Samantha Hale

Back in 1998, my ex-husband, a runner, interested in coaching athletes and in the technicalities of running shoes, and I saw a gap in the market to provide coaching and kit advice to athletes.  We started the business from a back bedroom and by travelling to running events throughout the country with a paste table and some home made promotional material.  My husband was the ideas man and I was the practical person slogging away behind the scenes.

The business developed into selling some products and also moved into a mail order business.  We opened our first store in June 1999 which had a turnover of £226,000 by June 2001 but showing losses of £21,000.  We had originally started the business with zero capital and funded all the growth from profit.  However the growth was too big to fund which led to cash flow problems.  We had no personal money and no business money – our house was in negative equity and I literally had no money to go to the supermarket each week.  But we still believed we had a business that was worth persevering with.

However, just 3 years after starting the business, at the beginning of January 2002 my husband unexpectedly left me. 

I was left with a growing business, a retail premises which were open 6 days a week plus some Sundays at outside events, a 10 year old child, two dogs, two horses (on loan to me), with the busiest time of our business year about to begin.  Added to this, the business was open until late in the evening, 7 – 8pm depending on the night.  I lived in a tiny village and I had no money to employ anyone to help me.  I had two recently employed staff who needed training, I had lost my key member of staff, and my husband, who had been the main driver of the business, was gone.

As if this wasn't enough, January is one of the two major buying periods in the shop where I would need to purchase all the stock for the following season – spending large amounts of money. I had to get it right!  Up until this point my husband and key member of staff  had predominantly done all the buying. Things like spreadsheets and the technicalities of the footwear were completely alien to me.

I took the bull by the horns and just got on!  Miraculously I learned how to run the business – I am sure pure common sense played a major part.

How did I do it? Each day, I would get up by 5am and spend time learning about budgets, spreadsheets, viewing stock and putting orders together, paying bills and working on building relationships with my suppliers and the bank to keep everyone happy.  I would then get my son up and ready for school, take him to school, walk the dogs, take care of the horses and still be at the shop ready to open!

The customers continued to pour through the door and they needed to be given the correct products and advice, so I was also learning all about this as well as training others, buying products, managing cash flow.  I would then juggle ensuring that my son's life was as normal as possible, that he had his tea at a sensible time and that he has somewhere to do his homework.  All this was done at the shop!

My day would then go into reverse.  I would go home, walk the dogs, sort out the horses, put my son to bed and then carry on with buying, the paperwork until 1 or 2 in the morning and then start the whole process all over again a few hours later!

But it was worth all the long hours: the business began to turn around.  By the end of the next financial year I had turned a £21k loss around to a £7k profit.

At the same time as this was going on my grandmother had a stroke and my mother was looking after her so I had no support from anyone – I didn't tell my employees what was going on in case it made them feel insecure, I didn't tell my mother as she had enough on her plate and I didn't tell my friends in case everything with my husband sorted itself out.  It didn't, despite the fact that as well as everything else, I also fitted in a trip to Relate once a week for two months. Of course my son was upset with the disruption and I still had to make sure that all his emotional and practical needs were met.  I had no income – there wasn’t enough money in the business to take a realistic wage.

To this day I have no idea how I coped!

I do know that deep down I knew that I had a business that was unique and that I had worked my socks off to build and there was no way that I was going to let that fail.  I knew that was my only chance of having any security for the future for myself or for my son.

I have now turned both my personal and business life around. My key member of staff returned, I am now debt free at home and own my own house.  I am happily re-married, I drive an Audi TT convertible car and enjoy great holidays!  I have an award-winning business that is going from strength to strength.  We have a great reputation and our customers flock from all over the UK for our unique service.  Of course I have learned a lot.  I believe the business is strong because things were so difficult for a time and I am immensely proud of what we have all achieved.

www.advanceperformance.co.uk

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