Need a mentor in starting a business
 

Hi, I wanted to throw this out to others that hopefully would find it in their heart to personally take the time to help someone out. Not only to help me out, but that in doing so, I might help many others in the future. I am a person that can come up with many ideas on starting a business, but struggle to know what I need to do to get a true business going. I know many make money, and might work under the table, but this is not something I would do. I want o work, and work hard to start and run a business and do the things I need to do it legally. My dream is to not only run my business, but also to mentor the young adults that are going out of high school, and just don't think college is the place for them. I know there are many just like I was that didn't like high school and need help in getting on their feet with their own business. If there is anyone on here, that would have the experience, willingness to help someone not only help them selves, but pay it forward to others, then I all eager to learn. If you have any info you can give it would be greatly appreciated.

Most small business owners, like myself, are too busy trying to keep our businesses afloat in the face of government regulations, crippling competition and the learning curve necessary today to take on someone to mentor. Your best bet is to do a search for "small business mentor' and find organizations that specialize in this.

Most of us are willing to help, but we need specific questions.

What is it that you are hoping to do, exactly?

What specific questions do you have about starting up your business?

It is okay to have 5,000 questions...we just need them to be detailed questions.

I have collected tips and advice from a thousand mentors. One always stuck out to me and he was kind to me. His name was Russ. I honor him here. He once told me, "Remember, Bret, it's easier to get into business then it is to get out of business." Good luck. You will build a good business and mentorship.

I would be happy to assist, mentoring small businesses is what I do. When my primary biz got going fairly well, my pleasure became mentoring start ups and I've enjoyed doing that for 12 years or so. However, my skills, knowledge, and contacts are in a particular sector and perhaps not transferable to your circumstances.

You say you have lots of ideas. Honestly, that is the easy part; lots of people have ideas. Biz ideas can be found sitting in a bar getting drunk, all over the internet, singing a hymn in church,... anywhere. Listen to folks complaining and you'll hear lots of biz ideas but you will find precious few of those folks willing to bet their income, home, retirement check, or much of anything else on making their ideas come to life. The hard part is putting feet to your faith in your own ability to make something big happen.

Tell us about what you want to do, what resources you have to offer, your skills, knowledge, abilities, tools, financial backing, time commitments. And if you have a specific idea, then we can pursue ideas like how you make money, who your customers will be, how you reach your customers and keep them happy and working to help you grow your biz, and how you exit the business (it is never to early to plan on a profitable exit).

If you are more comfortable, send me a PM and we can discuss that way.

DEKE01, thank you ahead of time for your response. I guess I will go ahead and post this for all to see and comment on for now. I may want to talk to you more by PM later. I guess I will start with a little of my history to start with just to let you know my experiences and back ground. I started in a factory right out of high school. I learned to weld (although not at a professional level). I also learned a great deal about sheet metal and mechanical work. I worked my way up to become a materials supervisor. Mostly running the warehouse, and receiving dock. I worked 17 years on the floor, and 7 years in supervision. Along these 24 years I also did my own electrical installation in a new home we had built. I have installed new kitchens in three different homes. I have remodeled several bathrooms. I also helped build a large home office building from the ground up. Worked on every stage of the building except the foundation. I currently have a farm, raising cattle (most profitable), hogs, chickens, and maybe sheep in the future. My wife works in town, and with the farm and her income, we now have it were we can make a living although not to the greatest comfort.
Now, I guess the reasons for wanting to get started in my own business are many. First of all, I have always had a creative mind, and a drive to be self employed. I know the many ups and downs of going in business, and I am willing to take calculated risk. I have always felt that if you are going to do it though, you need to do it right. not none of this under the table type work, but to run a true business. It would be good to make enough money that we could get to the better comfort level, but would be even better if I could replace my wife's income also, so she could just work around our farm. Another very big reason is I want to learn to start a business properly so I can help these young kids that were in the same place I was after finishing high school. College isn't the best route for everyone. I think these young adults need to know the results involved in not going on to college, but they also need to understand that in their younger days is a great time to take a leap into their own business while they have very little responsibilities. ( I started with a family right out of high school, and knowing that they depended on me is what kept me from taking on the risk of my own business.)
I have a few different ideas for a business. I will try to stay focused on one for this discussion. The one that I have thought about starting up would be a garage organization business. It would focus on shelving and cabinets, either box store bought and installed, or custom built. I would also focus on air compressor installs along with permanent air line install with air drops where needed.
Some of my questions would be how can a person get set up to purchase the lumber, compressors, shelving, and other supplies at wholesale? What is the best route to take to getting all the government requirements in line? By the way, I have pretty much all the tools I need to get this going already. I have a truck with a compressor and generator on it along with a latter/ lumber rack. It has all the tool boxes on it that I would need. I do run my farm as a business, and the truck is used on the farm. I don't know if it would be a big problem to use the truck in the business, and the farm or not?
I know that this has been long, and I am sure even with all that has been said, there is a lot more info that will be needed, but hopefully this is a start. Any help anyone can give, would be greatly appreciated. I do hope that I can be a big help to others as I learn to do this myself. Thanks

Each warehouse sets it's own rules, but they usually come down to having a sales tax number and/or other proof you are in business and buying in large enough quantities.

Find out what they are first. For example you would need to get a handyman's license in this state and liability insurance.

As long as you track the right mileage for the right business I don't see it being a problem.

plan for high expenses and low revenue.

Track EVERY expense you can think of.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. But more importantly, learn from them. I personally never have made a mistake. I have just made decisions with less than desirable results that I do differently next time. This is mind set. It can lead you to always believing that you are a failure or a success. Which way do you wish to see it.

Start with your states Secretary of State office. This is where you will have to register your business. Once you figure that out, you'll have a better idea WHAT you want to put on paper.

Look at your states licensing requirements for the business you want to create.

Understand that ALL of this information is available to you FREE of charge. You can start here.
http://www.sba.gov/category/navigati...aging-business

i think you might be a bit too hung up and tip-toeing around the "legal" part. keep good records, collect and pay sales tax according to your state's rules, don't break any obvious laws, file income tax and SS on time.......the basics. if you start hiring people, the government will be delighted in telling you everyting you have to do over and over again and making sure you take it as seriously as you would being babtised as an adult.

I would suggest contacting a "vista" volanteer about some of your questions, if they still exist, but don't let the SBA fill your head with crap about doing business with the feds. It's a road to serfdom.

I would also ask myself if I actually NEED liability insurance to do the work you want to do. In my case, the answer has always been a resounding "NO".

Very noble to want to help others, but your #1 motivation should be showing an honest profit, because if you can't do that, you certainly cannot help anyone else do anything. Most places, a business license is just permission to collect and re-direct sales taxes to the state and buy stuff without paying sales tax on it.

Your first job should be going out and seeing if your services are salable and if you, yourself, can sell them at a profit. 'nothing happens until somebody sells something", and don't you forget it.

You may think I have somewhat of a casual attitude about the formalities, but if you make it in business, I'm you in a decade or so.....Joe

Joebill - good info except for the part about gov't business. I've had a dozen plus businesses that I have assisted in one way or another become profitable, valuable businesses. Until you are a Lockheed or SAIC sized company with an army of lobbyists, you've got to provide value just like with any other business/customer relationship.

Soldiers are alive today and the gov't has saved billions because of the services I've helped businesses deliver. My role was small; I don't claim to have done any of that on my own, just pointing out that gov't contracting is not all bad.

I way agree with you to not sweat the local legalities. I've never worried about local biz licenses. However, based on the OP's biz idea, he probably does need local license, state contracting license, sales tax registration, etc. A call to the state licensing board will go along way to checking that box. They will most likely be happy to point the OP to all the bureaucrats who have a hand out.

It is way more important to figure out how to deliver goods or a service in a profitable manner. How to get customers, hopefully repeatable business, referrals, etc. The probs I see with compressor installs is that lots of people who need a big compressor are handy and will do it themselves. And then once they have one, they probably don't need another for years or ever. But take that with a grain of salt because it is well outside my realm of experience.

I'm asking this just to make you think and explore.

Are you likely to make more by starting a small business or by maximizing the money you can make from your farm?

An example: I had a salesman working for me who was on salary plus commission. At a certain sales level, his commission really jumped up. If he would have worked a couple of nights a week, he would have easily exceeded the level and made quite a bit more. Instead, he kept looking for a part-time job even though he would have made much more working 2 nights a week at his job.

Why did he act this way when he would have effectively earned double time for working an extra 5 or 6 hours?

Do your homework and see if there is a need for this type business in your area. Where I live, most all the men want to set-up their own garage---their way so I feel your business would not do good here.

I would do a few jobs for people that you know First---before going into a Business(all the lic, insurance, etc, etc) to see how things go---Just My Opinion.

I have started several business and I always did the first "few jobs" on the side--so to speak. If things were going good and I felt I wanted to Really get set-up----then is when I would get everything set-up right, look for ways/sources to buy my supplies wholesale etc so I could make a better profit.

Good Luck!!

Agreed, but when one goes to the SBA, often they send out invitations to locals to learn "how to do business with the US government" and people who have never been in ANY business flood to the meetings thinking they are going to get rich, get paid on time, get special consideration for being in a poor area, being a woman, being a minority, etc.

These folks get all hung up on D&B ratings and meeting their congressman in hopes of gaining an edge and the delusions of granduer kill them before they do the first job. Government contracting is perfectly all right for those who already know their business cold and don't mind jumping through hoops, waiting for their money, quoting prices for 1000 widgets and getting orders at those prices for 50 widgets. It is noplace to start in business, though.

I dealt with them years ago, and I will not bid another government contract even if it involved shoveling gold bullion into my pickup and hauling it away for disposal on my property at $500 per load. I just spent three minutes thinking back on it, and now I need to go take a shower and mix a double martini......excuse me.......Joe

Moon river. I would like to make enough from the farm to have the extra money that we want, but still haven't found enough ways yet. The best that I can think of is to start a business that I can work with the farm. Fire-man I thought about try to do a few jobs at cost just to get feed back.

I agree that the SBA is the last place to go for business advice. A bunch of bureaucrats who have never had to make a payroll or make a sale, and they stand up there confidently giving advice with no concept of how clueless they are.

If your business is primarily aimed at the general public, gov't contracts are probably a bad idea. The accounting, record keeping, bids, and reporting requirements are just too burdensome.

If your sole focus is the gov't and you build your biz around that focus, with people who understand the gov't rules, regs, and processes, it can be very lucrative. But what I have consistently found is that it pays to not focus on immediate big profits and salaries, but rather to plow everything back into growing the company to a size where you can sell the company.

Nice to know that the SBA is worthless place to go to get help.

I got a lead on a local group that helped me get financing and all the other things I needed done because of the very link I put up for the SBA.

Without them, I would have never gotten off the ground 2 years ago.

To each his own, FJ, I just calls 'em as I sees 'em. Glad it's working out for you.

We all operate on different levels.......see, I would have never suggested anybody get financing at the beginning of a business anyway. Most folks go in business because they don't want to have others anywhere near the helm or anyone they have to answer to except the customer.

Admittedly, that is not very sophisticated, but simplicity seems to work best for a lot of us, especially me......joe

never ONCE has anyone from the SBA said I HAD to try and figure out how to do work for the government.

Yeah, I was required to get a D&B number, and that was it. Hasn't been used since. I occasionally get a letter from D&B about needing to "finish my credit profile" for my business. I file it in the appropriate receptacle.

I don't know what you did or when you did it with the SBA, but it sounds like you got roped into something you were clueless about getting into.

The microloan program via the SBA has been a boon to me as well as a couple of other small business owners. Some who are owner/operators and others who are retailers.

The foundation we work with offers us classes on business software to planning growth and expansion.

I have never had any problems with the SBA either. I did not use them to obtain financing but they offer valuable information that you can choose to use or not. When starting a business, listen to anyone that has an opinion and sort out what benefits you best. A good accountant may be your most valuable tool, they will usually be able to tell you if you can make money at something or not, mine sure is!

this is the microloan program that helped me purchase my truck and trailer almost 2 years ago now.

http://www.sba.gov/content/microloan-program

The list at the bottom of the page connected me with the Southwest Initiative Foundation. There are programs like this in every state to work with.

http://www.swifoundation.org/

In my opinion, that is a terrible reason to go into business. The number one goal had better be making $$$$. Many, many businesses fail because somebody wants to be the chief...but doesn't know how to really run a business.

I agree with exploring what you can do at the farm to increase proffits.
If you spread yourself too thin in too many directions, it will jump up and bite you in the rear at the worst time. Example, you coyld be fighting a deadline trying to get a job done when a cow goes into troubled labor and to save the cow and calf, you have to stay home and help deliver it.

This year I am trying something, not only am I selling fresh produce, but I am also going to try selling picnic tables, adirondak chairs, porch swings, etc.

I have a couple tables already built, sitting in my garage, once spring gets here, i will advertise some, and set some outside with for sale signs.

I don't know how well this will go, but I never will find out unless i try.

My point is, explore ideas of talents you have that you could do while on the farm.

I agree, I don't like debt. It has very limited uses in most small businesses, IMO. I'm glad others have had good experiences with SBA and debt, but it is not what I would recommend. One of my consulting projects went from $250K in annual sales to $34M in 9 years without any real long term debt. Because the gov't is so slow to pay, we did have a bank advance us 90% of our invoices so we could make payroll. And I got a foreign vendor to allow us to pay a bill of $35K / month one year in arrears, a defacto loan of $425K at 0.00% interest. That isn't Google or Apple fast growth, but it was a pretty fast growth company with virtually no debt.

After it got that big, I stepped aside and they brought in a full time, pro CFO, who liked debt and got the company into big trouble, eventually resulting in a $1M fine from the IRS and his termination. They brought me back in to fix his mess and hire his replacement. His replacement got the company to almost $100M 3 years later and the company was sold - with no long term debt.

And I agree as to your reason why lots of people start their own companies. I got fired by an idiot 24 years ago. On the way home I vowed never to work for another man and I have not. I enjoy being able to work with lots of different folks and the companies can take my advice or not, but either way, it doesn't affect my sleep at night. BTW, that idiot that fired me is still doing the same job he was doing all those years ago, he never advanced a lick.

Dixie bee acres, it is funny that you mention building tables, chairs, and swings. I have a couple benches sitting in my garage right now. Something else I have been trying out. I have also been looking at the possibility of starting a berry u-pick farm with an area on the property that I can't use much for cattle.

I'm planting apple trees, a rarity in central Florida, for a U-pick operation. Only 70 trees this year to make sure I get things right. Then I hope to expand the next few years.

I too am planting some trees, but I only have a couple acres, so I am only planting 5 apples, 2 pears, 2 peaches, an apricot, a plum, and a nectetine.

I'm also planting a few of each of the stone fruits as well. They don't typically do well this far south, so it is mostly an experiment.

Well, with all due respect, i have only been in business since 1978, at least fulltime, and only a decade before that, part time, so I guess the jury is still out as to whether I know how to run a business, but I do have high hopes....:)

I learned early on, working for other folks, that I have a good instinct for sales and manufacturing, but my instinct for people was far below par in the beginning. If you are in, for instance, the tooling business, yoyu will get a lot of folks who want to give you 1/3 of a company if you will make the tooling for the product. That can be a goldmine or a grave depending on the person or the product or both. I passed on some goldmines and some graves, because my judgement in the people was not to be depended upon.....and I have no regrets.

Later, in various business ventures, I met people from time to time who were "going to make me a lot of money" but had their own agendas that included making THEM a lot of money and keeping me working for peanuts. Again, I still was not terribly adept at seperating the sheep from the goats, so I went my own way and prospered. Only on the occasions that I let someone else near the helm did I encounter disaster of one sort or another.

Occasionally, I would follow a good instinct and trust someone assoicated with a large business, and profit greatly from it, but the most profitable venture of that sort wound up with that individual losing power within the company because of nepotism and I was left to work with incompetents who wanted to split my territory I had built up amongst themselves.....and did so.

At any rate, i did not wind up with my "simplistic" mindset by accident. Nor my aversion to debt. I like being debt free, flexible, able to shift products and priorities at the drop of a hat across the kitchen table with only a short discussion between my wife and myself. My machinery is as flexable as I am, and able to make tooling for manufactuing, finished metal and wood products, tooling for the needs of other manufacturers and hobbiests.

I have taken the time and trouble to learn many skills that are not easily replacable by machines, being from a century ago, and supplemented them with modern technology where it benifits me. Few thinngs I do would be impossible for the avewrage guy to learn, but my markets are tiny and I keep my prices reasonable, so it would not benifit anybody greatly to try and duplicate my skills until I am pushing up the daiseys, because they would have to compete with me, and have to overcome a decades-long head start in gainiing skills, plus some of my products rely on local raw materials that you can't just go down to the local hardware store and buy.

I lay all this out not to insult anybody or claim that they are wrong, but to illustrate that we all do things differently for our own reasons and to match our own strong and weak points to our manner of doing business and to keep our businesses compatible with our temperments. That's one of the reasons I NEVER give any credit to anyone. Both my wife and I lack the temperment to collect past-due invoices in a manner which makes the customer comfortable ever doing business with us again.......temperment.

As it stands, because of the way we honor our natural impulses, we may be the most relaxed small business people you will ever know, and we have managed to raise a house full of kids, keep my wife at home and out of the job market, make ourselves a good life. Here is hoping all of YOU can do the same......doing it YOUR way! Whatever that is, it's probably the only way that will work for you......God Bless.........Joe

I am glad you are successful and I enjoy your posts. My point is for everyone like you, there are 100 businesses that fail due to the fact they do not have what it takes to be the boss, the chief, or whatever they thought they would be. I have seen many start a business ONLY due to the fact that they think they could do it better than current boss, only to find out that you better have a solid business plan and a lot of discipline to make it work because if you are not making money....you won't be the boss very long.

Joebill, what is it that you do? Do you have employees, if so how many? Do you have family that will continue on with your business? I love to hear about and learn from other business owners.

Treasure, I'll give you a rough outline, but I have kind of a hard and fast rule that I remain anoymous in the places where I argue politics, so I won't get too specific.

My children were my employees and as each got old enough to do grunt work, and none of them really liked any of the things we did for a living, of course, and none are interested in the business, or any part of it except some of the equipment. As they moved on, our needs became less, so we once again work by ourselves. We manage to make a decent living in about 20 hours per week shop time, plus shipping and such.

We do not perform any services at all any more and have not done so for years. We only make our own prodfucts and sell them, some at retail online and some at wholesale through tourist shops in the Southwest. We take a little mini-vacation every month or so and deliver a truckload of stuff around the territory to the tourist shops and then settle in to making and shipping our other lines and preparing for the next sales trip.

We simply DO NOT COMPETE! The only competition we have is on a single line that we invented years ago and worked for 8 years gaining acceptance in the market. As soon as our product was generally accepted, comptetion started blossoming all over the country from folks who were willing to spend more on marketing than we were, and now our nearest competitor sells our product for twice what we do and sells a lot more of it than we do, and he is welcome to it. We did very well with it for those 8 years when we were the only ones selling it, and soon the Chinese will take it over from those who moved in on our product. It's a natural cycle to us, and we have a lot more things on the drawing board than we will ever live long enough to produce in quantity.

We have a very loyal group of dealers for our tourist goods, and any new thing we try, they are willing to buy and try in the marketplace, because they know that if it does not sell, we will take it back in exchange for things that DO sell. We only sell to the premium dealer in each town where we travel, and other folks selling tourist goods try to seek out our dealers, because they know that we do not call on anybody who is not willing to pay on delivery, do a good job selling our products, be a model dealer. We have one friend who sells similar stuff, and he and I exchange names and locations of quality dealers, and also exchange names and locations of dealers to avoid.

I have a shop full of equipment and machine tools for metal working, most of which is over 50 years of age. It might have sold for a total of 50K when it was new, and less than 5K when I bought it. Similar ratio for metal fabrication and woodworking tools.

I have no truly remarkable skills, as the world views them, but in my own tiny field, if I may be so bold, I possibly might be the best offhand tool grinder that the world has ever known, and I have had a number of folks try to move in on our most popular wood product, most of whom failed miserably and two of which cut a few fingers off on a bandsaw. Most foks wouldn't give a nickle for my skills, but to me, they are more valuable than any education I could buy.

AND, I have to admit, I never had a plan that lasted more than a week, and the only disipline I have is to get up at 5 AM and go to work each morning and make something to sell.

In my type of business, nothing will serve you better than mucsle memory, because that is how you produce products faster than the machines..........Time to hit the sack. I'll be glad to answer more questions, within certain paremiters if you have them.....Joe

Hang in there, Joe. Your biz might work out yet. Don't lose hope.



:thumb:

Thanks, very interesting

I was way off.... I guess only 80% fail

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagn...sinesses-fail/

I agree with fire-man.. you're talking about a very niche market.. Only the very rich with little time would be able to justify affording a garage organization professional..

I'd look for a lot more common business...

I find the comment too about getting out of business even harder to be a great one too...

As an example to the OP about a niche market... I have a friend that has a security company. Installing and maintaining surveillance equipment, alarms, and door access equipment and such....

It's a more common business than what you are planning, BUT, as times have gotten tighter with the dollar, he's lost a lot of customers... Not because they went to other businesses, but rather they stopped paying for monitoring and maintenance. They figure people will see the signs, and cameras and not want to try robbing the places..

He's now in the process of looking for a buyer for the business.. .He still had a lot of customers, but he said with the downturn, he lost over half of his small business customers.. some even closing their businesses...

Regulations are also forcing him out... or rather the costs of implementing regulations...

Long story short, his business is for sale, and even at a very reduced rate of a single year of income he's asking for, interested buyers are almost non existent..

My best advice.. if you start a business, make sure you would have a large customer base that should be sticking around even when the dollar gets tighter..

But, in reality, only the ones who owe money actually fail, most of the rest of them just pull back, reflect on the lessons they have learned, change direction and proceed.

If I had borrowed money to start my paper route in the 50's and failed to collect enough on my first week to make my payment, that business would have failed. As it was, I had won enough playing high-low and matching coins to pay for the first two weeks papers, so I had that much leeway to learn the ropes. It was a squeak, but I made it OK.

I think that the fail rate was much lower before everybody decided it was smart to use OPM to finance a business. (OPM= other people's money)

I'd much prefer starting with $50 of my own then $50K borrowed money. With the former, I can only lose $50, but with the latter I can keep borrowing and lose a million if I am good enough at borrowing.

Personally, i never really did my best work until i had a bank balance of $1.37 and the propane bill came in. THAT is when one begins to understand short term profits, and grasp the concept that for a small business, they are the only kind that matters. Short term profits, over and over again, long term.....Joe

I'm not exactly a business expert, but we haven't starved yet. And it's from just doing that exact thing you're talking about.

I had to change some stuff that just clearly wasn't working out but for the most part the secret to staying ahead of the wolf is to keep working.

Can't sell a knife if I don't make the knife. And the more things I have up for sale for people to look at the more likely it is they'll see something they like and open up the wallet. That means every day in the workshop, whether I feel like it or not. Whether I'm in a good mood or a bad one, whether I'm tired or energetic, whether it's hot or cold outside, and whether I'm flush or whether I'm broke.

People say American's don't want to work anymore ... well ... facing starvation is a pretty dang good motivator!

This is partially true, but many fail because they can not make enough to live on period. Debt compounds that problem obviously, but many had no debt, just not enough revenue to maintain a business. Some may start out hot with a great idea, but due to lack of business skills, leadership, work ethic, self discipline, or many other reasons...they fail.

I do a lot of business in about 8 different communities and I watch the "main streets" of those towns and see how many business' come and go. Debt has very little to do with most of these because banks have cut back lending to small business dramatically. Again, poor planning, poor managerial skills, and a big one is they did not realize how much work and time it takes to open and MAINTAIN a business.

Anybody making a living in the knife business today has all my respect. I make a few of them from time to time, but only as a sideline because I like them and like making them.

I DID find out one thing that made some sales along the way that might be handy for you. High Carbon kitchen knives that are razor sharp out of the box are highly prized by the ladies (check internet pricing) and often will salve a man's guilt when he's considering ordering a drop point hunter that costs more than he spent on her last aniversary present...and lots of guys like a big butcher knife, too. They are quick and easy to make, require no sheath, and get handled, used and loved daily, so more orders are often generated.

Oh, Yeah, and HC quenches real nice in soy bean oil from the big box store, usually without warping...Joe

Of course you are correct, but I even consider a rented building and the attached expenses to be debt. You pay into it monthly and never get it back. Much more business on the WWW or wholesaling to others than coming down main street in any small town....Joe