2012 sees twenty five years of involvement with the Enterprise movement. Based on an average of, say, three clients a day, four days a week, forty five weeks a year, it means I have worked alongside 13,500 clients over the whole period. I am glad to say that the majority of those have been meaty, successful businesses, providing their owners with a good standard of living, despite the inevitable ups and downs of business life. Many have retired and sold their businesses for a substantial sum, others are still trading themselves.
Of course, there have been many non-starters, where they person has been totally unsuited to the life of an entrepreneur, making a good living by remaining an employee. There have been the inevitable inventors whose ideas have been wholly unsuitable for the market, two springing to mind being plastic headstones and four poster beds for cats. Others have been the proverbial pain in the you-know-where. But overall, the past twenty five years have been, without question, the most satisfying of my working life. The thrill and satisfaction of helping people start up and grow their businesses is something which cannot fully be described in words alone. There have been the relatively small handful, where the business has grown to become market leaders and household names. There have been those who would never have got their ideas off the ground, but, thanks to organisations like the Princes Trust, they have been given a kick start and now are millionaires in their own right.
Recently, the Government promoted the start of businesses under the strap line “There’s a business in everyone.” This, of course, is utter garbage. There isn’t a business in everyone. The majority of people are not entrepreneurial in their outlook. They need leading. They need an employer – someone who, bluntly, tells them what to do each day, sorts out their tax and NI issues, and welfare, and pays them for going on holiday or sick leave. The life of the average entrepreneur is precarious at best, health threatening at worst.
However, there are still many who aspire to start their own businesses, and still requires my services to enable them to achieve their dream. It still provides the same kick for me as it did in 1987.
Robert Snaith's blog 