Sometimes you have to be pretty thick-skinned to make money.

I won’t do absolutely anything for £50. But there is one thing that I have done for several years. I've gone through the whole process of getting a discount on my dry-cleaning bills. You see, I'm a shareholder in Johnson Service Group.

Aside from paying nice dividends this is not an investment that has had much to recommend it. Except for one thing: Any shareholder can get £50 of dry cleaning discount vouchers.

This is what I have had to do...

First write a letter to the company, supplying evidence of my shareholdings. That's the easy bit. Then the vouchers arrive through the post. The tough part is using them. Especially in the North Oxford branch of Johnson Dry Cleaners.

The guardian of this shop is a particularly severe looking lady. I suppose she does know how to smile, but if so she must save it up for Christmas day. Or perhaps she just does not like the way that I burst through the door of her shop, with the glad expression of somebody who is about to get something for nothing.

I brandish my voucher under her nose. And – although we have been through this routine several times before – she manages to look as if she has never seen such a thing, and frankly disapproves of it.

Perhaps she doesn't like the idea of a share-owning democracy. Perhaps she understands that as a part owner of Johnson Service Group, her fate may lie in my hands. But actually, I think it's because she doesn't know how to process the voucher through the till.

Pursed lips... an irritable expression... a clean suit... and a 93% profit

This piece of fancy electronic equipment, with its touch screen and digital know-how, can cope with seasonal discounts, two-for-one offers, and anything else that is thrown at it.

But not a shareholder voucher.

So while the representative of the good name of Johnson grapples with it, with pursed lips and an irritable expression, I am obliged to stand and wait, with a growing sense of guilt for having put her to so much trouble.

In the end though, we get there. And a few days later I have the satisfaction of strolling round town in a clean suit, knowing that somebody else has paid for its pristine appearance.

Now let me tell you how I surmounted another obstacle to my personal wealth creation...

A few years ago I went to visit a company called Brandon Hire. I liked the business very much and thought it would make a great investment. The only trouble was this: Its founder and chairman, John Laycock, was also chairman of Bristol City FC.

Now as a committed supporter of Bristol Rovers the idea of having any connection with the red half of the city is virtually sacrilegious. But I took a deep breath, pretended that I knew nothing of Mr Laycock’s interests, vowed never to reveal what I had done to my colleagues on the terraces, and plunged into the shares.

And with good results...

The shares did very well for me – and indeed for readers of Red Hot Penny Shares, who secured a 93% profit.

But how are the two stories are linked? Let me explain...

The chief executive of Brandon Hire, you see, was a smart ex-banker called Charles Skinner. Last year he engineered the sale of Brandon to Wolseley, leaving himself without a job. But in March he popped up again as the new chief executive of Johnson Service Group!

Now I am hoping that he can put a bit of pep into a company that for years has been engaged in a not very successful attempt to build a growth strategy on the back of the fact that it knows all there is to know about cleaning textiles. What I want to know is what is going to happen to my shareholder vouchers? In the inevitable corporate reorganisation and cost-cutting drive that lies ahead, will these be sacrificed? Will the dry-cleaning business, referred to as ‘non-core,’ be sold off?

I think it might.

And yet there is hope for it, all because of something called decamethylcyclopentasiloxane.

This is the remarkable name of a solution that has been used for many years in skin lotion and cosmetic applications, and is now the basis of a new cleaning process called ‘GreenEarth®’.

Johnson has the exclusive UK rights for this product that, unlike the traditional dry cleaning process based on perchloroethylene, does not emit gases that can damage the environment.

With dry cleaners now grappling with the requirements of the ‘Solvent Emissions Directive’ the time for GreenEarth® may have arrived.

Johnsons Dry Cleaners, at least, intends to use it, and upon it to base a gentler, kinder, image.

I wonder whether this will extend to the face behind the counter.

Somehow I doubt it. P.S. If you want to follow the tales of a small company investor, and uncover the hidden gems of the stock market, then sign up for the Penny Sleuth e-letter. It won’t cost you a penny…

• BlinkList
• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Google Bookmarks
• Livejournal
• Newsvine
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Yahoo! My Web