working on your own for long. Then hire very carefully. Once hired, staff are hard to get rid of, ‘and in a small company politics can be so destructive’. ‘Business is about the people you employ,’ says Ashe and it is hugely challenging learning ‘how to be a leader while being fair and allowing people the freedom to make their jobs as interesting as they want them to be’. Remember too that you have to support them but they won’t support you: ‘The boss gets no support from anywhere: people assume you don’t need it.’6 Be nice to your bank. An understanding bank manager will make all the difference when you have cash-flow problems. And you will have cash-flow problems, says Tabitha. Lots of businesses look great on paper but go bust anyway when they run out of the cash they need to deal with day-to-day expenses. Small fashion businesses collapse every day thanks to department stores not paying them for months after their wares have been sold, for example. See www.payontime.co.uk for advice on making the big boys pay you what they owe you.
7 Use the Internet. Web-based businesses can start smaller and use less capital than others. Eighty per cent of the businesses in the UK run by women have a website and it’s essential that you too have an online presence. A good website doesn’t come cheap, says Tabitha, but it is the most important part of your branding: get it right and it will be the best investment in yourself you ever make.
8 Remember size isn’t everything, says Caroline. If you have started the business looking for the status and recognition that come with having a well-known brand that’s one thing, but if it’s financial freedom you want you may find that you are better off expanding slowly, or if you are doing well being small just staying small. A small company offering a good regular income is better than a large one making losses.
9 Don’t get too hung up on looking for grants. There are around 3,000 different types of grant available to small businesses – from the government, the EU and various other support bodies (see www.businesslink.gov.uk) – but most small business owners say that the red tape and form filling take up so much time and energy that it simply isn’t worth bothering to apply for them.
10 Remember that you will have to take risks. Being an entrepreneur is uncomfortable and working hard alone won’t guarantee success. You’ll need creative thinking and luck too. ‘You can’t assume that the people you do business with will be honourable,’ says Ashe. ‘Anything that can go wrong will.’ ‘You are always the last to get paid,’ says Tabitha, ‘so if you need routine and security, don’t do it – entrepreneurship isn’t for you.’
11 Don’t let yourself be discriminated against. A recent study by Warwick University showed that women starting a business pay up to 1% more a year for their start-up loans than men. They also borrow much less: an average of £6,100 against £18,500 for men, says the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. There are many perfectly rational explanations for this (perhaps women tend to start riskier businesses) but it’s worth bearing in mind – most bank managers are, after all, men.
Scams: the ways you won’t make money
When you need money badly it’s tempting to fall for one of the many get-rich-quick schemes about, particularly as so many of them sound so very plausible. But like most things when it comes to money, dealing with scams is a matter of common sense. All you have to do is remember this: when it comes to money, when something sounds too good to be true it always is. There are no exceptions.
The Avon Lady and Ebay: Selling in your spare time
I remember the Avon Lady coming round when I was a little girl. She had cases and cases full of wonderful coloured smelly goodies and my mother, after a good rummage through and a bit of a gossip, would occasionally buy a lipstick or two from her. But who would have thought that in today’s Internet age the Avon Lady would still exist? Well, amazingly she does. Christianne Randolfi became an Avon Lady by default. She used and wanted to keep using the products (Avon aren’t just about lipstick these days – you can buy anything from foundation to knickers to jewellery from your local representative) so she signed herself up as a sales rep. Now she sells to her friends and local acquaintances in a small way, putting in an order for around £70 and making roughly £10 for herself each time. Could she make more? Easily she says. A few very elite Avon Ladies are said to make six-figure incomes from the firm, but she’s happy to earn enough just to pay for her own cosmetics. Contact www.avoncompany.com for more information.
Still, something tells me that Avon Ladies aren’t the wave of the future. If I were looking for a way to make a bit of extra income out of a few hours a day I think I would turn to eBay, the auction site where anything can be bought and sold to anyone. For inspiration take the case of Caroline Brown, an eBay trader who specializes in clothes. At 61 years old she has a lifetime of knowledge about fashion and fabrics behind her, so she visits charity shops all over the place, buys the good stuff and then auctions it on eBay. Does she make any money? You bet she does. As an accomplished dressmaker in her own right Caroline can separate the good stuff from the dross in seconds (‘it’s all about the cut and the fabric’) and while it is true that vintage clothes are all the rage and the pickings are thinner than they were even five years ago she says there are still plenty of bargains about: a piece of quality high street clothing that retails at £75 will probably sell for a tenner in a charity shop and £20 or so on eBay. That means that if you have a good eye, says Caroline, and you can shift ten or so items a week you could make £100–£150 a week relatively easily; she’s sold her wares to people in the US and in Japan as well as to residents of the Outer Hebrides (who haven’t much access to high street shops) and to a pub landlady in Wales. Caroline suggests looking in particular for the labels everyone knows – French Connection, for example – when you start out, as they are easiest to sell.
But eBay isn’t just about fashion: if you want to do well on it you have to work with what you know. Suzette is very knowledgeable about books. She spends her spare time combing car boot sales, markets and country auctions looking for deals that she then sells on eBay. Sometimes she makes only £5 on a trade but sometimes she strikes it lucky too: she once sold a Kylie Minogue magazine supplement to a man in Florida for £85 and a rummage through a skip in Finchley provided her with £1,000 worth of sales in rare classical music books and RAF memorabilia. Overall, she has found that with a little concentration she can make up to £1,000 a month trading books. Suzette is a single mother so this is a very useful extra income for her. Carlotta isn’t a very active trader, but everything she needs for her two children is bought and sold on eBay: when she needs a new pram she saves money by getting it second-hand on eBay and when she doesn’t need it any more she claws the cash back by reselling it on eBay too. Below are Carlotta, Suzette and Caroline’s five top tips for doing well on eBay.
Get all the relevant information about your product into the descriptive title. People won’t search under the words ‘stunning’ or ‘fabulous’ but under ‘skirt, green, size 12’. Suzette says she’s even made money buying things on eBay that had been badly listed and then reselling them.
Try to have all your auctions end at the weekend, preferably on Sunday evening as that is when eBay is busiest and people have time to watch the items they want properly.
Always overestimate rather than underestimate the postage costs – losing out here can be very irritating.
Try to have everything sent by recorded next-day delivery. Most people are prepared to pay the extra for it and it means that you can keep track of your items and keep your feedback 100% good (everyone you deal with can rate you on eBay and if your feedback is less than around 98% good you’ll have trouble selling stuff).
Be nice, be efficient and be scrupulously honest. On the Internet your feedback ratings (a proxy for your
