Major Leagues

Learning the ropes--and eventually succeeding--in subcontracting takes hard work, persistence and a stomach for rejection. But the payoff may be worth all the effort, as Gasper Mir, co-founder of Mir Fox & Rodriguez, learned. Houston-based Mir Fox & Rodriguez, which provides accounting, tax, consulting, strategic planning and training services to government and the private sector, has gone beyond subcontracting to a level somewhere between that and prime contracting. The 47-employee firm handles private-sector work such as audits of employee benefit plans for Shell Oil and Enron Corp. Its relationship with Shell, which brings in about $100,000 annually, developed seven years ago because of Mir's personal contacts and commitment on the part of two giant corporations to find a way to help minority-owned firms obtain private-sector contracts.

"That's a major challenge, particularly in our line of work. You get major corporations like Shell that have always dealt only with the Big Six [accounting] firms and quite frankly don't know the expertise of a smaller firm," explains Mir. "It's a major risk in many ways for them to hire a smaller company to come in and do their financial reporting."

But as a member of the Houston Business Council (an affiliate of the National Minority Supplier Development Council), Shell was committed to minority business growth. Working with Mir and another member of the council--Price Waterhouse--the oil conglomerate identified areas within the company a small firm like Mir's could handle. Price Waterhouse endorsed the process, which played a big part in boosting Shell's confidence, Mir believes.

"Shell interviewed other firms, but we ended up getting the contract," says Mir, who used the same process to win a contract with Enron, another Houston-based corporation. Mir Fox & Rodriguez has been handling the Shell work for seven years and Enron for four years.

Getting this contract was not a fluke, says Mir. Instead, it was a long process of planting seeds and then harvesting the rewards. Initially, he subcontracted for firms working with the government and handled auditing work for many nonprofit corporations, which put his name in front of many of the city's corporate leaders.

"We benefited greatly by subcontracting with larger firms so we could build our experience and knowledge," says Mir. "We wanted work where we could take responsibility and really get involved."

This management-level subcontracting helped Mir Fox & Rodriguez build a track record and led to an auditing contract with the Houston Housing Authority in 1989--a project that further increased awareness of Mir's firm within the private sector. It also helped pave the way for his eventual contract with Shell, proving that persistence pays off in the world of subcontracting.

This article was originally published in the January 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Major Leagues.