One year of being going it alone– How’s it gone?

A year ago on the 4th of March 2019 (my sister’s birthday) I started my own business did I do it because I wanted to do something for myself or because it was out of necessity? It was the latter I am afraid.

I want to tell you how it has been for the first year and how it affects you and your life.

A decade ago I was coming to the end of working for decade for the world’s largest watch manufacturing company in the Swatch Group where I had worked my way up from account manager to national sales manager for the Swatch brand and then onto brand manager for Endura and latterly Hamilton. That decade which was the 2000’s saw me able to develop my skill set with a well-structured and organised company in the Swatch Group and learn and develop.

In the following decade my career progression gained a steady course with Casio and Polar. The last 4 years since being made redundant from Polar have been a challenging opportunity with roles helping develop small brands into the marketplace both here and globally with varying degrees of success.

This led me into the decision of starting up on my own everyone I spoke to suggested this is the way forward especially as I had got to a certain point in my career in terms of skill set and what I had achieved.

So what happened in the first few months. Well I was lucky enough to secure a contract for a brand which I thought would enable me to develop the business quickly. Unfortunately, despite getting distribution for the brand in several countries as well as agreeing to participate in a prestigious trade event the brand decided to stop the retainer and operate on commission only. The issue with commission only in a tough market is that all the outlay is with the consultant / agent which is fine if a pipeline of existing business where you can generate orders.

So moving onto the summer what did I do I did not give up as I wanted to see where I could continue to help brands. I did take on some commission only brands but without a strategic plan in place in terms of go to market plans this proved to be again a tough way forward. So for 3 months I was living off the family savings which is not ideal and certainly has an effect on your mental health as you need to continue to pay the bills and look after your family. 3 months of your savings go quickly, and you are not in a position to replace.

Onto Autumn and I managed to secure a retainer with a fantastic go to market agency working with a consumer electronics kid brand. As with the Watch market they consumer electronics market is extremely competitive and progress was being made. But my heart and head are in the Watch market so the opportunity came along to work with a distributor and help bring a well know Swiss Brand back to the market again this was with a retainer. So as we approach the end of 2019 things are looking strong and with a retainer being paid you are really able to focus on building the brand.

February 2020 and due to the global downturn in the watch industry the distributor has lost several brands from it’s portfolio and this meant the retainer has been stopped so after one year I am back to square one.

As you can imagine it has been a roller coaster year. Would I change it possibly. But I have and do enjoy helping bring brands to market. However, what I do not enjoy is the unpredictability of the financial situation and the knock on effect it has had on my mental health as well as my family.

So we are now a year in and I have only a few months savings left before the unthinkable happens and I have to sell my house…

Any advice on where to go next would be great and if anyone has any tales of setting up on your own.

Thanks for reading.