© 2005 by Harry S Richards

The kind of calls I get from Helpline Service I have operated for past ten years would leave many speechless.

Just last week I received a call from a client who said that he wanted to start a small business venture but had no cash at all. He was so excited with prospect of proposed business that he insisted on telling me all about it. He had every reason to be excited because it seemed that there was no way that he could fail to make a success of it.

However, he wanted me to help him with financial aspects, such as how could he possibly get a loan and how he had such a poor credit rating that no one would give him a loan. So why was he in such disparate straits? I asked. Well he explained how he overlooked his telephone bill, and red reminder so they were going to disconnect it. Then his vehicle has no road tax and M.O.T ran out over a month ago. His wife is demanding housekeeping money and his bank has just returned a cheque he bounced for electricity bill.

Not a good starting point to launch a business I had to explain. However, he went into some more detail about his proposed new business. He actually had people lined up who wanted what he was offering. The only problem with that was that what he was offering was in my own stockroom, and would I supply three units to him so he can get started? Well no, how will I know whether I’ll ever get paid along with all others he owes money to?

Not to worry he explains, business is assured and I would really be backing a one-horse race with odds of 4 to 1. Now I don’t gamble, but if ever there was such a thing as a one-horse race at those odds I would be sorely tempted – wouldn’t you be?

Now how on earth can I help this poor guy? Is he beyond any help at all? Surely there must be a solution somewhere without any risk to me?

As kids in a poor part of town, we collected all kinds of junk to sift through and hopefully resell. Sometimes we were lucky, but mostly we were told to "get lost" with unprintable words to that effect. There was no spare cash at all, so we just had to use our wits to make some. Fortunately, I banded with a group of similar street urchins who were reasonably honest. We just wanted to get some cash without any hassle from cops.

Our primary source of income came from collecting old newspapers door-to-door. We bundled and tied them into manageable bundles to resell to waste-paper and scrap dealers of day. We knew that as kids we wouldn't get a fair price because we watched adults being paid double what we were for same weight. Being wise to this, we loaded our bundles with a few bits of scrap iron, until we learned that it was easier to soak half of each bundle in water, making certain that wet half was positioned in center to make it undetectable.

That’s how we got right price for our wastepaper collection without dealer being any wiser. He was happy to believe that he was ripping us off, and we were more than happy to be ripping him off – for rightful price due to us.

Often we would come across some valuable lead-pipe or copper. The same thing applied. We were just ragged kids, so scrap dealers would pay us less than adults for same weight. We learned to fill our scrap lead or copper pipe with wet garden soil, or sand if we could find some, to increase weight and our cash as a result.

As years passed I got work as a teen in all kinds of different places, and much to my surprise my workmates were all so very negative about any mention of making money or starting a business. Up to that point in my life I had always believed that everyone had similar views, but it quickly dawned upon me that most people lack belief in themselves to take any kind of risk. I suppose that’s why so many good people suffer needlessly in mundane work-a-day jobs without any future prospects. One day in workplace, I simply happened to mention that I would like to start a business, but you would have thought I had said something grossly insulting. The responses were amazing, such as:

“What business can you start these days? Everything has already been thought of” and,

“If there was any chance for a business it’s already being done” and even,

“If ever you go into business you’ll go bankrupt, it happened to my uncle”

“ My wife said don’t ever think of going into business as you cannot trust anyone”

At that point I decided that this was wrong place for me, even though I needed a regular pay check, I was becoming depressed with charged atmosphere of negativity. I really had no idea what kind of business I wanted, but I thought that perhaps a starting point would be to get a job in selling or sales.