Diary of a Small Business Owner: We Can Network It Out

In this monthly column, I tell all about the highs and lows of launching and running a tea company, MDTea, alongside my wife, Helen.?

This month, I re-live a networking nightmare, mourn the demise of a neighbouring business and set my sights on a second high street store.

May 5th

We’ve joined a networking club, called Network My Club. We don’t have a club, but we do want to network – so joining Network My Club seemed to be at least half a good idea. Permit me, Diary, to tell you a short story about my introduction to networking.

A long, long time ago in a land far, far away (Holland), I joined my boss at a conference. Let’s respect section 15, subsection 2, paragraph (d) of the Defamation Act 2013, and call my boss John Smith.

My job was to play the role of John’s wingman at five events over the two days in Amsterdam, and I was expected to chat effervescently with people in whom I had no interest, about things I didn’t understand, while proudly representing a company I hated and wanted to leave. I had been commanded to sparkle in a dark and hopeless world.

On the first evening, my suitcase not yet unpacked, I met John at a 'sponsored party' in one of those joyless city centre hotels that belong at airports. He was soon working the room, at the same time throwing judgemental glances back at me as I shuffled awkwardly on the outskirts of various groups, offering nothing – or sometimes small talk that was worse than nothing.

Everywhere I looked, Billy or Willemina Big-Bananas was loosing off machine gun rounds of pith, wit and gossip – carelessly lobbing incendiary opinions into random groups of delegates and piercing people’s armour with warheads of pure personality. I had turned up with a pea shooter.

Just was I was about to seek respite in the toilets for the fourth time, I spied a waiter offering attendees a basket of 'cannabis jelly beans'. I presumed, of course, they were some weak placebo – surely one wouldn’t be offered drugs at a work event in a respectable city like Amsterdam? – but even a subtle effect might be enough to loosen my conversion cords, I reasoned. Ignoring a stricture to “please take only one”, I popped four in my mouth.

An hour later, I felt nauseous, weird, and incapable even of a false smile. I was certain of only of one thing: I could not stay in that room. But surely I couldn’t simply make a French exit? I had a long fight with my conscience which, eventually, I won and I fled with The Clash’s most famous song jangling inside my tormented head.

I was only vaguely aware of the hammering on my hotel door another two hours later and woke the following morning to around 20 missed calls from John, from John’s personal assistant (who wasn’t even in Holland) and from a takeaway delivery driver. Luckily, I felt fresh and managed to lie my way out of the trouble over breakfast, later completing the trip with my reputation only slightly ruined.

Those were very different times and I am now good at talking to people I don’t know while simultaneously tearing food from wooden skewers with my teeth and drinking warm wine – so let’s see what benefits Network My Club brings. I’ve signed MDTea up to an event at Twickenham Rugby Stadium early next month.

May 18th

News reaches me that a chain of hardware shops is to close after 120 years of trading in various sites across Brighton. Dockerills, a family-run business, is to shutter its single remaining store with the owners blaming the diminishing spending power of shoppers, as well as the huge hit Covid took on the business.

Like most sensible retailers, I know that the traditional high street is in decline. Yet, I have always believed something good will replace it – venues offering experiences that cannot be found online, rather than just selling products that can.

But, hang on, Dockerills is that experience-based business! You go there to talk to knowledgeable staff members about the best ways to repair, restore or build the important things in your life. Perhaps even these places are not immune to the dark clouds gathering over Britain’s shopping streets?

At the risk of succumbing to the business writer's propensity to peddle Machiavelli, who famously penned a handbook for small to medium-sized businesses called The Art of War, I am reminded that Machiavelli observed the following:

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times."

It is a truth undiminished by time and of particular relevance to retailers in 2024. So, fellow shop owners, I beseech thee: diversify thy income streams, spread thy risks, get online, and, while thou ist at it, stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and disguise your fair nature with hard-favoured rage; for tomorrow we fight. Or is that Shakespeare?

Then again, I’m beginning to think the best option for MDTea might be to swerve the battlefield entirely, which is, of course, the high street in this well-thumbed and fading metaphor.

May 24th

It’s good to change your mind. I’ve changed my mind about many things. For example I used to think Millennials were well-fed, well-watered, well-intoxicated, warm, dry, comfy, self-entitled whingers, who had an obsessive compulsion to declare themselves owners of bricks.

But now they’re old with bad knees and grey hair – and mostly still brickless – I realise I was being hard on them from my own entitled position.

You see, buying a house was easy when I did it so I didn’t need to whine about not having one. In fact, I got a 110% mortgage (read about that here). Furthermore, I now realise it wasn’t the fault of Millennials that they were entitled. They’d had a lifetime of being told “you’re amazing – have a medal for coming last”.

I’d also allowed myself to become annoyed unnecessarily about their tendency to eat raw food and do yoga and to be sure to let you know they were doing both things. In my own old age, however, I've discovered the Downward Dog, and while I don’t love getting into that position, I now understand the point of it.

All of which brings me to my Big Change of Mind: we’re going to do more high street-based retail, not less. Because, despite the misfortunes of Dockerill's, businesses that offer experiences are indeed thriving. I am ressured of this because I’ve done some Googling. Examples I found include the outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, which hosts film screenings and public talks in its stores. Zara’s flagship store has? interactive mirrors equipped with something called ‘radio-frequency identification technology’, which detects what item of clothing a customer is holding, and offers advice on what might go well with it!

So we can do this too, offering in-store tasting events and learning opportunities. Ensuring people can see and smell the beautiful tea inside our packaging.

It just so happens that we have been presented in the last few days with an opportunity to collaborate on a new shop in a health centre in a reasonably affluent area of Hove (Brighton’s upmarket sibling). More follows!

June 6th

To the blessed turf of Twickenham Rugby Stadium for a Network My Club event – and, wow, did it leave my Dutch Disaster in the shade!

A word of warning: you absolutely must not attend these events with an attitude that you are there to receive, rather than give. The idea is that, by paying it forward, there is a powerful long-term benefit from the relationships you will win with your kindness.

And while I was mindful of this wisdom, I was virtually bombarded with help and advice throughout my two hours at Twickers. That suppoort ranged from expert tips on funding options for MDTea, to guidance on how to outsource our sales, to offers of introductions to key food and beverage buyers in the hotel industry.

My ‘to do’ list is bursting with follow-ups on ideas, opportunities and new relationships that sprang from that single event.

Increasingly, I think its wrong to think of business as a battle. Machiavelli's writing was about war, not commerce. When we talk of ‘Captains of Industry’ and ‘victories’, our rhetoric is – here comes another military metaphor; see how easy it is! – misfiring.

Maybe that’s because we’re not fighting each other…or anyone, for that matter. We’re actually all on the same side and if we can support each other when the economic weather is bad, we’ll all win.