Lois Sealey: Taking an existing business to an exciting new stage
When my children (now 34 and 31) were young, I worked a few hours a week with other young mums, sharing childcare and running a small nearly new children’s wear shop. This experience (fun but barely profitable!) gave me the impetus to start my own home-based business, a home exchange agency (I also published an annual guide to B & B in the USA and Canada for 10 years) that fitted well with school hours and holidays.
By the time my children were older, when I could have considered going back into employment, I was well and truly entrenched as a home-based worker. Through specialist organisations I met others working from home too and this helped solve the problem of feeling isolated during a period when most of my local friends were busy with full time jobs.
My agency is now almost entirely internet based which, although I feel tied in even more in some ways (people expect instant responses to email!), does enable me to be quite flexible, fitting my work hours around other activities I want to do. This has worked well as I’ve grown older. Many of my local friends are ex-teachers (all seemed keen to retire as soon as they could) so now I'm the only one in the group still working full time, albeit for myself, so I 'm able to meet up for lunch and days out, planning my work schedule around time off.
I feel lucky in having found a niche business that I still enjoy. There is always something new to learn, whether it be a new programme that would enhance my agency, new ideas for marketing or, now, a whole new service to develop.
Shortly after my 60th birthday (I'm now 61) I was approached by two people who were both interested in buying my business or developing a partnership. This was exciting (I really didn’t know if my business, which now has much competition, would be saleable) but it also meant I had to face up to the possibility of giving up work. Although I know that this is inevitable within the next few years, and there are lots of other things I want to do while still able, to be honest I was just not ready to give up on ‘my baby’, the small business that I had devoted so many years to. And then, another development – I was approached by a large UK newspaper group that wanted to appoint a partner to run a home exchange service for their readers.
After a first interview, I (and a number of other agents) was invited to tender for the position of partner service provider. Having never tendered for work before, this was a time consuming and rather daunting process (especially knowing there was only a small chance I would be chosen). Then, after a follow-up interview, and a long wait, I got the call to say that I had been selected to run the service!
So, rather than pursue the route of retiring in my early 60s, I have now taken on more work than ever, at least until I see that the new service is operating smoothly, at which time I will be able to re-think the possibility of winding down. But for now, although I have to admit to being a little apprehensive, it is fun too, especially working with younger people (everyone is about my kids’ ages or younger!), picking up new ideas and generally keeping my mind active.
Sometimes it’s easy to feel that as you get older younger people will dismiss you as ‘past it’, so it was really gratifying to know that I was chosen to operate this new service because of my long experience in the business. Over 50s do indeed still have much to contribute in the workplace!
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[story posted September 2007]