Fishing for pennies down the back of the sofa...

Business Cards from my first business. It was a magazine that started as an idea on a bit of paper and ended up going to nearly 10,000 named Business Owners and HR Managers across Yorkshire.

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Reason for this post for me is to do something I'm uncomfortable with to stretch my comfort zone. I'm not comfortable putting 'stuff out there' on Social Media so here goes. I'm not saying anyone will be interested but I'm doing it for me, not anyone else.

"Get comfortable being uncomfortable."

Story of my 'business life' that...

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How it started: We literally handed in our notices at our jobs in a recruitment agency in Bradford and set it up. Working from a tiny office with blue carpet on the walls in Bradford, we set about selling advertising to fund the magazine.

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I had never sold before but I was relentless on the phone and it paid off. Hard work and focus from us both ensured we sold enough adverts to fund the first issue. Looking back, the first one was a bit rough around the edges but it worked and people came back time and time again. I learned loads (mostly about sales) from my business partner, probably more than I have from anyone else in business, and for that, I am eternally grateful to him.

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Selling the advertising is/was hard, as people don't perceive they need it, especially from a lad whom they have never heard of in a magazine they have never heard of. More kicks in the bo**ocks than you can imagine, but it was worth it. I kept getting up every time I was knocked down.

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They bought the advertising and we grew it to incorporate a trade show. But this took time and to this day I don't still know how Nat & I lived as I was bringing in ￡500.00 per month on a good month from it. Living off credit cards to make ends meet until my limits were breached.

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Me and Nat were skint - PROPER skint. We had to literally fish down the back of the sofa for pennies to pay for petrol to work and food. At one point, I nearly had to walk to work which would have taken 3 hours!! I kid you not.

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We didn't have a social life. We didn't leave the house for 2 years.

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Our families had to buy food for us as we had nothing in the cupboards. What must Nat's family have been thinking? (I know some of what they were thinking!)

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I remember them popping in with bags from Asda and on one occasion, Nat not being happy because her parents had bought us flavoured baked beans as opposed to standard ones!!

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One good thing was I lost loads of weight because I wasn't eating. Seriously! I was living on 50p pasta shots. My arms on my specs had fallen off so I had string around the back of my head to keep them on. I couldn't afford new ones and people laughed when they came in our office and saw me with the bloody knackered glasses on. I remember the landlord coming in and saying "come on, can't you afford some new ones...?" NO, was the reply!

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I had to do Car Boot Sales on Sundays to sell anything we had to be able to live. Up at 2am to get a good spot at Dewsbury Market. My mum did them with me and she sold her treasured glass collection and we split the money. Breaks my heart thinking about what she did. She shouldn't have had to do that.......

But she did because she's my mum. She made me and I owe everything to her and Nat.

She made me until I met Nat and from there they both had a hand in it together. Poor sods.

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NEVER ONCE have either of them doubted me. Nat lived through it with me and anyone else would have told me to get a job (I know people said it to her for me to get a job - and I don't blame them for that, I would have said the same, had I not been me).

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I had to sell my CDs at the car boots and one day some guy (he must have been a DJ) came and bought the lot. I had to go around the back of the stall and cry so nobody saw me as they had taken me years and years and years to get. They were the one thing that I never wanted to sell but I had to. I got ￡250.00 for them and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. 2 weeks of oxygen for us (The Pursuit of Happyness film with Will Smith).

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After the CDs had gone, I had to sell my Technics Hi-Fi in order to buy Nat a Christmas present. It cost me over a grand and Cash Converters gave me ￡125.00 for it!! I had no choice. I wasn't gutted about that as I knew it was buying Nat a pressie. The Hi-Fi could be replaced, but I knew the CDs could not be. That's what was gutting.

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Anyway, I ended up leaving the business just as it was ready to expand into other areas. Partnerships, I have learned are not for me. I signed everything over and walked away with no business, no job, no money and no plan, but I felt like the whole world was open to me and I could do whatever I wanted. Strange really when you have no income and no idea where to get the income from.....

What happened next is another story.

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