The Adventures of a Small Businessman in the Forbidden Zone - страница 17

Once again my penny-pinching employers did the dirty on me. I applied for a refund the same way any other customer would but heard nothing for weeks. Then my latest boss (another great bloke and emphatically not a Lodge member) called me into his office.

The matter of my refund had been referred very high up indeed for a decision. He had received a phone call to instruct him to tell me as clearly as possible that “one simply does not claim against one’s employer if one expects to have any sort of future in the organization.”

My boss was as livid as I was. If I had just been ‘Joe Public’ the bank would have paid out without batting an eyelid. My stubborn streak took a complete U-turn. Now instead of wanting to prove my first boss wrong, I was determined to do everything in my power to get a different career as soon as possible.

But what line of work to go for? Something else in the finance sector perhaps?

The opportunity came to me from an unexpected source. My father had recently been made redundant when the Company he worked for had closed down one of its subsidiaries in a streamlining operation. Dad knew all the customers and the suppliers, so rather than work for another company, he decided to open his own firm doing what he knew best. He asked me would I be interested in joining him. What the hell, I thought. Can’t be worse than working for a bank now can it?

So I handed in my notice and embarked on a new career. No longer would I be a junior manager in a bank, now I would be… an ice cream man. Well my girlfriend already called me Mister Whippy (Why? Mind your own business) so it seemed kind of appropriate. The world was now my oyster. God help me.

Small business tip:

If you really want to make money, don’t work for a bank – rob it.

And remember to leave the bags of pennies behind or you just might get caught staggering away.

So as I said, dad’s company closed down and it left my dad unemployed and the customers with no supplier. Some of the products dad used to sell were quite unique. Dad had been in the business for over thirty years. He had the recipes for all the products and the contacts for getting the products made.

But he could not do everything himself, man the phone, visit customers, run the bank account, pay bills, deal with the accountant and the dreaded VAT.

So when I joined him we split the workload, dad mainly doing the marketing and selling, me mainly handling the orders and the finances.

It was in the area of financial control that my years in the bank really helped. Many an otherwise sound company has gone bust because they allowed their customers to take too much credit. If you are a good boy and pay your bills on thirty days but you don’t get paid for ninety days or longer, the shortfall each month must come from either your own pocket or from borrowing. Borrowing costs money.

Also it is most important to keep an eye on stock levels and sales, particularly difficult to get the balance right in a seasonal business like ice cream. If you can’t meet demand you miss out on potential profit opportunities. If you overstock, it ties up funds you could use elsewhere or even worse with foodstuffs, they go past the sell by date and have to be destroyed. Or in my case fed to my Irish wolfhounds as a treat.