Trouble at both ends of the scale......

 A story in four parts 4..                       (Part 5 now on posted here May20)

To know you’re on the right pathway....when things just fall into place...

An early business venture...

 

I had this boring office job, so many boring office jobs. Just nothing...no fulfilment. Then one day, like a light bulb moment, I sat at lunch times just going through the phone book. As others were out lunching, shopping, I would go through the phone book...the yellow pages business section.

 

I knew..something told me all the answers were there I just had to keep looking. I had no idea what I was looking for I just keep looking..day after day after day all during lunchtimes. Wholesalers...suppliers..I knew the answers were there in font of me I just didn’t know what I was looking for.  The plan must have already been in my head without me realising it.

 

Then one day completely out of the blue while out walking came across an empty shop in an arcade in this beachside suburb near where I lived with my parents. It seemed in a good position.. a cafe one side and shoe shop the other..opposite were dress material and curtain shops. Something said to me..an inner voice..go for it!

 

Then everything seemed to fall into place! As though it was meant to be...

 

I approached the local agent whose name was on the board in the window and said I could be interested. The funny, even stranger, thing is I had completely no idea what I wanted the shop for... what I was going to sell or how to go about anything...literally anything! “What do you plan on selling,” he asked. Blankly I replied “Kitchen things.. pottery and all that”. Oh okay he said surely thinking I would fail, as so many people did I’m sure, and left it at that. When I got home later that day I told my parents that I've just seen this shop and I'm thinking of taking it. Of course Dad was saying you’ll never be able to do it...the rent overheads I hadn’t even thought of. The voice of reason... “You’ll never make a wage...wont be able to pay yourself!”

 

Anyway I did it...in todays money I had around $2000... far too little really for any business! A very limited amount of money even thinking back it’s a wonder it worked at all. Luckily enough Dad worked for a large department store and got me some old counters cheap and made me a money drawer to fit also made shelving for display. By now I knew the kind of shop I wanted as I had seen several in town that looked interesting. Pottery..posters..kitchenware..candles..etc.,

 

I hung around outside for hours at one and then noticed a rep call in with suitcases. I did ask in one shop if they could put me in touch with any of their suppliers but of course they said no! I watched through the window  what was happening with new stock being shown and as he left I approached him..and said what I was about to do. He was interested in new business and said  he would call in to see me and tell the other reps on his rounds.

 

It really all went from there. Without the help of my parents it wouldn’t have worked at all.  I couldn’t afford wages..I rode a push bike for the first year at least. I never had the luxury of even owning a car.

 

I took no wages for many months. I was completely honest with the till every expenditure, whether it be for newspapers or a snack from the cafe next door, I put a note in the till and paid it back at the end of the week. With a very limited budget and very, very, bare shelves..I think people felt sorry for me...no really I mean it! It grew and grew...very slowly. I had no debt apart from the overheads of the shop. Every item of stock I purchased with my own money; profits going back into more stock all the time. I wouldn't even have any stock on credit I was too frightened to do that until one of the reps said you will never have enough stock until you have credit..pay on the 20th of the following month. So I took the gamble and it paid off. Frightening at first though it was.

 

My Mother would catch the bus from home most days to give me a break for lunch and both my Parents worked all day in the shop with me...for no wages...on Saturdays; the biggest and busiest day of the week. That’s apart from my Father having a full time job as well! It was a twelve hour day Saturday and people travelled for miles around to the seaside and to shop. It got busier and busier. Dad made glass cabinets for costume jewellery. The poster selection grew and grew and so did all the other stock. On hot summer days, when the shops were closed,  when people were going to the beach I would go to the candle factory,  to pick up stock...by this time I had ditched the bike and bought an old car. Came back priced everything up and gradually the shop filled up and up. I was always friendly and smiled at everyone the only way to be in business. I would always take phone numbers of customers when they wanted something and let them know when I had it in stock or a special pottery spice jar that was different from the many sets I had in stock produced by local potters. As my reputation grew...so did the suppliers.

 

After a few months I had the highest sales of incense in the whole country. That my not sound much but it was! Without the need to burn any the beautiful perfume filled the shop and they really sold themselves. My Mother was always a good salesperson also and that helped and chatted to everyone where, at first, I was too nervous to.

 

A solicitor gave me a hint he said “Always try to keep at least two/three months rent to one side...in case anything happens for any emergency”. I was always grateful for those words of wisdom and I pass that on to anyone for future reference. My accountant at the time when he saw my first years graph of weekly takings he took it and showed it to his secretary..a vertical line up! He was amazed that someone with so little experience had even survived I think!

 

I always had this vision of throwing money up in the air years before and as, with with my parents sitting around the dining table one Sunday counting the weekly takings, I just threw hundreds, many hundreds, of dollars in the air ...an amazing feeling. We indeed all laughed!

 

One shop led to two my Father left his work to work with me and my Mother continued to help also. I really couldn’t have done it without them.

 

Grateful to my Parents...Forever Grateful in those often nervous struggling early days.

From New Zealand..ten years later.. we moved to Australia. That story in a future blog...

(Part 5 now on...Journey to Australia posted May 20)