My name is Leslie Southgate and I'm 58. Although I come from Stoke-on-Trent I spent my working life as a mechanical engineer in London. When I was forced to take early retirement (the truth is I was made redundant), I still had two children at home to support and found it very tough going on my 'pension'. I had to re-mortgage my house and even then I always seemed to be in trouble with my credit cards. I would have taken a part-time (or even a full-time) job but my wife is disabled and I can't leave her for more than a few hours at a time. All in all, as you can imagine, I was fairly depressed.

Looking for a home-based business I spotted the Wade World Trade advertisement in the Sunday Times classified section. I cut it out and meant to call for further details - but what with one thing and another forgot all about it. What jogged my memory was a visit to my home town of Stoke-on-Trent. I hadn't been back for years and was shocked to see that many of the potteries were closing down for want of business. My brother used to be a salesman for part of Royal Doulton and when he remarked, in an offhand way, that what most of the independent manufacturers needed was export sales I remembered the Wade World Trade advertisement.

 

'I'm generally rather suspicious of mail-order companies.'

'I was ready to get started within two weeks.'

What Wade World Trade sent me was the The Executive Certificate Course along with a letter from my personal Trading Adviser, explaining that he would provide me with one- to-one support should I need it. I decided to devote two hours a day to studying the manuals and within a fortnight I was ready to start putting the wheels in motion. I wouldn't say I was yet an expert (my memory isn't that great) but I was confident enough to launch my business.

'I launched my Import/Export Agency in the spare bedroom with an old electric typewriter and a box of writing paper.'

After discussing my idea of representing smaller pottery manufacturers in the Stoke-on-Trent area with Wade's advisor he helped me find a list of suitable companies to approach and - using a sample letter from the course manual - got to work. In the end I signed up three non- competing manufacturers on exclusive representation deals, whereby they paid me up to 15% commission on the value of all exports I obtained for them. I was up and running.

'I wrote to 300 possible distributors in the USA, Australia and the Middle East.'

Using information supplied by Wade World Trade I started to contact possible buyers overseas - sending them nothing more than a letter (again taken from the course manual) and photographs. I had over a thousand companies to contact but after 300 I stopped. Why? Because I couldn't deal with the level of interest my letter had generated. The telephone calls, letters and faxes (these went to a neighbour because we didn't yet have our own fax machine) came flooding in. I collected samples from my manufacturers and (at their expense) shipped them to my possible clients.

 

'I closed the first sale exactly three months to the day after receiving the course.'

'Last year I expanded into glass and crystal.'

My regular income from pottery has allowed me to move into other, related products such as glassware and crystal, also table linen and napkins. And I'm still looking for new products - I've been asking my existing customers what they want and then, with the help of Wade World Trade, I'll be tracking it down. I've paid off my mortgage and my next target is to move to somewhere a bit bigger, in a nicer area. Adding all my accounts together, I'm taking around £5,500 commission a month.

 

'If I can make a success of running an Import/Export Agency, you definitely can, too.'