Speaker Five.Although my grandparents and uncles ran a shop for many years, I really didn't have much contact with the business world.I started my working life in nursing which I enjoyed a great deal, and then I had what I felt was a life-changing experience.In my late twenties, I applied to go on secondment overseas to work for four months in a remote rural hospital.It was there that I saw some marvellous work being done in setting up small-scale businesses run by local people-mainly in the production of handicrafts for catalogue sales.I saw a lot that I felt could be applied in my own home environment.Anyway that's how I got started.I had a few hiccups at the beginning, mainly in trying to co-ordinate the huge amounts of customer information, but now we're well established.
