Child's Play Tuesdays: No Return On Investment

You give everything, they take everything.

“That’s kids for you!”, as my dad always says when I’m having a little moan about his granddaughter.

He’s always very quick to be this dismissive of my parenting plights, I might add. I always want to question him about it, but then I get side-tracked by wanting him to hurry up with making me a sandwich, fixing my car, or writing me a cheque.

I jest, of course, and in being the kind of person who feels guilty on behalf of other ‘kids’ my age who are dicks to their parents, I tend to over-compensate with mine. I want them to have all the nice things, to do all the nice things, and generally not have to worry in any way about anything that constitutes being not at all a nice thing. I often wonder if this is because I’m a truly wonderful human being, or because I was a terrible infant and I’m trying to make up for it. All will come out in the therapy, I’m sure. Or at least in the Will.

Admittedly, the financial ‘take and take’ from your kids doesn’t really show up until they’re a little older, so when we’re dealing with babies and tots as per the focus of this book, the ‘take’ of which I talk usually focuses on more tangible and taken-for-granted things. Such examples might include that packet of crisps you snaffled away for your alone time, that sleep you were so selfishly banking on in order to survive the day, and the last remnants of the sanity you were trying hard to keep your clutch on, before it washes down the plughole with the rest of your warm suds and salty tears. Indeed, though it’s more costly in terms of finances when they’re older and you essentially have to buy your child’s affections, when your little ones are indeed little, you’re pretty much responsible for giving them everything you physically and mentally own just to keep them alive - if not entertained and permanently be-snacked along the way.

Ugh, babies, with their endless pursuit of milk, cuddles, and a snug place to sleep. Talk about needy, right?

As a parent you spend your somehow simultaneously long and short days giving your tots everything they want/need and doing everything for them in the process. It’s like a full-on product and service-based offering you’ve got going on, with neither of those elements of your baby business giving you fuck-all in the way of an ROI. It’s a drain, and I’m not going to sugar-coat it.

Anyone who says kids give you endless joy… is endlessly lying. To themselves, mainly. Other than a hug or a smile on their terms, and the occasional compliment from a stranger on the bus, kids yield you nothing at the tot stage other than sleep deprivation and a permanent headache or heartache. You’re responsible for keeping them alive, for entertaining them, and for catering to every single whim, no matter how merciless or mundane. For most things, toddlers are entirely dependent on you, and for others, they’re just taking the piss. I don’t know about you, but it’s not often I can tell the difference. The return on investment (appreciation, sleep, progress, sleep, respect, sleep) you’ll get in honour of your sterling parenting is almost negligible.

I think this understanding of one-way relationships – coupled with an acceptance of getting very little in the way of something ‘back’ from your pride and joy in the early days - is good practice when you find yourself in the process of setting up a business. No doubt if you’re already in business, you’re currently nodding your head in past memory or current understanding of the brick wall head-banging that all stems from attempting to build a profitable livelihood.

Although the whole point of running a business is that you get to charge people for the stuff or services you’re selling, sometimes this doesn’t prove to be the return you actually need or want from the investment you’ve put into everything from the start. For example, you might make the rookie mistake of having neither the experience nor the benchmark to set your prices properly, and so you undercharge. This means that although you were most likely initially happy that your quote was accepted, upon receiving the payment for your invoice, you start to feel like you could and should have asked for/gotten more. It could be that you realised you’d put way more into the transaction on your side than you anticipated you’d need to do and therefore feel short-changed, or it could be that you’ve seen someone on social media bragging about what they charge for exactly the same thing, and it’s made you think you should have added a zero or two. Similarly, you might have sat back and watched how that thing you did for your client actually went on to be the reason they made exceptional money and success in their own business, or got offered the role as the new James Bond, or something… all because of a problem you solved or the catalyst you sparked that gave them the opportunity. I mean, technically, you should take a lot of pride and joy in events like this as it’s still money in the bank and it’s still a job well done. You won’t, though, because it’s seriously annoying at best, and sodding well soul-destroying at worst.

The same goes for those of you who hire employees in your business. You look after them, you train them, you champion them… and then they end up feeling so bloody wonderful about themselves, that they decide they no longer need you (oh and we’re back to small children), and they fuck off elsewhere for a promotion. Successful bloody bastards.

I’m not really mature enough for business, I know.

The biggest smack in the work wallet, though, comes down to the fact that you need time to find your feet, get better at your business (as well as your service/product development), and likely put a ridiculous amount of hours into your start-up whilst it’s in its infancy. This costs time and money. You need to learn stuff, invest in stuff, and make mistakes with stuff. You might not even start getting a financial return on your investment in your business until it’s been up and running for a good while, either, because although you’re bringing in/turning over cash, you’re not necessarily making a profit (never mind a good one, after it’s been pillaged at the point of Self-Assessment). Okay, so I didn’t expect HMRC to send me a ‘Well Done on Your First Year in Business’ card, admittedly, but I at least thought they’d let me keep some of my hard-earned cash. In any given situation, if you can get through the Self-Assessment process without uttering the phrase, “What was the fucking point of me even working this year?”, then you’re a better person than I am, that’s for sure.

Don’t be fooled by the entrepreneurs on social media who tell you that they made their first million in a week, by the way. If you made a million quid in a week, would you really be spending your time dicking around on LinkedIn? Because I’d be dicking around in Las Vegas! If the choice is either do something worthwhile with it or brag about it, I know which mast my monetary colours would be nailed to. No, the people who make the most money are too busy making it to brag about it, I always feel. It’s likely that in knowing the value of money and the hard work that brought it in, they’ll also not feel the need to shout about it, either, but you know what they say… money can’t buy you the ability to stop spilling your financial guts on social media.

Quick shout-out to all the UK ‘six figure’ business owners who are somehow not registered for VAT, by the way. That’s clever. Just remember that HMRC are not unlike small children - you can’t hide much from them for very long.

Those formative years of business, much like the formative years of raising a baby, see you invest all the blood, sweat, and tears you can get your paws – or pores – on, but it takes a while before you’re able to sit back, enjoy some rewards, and let the independence of your protégé show you what it can do.

And when I say blood, sweat, and tears, you know I really mean blood, snot, and tax bills, obviously.

Chapter taken from my 2023 debut book, TOT ANALYSIS: Why Running Your Business is Child’s Play. Available online – and on shelves in real shops! Shop local.