Update...

It became official on Thursday, that I was the new director of my new little venture.  I had signed the papers last Thursday and everything has gone through with ASIC. For a moment it felt like everything was heading in the right direction. But for some reason I cannot shake this week’s events, which I have to put down is very strange.

I have to admit, that when it comes to business I am really green. I have done odd jobs here and there, learnt the basics. But all in all, it’s all very new to me. I thought I knew the fundamentals, but it seems when push comes to shove, what is lacking is my confidence. And this is where I seem to go to pieces.

The man I have been working for is nice. I get on with him quite well. He’s a salesman who’s background is IT and systems. He knows his stuff. He can sell ice to an eskimo. I watched him over the course of 10 months sell things to people they didn’t need. But the difference between him and the next salesman is he believes they need these things, even though that may not be the case. He believes that you need to spend $10,000 on an eCommerce website because that’s how it’s done. The people we did the site for have probably made 5 sales in the past 3 months through that website. He thinks it’s a masterpiece and that it’s their downfall if they don’t use it correctly. He holds a lot of value in his work, and that’s how he sells it. At the time, I felt he didn’t sell the right product to them, and I think that they’re no better off.

He is nice though. I think he is. But he’s an excellent business man. I however, am not (yet).

Over this past week, he has convinced me:

·         That my working knowledge of business accounts is good and that I do not need my accountant to review them for me. They looked fine to me and so I agreed. Do you know who I was going to get? My good friend who’s an anal accounting genius and a hard hitter. I think he did not want my friend involved.

·         That once I signed the business papers, he was not going to pay me as I was essentially working for myself and it would be from his own pocket. I thought this was reasonable.

·         On the back of the above statement, gave me the brief for a website he’ll use for his own venture, which is what I have been working on all week. I did not think this was reasonable, as I was basically working for free. However I justified it by telling myself that I now had an established paying client base for free because of him and without the same overheads I was in the position to make some serious profit from the business.

·         Extended his time with me to Wednesday 2nd when originally it was the 31st and I had plans to focus on my work that day while he prepared all the documentation I need. I also had plans to go away Monday night, but had not told him because it didn’t concern him. I now believe there is an expectation for me to work with him for these three days, even though he had decided this on Thursday.

·         Take time on Friday (yesterday) which was a day I reserve for my work at home to go to a client’s office and do training. The way he sold it was she was offering a free Reiki treatment. This client is lovely, but I was miffed he’d booked my appointment for me, in my time.

So, all week I have had this unsettling feeling. The one where your intuition is telling you that red flags are going up everywhere and the more you try and justify them, the bigger this feeling gets. The one that makes you feel like there is a rock in your stomach that won’t go away. That something isn’t quite right. It started to couple with the worry about having to justify to him, a trip to visit a friend on Monday. Part of my said that I now had a responsibility to the business. The rest of me (99%) screamed that I shouldn’t justify my time to anyone, especially someone who wasn’t paying for my time, or giving something in return. I felt the business was the return favour, but something kept telling me that it wasn’t. It was a mutual agreement that he passed the business on to me, and he could not use it as leverage. If he wanted something for it in return, it should have been specified. He’d already received a week’s worth of my time at no cost, which I had done.

Friday night I went an trained the client on her website. Then I had my Reiki treatment. She offered to tell me any messages the universe gave her. I was slightly amused* she was a medium as well, and told her she had my permission to tell me any messaged from the universe. It might have some winning lotto numbers for me.

We started the treatment, and about one minute in she asked me that she had been told that I was not working for above mentioned sales man, but was more a partner. An owner. This was highly amusing. Although he had insisted that we notify clients on the 31st on the change of ownership and not before, there was still a slight chance he’d told her in a private conversation. So, I did not bite at this news and did not answer. She prompted me by saying anything I told her was confidential. I laughed and thought, why not? It’s 7pm on the Friday before she was to find out (if she hadn’t already), and the company was mine. I told her I was taking over.

The thing that made me stop however, is that she start the treatment again. “You’ve made the right choice, it’s a very good opportunity for you. You’ll do very well.” Nice to know, but what else woman? I waited and waited. Then she finally spat out, “Don’t trust him. He’ll take advantage of you. He’s nice. But he’s a business man. Just get your lawyer, stand your ground and don’t trust him.” Then she started the treatment again.

So I am laying there, face down. My gut is screaming “SEE?! SEE?! You were right! Something is not right.” She stops again, and pokes me (like a, ‘listen to what I’m going to tell you’ kind of poke). “I’m being told you’re not trusting your intuition. It’s more powerful than you give it credit for. You don’t have to justify your actions to him. You’re the business owner now, you have to act like it.”

So with my mouth hanging open like an idiot, staring at crystals under the table, I start going over the week in my head. And she keeps bringing things back to it. Like she sees children in the next couple of years, and the universe had told her the reason I did my own thing was to be the mother, friend, girlfriend I wanted to be and have the power to call my own shots. “You need to tell him no, and that you have other things to do.” Yes lady, like the Gold Coast. Quite aware of that. Telling me how to drown him out when he tries to convince me otherwise would be more helpful.

The rest of the session was quite relaxing with a few little messages from the universe. But I left with a feeling that I needed to start again, and this time I needed to put my foot down and call the shots. I don’t know how I’m going to state that Monday and Tuesday is off limits. I have no idea what I will say when he argues responsibility to the business, tries to guilt me (like all good salespeople), or should I even suggest – withhold information that belongs to me now. How do you go against someone who’s used to being the passive aggressive dominant one, especially when I have been the second in command?

What really gets me is he’s a good guy. Well, I think he is. I can’t imagine writing him off as an unscrupulous, untrusting business owner. He’s making sure he’s looking after his interests, right? This may be my downfall. I have to assume it’s just business. Which means I should act like it’s just business. If he’s offended, or doesn’t like it then it’s not my problem. It’s a mental thing too. He’s a big man, tall and very round. At the moment we’re in his office, or more importantly his territory.

*In general, I dismiss 99.9% of mediums. I believe that they read body language, and have acute intuition which makes them good at reading people and guessing probable answers. I have indulged as I err on the side of there being a universal energy out there, but in general a couple of key questions and a good eye means most of them do not take messages from god, the universe or dead people.