Buying a “business” is not simply a matter of writing a check. In those distant days before the much-vaunted simplification drive, becoming a business owner was an obstacle course.
First, as a sort of initiation and before registering with the trades registry, everyone had to meet one requirement: attend a course lasting several days. My degree would have exempted me, but as it turned out, I was fortunate that I attended anyway.
During the first hour, however, I wondered what I was doing there! There were about twelve of us, if I remember correctly—perhaps fifteen, but no more.
Despite the group’s modest size, it was an impressively diverse cross-section. There was an Asian immigrant who barely spoke French, a construction worker going into business for himself “to earn more,” and an executive who had been unemployed so long that, in desperation, he was trying to become an independent consultant in a field whose contours remained vague. Then there was me, the aspiring entrepreneur whose project “could not have been more serious.” Almost every possibility was represented.
The instructor, a former senior executive and a good man whom I still admire today, did everything he could.
We were in fact facing one of the absurdities produced by far too many laws and regulations. The formal requirement was merely to attend the course, and most participants understood it in precisely those terms: they were present, period. Asking anything more of them was pointless!
At most four or five of us genuinely wanted to study. The others drifted in and out, passing the time: taking a little nap with their arms folded on the table, conducting an in-depth study of Paris Turf or L’Équipe, doing their nails, staring into space…
Whenever I looked around during those four days, I felt as though I were in a Cabu cartoon from his Le Grand Duduche (The Great Duduche) years.
Nevertheless, with the faith and perseverance of an evangelist, the instructor gave us everything he could. Before the course, I thought I had studied the subject thoroughly.
Apart from a few details, I believed I had everything fully under control and completely understood: legal status, taxes, leasehold rights… He had a particular talent for calling every one of my certainties into question.
At the time, I did not feel that he was helping me at all—quite the opposite. But that was his method, and it worked! Provided that you paid close enough attention.
He began with the most elementary common sense, systematically drawing on everyday situations and the actual workings of a household economy, then developed those ideas and applied them to the operation of a business. No prior knowledge was needed: reading, writing and arithmetic were enough. Admittedly, despite their best efforts, some of the other participants eventually lost the thread when we reached double-entry bookkeeping, cash-flow dynamics and similar subjects…
Thanks to him, I did not wear myself out preparing all those applications for supposed business takeover or start-up assistance, which required business plans fit for a project involving millions in investment…
And for what? Perhaps twenty or thirty thousand francs, or half of a tiny portion of the total investment, in the form of an interest-free loan, with no certainty that I would qualify. Assistance programs so often seem designed never to match any actual situation.
“You know,” he replied when I asked a practical but minor question about a problem in one of those applications, “you are going to take over a successful mattress manufacturing business.
“Weigh the amount of work you do against its economic value. These applications will occupy you for several weeks, so perhaps some business development work before the takeover would be a better use of your time!
“It will very likely produce a far more substantial increase in your earnings, and certainly a more lasting one, than these hypothetical crumbs of public money.
“And if I may offer one final piece of advice,” he insisted, “never rely on financial assistance to make a deal viable, whatever form it takes! Always structure the deal so that you can manage without it. If the assistance comes through, so much the better. If it does not, and your finances are already precarious, the cliff effect when the program ends will be deadly, especially for a very small business.”
Unfortunately, he was right. Even today, I am saddened to see that obtaining assistance or guidance—and heaven knows there is no shortage of needs—remains an ordeal!
Whether the aim is to secure a patent, register a design, bring production equipment into compliance, explore new markets or try to expand into exports…
Unless your business is already profitable enough to advance all the funds, and above all to absorb the exorbitant cost of hiring a lawyer or specialized firm to prepare the application, your chances of success are close to zero.
Trade federations, chambers of commerce and employers’ organizations left the space between public authorities and craftspeople like us completely empty. An entire population of service providers consequently emerged, prospered and continues to feed handsomely on this incompetence.
We have to face the facts: far too many public agencies and intermediary bodies exercising delegated authority operate according to their own internal logic. Even when that logic does not blatantly contradict the original intent, these bodies have taken certain liberties: their concrete actions do not always address the need that would justify their existence. Perhaps that is the price of an oversized nation-state.
That was where I stood. November was drawing to a close, and the entire planet was about to cross into both a new millennium and a new century. On top of all that, I was about to turn my own life completely upside down.