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Today in our series on setting up your own business, I'm talking to Paul Jefferson, who gave up his job as a college lecturer in business studies to start an import business. Paul, what made you do it? Importing, because whenever I go abroad I see things I'm sure would sell here. And working alone, because I wanted to be very hands-on, and do everything from finding suppliers to selling. Did you set yourself a financial target? Well, nothing specific. In the long term, it'd be great to have plenty of money. I can just see myself with a big house and a yacht. To be honest I think I might have quite a wait, though. In the meantime, I owe a bit of money, but it's at a level I can live with, so I suppose I'll be happy when I'm earning enough to pay the bills, with a little bit over to be able to eat out from time to time, and something to plough back into the business. And are you making enough to live on yet? No, in a word. But I'm lucky, I'm got an investor, Sarah Hall. She backs me with enough to live on each month in return for a share of my future profits. She's actually a successful importer herself, in a different sector, and she's given me a lot of useful advice on selling. |
