What a success story. Katherine Sampson, the struggling single mum who starts a sandwich shop and ends up with an innovative franchise chain with 28 franchises and most of them profitable, has just sold her company to Dymocks.
But the reality is far from that. In fact Sampson, 42, has spent the last four years in financial hell, selling assets, using up all her equity, running up debt and being rejected by banks that would not lend to her on her cashflow. In fact she says her business growth has personally cost her a “few million”.
It’s been so bad, she tells me frankly, that if she knew how hard it had been, she would never ever have started the journey. She is still behind financially, despite the funds from the sale of her business. She also regrets not taking on investors in the first place.
But this is not the end of Sampson’s sacrifices. Dymocks’s head office is Sydney. Sampson still owns 20% of the business. So in April she is packing up her Melbourne operations, leaving her networks and big fat Greek family that supported her dual roles as business owner and mother, and is moving the family to Sydney.
That takes a lot of belief in your business.
And obviously it impressed the hard nosed, wealthy Forsyth family, who own Dymocks. Although her business was outside their specifications, they were impressed by her passion, knowledge of the business and vision for the future – and no doubt the fact that she had so much skin in the game.
It’s a shame the banks could not have taken a similar perspective.
To read Sampson’s story, click here.
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