Terrified!

It's my first day at The Enterprise Club today!

I am terrified, petrified, scared sick!

Yes, silly I know - After all these people are supposed to be there to help me, but, I cant help feeling that the day will not go well!

I feel like it's the first day of school!

I dont know anything and I dont have any friends there!

Everyone will be more clever than me and they will just laugh when I tell them my business idea. If I could just win the lottery I wouldnt need the New Enterprise Allowance Scheme to support me or give me a grant!

I know my business and I know I can make it work ... well, you cant make people buy when they dont have any money, but you can offer an excellent service, good quality items and charge a reasonable price for those items. I have suppliers lined up. I have chosen the place that I want to base my business in. I just need help with my business plan - thats all ... well, and a grant to help pay for the rent, and the allowance to support me for the first year! But I need to get a good business plan - or  at least one that The Powers That Be will accept to get all of that.

I have been reading articles on the internet, found through Twitter. Really just trying to build up my confidence a bit. I wish I could just give Richard Branson a quick ring to ask his advice, but seeing as I do not have his phone number, I have been reading some of his wise words online to settle my nerves a bit.

I have put some links to the articles below just in case I ever get any followers to this blog. There may be some terrified person I can help with my aimless ramblings!

The Hell starts at 10am at The Freedom Centre, Hull.

Wish me luck people???! x

http://www.probeltd.co.uk/businesses/businesses/preenterprise.html

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223814

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223760

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222739

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/business/news/9761876.50_people_start_businesses_following_launch_of_New_Enterprise_Allowance_Scheme/?ref=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

On The Way?

I got a phone call today from The Enterprise Club.
It was an interesting chat ... booked a place in the workshop for myself and possible hubby, (subject to space). The first one will be saturday 16th June. Hope this gets the ball rolling quicker - All I really want to do is get the funding for the stall and start trading!
Wish me luck!

Michelle x

Interview At The Job Centre

Job Centre Interview

    I went to the jobcentre today to have an interview with my personal advisor today!
It seems it's count down to starting the business time!
She gave me a very good piece of advice ... DONT PANIC! As repeated on both Dad's Army and The Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy!
    She phoned someone from The East Hull Enterprise Club. He, (of course), had his phone off and my adviser left a message on his answer phone for him to call me to make an appointment. So far so good you might think - I thought so too. Then she said to me, of course you dont have to wait until he gets in touch with you, you can go to the drop in centre they run at The Freedom Centre in Hull. She checked the website and informed me that there was no time on the screen, so it must run all day every friday. On the way home I passed The Freedom Centre, so I popped in to check the time of The Enterprise Club Drop In. The receptionist has absolutely no idea what I was talking about! Lol!
She checked all the bookings, there was nothing written down. She then went on to google ,still nothing! I fished about in my bag and fount the details that my personal advisor had  written down for me. This included the address of the Freedom Centre and the website the details were written on. The receptionist typed in the address of the website - it came up that there was no such address!! Unbelievable - especially as I saw the site with my own eyes at the jobcentre! She then tried to contact my advisor by phone to ask what was going on. She could not be contacted (possible at lunch).
    The jobcentre promised to look into the situation and contact both myself and The Freedom Centre as soon as possible. (This was 11.30am today - I am still waiting!) The Freedom Centre receptionist then phoned through to the adult education centre. The one in charge came down. She told me that although someone from the job centre had approached them about booking a room on a friday about three weeks ago, no one had as yet made a firm booking or had made any appearance! She said I was welcome to turn up tomorrow and see if anyone actually appeared this week! Great eh?
   Well - what happened next you might ask (if you are not asleep yet). I got a TEXT MESSAGE from the bloke that my advisor had phoned asking if he could phone me tomorrow between 1 & 2pm tomorrow. What is the world coming too? I dont even warrent a phone call from these people now, just a text!
   The photo wasnt taken today by the way ... too hot for a jumper today! Lol!

Swag Bucks

My children bought me a Kindle for my last forty something birthday!

 Being very old fashioned and stuck in the dark ages, I was quite worried by this! It took me ages to find the on button ... yes, I know! Then I had to figure out how to download books, etc! I am going great guns now. I have lots of books all listed in different collections. I am absolutely addicted to my Kindle now - just couldn't do without it! For a start, my eyesight is getting a little worse for wear, (my arms are not able to hold the book far enough away for me to read now!) The Kindle is able to make the words larger, so now I am able to read EVEN MORE than before!!! Wonderful!!!

What has this got to do with the Swag Bucks site I hear you cry!

Well, I gave nearly all my books away to the charity shop. I had bought some Kindle books, but really wanted to replace all my old favourites, as well as getting some new releases ... a bit expensive! I stumbled across the Swag Bucks link on a freebie site and thought I would give it a go ... not really expecting much to be honest. At first, I looked at their online shop and thought anything worth having was just too many points, I was nearly put off the whole thing - then I saw that you could exchange your points for Amazon vouchers! Hooray!

A £5.00 Amazon voucher can be exchanged for 849 points or Swag Bucks. This sounds a lot - but the points build up so quickly! I have only just joined and I have already had THREE £5.00 vouchers. Its not sent through the post. The code is given to you and then you type it in on the Amazon site - the money is in your account as soon as you type the code in and ready to spend!

I will have enough Swag Bucks for another voucher very soon, cant wait!

The best thing about it is that you get Swag Bucks just for searching the Internet. Just download their toolbar and use that to search instead of your usual search engine. To build up the Swag Bucks more quickly you can fill in surveys, play games, watch film trailers, short videos and take part in polls. If your friends join through your link, you will earn points every time they get Swag Bucks for any Internet search!

You don't win Swag Bucks every time you search, it is random. You could win anything from 1 to 30 Swag Bucks for one Internet search. I usually get 8. It's well worth joining. Just search normally. You can win on the searches up to three times in one day (a few hours in between). Just keep searching the first time until you win (normally within 10 searches). The points get added to your total without you having to do anything. The picture at the top of this blog is the one that flashes up during a search if you have won Swag Bucks. They sometimes ask you to enter a code ... just to make sure you are who you are supposed to be. You are only allowed ONE account per household as far as I can see. Hope this helps someone out who is wondering if Swag Bucks is a scam or if you, like me need money for Kindle books!!

Swagbucks tv is another good way to make up your points. Watching 10 short videos will award you 3 swagbucks. You can also win swagbucks by commenting on the blog or entering comps on their site. If you refer people you will win swagbucks each time they win on searches.

If you are interested please sign up on my link below.

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/michelleraelee

Is It Worth It?

I used to blog on the old Yahoo 360 site a few years ago - then that closed and everyone seemed to
move over to Facebook ... not quite the same thing.

As you have probably worked out from my blog title, I am a 40+ female. I have been married since 1985 (my second marriage) and have four grown up children, six beautiful grandaughters, two dogs, one senile cat and assorted goldfish!

I have been trying to start my own business for quite some time, something always got in the way. Usually lack of start up cash, but a lot of time it was having the time. I was a single parent of four small children for years, all my money was (quite) rightly spent on them, as was my spare time.

On the weekends that my little darlings spent with their father  did sometimes get to attend some sci fi conventions and memorabilia shows. I had been collecting autographs since the age of about eleven. I started by writing to my favorite stars asking for a signed photograph, then graduated to actually getting to meet my idols at football grounds, theatres and memorabilia shows. As time went on, I got to know quite a lot of memorabilia dealers and even show organisers. I helped out on stalls while dealers queued for autographs and helped set up and break down at the beginning and end of shows.
Thats when I started to think that I could be a dealer too ... maybe one day have my own little shop! Well, I thought that was all a pipe dream, but then one thing led to another and I found myself signing on at the job centre, having endless interviews about why I couldnt find a job ... even though I had been looking and the jobs I could do were going to the young 20 somethings! Of course the subject of re-training came up. That's when I thought, hang on - why not bite the bullet and ask about the New Enterprise Allowance Scheme?

I thought my adviser would tell me not to be silly, that I was too old or too stupid to have my own business, but she didnt! We spoke about it, she was surprised at my knowledge of the subject and asked me to do some more research ... this I did.
I cant be put forward for the scheme until I have been on Jobseekers Allowance for a certain amount of time. But she is willing to put me forward foor the scheme. I have dome masses of research, have found an indoor market in my local shopping centre that would be perfect for me to start off in and I am struggling through writing the first draft of my buisiness plan.

Now the panic has set in, I know what I am doing, but how can I convince bigwigs in the Chamber of Commerce that I do? Surely I cant do this? Am I too old to follow this dream? The more time goes on, the more panicked and unsure I feel. I can sell, I have suppliers willing to give me stock on sale or return. I have chosen a great location, spoken to the market manager who thinks a memorabilia stall sounds great. There is no competition for miles around. But ... this is just me! Am I good enough?

My adviser told me if I didnt go for this I would regret it, and always wonder what might have been. I agree with her. But if they reject my business plan and turn me down for the scheme, I wont be able to afford to start off - and, well, wont that be them officially telling me how stupid and useless I am?
Is it worth it???