This title has created many questions, and depending on the day of the week, the time and how I am feeling depends on how I answer. Having spent plenty of time thinking about this and running it through my head, which I do quite regularly (because when your busy, you have plenty to do, you’re supporting staff, they are all happy and everything is going well) I would never dream of doing anything else. At these times, this isn’t even a question, going into business for yourself is the only way to work. However, when times are tough…maybe work is quieter, you’ve got things going on at home, you’re going on holiday, which is taking you away from the business; anything like this always leads me to question, why have I done this?
I never really wanted to go into business for myself, it really wasn’t something I thought about or had a long-term plan to do. I never wanted to take on such responsibilities or have this pressure. I used to work for a large countrywide firm, and when I first started working for them, I thought, this is me! This is great. I can get a few promotions; I get a pension with them. It’s regular work and I know what I’m earning every month. No pressure if I don’t get enough funerals in, I can’t earn my wage, let alone be responsible for anyone else’s wage. Work was simple with no accounts to do!
I knew when I was working, I knew my on-call rota and I could plan my life around that. I thought that was me sorted! Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out like that. I am not taking anything away from them and I would certainly never be negative against anyone in this blog, but it just didn’t work for me. The way things were run, the way things were moving forward I just didn’t feel it was right for me to have to deal with the families the way the management wanted me to. I made a few personal decisions when I was with them and they didn’t like them so it finished with us parting company. At this point I had to set up on my own. I had spoken to other companies and could have potentially gone and worked for someone else, however there was never anything quite right. I will give 100% into anything I get involved in and believe in, but unfortunately some people made it impossible for me to believe in what they were doing. I hold nothing against them, it was more me and what I wanted in life at that particular moment. Some simply weren’t willing to pay enough, that is the black and white of it, they simply weren’t willing to pay me enough for what they would get out of me.
I am a big believer that in life you get out what you put in, and if you’re willing to pay a little extra, or simply give a little extra, that means a lot and you will ultimately get extra out of people. So really, I was only left with an option to set up my own business. This sounds like setting up my business was a last decision, which I don’t think it was, and looking back now it was certainly the best option for me. It is such a double edged sword. I don’t know if I could or would ever choose to go back and work for someone. The freedom you get from being your own boss is massive! You make your own decisions and ultimately those decisions come from what I believe personally are for the best. On the whole the balance that I get now, even though I am on call 24/7 is in my favour. I am only a small company so whilst I am contactable, I’m not called all the time and not out at work all the time. Whereas some of these larger companies covered a really big area so when on call I would be out and working a proper shift. This simply wouldn’t be sustainable on my own. The balance of my business does work out. My service is totally different now. People can deal with me during the day and they know if they need anything out of hours, they can deal with me again. This is something that only the smaller independents can offer and it gives me great satisfaction to be able to offer this.
The issues that I had with my previous employment that caused anxiety and, in all honesty, I ended up on medication and seeing a specialist about it were mainly issues caused by other people within the company. Now I am my own manager I work with who I choose to, which in turn helps me manage my own headspace better and keeps me, my staff and my clients in a much more emotionally supported space.
So, I would like to think I have answered my own question “why go into business for yourself”.
One of the toughest things I found when first starting up was getting the finances. I took a risk in getting those, but those risks paid off because all that is paid now. What I did notice in maybe the first twelve months of setting up was I came across many scammers and also other real companies trying to sell me something that I didn’t really need. Everyone wanted a piece of my company, usually in the form of money. You have just got to be so in control of what you want and have a business plan. I drew mine up on a big sheet of paper and stuck it on the wall upstairs. I would go and look at that daily. If people were getting in touch and being very persuasive to sell me advertisement for example, I would always go back to my business plan and see if that was part of it. If it was, I would go back and talk to these people and listen to what they had to say. If it wasn’t then I wouldn’t waste time even with the chat. Lots of things seemed too good to be true, this in my experience is a sure-fire reason to stay away.
I did come across scammers on a number of occasions, and this was tough. They could have a phone conversation with me then call again the following week saying I had agreed to something over the phone then an invoice would arrive. This is such a tricky period because you have to totally believe in yourself and back yourself when I didn’t feel I had the experience to do so. At the same time the voice in my head was constantly questioning what I did and am I doing the right thing. I was never 100% sure of a decision and looking back after a number of years I now know I am still never totally sure of a decision (I can’t see into the future, and my wife says it’s because I’m a Libran!) but I would like to think I have more experience to make a more informed decision. The worst situation I found myself in was I once had a family coming in to arrange a funeral, this scammer who I had been dealing with for a couple of weeks was on the phone. He said I had agreed to something on the phone (which I hadn’t) so they had a verbal contract with me. I now owed them £2500. I don’t like to simply put the phone down on anyone, even in this situation. So, I told him I had a family coming in and would have to go. I then got a call from another gentleman saying he was a bailiff working for this imaginary company and he was on his way to the business address to take items up to the value of the debt. I had to sit and arrange a funeral with a grieving family while thinking the whole time I was getting a knock at the door. Obviously, the knock never came and everything carried on with the arrangement. This situation did however cause me great stress and was a big learning curve.
So, I am very glad that I went into business for myself (today,) however I have learnt and grown a great deal, but fully understand every day is a learning day. For me it isn’t so much about growth, but about evolution. My business does well to support my family and the small number of staff, it would always be nice for it to keep growing just a little but I don’t ever want to grow to a point where I can’t handle the work by myself. What is important to me is that the business keeps evolving in how it looks after people, it is important that we change to suit the families who pick up the phone to us or come into us, while at the same time it is vitally important to me that I can be a good Dad and husband. Over the years I have figured that my mental health has a big influence on this. While I don’t think we can ever get away from the stresses of life, being able to manage these in a positive controlled way is most important. At this stage of my life, I am happy to say I have managed that.