by: Damien Senn

Cheryl Rickman runs her own group of businesses CherryJam - with her
partner James in Hampshire. Her first company WebCritique a web
copywriting and marketing consultancy, helps other businesses to
improve their online presence and Cheryl provides workshops to local
businesses on these issues. WebCopywriter was borne from WebCritique
and provides web copy for small and large businesses alike. Her
clients include AnitaRoddick.com, Business Link Wessex, Motorola and
Microsoft. Cheryl’s other main business is the UK’s largest
independent online music magazine - ilikemusic.com.

Cheryl has been a freelance writer for the past nine years, writing
on business issues for Better Business and Internet Works magazine,
and interviewing business leaders and music celebrities. As well as
writing The Small Business Start-Up Workbook, which has a foreword
by Dame Anita Roddick, Cheryl is author of booklets, 111 winning
ways to promote your website successfully and 127 insider ideas on
creating a winning website and has been a Judge at Hampshire’s
Awards of Web Excellence for the past two years.

The Interview

DS: What inspired you to follow an entreprenerial path and in
particular what inspired you to write the Small Business Handbook?

CR: Well, I was never the ‘selling packets of sweets’ kind of
playground budding entrepreneur at school, and my main dream was to
become a freelance writer, but somewhere at the back of my mind I
liked the idea of running my own business, something small and
(dare-I-say-it) manageable. (I now know that smaller businesses are
often harder to manage due to the lack of people to delegate tasks
to).

However, it was mainly circumstance that led me to start-up, and the
support and encouragement of my partner, James. And I think it is
that circumstance - which creates entrepreneurs. The majority of
self-made types are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Also, I guess some of my ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ came from my mum.
She passed away in 1991 when I was just 17. And, to cope with the
trauma and loss, I began to fill my time with trying to further my
writing career. Years after her death, one of my mother’s best
friends told me that mum always believed that I would someday run my
own business. I had no idea that she thought that until a few years
into my first business, but that gave me the inspiration I needed to
think about writing my book. Having succeeded in business through a
combination of determination and my own trial and error, I longed to
write a book that would offer insight and encouragement to young
entrepreneurs like me who dreamt of running their own business, but
didn’t have the faintest idea where to start. Ultimately, The Small
Business Start-Up Workbook is the culmination of that dream.


DS: Did you have any help setting up WebCritique your first company
or were you going it alone?

CR: In terms of advice I received help and guidance from my Local
Enterprise Agency, but got most of the information I needed from the
web. In terms of finance my personal bank turned me down for a
business loan, so I set up a new account – great while it was free,
but not so useful now it isn’t. Choosing the right business bank is
a crucial decision and worth spending time on. I’m with Lloyds but
wouldn’t recommend a bank who’s business managers are difficult to
get hold of and don’t see the longer-term bigger picture. My book
includes questions to ask banks, and you can compare UK banks at
www.bba.org.uk or www.moneyfacts.co.uk

DS: What was the biggest challenge you faced in bringing your idea
to fruition? How was it overcome?

CR: The first was to challenge my own assumptions about whether or
not I could do it. Everybody has some element of fear going into it
for the first time, but I had such a great support mechanism in my
boyfriend James, that he fuelled my own belief in my ideas and
capabilities. The second challenge and probably the biggest ongoing
hurdle that is shared by most small businesses is funding and cash
flow. Finding start-up capital was far from easy, so I started up
with a minimal amount. It’s certainly easier to borrow bigger sums
than small amounts. In the early days I also found getting clients
to pay on time was a challenge. Now this is less of a problem, but
it is still a general rule that the bigger the customer, the longer
they will take to pay you. Another ongoing challenge is finding
balance in terms of thinking time. I think mostly about the
businesses and what’s going on in them, and need to find a way to
switch off more frequently.

The bottom line is that, as an entrepreneur, you have to challenge
yourself fairly regularly and be open to that concept. You’re often
going to have to enter unchartered territory and do something that
is foreign to you and your skillset, but that’s what happens when
you wear many hats. And certainly, on start-up as a sole proprietor,
you are the receptionist, marketing department, MD, fulfillment
house, sales team. You wear ALL the hats, so being challenged on a
daily basis becomes part and parcel of life as an entrepreneur.

Finally – realizing that you may have to rely on others who don’t
share your vision/dream and who may/will let you down is a challenge
to accept and overcome. Once you find reliable and impressive
suppliers you can trust, from a great web developer to a great
business card supplier, you learn to stick with them.

DS: What makes you most proud of your entrepreneurial achievements ?


CR: The book does because it’s something tangible that I can pick up
and say ‘Yes! I did this!’

I must admit, I’m often so busy that I only rarely stop to ‘smell
the roses’ and appreciate what I’m achieving. This is a lesson in
itself that I have to learn to do more and is certainly something
that I suggest others do in my book. People (myself included) should
list their achievements more frequently. Some books advise to do
this on a daily basis, writing down mini-achievements.

I guess the main milestones that make me feel proud of my
achievements are:
The friendships and contacts I’ve gained since embarking on my
entrepreneurial journey, including a few ‘celebrities’ such as Anita
Roddick and Wendy James, among others, plus a whole host of people
who are part of the same online networks as me (such as ecademy.com
and Digital Eve) who inspire me and make me feel proud. The people
I’ve managed to interview both in the business world and music world
makes me feel proud. Learning is so important in life, and being
able to learn from those who are ‘living the dream’ is important.

Knowing that we’re still doing it and are stronger than ever makes
me feel proud, with I Like Music (www.ilikemusic.com) it’s taken us
four years, but we are now at a point where some of the larger
well-known brands and companies who’ve spent pots of cash but with
minimal results are now taking notice of us and can see our
strengths. We now have four years worth of great content, contacts
and traffic and are ready to take the site to the next level, but
we’ve not forked out on flash offices or streams of staff. And with
Web Copywriter it’s great that the original business 'WebCritique'
has grown organically into this niche area of writing for the web.
The fact that all businesses are still going makes me feel proud.

DS: How did you actually fund your business to get it off the
ground?

CR: WebCritique was launched with just a small amount of my own
savings, plus a £1500 bank loan. My personal loan bank refused me
for a business loan, so I set up a business account elsewhere. I
also sold my car. Since then I’ve financed the business on cash
flow, plus overdrafts and occasional loans, which is also the case
for I Like Music, which is entirely self-funded. WebCopywriter cost
nothing as the design was done in house.

I wish there was more cash readily available in the form of grants
to small businesses in all areas: both affluent and under-privileged
areas.

DS: What attributes do you think make a successful entrepreneur?

CR: That’s a tough question because there are so many variables that
go toward making a business actually work; from personalities and
people to the viability of an idea, state of the market and, often,
circumstances outside a business owner’s control. As I say in my
book, 'Certainly, there is no entrepreneurial elixir you can swiftly
drink to make you automatically successful (except your own
home-made passion-fuelled one). But you can prepare yourself to
seize opportunities and make it happen for you.'

However, if I had to list attributes that would make the
entrepreneurial life manageable, I would say, you need energy,
passion and to be dedicated and thick-skinned. You need to be able
to cope with times when your social life will suffer. You should be
a great communicator and someone who enjoys networking, be it face
to face or online. But probably the most key attribute is the desire
to learn. That includes learning from mistakes.

In my book I speak to a variety people from Anita Roddick and
Stelios to Simon Woodroffe, among others. All of them told me how
important listening and learning is as an entrepreneur. And, as soon
as you think you know it all, you’re history as a business. As a
boss, if small business owners can remember that just because they
started the business doesn’t mean they know more about marketing
than the marketing chap, businesses would flourish easier. Learning
should be a continuous endeavour, so a capacity and interest in
learning is a crucial attribute for any entrepreneur.

DS: What do you believe are the necessary elements for a business
venture to succeed?

CR: Good people. You need the right people working with you, be that
in terms of partnerships or staff. They are the lifeblood of your
business, so you need to value them and they will perform well. As
Mike Southon says in The Beermat Entrepreneur 'People buy from
People.' So ensuring that people working for you share your vision
and at least can serve your customers in a way that they themselves
would wish to be treated, is the first step.

You need to plan, as it’s easier to be passionate about getting
somewhere if you know where you’re heading and how you’re going to
get there. Plus cash-flow can kill businesses, so it’s important to
know what is going to be coming in and out of the business all the
time. Again, being open to learning is a key element. Many
businesses fail because those driving the business are so caught up
working ‘in’ the business, instead of ‘on’ the business, that they
can’t implement changes, find time to learn or stay creative or on
the ball. That’s why planning and hiring the right people with
complementary skills who you can delegate to are essential success
factors.

These are just some of the elements included in my Start-Up
Checklist which appears in the book after the chapter called:
LESSONS FROM LEADERS IN BUSINESS: Success Stories, Mistakes and Top
Tips

DS: How essential do you see a University education in achieving
success as an entrepreneur?

CR: Not essential. I went to University to a) make my parents proud
b) delay the prospect of working for a few more years and c) because
with A-Levels reading the Media Guardian I realized all the jobs I
wanted to be able to do were only open to graduates. For me,
although I ended up on lower or similar income to many of my peers,
I needed to be a graduate to get my editorial and writing positions.
However, I’d have learned a great deal more if I’d gone into a
publishers and worked my way up. I believe work experience counts
for a lot more (just as some people I sent my CV to as a graduate
believed). What’s more, my partner James is more entrepreneurial
than me (and he has the gift of the gab, is more confident, etc). He
didn’t go to university, so that proves my point that university
education is definitely not essential in achieving business success.
Indeed, my BA (Hons) Degree in Media with Cultural Studies may well
have hindered me in some ways. I could have been working all that
time and saving up to fund my own business. And, if you look at the
most successful people in UK business, the majority of them didn’t
go to college let alone university. Richard Branson, Simon
Woodroffe…

DS: What are the three most important lessons you have learned about
business and entrepreneurship?

CR: 1. Everything always takes longer and costs more than you think
it will (even when you are fairly stringent with your planning).

2. Go with your gut feeling. Learn how to feel what that is and go
with it. The buck stops with you, so you need to get as many
decisions right as you can. Some of these decisions will involve
others trying to sell you something: support or a service or a
partnership. There is a time for diplomacy and sometimes you will
need to listen to your instincts and opt not to go ahead with a
certain partnership or project.

3. Listen and learn constantly. You must never think you know it all
as nobody does. People like to give advice and tell you what they
know about things, so you can be constantly learning. You also need
to delegate, and appreciate that there are people out there who can
compliment your talents. Remember, it’s all about people.

DS: What advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur?

CR: Do your research, find out what your potential customer needs
are and test the market where possible. Surround yourself with a
good support network and work out your break-even point before you
take the plunge. Buy or create a checklist that you can go through
before you set up, making sure you’ve considered everything from
your company name and marketing to your website, staff and
expenditure needs.

DS: What's the number one book you would recommend to aspiring
entrepreneurs?

CR: Of course my own book – The Small Business Start-Up Workbook.
However, another book I would heartily recommend is Anyone Can Do It
by Sahar and Bobby Hashemi of Coffee Republic, and also Anita
Roddick’s Business As Unusual – both are inspirational and help you
get things into perspective. Both are available from Amazon.co.uk,
or you can order Anita’s books via her own site at
www.anitaroddick.com

DS: What memorable mistakes, if any, have you made in business? What
did you learn from them and how can they be avoided?

CR: Earlier I mentioned the importance of going with your gut
feeling. Well, if I’d done that on at least two occasions, I could
have saved a lot of time, credibility and money. We chose a web
development team based on referral who ended up being appalling.
They made very technical looking sites which had a reduced Google
ranking, terrible indexability and were poorly designed and coded.
Effectively they talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. If I’d
followed my gut instinct earlier on when the partnership was being
discussed, I’d have walked alright… away from them. The partnership
cost us credibility, lost Google ranking, plus a whole year of our
time. Fortunately, we found a new developer who has made our sites
the best they have ever been. But that’s just part of the
roller-coaster ride of running your own business.

DS: What are the best and worst things about being an entrepreneur?

CR: Best things are the freedom and flexibility it gives you in
terms of trying to reach your goals and in being your own boss.
Plus, it’s nice to feel in control of your destiny. The worst things
are that nobody can understand what it’s like to run their own
business until they do it themselves and the fact that you lose a
lot of ‘me’ time and social life when you work long hours on your
business. Not getting paid holiday is another negative and
personally it’s my occasional inability to switch off from business
mode.

DS: Are there any other thoughts, insights, or advice for aspiring
entrepreneurs that you'd like to add?

CR: If you believe in your idea, have some proof to back it up and
have the energy to be your own boss, go for it. Remember, it’s
better to try and fail than to not even bother to try then get to
the end of your life wondering, ‘what if’ and ‘if only I’d done
that.’


About the author:
Damien Senn helps entrepreneurs create compelling businesses. He is
one of the UK's top Business Coaches as well as a fully qualified
Chartered Accountant.

Damien is the author of the 'Senn-Sational Success Journal' and has
developed his own coaching model called the 'Senn-Sational Success
System'.

For your FREE download '101 things to do before you die' please
click the following link:

http://www.senn-sational.com/freeresources.htm