Get Real And You Might Not Fail

1 April 2005

The recent handwringing over the dearth of apprentice chefs is hardly news to other professionswhich have been suffering a longstanding shortage.

Maybe there are even some parallels between the ``glamour?? jobswhich create unrealistic expectations among the next generation of aspirants. Hairdressing,

for example, is another industrywhich fostered a series of high profile ``stars?? and awave of new entrants who thought they could emulate the easy success.

Formany of thosewho stuck out the apprenticeship, their goalwas to start their own business andmake a fortune rather than suffer the ignominy ofworking for

a more experienced practitioner.

Hence the plethora of tiny, unprofitable, hairdressing salons throughout this country, barelymaking the rent and complaining bitterly of the inability to recruit staff.

In fact, in the very first BusinessNetwork profile on this page, veteran businesswoman Alyson Schoer, of successful Sydney salon Blondes BrunettesRedheads, highlighted the issue of staffing shortages and too many

unprofitable competitors.

Other industrieswhich suffer the same syndrome include gardening and landscaping. Could the advent of all those reality TV shows have anything to do with the desire of every qualified apprentice to suddenly think of himself as the next Jamie Durie?

As Alan Hoy of CitronGardens nursery said in these pages last year: ``Guyswork here for awhile to learn the business and then go and buy their own van and go it

alone ? of course they try and steal all your customers.??

Far be it for me to blame these heavily hyped rockstar chefs/hairdressers/gardeners for aggravating the problem.

Especially as I have often criticised the lack of role models for small business in general. However, it does reflect the fact that often too much attention is paid to the fruits of success rather than the sheer hardwork required to achieve it.

It took JamieOliver?s later TV series, Jamie?s Kitchen, inwhich he tried to train a group of young unemployed people, to bring home to aspirants that fame and fortune

don?t come easily and most would never make it.

Our own Neil Perry learnt his own hard lesson when his early success threatened to bring down thewhole empire. He was forced to consolidate his ubiquitous interests and regroup. It?s a lesson that might be resonating with another seemingly overly stretched chef, LukeMangan.

The fact is, as Allyson Schoer so eloquently pointed out last year, artistic people are not necessarily good business people.

Youmight earn rave reviews for yourmeals, blowwaves or landscapes, but once you start believing your own publicity it can all end in tears.

You only needwander around any suburban shoppingmall and count up the ludicrous number of small hairdressing salons almost on top of each other to see the extent of the problem.

And howmany times have youwandered past a string of near empty restaurants and cafes night after night andwondered how on earth they manage to survive?

The answer ismany don?t and they leave other small business creditors in theirwake.Obviously an apprentice shortage is only part of the problem.

Still that?s the downside of free enterprise. The upsidemakes up for it all.


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