I am often in undated with emails from people that just don’t know what to do as there close to going bankrupt or losing their jobs. At the moment with the current recession that we have found ourselves in its even worse than most.

This is why I am thanking my lucky stars that I am in this business and that I am not in that awful position.

I also came across a lot of other similar stories and posts on The Warrior Forum over Christmas some were as bad as how can I get some money to buy my kids a Christmas present two weeks before Christmas it is truly awful and I myself was in a similar position with a lack of money a few days ago and even ended up working nights in a dodgy care home over Christmas just to make sure I could give my son the best at Christmas.

I friend of mine also asked me what I should do back in May (my apologies for not writing about it sooner!). Me & Jon have been friends for over ten years and have often been inseparable I am an only child so I’ve often looked upon him as the older brother that I never had.

His mum and dad or ma and pa as he calls them have their own farm in Yorkshire and it’s been in trouble for a while now. I can’t believe that now it has finally causing problems. After all they’ve managed to see off the depression in the eighties and nineties plus the foot and mouth outbreak that wasn’t so long ago but everyone seems to be in the same boot now and everyone is cutting back on what they spend.

When I went round to visit them we were interrupted by the bailiffs and even though I managed to get rid of them there was always the worry that they would return at some point in the future.

I talked to Jons dad Jon Senior about the problem and I could tell he was seriously worried and would have to declare himself bankrupt very soon as he couldn’t carry on.

I said to him that I would like to have a good at turning things round and would he give me two weeks to do so. His face lit up as he knew what I was like for finding money from a very poor situation.

I looked into the size of his fields and decided that the best thing to do was to set up a Carboot as it was the start of the season and it was the perfect way to cash in on the summer trade. The nearest Carboot in the area was 40 minutes drive away so there was defiantly the niche for it.

First of all I made sure that I had just the spot within his land to do the Carboot and trimmed the hedge down and with his workers created an entry and exit. We then created the Boards and went about getting a set of blue travel toilets for when people arrive.

Once this had all been done we set about placing advertisements in the papers. The regional and the locals which was very cheap considering the type of advert we wanted.

The cost for running the advert for the month in both papers came in at just short of £100 and we had it ready for the coming Sunday and the following Thursday as people love both midweek and weekend events.

On the Sunday we were up at the crack of dawn. I seriously wasn’t used to these early morning wake ups but I had given my word that I would be there to help at this event.

Sure enough the cars soon started arriving………………

I couldn’t believe how many of them there were. We even had a turnout of businesses using the venue including shoe sellers, cake stalls, jam stalls etc.

All in all we had 500 different vehicles descend on us in the glorious sunshine.

This included…………

300 None Traders at £6 each

100 Traders at £10 each

100 Large Traders at £15 each

This brought us a turnover of £4300 for very little work!

We then hit 400 vehicles for the following Thursday at a profit of £3250

Our outgoings were…….

Advertisements – £25 per week

Staff – 6 staff @ £6.00 an hour – £648 a week

Toilet Hire and clean at £100 per week

Insurance – £50 per week

This left us with a profit of £6727 and we did this for the whole season and within a few months he had his debts completely in check.

However you also need to appreciate that this is England and you do get a lot of bad weather and this is not a winter trade. This bit of effort got rid of his debt problems but probably made him realise that there is no profit in farming during a recession and he would have to re-think the situation.

After sum sole searching he gave up on farming and unleashed the profits he could make out of his land. Now during CarBoot season his wife now makes her own homemade jam on one of the stalls and yes takes advantage of the situation and gets the best pitch there is!

He’s also taken advantage of lack of facilities in Yorkshire and is now ready for this year so that he can use his land for strawberry and raspberry pickings to the locals this is yet another niche that can be taken advantage of.

He also rents out land to locals who have their own horses and ponies.

Once he opened his eyes he saw that there was so much potential that he could write an essay about it.

Remember if you can find your niche the rest will follow!