When I got made redundant, I was pretty fed up of my ‘career,’ so I decided to do something different. For a few years I’d been upcycling bits of furniture and dabbling in interior design, so I had the bright idea of turning what was a hobby into a business. With hindsight, I’m not sure that ‘I’ll give it a go’ really reflected the ‘can-do’ attitude of the great entrepreneurs of our time. And I really should have listened when friends reminded me that mine was the sole voice at the back of the room mumbling “nah, that’ll never catch on,” during our first demonstration of the new World Wide Web. But I ignored all of that because I wanted to spend my days painting things and making pretty cushions.
My initial step was quite sensible, for me. I decided I would go to one of those ‘business startup’ classes, that way, I reasoned, I’d really know how to handle all that money when it rolled in and burst the walls of my coffers. So off I trotted.
It was held on an industrial estate in a room done out like a lecture theatre with about 50 seats. Most were taken. The suave looking tutor was stood at a lectern wearing a winning smile and an impressive quiff over one eye. He resembled a game show host and had a giddy voice like that of an early morning radio DJ. I could tell immediately from his demeanour that he was going to be bursting with positivity and enthusiasm, a combination that is truly terrifying to people from Sheffield.
He opened with a Ted-style talk on entrepreneurial spirit. Clear goals and aspirations were where it was at, apparently. Hard work, a ‘kick-ass’ attitude and beating the competition were to be my new reasons to be alive. It was all getting a bit evangelical for me. I’d only come to learn basic bookkeeping and how to work a till.
Then he started asking us about our business ventures. A couple of IT start-ups and a coffee van later and all was going as expected, until he came to a young man in an oversize parker who had a very nasally voice.
Host – So what’s your business venture sir?
Parker – Me and my girlfriend want to open a shop.
Host – Excellent! A shop everybody. (* nods at us all like he’s just discovered the next Steve Jobs). Can I ask what sort of shop?
Parker – One like the cat shop in York?
Host – Wonderful. Would you like to explain for those who aren’t familiar.
Parker – It’s a shop but it only sells things to do with cats. Cat tea towels, cat ornaments, cat pictures, cat cards, cat notebooks, cat…
Host – Ah, yes, I get the drift. Isn’t that fabulous, everyone? So, you want to open a cat shop…
Parker – No. Like the cat shop, but not with cats
Host – A cat shop without the cats (* host gives a nervous laugh and looks around the room.)
Parker – No, a shop, but without cats, yes.
(*host stares at him blankly for 5 long seconds before snapping back into host-mode)
Host – Haha, wonderful…but ’m not sure I follow. Maybe you could elaborate.
Parker – Well, like I said, it’s a shop, but it won’t be all about cats
Host – So what will it be about?
Parker – Rabbits
Host- Rabbits?
Parker – Rabbits
Host – Rabbits?
Parker – Yes. So, we’ll have rabbit tea towels, rabbit ornaments, rabbit notebooks, rabbit cups, rabbit coasters, rabbit…
Host – Excellent stuff. And I think that’s time for a break everyone. If you would like to go to the room on the left for refreshments and meet back here in 15 minutes.
Parker - (*shouting above the shuffling crowd) Rabbits are very big in Sweden.
Needless to say, I didn’t go back in. Instead, I bought a second-hand copy of Running a Small Business for Dummies,’ believing it would be slightly more informative, if not as amusing, as the start-up day.
It all started OK, my new life as local businesswoman and go-getting entrepreneur. I revamped some old bits and bobs, sold them for a small profit and did quite well. Not content with that however, I decided I was Alan Sugar, so needed to go a step further and get a small shop or workshop. So, a few months later I moved into my workshop/shop. It used to be a corner shop in days gone by so was in a residential area of Victorian terraced houses and was reasonably cheap to rent. This was the big time. I banged on the music and set about painting things. And that’s when Clifford started to visit.
Clifford was a petite gentleman, in his late 80s, who was very dapper and always dressed in a suit and tie. He would pass the shop and wave his cane at me until one day he decided to pop in and introduce himself. After that he would pop in every day, sit on one of my bits of furniture with his little legs dangling two inches off floor and offer his observations on life and the universe. For example:
One
Clifford – Do you know Kate, I think that ladies these days don’t go to the hairdressers enough and make themselves look nice for their husbands. They have all let themselves go.
Me – Are we all a bit rubbish Clifford?
Clifford – Yes Kate, I do believe you all are.
Two
Clifford – Do you know Kate, as you can tell, I am getting on in years and I have done a lot of things in my life…
Me – I’m sure you have my love.
Clifford - …but I have never been a homosexual.
Me – Well, there’s still time Clifford
Clifford – Yes… (*looks wistfully out of the window.)
Three
Clifford – Do you know Kate, if I was a little younger, I would take you out for dinner. And I can confirm that I wouldn’t be trying any of that funny business that they all get up to these days. I’m a gentleman.
Me – I’d never doubt it for a minute.
Clifford – I blame television Kate, don’t you?
Me – Each and every day Clifford
So, you get an idea of how my days were panning out. I would paint and sand and Clifford would natter on and get covered in sawdust and we would muddle along, until one afternoon when a friend of Clifford’s was walking by and called in to chat to him. His name was Burt and he used to be a farm labourer in a nearby village. He also took to visiting my shop with his collie, Sally, who sat in the doorway growling at anyone who approached the building, like an uninvited, free bouncer. Burt thoroughly enjoyed regaling me with stories of his days up at the ‘big house’ when he used to have to doff his cap to Lord someone or other and run sheep through the roadless village, making every day feel like I was living in a long episode of Downton Abbey.
Then came Jimmy. He’d had a small scrap yard across the road since the 1970s. He took to visiting so he could moan that he was been “driven out” by a neighbour who knew his yard would be worth a fortune now the area was becoming gentrified. Each day I would see his oily overalls, face and tea mug appear round the door and then would come the opener, “she’s been at it again.” Burt and Clifford would express their disgust and it would be three hours and 2 rounds of tea before they burned themselves out and went home.
Host – So, what’s your business venture Kate?
Me – Well host, I’d really love to run a care home cum soft furnishings business where I sit old people on my Colefax and Fowler fabric cushions and let them spill tea and hobnob crumbs on everything.
Host – And the dog’s role?
Me – Oh yes, I am fortunate enough to have access to a violent collie who likes to protect the building by snapping at passer-by and shitting on the doorstep.
Host – Tut tut, Kate, what will that do to your brand? A business like that needs to maintain a certain image.
Me – I’m working on that Host. Every time a customer comes in and falls over Clifford’s cane I usher them to the back of the room, help them clean the dogshit off their shoe and give them a 10% off voucher.
Host – You’re not really cut out for the business world are you, Kate?
Me – Not really host, no.
It didn’t end how you would think. Well, it sort of did, in that my other mistake was that I’d rented the shop off a total prick who had properties everywhere and billions of bobs in the bank, but had got his money simply because he didn’t pay his bills or, I found out later, any of his staff.
I’d had the shop for about a year when the bailiffs turned up. It took a while to persuade them that nothing in the shop belonged to the landlord but eventually, they retreated outside while I phoned him. After a rather heated exchange where my wasp’s nest was well and truly poked and my pocket psychopath came out to play, I decided to leave the shop and if landlord had any objections I was happy to see him in court. He hadn’t. So that was the end of my foray into business. I worked from home for a bit and finished the last few jobs I had for my clients but in the end my heart wasn’t in it. I realised I wanted sick pay and paid holidays, and co-workers under the age of 90. I went back to the rat race. When I submitted my accounts the following year I was delighted to discover that I had made the grand total of £6,565.34 profit, about a third of minimum wage at the time. I haven’t let it change me.
I considered putting my business advice behind a paywall, but I’m the sort of person who likes to ‘pay it back’. So, for all those who are interested in starting a new business, follow my six point plan for assured success:
1) Do the minimum research possible on how to run a successful business by buying one book and never reading it.
2) Allow your business premises to become a meeting place for the elderly with free tea and biscuits.
3) Invest in some poo bags.
4) Only rent your premises from the most notoriously dodgy landlord in town, preferably one who owes money everywhere and has the bailiffs after him.
5) If you are a sole trader don’t try to phone in sick. You will just have to threaten to sack yourself and then go in anyway. Ditto holidays.
6) Remember, when you have to leave said premises, take everything that will serve as a gift for family and friends for the rest of your life and theirs. It’s the thought that counts.
Until next time Titsvillians…
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Author’s note - My tales are based on true events. They are lifted from years of journals and written from my POV for the entertainment of the reader. Where consent is absent, names, places and details have been changed to protect anonymity.
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