Chilli Mango Muffin Madness

One batch of chili mango muffins later,  Sue Lee can say she has landed a monty!

I won my first 'big job' today and I'm stoked!! And just had to post this, because now business is up and running after 4 weeks of marketing, wondering, doubting,committing, recommitting, applying for night-fill at Coles,  I have landed a retainer job for 6 months which means I can basically pay for my mortgage and eat. Woo-hoo!

The week has progressed nicely. One feels as though the proverbial 'rollercoater' has been workshopped, oiled, wiped down and set back on track to resume her hurly burly way, with full-bellied passengers ready and up for the ride.

Last weekend, to sooth doubting business nerves, I channelled Martha Stewart and baked my little fingers off. When I realised I had more cake  in my house than I can actually eat, I packed up chili muffins with the idea of feeding the entire staff at the Whyalla Regional Economic Development Board on our first date. I drove  104 kilometres on a warm spring morning to deliver them with my own special brand.  Chili mango muffins = marketing 101: "People do business with people they like". Major suck-up? You bet.

Turn these over and you get chilli mango syrup on the bottom,  mmm...they're the business!

But,  in the rush to get out of my car on time I chickened out. I had a great meeting anyway, discussing sheep, workshop ideas and failing supermarkets in Wilmington...and drove to my next meeting happily eating warmed-in-the-car muffins, all  70 kilometres back to Port Augusta. This, took me past the delightfully named Iron Knob turnoff  (I think I know him, he was a steely bastard.... tee-hee) that just gives so much childish pleasure for new locals.... plus the rather speccie twin tank graffiti exhibition documenting the winning local footy teams over the  past decade. Its like Melbourne's Laneways graffiti meets footy bogan culture  on a grand public scale.

With childish pleasure I wonder at the small but endlessly amusing things that human beings do for entertainment in regional Australia.

Re-entry in to a regional town is a pretty nice thing if you haven't burned any bridges.  As a past resident in Port Augusta, I have less nerves and more comfort about where I am and who I'm talking to than I did 3 years ago - the difference to me is massive. People say after the first introduction at the squash club....  "So...why are you back? " Coming back is unusual and locals are quite shocked I've actually returned. The toughness new people face coming to town is the years of stamina locals build to being left over and over again, the waves washing over the glass that breaks down to sand, eventually.

I'm a bit in awe of locals because underneath is really the softest, warmest  and most accepting side of people who are willing to do it tough and looking for a different quality out of life than sheer modern facades, doorbells that chime Australian Idol Hitz and 'look at me I'm 24 and in love with nothing' attitude.

Picture Port Augusta Squash Club - fans whirring the air above, heat rising off the sweating players, balls slamming and scores being yelled out over the noise. People leaning over the railings, clustered around the action.
"So, Sue, are you around for awhile?"
 "Yes! I have no plans to be anywhere else, really..."
"That's the best way to be!"
Smiles all round.  Simple pleasures. I'm back on the squash team, just like that, a regular spot.  Two games of squash won 3-0. Sue Lee is back on track.

I'm being treated like a local, except I've forgotten street names, the cousin of so-and-so, or that you are actually a grandmother not the aunt.  Jeez - where's a chili mango muffin when you need it?

It's not the region, stupid. It's REALITY.

Woohoo! My ABN has been re-registered (after a 6 week application process and short lecture from ATO agent Angela). The first good news Ive had in two days.

The Receptionist at an unnamed outback organisation has reminded me how dumb I am that I don't know what I don't know about an organisation I have never done business with.  Welcome to the region, to you too.

A printer has misunderstood my order and  there's been a 2 week delay for business cards. A simple application for a tender has me running and looking under cushions for this detail and that detail.

I've had unsolicited 'feedback' from an ex marketing consultant, now public servant ( "my wife loves the regular paycheck")  about how my (first ever) newsletter design could improve with all the spare cash I have been rolling around in during all my spare time.

I think someone pissed in my recycling bin overnight and I had the glamourous task of washing it out.

I've been sent in circles to get my details on a list of consultants on the DTED website, and a wiser version of me that doesn't put up a fight says, "Two years. Give it two years and you'll be on that list." So I give up on that one.

I call an old colleague in town who used to be in business now works for government and tell him about my new move. He inhales sharply before saying "Wow. Um.....wow. Good luck with that. You know there's downsides and upsides working for government, as much as it shits me...." and trails off.  The last drop of optimism dribbles out of my cup sizzles away on the floor.

My mobile phone is buring my ear. I'm in deperate need of chocolate, a lotto ticket, a belly laugh, some variation in market forces and a game of squash.

I'm thinking about going outside and rolling around in 3 corner jacks in the midday sun, just to to take the edge off.

Welcome to small business.  Where we test your sanity at every turn.

Hanging Out the Shingle

Perhaps if I were as committed to personal relationships as I find myself to my business, I would be in a very different place.  However, pontificating about what may be is about as useful as a bumblebee with slippers.  All I know is as I go about the daily task of setting up printers, deciding if I need a fax line, meetings to find opportunities, that I have never felt as deeply determined, excited and focused about a relationship, as I do about giving my business everything I've got to get it on its feet and making progress forward.

I wonder about where my business could take me, and occassionally consider the sad realisation that yes, it might fail, but at least I won't die wondering if there's a market for my skills in the 'back blocks' of SA, as my friend Jill calls the Far North. It doesn't escape me that starting a business consulting business in Quorn sounds a little crazy. There is something about 'contrasts' that work for me in a creative way - the peace  and nature of this area contrasts beautfully with the busy - ness in my head, the needs of industry across the region especially in the next 12 months as BHP Olympic Dam expansion gets going and trades and contractors position for their own growth.

I haven't found that big cities are full of opportunity and friendly people. I haven't found that regional areas are empty and desolate and full of nothing. I think back to the beautiful poster in Alice Springs for a concert with Paul Kelly protest gig for the traditional owners fighting nuclear waste dumping that read  "We are Not No-One and this is Not Nowhere." That's how I feel about outback Australia. It has such personality, it's a living, providing thing.

This past two weeks, I have experienced the nitty gritty details that sole traders in start-ups face...which email address, what phone socket, which insurance company, who will do my website,  and on and on it goes.  But, I can see it working in my mind's eye; my vision is clear.  Im not sure if I can tap into a paying market this side of Christmas, but I have plan B. And with or without the Gods of Business and Market Forces, I'm going to try and find it. I'm well aware some people dislike my determination, but it's gotten me into and out of some tricky situations in the past. It's amazing where pure tenacity can get you.

It's not all plain sailing. I've had a few sleepless nights, lying awake, blinking in the dark and listening to the nocturnal sounds of my old Quorn house creaking and  settling;  I'm alert, but not scared, just frustrated ...body tired, but brain-wired.  1am, 2am Jesus Christ will you go the fuck to sleep! 3am. Ok this is ridiculous, as I know I will not be getting up for the 9am start back down to Adelaide.... but I did, to clean the flat, drink beers with friends and returned back up to Quorn to breathe relief that finally I am 'home'.