my word for it and buy our shares because that is what I am programmed to say…..turning to page six of the presentation  you will see our fantastic earnings growth, all we need is some more cash so we can make next week’s payroll which is why I am here with Lehman who’s analyst TOTALLY GETS our concept (confident nods all around) and has a “Buy” rating on our shares…….any questions?”

“eerrrr…..aaah….yes, so your lemonade stand is different from the one next door because I can get lemonade without paying…..right?”

(Eyes roll around the room, analyst sits back in his chair, CEO adjusts his tortoise-shell glasses and a general feeling of unease sets into the conference room)

“Well you see we quench the thirst of our clients and transform their desire to pay and turn it into gold due to our deep experience in creating value for shareholders, and did I mention our zero-emissions website server  was recently upgraded with our new fuel cell cold fusion therapy protractor?” (confident nods return)

“No you didn’t but that cold protracted therapy sounds fun…..in fact I’ll have some right now”