Back in 1995 I finally took the plunge and established my own business with a contract. All I had was 5000 pounds he inherited from a relative. I never had that much money at one time before. In 2003 the company was making an annual turnover of  £ 1.25 million. I sold the company in April that year by almost  £ 400,000. But I have learned some hard lessons about the business on the road and almost went bankrupt twice.

For this article I want focus on the emotional, the human dimension in trying to achieve success in business. I quit my job with a training company and ended my days as a slave salary. When he opened his business (hiring substitute teachers for the state of high school and public schools) was completely on my own. There was already all colleagues to have a chat and gossip over the water source. It was all so far. I had spent most money on advertising, rent, furniture, a fax / copier and a basic computer without the Internet. I made some calls, but could not get to speak to any potential customer. The difficulty was not the competition, explains to schools about my teaching service subsititute which until then had been inefficietly administered by the local government made a virtue of Marxist command economy-style waste.

Nothing happened on the first day. No one returned my calls back home and my wife was expecting our first child, half expecting things to fail, half of hope still, so you might get this fantasy out of my system business, grow and earn an income again employed as a parent to be adult. But gradually I got the business off the ground and after 10 months living completely off as before I had to keep to the bits of workers to work to generate income for survival. As things got busier than I had to take an assistant. Unfortunately I could not afford to pay a lot and guess Why, I've paid. If you pay peanuts minimum wage, then all you get is monkeys! And some other blatant about it. I took charge of a man and asked to go to the post office and buy 500 stamps and to mail shot, noting, "do not forget to get a receipt. Thinking it was stupid, that pocketed the cash they gave him, said he had made the shot-mail, but due to the existence of a long queue at the post office, has the stamps from a machine which of course does not give receipts!

Then he took a woman who very blatantly stole money from petty cash and leave the company tried to get me against an employment tribunal for constructive dismissal. Later I learned that he had a previous conviction for theft. So when you take on new staff, discover all you can about them and I mean everything! Get references from previous employers valid or schools. If possible, a meeting or at least a conversation call with the referees about their future employees. You should be able to say how they are sincere in making its assessment by observing their body language and / or listening sound.Make sure how convincing that they are not providing a good reference because they want to get rid of them! Beware of what is omitted in a verbal or written reference. Look for differences of time in your CV or resume. Try to find out if they have convictions? Do they smoke? Using drugs? Drink too much? Do you have the habit of calling sick? Get all the information you can about them, back to the time and place of its design if necessary.

Hiring the right person will the difference between success and failure of your business. Doing due diligence and will not be extremely vulnerable. Beware of jealousy when he takes on more staff. This can be particularly difficult when you open another office or branch in another city. I opened another office about 100 miles away with an entirely new staff. His hope my original office staff happy with the expansion of the company. But he was silent and sullen. I realized they were happy to calm the business to be under one roof.

Everything that happened there and in a sense, the first office staff to control everything. Now there's another branch? About are these new people in the office of another? Things got really bad when the second office began to do better than the first. It imporatnt when it expands to clearly explain benefits for existing staff. Make them understand that their job is probably safer as a result of the expansion. If possible, sweeten with a little extra, when the expansion process is completed. Change always plan carefully. If your staff can leave you well, and even join a rival company. In my next article I will find a way to deal with a high performance, 'priceless', a member of his team, which threatens to quit unless you what s / he asks for.

My novel looking at the three acts Starting, Running and Selling a business entitled MAKING IT is available through Amazon etc. ISBN 978-1-905809-32-5

Mark Edmondson M.A.
Business Start up Trainer based in the UK working mainly in UK and Europe but also available for seminars in North America

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