Ten things I learnt this year...

Hindsight has always been my best teacher and learning by doing is how I learn. It is a painful process but it is valuable. I have read many business books and watched many 'business TV shows' but nothing is as valuable as getting stuck in and doing it. The pain this year has not stopped any desire or drive to do business. It has inspired it.

Here is my 2008 list of lessons I learnt this year which I will keep at the front of my mind this year.

1. Don't  be cocky when starting a business about how well it will go.
   
   
   
   • Researching a market before you start a business must go further than just one prospect and a few positive conversations. It's easy to get excited about an idea but you need to ask real prospects about your idea and their response to it in detail before you decide it is a realistic proposition.


2. Being friends with people when you start up a business is not the same as knowing that the team will work.
   
   
   
   • People who are very skilled and experienced in their professions will not necessarily work together in a manner which will produce the results your business needs. This can be said for any team, whether in business or sport. Make sure the team works before you start and be prepared to walk away if you have any doubts.


3. Make detailed plans before you start the business.
   
   
   
   • You need all the time you have when you start a business to sell your product or service. Any time spent on writing a business plan during selling time is going to negatively effect your sales pipeline. There is not the  slack in a small business which those in a large business take for granted. So, write a detailed business plan before you start the business and get selling.


4. Give up your job only when you have sales and working capital in place.
   
   
   
   • Sales are your lifeblood. Working capital is your backbone. Nobody will believe your business idea enough to lend you real money until you have proof that customers are spending real money with you. Without these you will find yourself in a very difficult position where a great business idea shrivels and becomes just an idea that cost you a lot of money.


5. Ensure you do all the boring paperwork before you do anything.
   
   
   
   • In a business start-up make sure you do all of the dull activities like setting up a directors agreement and official paperwork with the government before you lift a finger. It may seem unexciting to do the dull things like deciding if you and your business partners can afford to take any holiday in the first year of your business, or what you charge to the business or not for expenses. When you know what is expected of you and what you expect of your business partners then life is a lot easier and it will ease any animosity later on.


6. Working virtually is fine in short bursts.
   
   
   
   • Working at home or in different offices when you start a business is a bad idea. You need to see your business partners to make sure that everyone knows what is going and to discuss the details and the 'big rocks'. Working virtually is good when you are more established and need to be in different places. For me, my home is 150 miles from my business partners and this did not work. I had to spend scarce resources on travelling and being away from home a lot created tensions.


7. New technology is great when it works.
   
   
   
   • Even though using technology provided by major suppliers to run our business sounded as though it was reliable and was supposed to be, it was still relatively new. Newness is cool but be prepared for when it breaks. Relying on new technology without having a backup can mean your business looks amateur through no fault of its own.


8. Keep marketing aims realistic.
   
   
   
   • When you are small business you are unlikely to have much in the way of marketing budget. Don't use big business methods in a small business. Your marketing plans must be in line with your business strategy. Speculating on marketing is hope and not strategy. Make sure that you research your market, as said earlier, and only spend on marketing your business when you are confident that it is an investment in your well researched strategy. I now ask myself "Would Warren Buffett spend the money on this marketing campaign?" If this answer is anywhere 'no' then it is risky speculation and not investment.


9. Don't be arrogant about your idea and be prepared to change direction quickly.
   
   
   
   • Although you have an idea which people say good things about, you are the one who needs to make it work. The beauty of being in a small business is the ability to change direction quickly. If your business idea is not working out quite how you expected and it is not selling easily in the way that you imagined it would with your strategy, then listen to what your customers are saying and change it. Better to change your strategy and swallow your pride than waste time and money trying to carry on.


10. Small businesses have small business benefits.
    
    
    
    • It is exhilarating running your own business. You need energy, guts and guile to get it going. You must be prepared though to drop any corporate ideas you had from being an employee about your two weeks off in the summer, your skiing holiday in the New Year or the expense account until you have started to bring in sales and to make the business profitable. You may feel tired but, like having your first child, your business needs you to give it life and nurture it.

My lessons are likely to put a wry smile on the faces of other business people who recognise them. I have listened to many people and I have learnt a lot about people and business in the last year and I am the better for it. Listening and questioning are two activities I will carry out in earnest in 2009.

Look out for my list of challenges for 2009 coming soon.

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Keeping your mouth shut

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Aged twenty-one, I walked into my Company Sergeant-Major's office on the first day in my battalion and tried to make a joke. It went badly wrong. I jokingly said I had been in a fight.

The truth was that I had just had two of my 'wisdom teeth' removed by an Army dentist as well as having an operation on my lip to remove a cyst. The left hand side of my face was quite swollen while the right-hand side of my lower lip was purple, swollen and held together with stitches.

From the moment I walked into the Company Sergeant-Major's office, he marked me out as a troublemaker and the next three years of my short career in the army were probably a lot more painful than they should have been.

My Company commander had the view that he should keep an eye on me despite receiving very good reports and getting on well overall.
It taught me two things which have been very useful to bear in mind. Firstly, a sense of humour is a very good thing but use it sparingly. My humour comes out of feeling more relaxed in situations than I really should be. I try to keep things relaxed but you need to use humour when you know people reasonably well so that they know you and you know how far you can go with it.

The second lesson was about being careful with relationships. My attempt at humour with the Company Sergeant-Major missed the fact that he was a huge influence on my Company Commander, the boss. Although my company commander was one of the best leaders I have ever had, I was slightly dangerous goods in his eyes from that moment.
Nowadays, I still laugh and joke as always, but I am more careful when I use it.

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Christmas Correctness!!

Celebrating is what you do at this time of the year in this country. In India, Diwali is celebrated with as much, if not more vigour. In fact, this Diwali I was in Pune where the noise from the fireworks was so intense that I thought I was in Baghdad when the Americans bombed it. It was fun and everyone enjoyed it. That's right, everyone enjoyed it

Yet, somehow in the UK now, we are gradually being edged away from being able to celebrate Christmas without someone thinking they will offend somebody.

Take this, for example. My daughter is in her school choir. She's eleven and the choir has been practicing carols for some time now, in preparation for a short spell in the major shopping centre in Peterborough.

However, this week the 'management' said they would not be allowed to sing carols in case it offended someone. They can only sing songs. Meanwhile, all of the shops in the centre will carry on the incessant loop of Christmas pop songs which started in, oh, about August.

Yes, it has offended some people. Namely anyone who has any sense. But,I doubt that a Christmas carol will offend anybody any more than when Indian friends in Pune brought me in some special food the day before Diwali and showed concern that I was going to be on my own in the hotel on the day.

The local shopping centre in Peterborough should take a look in the mirror and take a guess at which Dickens character is looking back at them and then feel very ashamed of their decision when see exactly which one it is staring back at them with its pale face, furrowed brow and the chain keeping its jaw kept tight shut.

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Pune, India

Bombay Blast Blues - 30th November 2008

When I took this photograph with a colleague, Steve Foster, in the foreground some weeks back , I had little knowledge and experience on India. It was my first full day in the country and three of us hired a driver and car to take us around the city sights. The photograph was of the tourist carriage in the middle ground. However, the Taj Mahal Hotel in the background is now the main point of interest.

With the events that have unfolded this week in India, my memory has been stirred and small conversations that occurred while I was there now make sense.

For me, India is an energetic and ambitious country from the little I have seen of it. In October, they launched a space craft into a moon orbit. They were in talks with the US and other governments to start building their own nuclear power plants to drive their economy. Buildings were going up everywhere in Mumbai and Pune. The people I met are courteous, ambitious and keen to improve themselves. 

What is now making sense, in retrospect, is how much tension there is below the surface. Our driver in Mumbai, Ahsok, kept commenting on the fact that most of the slums were inhabited by Muslims. Judging by the number of mosques dotted amongst the slums, it was clear that the divide between Hindus and Muslims was not limited to their religions. The lack of opportunity for Muslims was patently obvious if the size of the slums is anything to go by.  Ashok's wife is a Muslim although he is a Hindu.

Friends I made out there have commented about their anger at the ineffectual government letting this happen. It is difficult to protect the innocent against these type of attacks without having good intelligence so that you can reduce the potential for terror attacks like this. Even the Americans got this wrong.

Another British friend I made in Pune has just emailed me to say she went through the train station in Mumbai in the morning before the attacks on her way back to the UK.

Another friend of mine who I met in Pune has had to cancel his trip to Goa over Christmas and Easter because there is now a terrorist threat against the region.

Another aspect of Indian life which struck was how they treat each other. Indian is very regionalised, so much so that people from another state are regarded as different and perhaps suspiciously. For example, my driver in Pune, Yusuf, is a Maharastran. Yet, the security guard outside the buildings in which I was working was from another state.

Coming into the business park each afternoon, Yusuf would ask the security guard to move the tape and bollards on the pavement so that he could drop "Sir" (i.e. me) off right next to the front door. One particular afternoon, a new guard was there who refused to move the bollards and tape. Yusuf quickly showed his anger at the guards' refusal to carry out his request and beckoned him to approach our four-by-four.

The guard soon found him being grappled by Yusuf through his window in a manner which looked as though Yusuf was trying to break his neck of which a commando would have been proud.

The guard soon complied and Yusuf dropped me off at the main entrance while muttering how stupid the guard was because he was from the Punjab.

In that one incident, I saw just how much tension there is in India let alone between its neighbours.

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