Dirty Talk...

I'm a bit of a fan of Murder She Wrote.

Oh you read correctly,I'm talking about the Murder She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, Cabot Cove's resident murder mystery writer and amateur sleuth. I bring this up not so much to be ridiculed as a young woman who watches granny t.v but more to highlight a common problem amongst business men and women, and potential entrepreneurs.

Several times during an episode I watched recently Jessica comments to her friends that she cannot possibly meet up with them because she 'has work to do'. And yet during the entire episode she never actually spends any time at her type-writer actually doing the work she needs to get done. Instead we see her galavanting all over the town solving yet another fiendishly clever murder. (Season 2, Episode 14 'Keep the home fries burning')

This fictionialised scenario of talk instead of action is a very real predicament which often decides the success or failure of any business venture. We all secretly wish that we could just say the things we need to do to make our business a success and they would magically get done.

Some choice examples I can offer from my own experience include:

'Oh I must do the accounts this week.'

'We really need to get our products into more shops.'

'The website needs sorting out doesn't it?'

etc etc ad infinitum.

The awful truth everyone already knows is that without action nothing happens. Alot of times we don't do things because we don't really want to do them, and sometimes we don't do them because we don't think we can. I have honestly found that the cliches are true, if you don't do it you'll never know, and 9 times out of 10 what we think we can't, we can. The trick is in the doing.

Unlike Jessica Fletcher our hard work doesn't happen off screen. We have to make those phone calls, fill out those forms, chase up that late payment and close deals, and it does take effort and most importantly when you're your own boss a huge amount of self-discipline.

I find then that it's not just Murder She Wrote which isn't hugely realistic in it's portrayl of women who are self-employed (Jessica is a fiction writer.) Alot of what is written in the media about being an entrepreneur glosses over the hard slog that is making a business a success.

I understand the need for a story but I also think readers appreciate finding out about the ups and downs rather than just the rose-tinted view. It makes us feel less inadequate that our business didn't just fall into our laps a ready made success.

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