by Richard Baister - Tuesday, 2nd October 2007 - 1 comment

Suddenly you are in strange new territory and, worse still, it’s inhabited by a lot of dangerous species that are hard to spot – at first.

You’ve got leeches, who are struggling with their own businesses and will befriend a new entrepreneur simply because nobody else will work with them. They will usually be in a service industry and attract new businesses with their infectious (albeit often fake) enthusiasm over whatever you’re doing.

Only once you’re safely signed to a dubious contract will you realise that the reason so much of their time is devoted to you is that they don’t actually have many other clients!

By then, though, it can often be too late and they can suck your cashflow as if it was free-flowing blood, leaving your business in tatters. Then they vanish to find a newer “new friend”.

Marketing companies are a prime example. By nature they are able to sell themselves and talk a good game. They are also very adept at invoicing you for all and sundry, regardless of whether any real work has been done or how long it may have taken.

Velocity has certainly been on the receiving end of this, but I’ve chalked it down to experience. Our ex-marketing companies still hate me.

If the leech doesn’t suck you dry, there will be plenty of sharks about. These will take the form of the kind of customer who is “so excited” by your new product or service.
Indeed, they’re so excited they often decide to run a victory lap â“ to somewhere far away. The problem is that they seldom leave a forwarding address and often forget to pay the bill before they go!

We have one customer/shark in the south of England who had been buying off us for over a year, gradually building his order volume up. Then, when it was sufficiently large enough, decided he would invent all manner of disputes in order to avoid paying.

When we called time on this nonsensical argument and moved towards legal action, we found that our previous credit control people had been royally ripped off: the customer/shark’s credit facility had been obtained by pretending he was part of an entirely unrelated company – complete with a full range of false paperwork.

We then found out that he had done the same to various other suppliers, so we didn’t feel quite so silly, but we still lost a good chunk of money.

If you can survive the two beasts above, in their various forms, you’ll be starting to look like a good proposition. Then the parasites come out.

As any entrepreneur or businessperson will tell you, it’s amazing who comes out of the woodwork to associate themselves with you if the going is good. “Fair-weather friends” is a kind description, but many of them go beyond that into being genuine parasites.

They try to further their own ambitions through the success (or even perceived success) of their prey. The most annoying thing about these characters is that as soon as they are put in check, they frequently play the role of the victim and blame everyone and anything for their failures.

We found this most evident in the weird and wonderful people who have put themselves forward as potential distributors of our drinks.

One in Europe suggested that so long as he had exclusive rights, we should send some senior staff to help him and fund a full media campaign. He was confident he could make it work for us. We could just as well have sent a trained monkey if it had all the support it needed.

Another potential distributor for Yemen said he had “fantastic contacts” but needed us to fund his “fact finding trip” urgently. In other words, he wanted a free flight home because he had no money. Neither could understand why we turned down their offers!

These are just three of the dangerous animals lurking, and I think we’ve all seen our fair share of them. Often they can almost succeed in dragging you down.

On the lighter side, I’ve heard some fantastic stories about people’s experiences with the wildlife of the business world.

I’d love to hear a few more similar war stories, so please do drop me a message and let me know about your funniest, strangest or downright most atrocious experiences.

You can contact me through the Real Business Facebook group or directly by emailing Richard@velocitydrinks.com. I’ll try to put the best ones on the Real Business forum.

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