Every now and then a business you work with goes quiet. It goes underground and its lack of visibility is worrying. What’s happened to it? Have the owners packed their bags and high tailed off home in a fit of embarrassment? Has there been some kind of confidence meltdown which means the owner has gone back to their day job to face up to their ‘told-you-so’ colleagues and critics? Or did they just wake up from their dream?
But every now and then, that ‘oh-so-quiet’ moment passes and the business comes knocking at your door again and presents itself in all its opening and early trading glory.
It transpires that the business plan was written and then unceremoniously dumped; that the finances have been found wanting and given a good shaking; but that the solicitors are now busy beavering away on contracts and lo! There’s the early Spring whoosh of an invoice being paid. All the signs of a start up finally shaking off their chrysalis, starting to stretch their tender limbs and beginning to do what they’ve been dreaming about doing for months, some times years.
This is a glorious Spring moment and never fails to amaze me. It doesn’t matter whether the business is about trading coffee, constructing electrical sockets or intricately folding pieces of paper into peculiar shapes: the thrill is the same and the joy of the business owners a wonder to behold.
drnickombe 