PRIME business club

Barbie has joined the ranks of the 50-plus, an event celebrated in characteristic style with an immediate facelift. Plastic surgeons at Californian-based manufacturer Mattel have given the world’s most famous doll “a more natural look, including a thinner jaw line, more almond-shaped eyes and fuller lips”.

It is notoriously difficult to judge people’s ages nowadays, as by and large people are looking much younger than their parents did at the same age. This doesn’t seem to prevent the all-too-common tendency by employers and some advertisers to lump all over 50s together as a single group, putting Baby Boomers and their elderly parents in the same category (often the same scrapheap). The mistake is to ignore the real differences in age, attitudes and ability to work between distinct generations.

In tune with today’s celebrity climate, let’s attempt to correct this by identifying some famous people born in the main years of the post-war boom. There are some surprises!

Selected Baby Boom celebrities by year of birth

1945: Ken Livingstone, Helen Mirren, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Rod Stewart - all 64 this year.

1946: Joanna Lumley, Susan Sarandon, Alan Rickman, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Clinton - all 63 this year.

1947: Alan Sugar, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Hillary Clinton, Salman Rushdie, Glenn Close, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elton John - all 62 this year.

1948: Prince Charles, Ozzy Osbourne, Samuel L. Jackson, Sven Goran Eriksson, Terry Pratchett - all 61 this year.

1949: Twiggy, Bill Nighy, Richard Gere, Duncan Bannatyne, Arsene Wenger, Martin Amis - all 60 this year.

1950: Richard Branson, Jeremy Paxman, Julie Walters, Bill Murray, Stevie Wonder, Robbie Coltrane - all 59 this year.

1951: Gordon Brown, Kevin Keegan, Michael Keaton, Jane Seymour, Sting all 58 this year.

1952: Vladimir Putin, Jenny Agutter, Sharon Osbourne, Liam Neeson -
all 57 this year.

1953: Tony Blair, Victoria Wood, Kim Basinger, Pierce Brosnan, Keith Allen, William Petersen - all 56 this year.

1954: Bob Geldof, Michael Moore, Annie Lennox, John Travolta, Jackie Chan - all 55 this year.

1955: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Ian Botham, Alan Hansen, Lesley Garrett - all 54 this year.

1956: Rowan Atkinson, Kim Cattrall, Mel Gibson, Martina Navratilova, Sebastian Coe - all 53 this year.

1957: Stephen Fry, Paul Merton, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dawn French, Donny Osmond - all 52 this year.

1958: Madonna, Prince, Sharon Stone, Michael Jackson, Kate Bush, Lennie Henry, Viggo Mortensen, Marg Helgenberger, Miranda Richardson - all 51 this year.

1959: Hugh Laurie, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden, Ben Elton, Morrissey, Linzi Drew, John McEnroe, Kevin Spacey, Val Kilmer, Rupert Everett - all 50 this year.

1960: Nigella Lawson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Carol Vorderman, Hugh Grant, Sean Penn, Gary Lineker, Colin Firth, Antonio Banderas, Michael Stipe, Bono, Richard Farleigh - all 49 this year.

1961: Barack Obama, Barry McGuigan, Eddie Murphy, K D Lang, Meg Ryan, Nastassja Kinski, Boy George, Frank Bruno, George Clooney, Heather Locklear, Michael J Fox, Peter Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Sarah Brightman, Tim Roth, William Hague, Woody Harrelson - all 48 this year.

Perhaps even more suprising are some of those born in 1969, who will all be 40 this year - Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Lopez.

Worth a read: Advice for Barbie at age 50

A Channel 4 Dispatches documentary has revealed that substantial barriers still face older people in Britain’s job market - despite the passage of laws supposedly outlawing such ageism. Called “Too old to work“, the programme transmits on Monday the 9th of February.

Not surprisingly, the investigation finds that being older - even over 45, is a big risk in today’s workplace. Older workers are more likely to lose their jobs, and are then much less likely to secure another one.

To test whether recruitment agencies do discriminate against older candidates, Dispatches carried out an experiment. It pitted two accountants, a 57-year-old father and his 25-year-old daughter, against each other in a contest to see who can achieve the most offers of work via agencies.

Martin Lloyd-Penny has 30 years of accounting experience whilst his daughter Tanne is still a trainee. They registered with the same recruitment agencies and kept video diaries of their progress. They had very different levels of success - no prizes for guessing who got the most job offers

The programme also looks into the impact of forced retirement, interviewing several people who have been forced out of their jobs, and reporting on the broader picture with a specially-commissioned You Gov survey.

Dispaches also investigates whether there is any scientific basis for commonly held beliefs about the effects of ageing. Professor Lorraine Tyler is shown measuring the brain activity of people aged 18 to 90 using neural imaging techniques. Her research contradicts the idea that older brains cannot function as well as younger ones.

The programme also demonstrates, through physical fitness tests, that age is not necessarily an indicator of fitness or productivity.

This piece in the Birmingham Post takes as its starting point Richard Branson, but goes on to profile two local business starters in their 50s and 70s. It also refers to recent PRIME research into the extent and importance of older entrepreneurship.

Meanwhile Branson fans can follow his latest adventure at 9pm on Tuesday the 16th of December 2008 on Virgin 1.

UPDATE:Missed the programme? Watch on BBC iPlayer.

“Charles At 60: the Passionate Prince” transmits at 8.30pm on BBC One on the 12th of November. The BBC has had unprecedented access over the course of a year to observe the Prince at work in the UK and abroad, at home at Clarence House in London, at Highgrove in Gloucestershire and Birkhall in Aberdeenshire.

“This important documentary sheds new light on the Prince of Wales”, says Nick Vaughan-Barratt, its Executive Producer. “It shows the Prince using his substantial influence to further a wide variety of causes – some of them unfashionable, some controversial – and it provides a rare opportunity to hear him speaking directly, not just about what he does but why he is so passionate about the many causes he espouses.”

More about the programme at the BBC web site

Full list of Prince’s charities and social enterprises

Note: PRIME (the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise) was born around ten years ago, as a direct result of the approach of the Prince’s 50th birthday. He realised that for most people getting a job gets increasingly difficult with age. His post bag was full of letters from people desperate to work but unable to find anyone to employ them - because they were “too old”. PRIME is one of the 18 charities the Prince has personally founded.

Prince Charles has also founded six social enterprises. Their trading activities help fund the charities. The best known is the highly successful organic brand Duchy Originals, the most recent The Highgrove Shop.

The Open Day programme is the biggest government business support road show, designed to provide free information and support to businesses, through a series of exhibitions across the country.

It is organised by HM Revenue and Customs, who invite local organisations and representatives of national bodies such as PRIME that can provide support and advice to local businesses. The organisations chosen all operate on an “other than for profit” i.e. non-commercial basis.

At this free event you will have access to a full team of experts who provide advice and technical support on a range of subjects, covering every stage of your business from start-up, through growth and expansion to pension arrangements when you retire. Free seminars cover topics such as meeting government regulations, funding, marketing and enhancing your business through new technology.

Click on the link below to find out more and to book your place.

Website Link: www.businessadviceday.gov.uk

PRIME will be there with a stand and with a programme of free seminars - including one where successful older entrepreneurs tell their stories.

The story of Madame Tussaud from women’s enterprise site moretolifethanshoes. And here’s the biography at the modern London wax works site. A pioneer of the cult of celebrity, Mrs T didn’t get her business going till her forties.

Philip Black has recently been made redundant at the age of 57. This programme in the Radio 4 Learning Curve strand follows him round London Olympia, talking to various exhibitors at the One Life Live show about what if anything they could do to help.

Back in the studio, presenter Libby Purves interviews Laurie South of PRIME, asking him whether self-employment can really offer a solution to Philip and people like him.

Listen to full programme

UPDATE: Extra
Interviews with Sir Alan Sugar, Professor Colin Gray and Laurie South of PRIME.

On Friday the 8th of February 2008 at 7pm BBC 2 is showing “Too Young to Retire” - a special edition of The Money Programme about people who are building successful businesses in their 60s and 70s.

One of the older entrepreneurs featured is chartered accountant Dick Pyle, who set up a truffle farm in France using an innovative adopt-a-truffle-tree business model. Customers pay £149 per tree - and then get all the produce from it. You can also visit your tree, or give trees as presents. He was just coming up to 60 and about to retire when he came up with this scheme.

Presenter Valerie Singleton also talks to sisters Penny Walker and Annabel Rhodes, who set up their own natural cosmetics business Rhodes to Heaven in their sixties. They are shown taking their products to the next stage, selling them into an upmarket High Street chain.

From the BBC press release:

Former Money Programme presenter Valerie Singleton sets out on a journey around Britain to meet some of the oldest entrepreneurs in Britain. She examines if age is a hindrance or help to a new business career and hears the experiences of those men and women who have decided it’s never too late to start.

Statistics show that those who are over fifty and find themselves out of work have only a one in ten chance of being re-employed. So the option of starting up on your own is very attractive and may even be essential.

Valerie Singleton meets a variety of entrepreneurs who are finding success in new fields. There are the sisters in their sixties who started a range of organic beauty products and are working to get high street distribution for them. Then there is the illustrator who has built up a highly successful online greeting card business. There is also the sky-diving septuagenarian who has set up a children’s charity. Finally she meets a retired PR executive who is now trading in truffles.

She also seeks the advice of the UK’s oldest employee and employer - who are both still going strong despite being over one hundred years old.

With expert input on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur from “The Apprentice” star Sir Alan Sugar, and Peter Jones from Dragons’ Den the programme examines just what are the advantages and disadvantages in being an older entrepreneur.

Three stories of older entrepeneurs are now on the BBC web site. All set up businesses in their fifties and sixties.

Myreen Young, an aromatherapist from Southampton, launched her own range of skin-care cosmetics at the age of 54. Two years later it appears to be going strong, with 30 salons across the UK also selling the MY Skincare branded products.

Ann Litster, 52, from Somerset set up her own cleaning business, also two years ago. At the time she had recently become unemployed and seriously needed the money. Her firm Hands on Cleaning now employs over 20 people.

The BBC’s third interviewee was Graham Siggs (more on his story here). He started his electrical testing business Huntspat in Cambridgeshire after being retired from the civil service at the age of 60.

“To find work at 60 is very difficult. I saw many high-flyers from the civil service end up stacking shelves,” Graham told the BBC.

“After the contract for the job I was doing ended I suddenly found myself retired at 59. A quick look at my bank balance convinced me I couldn’t stop working completely – and anyway I just didn’t feel old enough.”

Liz Friedrich, now 63, whose garden design business is profiled in Women & Home magazine.

Having already done a design course and been a keen gardener, Liz started in a small way working for friends of friends. But AFTER she had already completed several projects for paying customers she decided she needed more business expertise.

So she enrolled on PRIME partner London Metropolitan University’s Forward at 50 course. (There’s a new London Met course aimed at women setting up health and care businesses just starting up).

Liz’s new business acumen is paying off with a business venture based on feedback she was getting from her customers.

Many of her garden design clients were asking for gorgeous gardens that wouldn’t require them to do any work. Liz’s initial reaction was to patiently explain that that was just not possible. But they still kept asking.

So she’s now launching a Plant Box service with a fellow garden designer. They will sell fully-planted up containers for balconies and patios - and then come round and replant them in the spring and autumn.

Here are five case studies of entrepreneurs over 50 from the Yell.com web site. All are finalists or winners of the Yellow Pages-sponsored ‘Silver Fox’ category at the 2007 Startups Awards, except Brian who won in 2005.

Myreen Young

MY Skincare Ltd
Southampton, Hampshire

Ann Litster

Hands on Cleaning
Clevedon, North Somerset

Gary Sheffield

Alpine Training Centre
Rye, East Sussex

Ken Bird

Dwrpur Pure Water Ltd
St Clears, Carmarthenshire

Brian Plunkett

Trichocare Diagnostics Ltd
Ridgmont, Beds

Here’s an interesting collection of stories from New Zealand of people who set up their own businesses after being made redundant.

Refreshingly, what has happened to these people since has not been written up in the usual relentless “success story” style. For example, where people have motives other than the desire to get rich (for example revenge or the desire to spend more time gardening) these are reflected in the story.

Sample quote: “But we don’t want to put our money into the business”, says Elaine [one half of a successful garden tools company]. “We want to buy a boat and go down the canals in Europe.”

There’s an interesting discussion on this American weblog that brings out clearly the differences between being an employee and having your own business.

The author Maria Langer actually has two businesses - something that is quite common when you are self-employed as two activities can often complement each other.

One of her occupations is unusually glamorous - helicopter pilot! But that’s not the key thing that makes the self-employed life the one she wants to live.

Several interesting case studies from the US in this article by Margaret Heffernan about “why midlife women make superior entrepreneurs“. It comes from More, an American magazine aimed at women in their forties and over.  

Among the myths challenged are:

• Entrepreneur Myth #1: You Have to Be Young
• Entrepreneur Myth #2: You Need Heaps of Cash
• Entrepreneur Myth #3: You Have to Be an Expert
• Entrepreneur Myth #4: Women’s Businesses Are Small

“The idea of running a brewery was a dream I had when I was sitting in local government meetings. I started the brewery in 2004, produced my first beer in 2005, went full-time in 2006 and now employ three people”, said the 55-year-old.

Bill Russell wins Olderpreneur award in Great Yarmouth - and also the overall local entrepreneur-of-the-year award.

More at Eastern Daily Press