How to Start a business without losing your sanity

how to keep your sanity when you start in business

The first thing that comes to my mind when trying to assess how I feel about being a business owner is underwhelming to say the least, and 4 years on  I have a reasonably established  business.

- “Had I known what I would be faced with, I would have never started it”.

When you have been at the receiving end of steady wages for many years, being able to finish your day once you leave work and enjoy a full weekend, no matter how hardworking you may be, nothing prepares you for what is to follow to create and run a business.

I have been guilty in the past of complaining about how little money I was earning when the owner of the business I was working for must have been “raking it in”!

I soon realised shortly after starting my own business that it was possibly the biggest misconception I’d had, when members of staff working for me started to imply they could be in line for pay rises as the business was doing so well! another exclamation mark this one to emphasise the classic misconception that I was also guilty of  a few lines ago,  when it is nearly impossible to  think otherwise until you’ve been faced with the accounts and detailed expenses,  opposed to the income figures.

Our Business specialises in small or part load removals between the United Kingdom and France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland,  with regular trips from the south west of England to France via London and Paris.

80 % of our customers are a private individual, which means that in order not to disturb their work schedule, it gives us a competitive edge to collect and deliver at the week end.

I paid little thought about having vehicles out on the road Saturdays and Sundays at the beginning of our activity because of my strong motivation and desire to succeed (or desire not to fail depending on if you are optimist or pessimist). 48 months later, we still don’t have a structure big enough to allow for on call staff rotation at the weekend.  For the last four years, people close to me have grown used to me not having any time for my friends or family and recognise it is not as glamorous as uninformed or more distant people may think, this is not a criticism on my part of these more distant people as it includes family, long term friends with far afield geographic locations, and for whom taking pride in knowing a member of the family or a good friend is doing well on a scale they would have never thought possible, is an important factor in their view of how glamorous it is .

I hold on to the idea that most business owners have gone through the same thought process in the first few years of their activity, to keep me sane and motivated . Life is becoming slightly easier, so is the financial situation but at great cost to relationships, social life, hobbies and other favoured pastime activity I may have once enjoyed. I have bought a few toys to try to justify all the hard work, a motocross bike (for enthusiasts, it’s a KTM 500 2 stroke) which is gathering dust, a road bike which I sold on 5 month after purchase because i was tired of looking at it gathering dust as well and in which I only ever put 20 litres of petrol.

After so many negative points, you may wonder why I am still running this business. It becomes a way of life you get accustomed to, in my case, providing a service to customers and taking pride in doing it well makes me enjoy my day’s work; and I am incredibly stubborn according to my wife.

Being part of something that is gradually being recognised as of significant importance within the market we service, with positive feedback and thank you letters, it reinforces my pride and keeps me motivated.

This concludes the introduction of the period of my life since starting my current business, I promise a more upbeat account of the detailed periods of development, our breakthroughs, and general progression of our removals and transport service between London and Paris from January 2007 to present day.

I am currently writing to previous customers to get more information on their state of mind at the time of their move, what caused them to relocate and how they are doing now.

I will also include detailed accounts of removal stories.

I will be delighted to receive comments, accounts of similar experiences, or criticism as I will as usual learn a lot from them.

I am not trying to plug my website in an obvious manner so get a better idea of what we do; you will find me under my name in Google.