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Cheryl Rickman
Interview |
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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
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