The business

Now I come to think about it, no one asks for my advice very often. I’m not sure why that is. As I sit here pondering that fact, I don’t feel particularly bad about it. I wonder if I should? I mean, I’m happy enough with the decisions I’ve made, so I wonder if other people think “Well, sure, that’s all right for Fenner but, jeez, you wouldn’t catch me wearing/eating/drinking/listening to that!”

One of the biggest decisions I ever made was to work for myself. I don’t mean when I went contracting all those years ago: that really isn’t being self-employed in the true sense of the word. In the contract world, agencies find you jobs, they last for yonks, and you get paid handsomely for all the time you’re showing up. When you *really* work for yourself, when you have to find your own clients, ensure that everything that’s delivered is up to scratch, deliver on time, chase invoices, manage cash flow, understand the necessity of working capital, well… When you have all those things on your plate, then you’re working for yourself. 

I think there’s also a perception that when you work for yourself, you’re immediately, miraculously minted, and, lamentably, that’s not the case. And once you employ people, well, then you’re in the territory of mortgaging your house just to pay the salaries if you have a rough couple of months. Maybe twice, if you’re unlucky, and even that is not particularly bad luck, really just par for the course.

If I could go back in time, I would’t change much, though. Sure, I’ve learnt a few lessons along the way, so of course there are things I’d do differently because of what I know now but the main thing, the big step, setting up a business, I wouldn’t change that. For a start, it’s more real and less abstract than working for a big company, and those times that are difficult are inescapable yet forge enduring friendships; you and your colleagues build something that you’ve all contributed to and that you can be proud of. 

And that’s another important point: even though ultimately you might be the one who’s responsible, the place where the buck unavoidably stops, you work very closely with people. Of course, people have come and gone from the business over the years, but the ones who’ve stayed have, without exception, been the ones that I hoped would. If all goes well, you find yourself in a very close team, something that, from time to time, is more akin to family.

One of the nice things about my job is that, inevitably, I meet people who’ve taken the same path as me, and, if you make it this far, that shared experience counts for a lot. It can set you off down the road to becoming friends. This morning, I had a meeting with one such character. And as we do work for ourselves, we can have our meetings wherever we want and, on this occasion, we opted for a nice little place to have a coffee, right by the canal.