Your own business — some rules
…. especially if you need them
It’s time for a change once again, this time from a job as editor of a regional newspaper in Northern Ireland. Some thinking to be done, but naturally my thoughts are turning to previous ventures into the world of self-employment.
The first was taking over a pub, restaurant and bed and breakfast along the coast of Donegal almost twenty years ago. A friend’s brother, who owned a chain of pubs, was asked about my prospects. “He’s too nice to run a pub,” was the reply. I’ve th0ught about that one . . .
Business people come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe most successful ones do have a bit of an edge, the drive and determination to succeed. It’s certainly important to choose a business that suits and interests you. Do you really want to be listening to a drunk person after midnight? Do you even really want to be selling alcohol?
We pointed that business towards traditional music and seafood, and it was successful. Some other pointers — play to your strengths (literally in my case, I play trad fiddle; I also enjoyed welcoming visiting musicians and visitors generally: vitally, my partner knew the food business and the pub trade); location is important (sounds obvious, but really hits home when you’re trying to draw trade from the centre of town); be consistent (for instance, we decided to have music every night, and to hold to a high standard); keep a close eye on the business (from bar staff who could diddle you to the person who actually ordered meat on our account in our butcher’s!); and keep good records and do the necessary returns properly and on time (handing over a disordered pile of receipts to your accountant at year end will cost you).
It’s also important to assess the market, short-, medium- and long-term. This was a fishing port, and good employment in the local fish factories helped to keep the town going outside the tourist season. By the time we sold up, after about five years, the boom times were coming an end. The Atlantic’s fish stocks were dropping and smaller quotas meant less fishing and therefore less business locally; automation meant fewer jobs in the factories and fewer and lower wage packets in town. Also, even back then, the Guinness rep could tell you that the prognosis for pubs wasn’t good — and how right he was, with all the closures since.
Having access to money can also be important. After a busy first summer, we headed for a celebration meal. I opened the safe, took out a generous allowance for the night, and looked at the neat bundles of money — thousands! When were we going to open our second pub?! Three months later, after paying for all the summer deliveries of drink and food, and the VAT, I was down in the bank looking for an overdraft to get through the winter. That was a salutary experience. Without a nest egg or a supportive bank (or family member), your business could be in danger during a tough period.
Every business is different. Lots of the rules remain the same. My next stint in self-employment was as a PR consultant, a one-man band. And that’s another story. But I’ll briefly mention four ‘rules’ from that time —
- be positive and pro-active in generating new business;
- charge properly (remember, you’re covering time spent trying to get work, as well as holidays and possible illness);
- get the invoices out on time and keep the pressure on for payment (cash flow is king, especially for a fledgling business — no good in telling the woman at the checkout you’ve earned a lot of money this month but sorry you can’t pay for the groceries);
- the need for discipline. I ended up keeping a detailed account of how the day was spent, and charged on that basis. It’s amazing how much time you can fritter away, especially now in this age of blogs and such . . . :-)
So to bring all this under the rubric of ‘marketing’, if you need some writing, editing or public relations work done, or someone to talk about the experience of running a small business (or indeed about the media — or Irish traditional music!) please contact martinmcginley65@gmail.com
