You will hear part of a radio interview with Paul Jefferson, who set up his own import business. For each question(23-30), m

23
Woman: Did you set yourself a financial target?
Man: Well, nothing specific. In the long term, it’d be great to have plenty of money: I can just see myself with a big house and a yacht. To be honest I think I might have a wait, though. In the meantime, I owe a bit of money, but it’s at a level I can live with, so I suppose I’ll be happy when I’m earning enough to pay the bills, with a little bit over to be able to eat out from time to time, and something to plough back into the business.
24
Woman: And are you making enough to live on yet?
Man: No, in a word. But I’m lucky, I’ve got an investor, Sarah Hall. She backs me with enough to live on each month in return for a share of my future profits. She’s actually a successful importer herself, in a different sector...
25
Woman: Is that because of competition?
Man: I’m not quite sure what the competition is, really. Actually I have to admit I’m hopeless at driving a hard bargain, and I know some of my suppliers are taking advantage of that. So I have to pay a lot, which makes it difficult to sell to customers at a profit.
26
Woman: Are margins the only problem?
Man: Well, not the only one. You see, at first I tried selling lots of different products to a variety of small shops, toyshops, jewellers, and so on. But I got very few actual sales. So then I considered supermarkets. I managed to see a product development manager, who seemed interested in my range of specialist food products. But then I heard from the company that they weren’t going to order anything — a new buyer had been appointed — and if I contacted them again in due course, they’d reconsider.
27
Woman: What happened next?
Man: Out of the blue, a restaurant chain placed a large order for food products. There was some difficulty about the price, but that was settled.
Woman: It sounds like a turning point.
Man: Unfortunately it wasn’t. The first consignment arrived from my supplier: I called the restaurant chain to fix delivery dates, only to be told they’d stopped trading. That was quite a blow.
28
Woman: I can imagine.
Man: Then I persuaded the food buyer of a major department store to meet me. When I looked around their food hall I could see they were already selling everything I hoped to supply them with, and my heart sank. But then the buyer said that they felt they were over-dependent on their existing supplier, and had decided to do something about it. So that’s where I came in.
29
Woman: It seems your original strategy of offering everything from toys to jewellery didn’t produce the volume of sales or profit you needed.
Man: I’d imagined that by selling lots of different lines I’d get a good spread of customers, but it didn’t really work out like that. Now I’m increasing my turnover by concentrating on just a few lines that I can sell to customers in the same sector.
30
Woman: How do you see the next twelve months?
Man: I’d like to say I’ll be hiring someone to handle existing customers, while I concentrate on drumming up new business, and that I want to move into export as well as import. To be realistic, that’ll have to wait until I’ve built up my customer base and turnover quite significantly.
Woman: Did you set yourself a financial target?
Man: Well, nothing specific. In the long term, it’d be great to have plenty of money: I can just see myself with a big house and a yacht. To be honest, I think I might have a wait, though. In the meantime, I owe a bit of money, but it’s at a level I can live with, so I suppose I’ll be happy when I’m earning enough to pay the bills, with a little bit over to be able to eat out from time to time, and something to plough back into the business.
Woman: And are you making enough to live on yet?
Man: No, in a word. But I’m lucky, I’ve got an investor, Sarah Hall. She backs me with enough to live on each month in return for a share of my future profits. She’s actually a successful importer herself, in a different sector...
Woman: Is that because of competition?
Man: I’m not quite sure what the competition is, really. Actually I have to admit I’m hopeless at driving a hard bargain, and I know some of my suppliers are taking advantage of that. So I have to pay a lot, which makes it difficult to sell to customers at a profit.
Woman: Are margins the only problem?
Man: Well, not the only one. You see, at first I tried selling lots of different products to a variety of small shops, toyshops, jewellers, and so on. But I got very few actual sales. So then I considered supermarkets. I managed to see a product development manager, who seemed interested in my range of specialist food products. But then I heard from the company that they weren’t going to order anything — a new buyer had been appointed — and if I contacted them again in due course, they’d reconsider.
Woman: What happened next?
Man: Out of the blue, a restaurant chain placed a large order for food products. There was some difficulty about the price, but that was settled.
Woman: It sounds like a turning point.
Man: Unfortunately it wasn’t. The first consignment arrived from my supplier: I called the restaurant chain to fix delivery dates, only to be told they’d stopped trading. That was quite a blow ...
Woman: I can imagine.
Man: Then I persuaded the food buyer of a major department store to meet me. When I looked around their food hall I could see they were already selling everything I hoped to supply them with, and my heart sank. But then the buyer said that they felt they were over-dependent on their existing supplier, and had decided to do something about it. So that’s where I came in.
Woman: It seems your original strategy of offering everything from toys to jewellery didn’t produce the volume of sales or profit you needed.
Man: I’d imagined that by selling lots of different lines I’d get a good spread of customers, but it didn’t really work out like that. Now I’m increasing my turnover by concentrating on just a few lines that I can sell to customers in the same sector.
Woman: How do you see the next twelve months?
Man: I’d like to say I’ll be hiring someone to handle existing customers, while I concentrate on drumming up new business, and that I want to move into export as well as import. To be realistic, that’ll have to wait until I’ve built up my customer base and turnover quite significantly.