It's out there and I'm going to get it

Starting your own business is a brilliantly brave thing to do. Most entrepreneurs make calculated risks about their business start up or business take over which, from the outside, can seem like madness to employees.

I have started several businesses and, I admit, all of them have been failures so far. I started a cycle tours company which broke even on its first tour and broke up the weekend afterwards. I started to sell wine for a local vineyard but I could not make enough money to make it worthwhile. I started an online delicatessen which was getting sales but which wasn’t making profits. I gave up my full-time job to start a business with three other guys to train IT professionals over the internet which got great clients but not enough of them.

I lost money in all of them and I gained a whole load of experience, skills and lessons which I could never have done if I had just read about running a business. I failed magnificently.

At this point, I should have given up. But, no, I was inspired. I was lucky enough to spend six weeks working out in India at the end of 2008, training staff in a mobile phone company’s call centre. It was inspiring to see a country where the young people I was training were hugely ambitious and keen. Despite the contrasting poverty and wealth in the country, I saw how people were doing their utmost to get off their backsides and do something about their lives.

At the same time,I was working alongside an Irishman, who, as it happened, had also come out of running his own unsuccessful business. In our quiet moments during the courses we were co-teaching, we used to talk about our experiences. They were surprisingly similar. We both had debts, we had both lost money and we had put our family relationships to the test.

Nevertheless, the two of us were still determined to come out of our challenging time in our own businesses fighting. And it was at this point, that I became far more clear about my future than I had ever been before starting my own businesses. So, did my Irish cohort. We started reading business books and swapping ideas from them. We discussed types of businesses we would like to be in. We laughed at some  of the decisions we had made in our own businesses.

But all the while, we were training numbers of keen students how to improve their ‘game’ at work bit by bit to make a huge impact on themselves and the business. And I loved every minute of it. Inspiring people to do better is one of the most incredible feelings.

I had not really considered network marketing before I was in India last year. Cora, my sister-in-law, had built her network marketing business for years and I had been keen to hear how she was progressing. But, it had never seriously occurred to me to get involved until I went along to a business presentation about it and it dawned on me just how incredible the strategy is for developing a sustainable, profitable and enormous business which has a start up cost of about £200.

So, here I am now. I have signed the paperwork and I have started to build a list of people to contact about the opportunity which network marketing offers to start a business which will transform their lives. It’s unconventional but that’s good. I like unconventional and I am wildly excited about this business. Because, finally, I have found a way that will allow me to keep focused on why I will put in the groundwork to make my dreams happen.

My other business ventures were training grounds for this adventure. My goals are clear and the way to achieve them is here. It might be a rollercoaster of a ride but I just have to keep focused on why I am doing it to succeed.

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