Life, the universe and the year one, in a nutshell.
Having taken the rather obvious decision to go back to what I do best and try to rebuild a business, some issues immediately raise their heads. Sure, I can still do the work but issue one… no cash. Getting back on the tools again is the easy bit. Buying the tools and then having the working capital to do the work, well that’s made a bit more challenging by the wiping out of the car transport company, resulting in 7 years of hard work wasted, 25 decent peoples jobs lost and about a ¼ million pounds all gone overnight.
So in for a penny… the very comfortable 540 BMW went off to Ebay, out came the credit cards and voila, enough cash to keep me in minimum wage for a few months.
Issue two… no customers and no way of going out to get customers. At this point, I was on the receiving end of a bit of good luck for a change. We had a customer who owned a 1958 Porsche 356a that I had sold to him 15 years previously and he brought it to the garage once a year for it’s MOT test and then put it away again until the next MOT was due. 30 miles a year might sound like it’s good for a car, but actually the engine was starting to tire and the body was showing signs of age. He asked me if I wanted to buy it and I offered him every last penny that I had (there goes the working capital). Yeah! A car to work on.
Having taken the rather obvious decision to go back to what I do best and try to rebuild a business, some issues immediately raise their heads. Sure, I can still do the work but issue one… no cash. Getting back on the tools again is the easy bit. Buying the tools and then having the working capital to do the work, well that’s made a bit more challenging by the wiping out of the car transport company, resulting in 7 years of hard work wasted, 25 decent peoples jobs lost and about a ¼ million pounds all gone overnight.
So in for a penny… the very comfortable 540 BMW went off to Ebay, out came the credit cards and voila, enough cash to keep me in minimum wage for a few months.
Issue two… no customers and no way of going out to get customers. At this point, I was on the receiving end of a bit of good luck for a change. We had a customer who owned a 1958 Porsche 356a that I had sold to him 15 years previously and he brought it to the garage once a year for it’s MOT test and then put it away again until the next MOT was due. 30 miles a year might sound like it’s good for a car, but actually the engine was starting to tire and the body was showing signs of age. He asked me if I wanted to buy it and I offered him every last penny that I had (there goes the working capital). Yeah! A car to work on.
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