Like many other entrepreneurs, my entrepreneurial life started at a young age selling things I'd bought at car boot sales, the solution to the Rubiks cube which I photocopied at school, free scratchcards and so on. I don't really know why this appealed to me – I think it was more a fascination with numbers than money.
I also had part-time jobs when I was young, the formative one being on a cheese and egg stall at the local market . This taught me many useful skills – numeracy (we had no tills), customer service, the value of hard work, and most importantly, the notion that it was pretty easy to work for yourself. The guy I worked for was only a few years older than me, had started from scratch and was earning a very nice living through nothing more than hard work, customer service and a quality product that enough people wanted. When it comes down to it, aren't they the most important thing in any business, from the small one-man band to the largest multi national?
I was thrown out of school when I turned 16. I wasn't really naughty or disruptive, but I had an annoying habit of asking what the point was of what I was learning and how on earth it was going to help me when I was older. Very rarely did I get a satisfactory response so I just switched off. Ironically my eldest son does exactly the same thing and only now can I empathise with those poor teachers.
I had little idea what I wanted to do; I worked at an accountants for a short time, followed by various sales jobs, from timeshares to photocopiers and fax machines. Looking back, these were my formative experiences – people forget that sales is the single most important thing in any business. It is also a skill that can be learned and has little or nothing to do with 'the gift of the gab'.
After the sales jobs I decided to set up on my own business. In 1992 from a single £10 advert in the local paper, SJD Accountancy was born. Twenty years later we are the most profitable accountancy firm in the country. So how did we get from nothing to this?
The unsatisfying answer is slowly. What most people don't realise is that, with very few exceptions, it takes years to build up a decent business. It took me five years before I had a turnover of £50,000. Eventually you get momentum behind you, which pushes growth gradually quicker and quicker, but not without years of diligent hard work and constantly trying to improve the business. You have to do better and move quicker than all your competitors – they are always trying to take your customers away.
But my low boredom threshold meant that I wasn't satisfied with just having the one business. A few years ago I embarked on building up a portfolio of start-ups ranging from aviation, motor racing, engineering, publishing, music and modelling. My nickname as the Twitter Dragon was bestowed upon me when I got so bored reading through reams of useless jargon in long-winded business plans, and decided to get people to pitch through Twitter. I had more success in terms of investing through those 140 characters than I did reading 40-page business plans. This proves my belief that at its heart business is really very simple.
There is also a common misconception that you have to be hard as nails and ruthless to be an entrepreneur – not helped by shows like The Apprentice and Dragons' Den. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Almost all successful entrepreneurs I've met have been the most charming, modest, honest, helpful and polite people you'd ever wish to meet (remember I said most). People buy from people they like so it's very difficult to build a business without having some decent people skills.
We should also mention ethics. You would think that the days of the deal done on a handshake would be some kind of naive throwback to yesteryear. But in fact many deals are done in this way today. That's not to say you don't get the legal paperwork done properly (trust in God but tie up your camels, as the old Arabic expression goes), but it means being a man or woman of your word. If people trust you, you will find them wanting to do business with you over and over again.
In summary, to be a successful entrepreneur you need to:
• Learn how to sell
• Develop your people skills
• Have realistic expectations as to what can be achieved – most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade
• Research your market and aim for a niche
• Start on a shoestring – never waste money on things that don't lead to sales
Simon Dolan is the Twitter Dragon and author of How To Make Millions Without A Degree
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