Ask the same question of 100 people, and you'll get 100
different answers. With that in mind, Entrepreneur has assembled a
cross-section of homebased entrepreneurs--owning a variety of
businesses nationwide--who provide advice to help you have a more
successful and profitable 1997. Here's what they have to
say:
Robert Bougeon
Robert Bougeon Creative Design and Consulting
Content Continues Below
Chatsworth, California
Business established: 1992
Advice: Find a way to expand your niche.
Initially, this former graphic designer for the Los Angeles
Times handled only the graphic side of a project, but
increasing customer demand helped him quickly recognize the value
of overseeing the entire job from start to finish.
"Now, as production coordinator, I'll recommend certain
printers and techniques. I'll even do pre-press checks,"
explains Robert Bougeon. "The point of this extra service is
not to tack on an extra charge and make myself a million. It's
to free the client--who is generally quite busy--from the mundane
aspects of a job."
And as everybody knows, time is the most valuable commodity a
busy person has.
Lesley Sager Levine
Pet-Estrian Services
Belmont, Massachusetts
Business established: 1987
Advice: Be a good neighbor.
Running 45-minute play groups for dogs could provide Lesley
Sager Levine's neighbors plenty of ammunition to howl about her
business. After all, there's a high potential for noise (and
nose) pollution. But recognizing this, Levine, who used her love of
animals to move from banking to pet sitting, took preventive
measures at the start.
"I talked to [neighbors] before I started my business and
told them if they ever had any concerns to talk with me,"
Levine says. In addition, she makes sure participants in her play
groups never run loose in the neighborhood, and when she walks her
canine clients, she always cleans up after them.
Beyond her own block, Levine acts as a good neighbor by
dispensing health and pet-care information to people and by taking
her dogs to visit senior residents in nursing homes. In short,
Levine treats people as she wants to be treated. So far, it's
working, and there have been no ruffled feathers to smooth.
David Forman
Pour Masters Custom Bar Catering
Phoenix
Business established: 1991
Advice: Stay on top in your industry, and use unique
marketing to
do it.
Imagine throwing a six-hour party for 500 people complete with
three open bars, catered food, virtual reality entertainment, a
seven-piece Caribbean band and valet parking . . . all for a grand
total of $180.
That's exactly what David Forman of Pour Masters did in
1995--and he'll do it again this year. "Every year we
throw a party for the entire industry--caterers, event planners and
anybody who needs to know about my business," explains Forman,
who supplies beverages for events ranging from open houses and
festivals to bachelorette parties.
Forman achieves this entertainment feat by getting every
business that participates to donate their services in exchange for
a copy of the event's mailing list and the opportunity to put
their marketing materials in a goodie bag that's given to
everyone who attends.
"I wanted everybody to know who we were--and that's
what I mean by marketing," adds the Arizona entrepreneur, who
says none of his competitors do anything remotely like this.
Jim Lowe
Midwest MicroSystems
Ainsworth, Nebraska
Business established: 1987
Advice: Realize success doesn't happen overnight.
It takes faith and the ability to stick it out no matter how rough
the going gets.
Cattle and computers were the unlikely combination that put Jim
Lowe on the road to entrepreneurship.
"When I started back in 1984, I was really an odd
duck," recalls Lowe, who created a computer software program
to help evaluate and cull his cow herd. After using the product
himself for a while, Lowe slowly began providing programs to
others. Although traditional ranchers were initially slow to accept
this high-tech innovation, the former cattleman hung in there and
eventually sold his ranch in 1994 to run the computer business full
time.
"You've got to stick to it and have faith in your
business because it's not going to happen overnight," says
Lowe. "I'm not saying every idea is going to work. But if
you have a good idea and skills, it will happen. Too often people
get discouraged and throw up their hands. It takes faith and hard
work over the long run to make a business work."
Michelle J. Bloom
Creative Business Consulting
Minneapolis
Business established: 1986
Advice: Maintain a balance between work and
home.
Balance is important, especially for a homebased entrepreneur.
But balance is not 50/50," says Michelle Bloom, who teaches
time-management skills to emerging homebased and small businesses
to help them cope with the challenges of starting and operating a
business. "The first three years of my business I chose to
spend about 75 percent of my time on the business and 25 percent on
[the other activities] that balanced me."
Bloom says you must consciously work toward balance and that it
will change at different times during your business's life. She
defines balance as taking time on the weekends to do the opposite
of what you do Monday through Friday. Consequently, "when you
come back on Monday, you've got energy," says Bloom, who
advocates establishing a routine that gives you time away from your
business.
While this may seem like a frivolous waste of time to some,
Bloom is confident that in the long term, the proper balance helps
you maintain enthusiasm about your business.
Tricia Molloy
Molloy Communications
Marietta, Georgia
Business established: 1988
Advice: Incorporate the principles of Feng Shui into your
business.
For Tricia Molloy, environment is vital to getting in the mood
for business. After a friend introduced her to Feng Shui, an
Oriental philosophy of interior design that incorporates nature to
help create positive energy flow, Molloy embraced the concept.
Inside her office, she installed an aquarium near the computer
so each time she looks up, she sees the stress-reducing, gentle
movement of flowing water and the affirmation of an entire
ecosystem thriving before her eyes.
Outside, the music of wind chimes masks intrusive background
noises and further soothes her psyche. "I also repositioned my
desk so it faces the door. That's a power position and makes
you aware of everyone who comes in and out," explains the
entrepreneur.
Feng Shui was definitely a power move for Molloy, who says the
changes she made, both inside and outside her office, have reduced
her level of stress and increased her productivity and income--a
most revered result.
Charles Thibeau
The Old-Fashioned Milk Paint
Co. Inc.
Groton, Massachussetts
Business established: 1973
Advice: Go that extra mile to
make sure every customer leaves happy.
After 23 years in business, Charles Thibeau could write his own
advice book. If he were to ever take that step, he'd have to
devote an entire chapter to the lengths to which he goes to satisfy
his customers.
"The customer is everything. The product is secondary, if
that. You can have the best product in the world, but if you
don't have customers, you don't have a business," says
Thibeau, whose company manufactures and sells worldwide the oldest
form of paint known to man--a milk-based substance.
If his customers are upset with the paint, even if they created
the problem themselves, they still ended up having a bad
experience, Thibeau says. "So if someone calls and says, `This
color isn't what I expected,' I'll supply enough paint
for a whole new room--at no charge," says the
entrepreneur.
Sound costly? Perhaps, but it hasn't hurt Thibeau's
business. He says he's had some of the same customers for more
than 20 years, and that even though he advertises very little,
people always seem to find his family-run company.