Ian Shipley - Where Have All the Pixies Gone?: Things to Think about Before Setting Up in Business on Your Own

Title Page

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PIXIES GONE?

Doing It All Yourself In A Small Business Start Up

By

Ian Shipley

Publisher Information

Where Have All The Pixies Gone?

Digital edition converted and

Distributed in 2011 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright George Associates and (GA&P)

The right of Ian Shipley to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published in 2011 by

GA&P Limited

Author Bio

Having been involved in number of owner run businesses from concept through the start-up phase and on to a clean exit Ian has amassed a broad amount of experience in the SME market. His market sector experience covers Marketing, Licensing, Entertainment, Creative media, Franchising and Publishing, so he is well placed to help the budding entrepreneurs. He has lectured and gives talks at various educational establishments, Colleges and Business clubs.

From international DJ to Commercial Director of businesses whose clients have included major Blue chip companies such as Bentley Motors, Lotus, Hanson, and British American Tobacco (BAT) he has gleaned nuggets of useful knowledge from both small and large corporations.

Ian has written a number of books on business along with undertaking co-writes. Ian is currently based in the midlands.

Disclaimer: The contents of this document are merely meant to highlight areas that any prospective person looking to go in to business on their own should look to explore, it is in no way exhaustive and the author takes no responsibility as to the validity of the statements made as all opportunities will differ. The content is made up from experiences within the franchise and general business arena.

Doing It All Yourself In A Small Business Start Up

A few things to keep in mind before making your leap from the golden cage.

The stationery cupboard is bare, the phones not working and the e-mail wont work. Your car needs its insurance renewing and you have no train tickets for tomorrows business meeting. You have been extremely busy, but no ones paid their bills, because no one has sent out the invoices and the bank says youre running out of cash!

Sound like a bad day at the office? For many its part of the normal transition from being employed within a medium to large company with all the various support departments delivering their specific functions to the busy sales executive. Or as one ex senior executive who had stepped out of the golden cage to run his own business commented,

it was like having a team of pixies who came in under the cover of darkness and filled the stationery cupboards, posted the invoices and ensured that there was always money in the bank to pay wages and the suppliers invoices.

So what do some of these pixies in other businesses do that you will now have to do (if you are starting out small), well there are the:

Finance Pixies : they create the invoices, chase payments, query supplier invoices and pay accordingly, communicate and negotiate with the bank, pay the wages and deal with tax and NI, deal with the accountants and relevant paperwork for companys house. They also often spend hours if not days ensuring the sales cash flow and sales forecasts lined up. But lets not forget the big one, they are the keepers of the company credit cards, oh bliss. A number of people having gone into business on their own have commented on the small mess they have got into with having to use their personal credit cards for all things business, and lets be honest most start-up companies will not get a company credit card for a while, so ensuring your personal one has sufficient capacity will become an important element moving forward especially if your new business entails you in lots of travel and hotel expenditure. One area that the finance pixies do cover is that of ensuring that you have all the relevant liability, travel, medical, premises and stock insurance in place.

Some people have problem chasing money themselves as they see their new customers as friends; remember its only business and they owe you money that you need to make your business grow. One way around this is to get your partner or a part time member of staff to spend an afternoon a week or fortnight just chasing up payments, this has the benefit of a) keeping you on the clients accounts radar, b) speeding up the payments and c) Presents your business as more than a one man band when starting out as you are perceived to have an accounts dept. Another benefit of this is that should a client push their credit limits your accounts department can put their account on stop, not you. This way you can then speak with the client and say something like my accounts department wont release the order until $/xxxx has been paid to bring the account up to date, controlling cash is a game that the finance pixies on both sides play very well, one side wants to receive the cash, the other wants to hold onto it, Its a great way of taking the personalities out of the proceedings.

An example of the change in the mental approach that is needed can be summed up by the budding entrepreneur who left a secure position with a large corporation to set up his dream business. One afternoon he came to me to discuss how he was going to turn around the then failing business, after listening to his plans which were valid, I asked how he was going to fund this change in strategy?

He replied that it was covered in the budget, at which point I had to highlight the fact that it may be in the budget but that the cash was not in the bank or the revised forecast!

After a few minutes of silence and much tapping of the laptop keyboard he finally accepted the reality of the cash shortfall. The problem was that he was still in the mind set of being part of a large corporate where even if budget forecasts were not met, miraculously cash appeared to cover the wages and supplier invoices along with new marketing campaigns etc. It was at this point that he finally faced up to the realities of owning and running his own small business. Some may laugh but the reality is that people can be elevated to senior positions in large blue chip corporations and never be exposed to the actual requirement for cash to keep the wheels going, sure they may have stress brought on by some tough meetings around sales performance etc but still the bills get paid.

For those that may be interested, he is now back in corporate life or as I call it the land of the golden cage. Hes not satisfied personally, but as he points out he gets paid on the 24th of each month and he has a magic card that puts petrol in his car whenever he needs it along with a team of people in the background to make sure that he has all that he needs.

There is a saying and it is that Cash is king , without it, in the small business world you will be in trouble.

During your set phase and once established you will want to communicate with your prospective clients and suppliers, to do this you will need phones and computers, enter the IT pixies.

The IT Pixie . Contrary to popular belief just because most people can open and turn on a laptop does not make them an IT/communications expert. Usually the IT pixies will go about their work during the hours of darkness fixing glitches, updating software, running back ups and most importantly keeping the e-mail live. Lets not forget keeping everyone on line and the printers running smoothly, and in some cases these pixies also ensure that the printers have ink and paper. It may come as no surprise to know that a number of people who once thought they were IT proficient suddenly find that they were software proficient, but not hardware proficient, there is a major difference especially when it comes to getting the wireless printer to talk to your computer along with the host of other gadgets we all use on a daily basis. As we all know sorting out IT issues is never a five minute job, last time I had to configure some new software and hardware I lost over two hours of time!