Throwing scarves at Murdo (pt 1)

I finished my teaching contract with University of Sheffield on 30 June this year.  The last working day was Friday 28th June, which I took as leave.  

The last day of any contract tends to be gloomy.  Concerns about the future are highlighted, and regrets about past choices surface afresh.  On this last day, the weather got into the spirit of things.  The sun failed to break through low-lying clouds and gloom prevailed.  Neelam and I however, were not feeling gloomy.  Thanks to PRIME’s publicity machine, we were expecting a visitor who came equipped with sunlight (well - an electrical substitute).  

Not long beforehand, we had had a phone call from Saga Magazine.  They were running an article on PRIME and wanted to include some case studies.  Look-in-the-Bag was selected (along with LinchpinPA).  Saga phoned to ask if it was alright to send round a photographer. I thought about the somewhat chaotic state of our house and the even more chaotic state of our garden and suggested meeting the photographer in a local beauty spot*.  Sadly the suggestion was declined.  We were informed that the photographer, one Murdo Macleod, preferred to shoot subjects in their natural habitat, and would arrive at 10am.

I googled Sheffield-based photographers by the name of Murdo Macleod but didn’t find any.  The only photographer I found by that name was an Edinburgh-based, award winning press photographer.  To our amazement, it turned out to be him.

Despite his numerous accolades, Murdo proved to be engaging and entertaining - which is just as well, since I spent the next four hours posing for him and Neelam spent the next four hours throwing things at him.

*Yes - Sheffield does have beauty spots!

First Choice

Look-in-the-Bag's 2013 brief sparkle* in the media began in January.  Neelam picked up the phone one day and was taken aback when the well-spoken woman at the other end announced that she was phoning from the office of Prince Charles.

The caller explained that PRIME wanted to use LitB as a case study.  Were we happy to for them to send our details to the press?

We managed to overcome our concerns about media intrusion, the paparazzi, and phone-hacking and agreed.  Shortly afterwards, we received a phone call from Marcus Duffield.  He wanted to interview me on behalf of Choice Magazine.

They run a regular feature (called New Directions) about people who have a radical change in life.  Marcus sent me an example from a previous issue.  It nearly put me off doing the interview. 

The example dealt with the experiences of an RAF engineer who traded a life amongst Harriers and Phantoms for one amongst the skiing fraternity of the French Alps.  My experiences seemed decidedly mundane compared to such a (literal) high flyer.

Still, Marcus was encouraging.  We chatted over the phone for half an hour or so and he managed to turn my ramblings into a coherent article.  I never got to see who featured in Choice Magazine's next "New Directions" article, but I can't help feeling that I was an easier act to follow than my predecessor.


*We're aspiring to a media blitz but we all have to begin somewhere. 

The cost of publicity

Look-in-the-Bag learned something about the cost of publicity when we placed a small ad in Good Housekeeping Magazine last December.  Our website was new and shiny and we wanted to attract customers for Christmas so we paid out £300 for an advert in the classified section.  It led to a small jump in visits to the LitB site (around 60) but no sales.

One problem with trying to sell things through advertising is that people know that adverts are biased.  Of course, biased information is not necessarily untrue information, but it’s not surprising if people question what an advert says about the product being advertised.  The same isn't necessarily true of a product mentioned by a brand ambassador or used in a film or a TV show.  For example in the Bond film Skyfall, when Bond downed a beer in place of his usual vodka martini, the audience were more likely to think “After what he’s been through he deserves a beer” than to think “How much did Heineken pay for that plug?”  

The kind of person cynical enough to ask such a question would probably be cynical enough not to be surprised by the rumour that Heineken payed around $45 million to reach the plots other beers couldn’t reach.

Clearly, the most valuable sort of publicity is good publicity that isn’t paid for.  Thanks to PRIME, Look-in-the-Bag has been brought to the attention of a couple of magazines (Choice and Saga) and the local press.  We even had the undivided attention of a top press photographer, which is something I’ll blog about in a few days time.

A useful piece of small luck

I've blogged about various organisations that have helped Look-in-the-Bag in our 18 months of existence. There was the late, lamented Business Link, the bacon-scented Sheffield Enterprise Agency, and (by royal request) PRIME.  Somewhat unexpectedly, we also managed to get help from University of Sheffield Enterprise (USE). 

Around four years ago I completed a post-graduate diploma.  I began the course thinking that it would be interesting and would improve my career prospects.  I ended it feeling frustrated by the lack of structure and guidance, and with worse career prospects than when I began.  All in all, it seemed to have been a complete waste of time.

I was so disillusioned by the time I finished that I forgot to make arrangements to pick up the certificate.  Eventually I received it in the post and filed it away under "Useless Qualifications" (I have quite a collection!)

Around that time Neelam and I were in the early stages of setting up Look-in-the-Bag.  Someone at the university suggested I should check out USE. I did, and found that they supported students up to five years after graduation.  I graduated from Sheffield as a mature student in 2000, so assumed that I was well past their 'help-by-date'.  As an after-thought though, I mentioned my diploma, dated November 2011.  To my delight, I learned that, yes, it counted.  As a result, Look-in-the-Bag was entitled to use USE as its registered office, as well as gaining access to marketing and legal advice.  My certificate got refiled - away from "Useless Qualification" and into "Unexpected Business Opportunities".

Meeting the Target Market

On July 19th 2012, I made my way to Hillsborough Jobcentre to begin PRIME's Preparing to Run Your Own Business course.  I entered the building and found myself in a room full of women.  I don't know what this says about mature male* entrepreneurs in Sheffield, but for Look-in-the-Bag, it was a great piece of luck.

Having done courses at Business Link and at Sheffield Enterprise, I was familiar with much of the material (though on PRIME's course it was covered in more depth and eventually led to a Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI) accredited Level 2 Certificate).  As far as I was concerned though, the main advantage of the PRIME course was that it brought me into contact with a fascinating group of women willing to share a wide range of experience and some extremely useful insights.  Many of the insights were relevant to business in general, but as far as LitB was concerned, we hit a rich seam of advice and ideas when it came to potential customers for fashion accessories.

* I know quite a few women who would say there's no such thing.

The Right Age!

I'm used to being the wrong age.

Most recently, I've been the wrong age for a career in research.  I've spent years doing it, but historically research has not been a career.  Rather it was an apprenticeship that had to be served by anyone wishing to be an academic. In the last few years efforts have been made to help researchers in the early stages of their careers, but I dropped out of all qualifying categories for "Early Career Researcher" a long time ago.

I'm also the wrong age for a lot of business advice and help.  Much of it is targeted at entrepreneurs under 30, and I passed that milestone a couple of decades ago.

I was therefore delighted when, one morning in May 2012, I heard an interview on Radio 4's Today Programme with a man who made cases for musical instruments. Rod Boyes set up Pinegrove Leather after he was made redundant at the age of 50 (an experience I was shortly to share).  He had been helped by the Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise. PRIME was established in 1999 to support prospective entrepreneurs over 50 who were threatened with unemployment.  Finally, unlike Neelam (a mere stripling in her 40s) I was the Right Age.

Bacon sandwiches are good for business

Business connections in Sheffield are lubricated by bacon fat. 

Once a month (usually the second Tuesday), SENTA (Sheffield ENTerprise Agency) holds a business networking breakfast.  Entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs gather to talk about business and to engage in the kind of juggling that usually goes on when people try to stand, talk, eat and drink, all at the same time.

I contacted SENTA at the recommendation of someone who had set up a consultancy a few years back and had found them to be helpful.  They were.  The course that Neelam and I attended offered similar material to Business Link's, but it was less formal and there was more opportunity to engage with the tutors, and the other people attending.  

Best of all though (from my point of view) were the bacon butties at the networking breakfasts.  Neelam (being vegetarian) is less keen.  Somehow croissants and Danish don't have the same appeal.