The last speaker we visted was a man named Eric Zeanah who is president of American Accessories. Eric recieved an Industrial Engineering degree from the University of Tennessee in 1984 and began working for one of his professors doing part time time studies. He was eventually hired by the company which he later spun off into American Accessories. In this way, Eric is not necessarily and entrepreneur in the since that he created something from nothing, he took a company, which already existed and didn't exactly work, and changed in into a successful business.
American Accessories is a unique company which provides companies such as Unilever, Philip Morris, and Johnson and Johnson custom manufacturing capabilities for different projects they might have. They have a vast network of 100+ facilities overseas, mainly in China, that they subcontract through. One key to their business is that they do not directly own any of the facilities, they only control factories through the orders they have and the way they want the manaufacturing lines to run. American Accessories is truely an international company with roughly half of their employees working out of thier Chinese office.
Many might first think that working in China might would be extremely difficult due to many factors such as the language barrier, comunist government, distance and timzone difference. However, Eric who knows no foreign languages, explained that China in his opinion is the most capitalisitic country in the work an the easiest government to work with. He has never had to sit accross a government official except when he bought is house over there. Additionally, because of the internet, communication is so rapid and cheap that it is much easier to do business there than it was back in the 80's when he started.
Mr. Zeanah was full of advise for young entrepreneurs and those interested in running a business one day. The most important thing I learned from Eric was the importance of the relationship you have with the poeople you work with. Eric is the ultimate networker and is friends with many of the people he works with. He often goes on dinner outings with the people he works with and to have both a fun time and talk business. The importance of knowing how to network with people and how to have a business discussion should not be overlooked. The other important point I took from Eric was the importance of service. He believes that the concept of service has died in this country and it is too easy to say no. He spoke of the importance to listen to your customers and provide them what they want instead of what you think they want, even when it is difficult. It is much easier to get an existing customer to buy something new and different than to find a new customer. One of the lines I picked up was "the easiest thing to sell in business is an answer" therefore you should listen and absorb like a sponge to learn about a market or a problem, then make it better.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
John Platallero and EventBooking
John Platallero is the founder and CEO of a company called EventBooking which is an internet based software company which produces a unique organizational calendar program which gives its customers a portal to sync or look up calendars of other users within the network. Mr. Platallero originally received and electrical engineering degree from the University of Tennessee and went to work for Alcoa. He initially had no intentions of starting his own business but changed his mind after he realized the internet would change the way the music industry would schedule concerts. He quit his job at Alcoa and went back to get his MBA at UT where he wrote his business plan for EventBooking.
One of his suggestions to our class was to live below your means, similar to what Dave Ramsey preaches. Mr. Platallero was completely out of debt at the time he wanted to start his own business which put him in a place financially for him to do so.
He began raising money through friends and professors spoke of the importance of how one has to know how to answer the questions like, how much do you want and what do I get out of it? He said that creating the business plan evaluation was difficult because he had never done such a thing before and because the internet was still relatively new at the time, it was hard to estimate a market use.
During the early stages of his business, Mr. Platallero received a lot of enthusiasm from both venue owners and band managers about his EventBooking. But of course, as I have seen from the lectures, no entrepreneur goes without experiencing hard setbacks. Mr. Platallero’s was that the concert venues were not updating the schedules on the calendar, essentially rendering the service useless. His saving grace was that he listened to his customers, changed his approach to the software and essentially started fresh.
Their application is now much more complex and individualized because each large venue uses his program as their main scheduling application. Mr. Platallero attributes his success to making his company very customer centric. They are very conscious about giving the customer exactly what they want, which sometimes means leaving out other parts of their program. After hearing Mr. Platallero speak, I will attribute his success to the energy and enthusiasm in which he talks about his product. He is obviously very passionate about what is business is doing which means he works very hard and it and thus has created a successful business.
One of his suggestions to our class was to live below your means, similar to what Dave Ramsey preaches. Mr. Platallero was completely out of debt at the time he wanted to start his own business which put him in a place financially for him to do so.
He began raising money through friends and professors spoke of the importance of how one has to know how to answer the questions like, how much do you want and what do I get out of it? He said that creating the business plan evaluation was difficult because he had never done such a thing before and because the internet was still relatively new at the time, it was hard to estimate a market use.
During the early stages of his business, Mr. Platallero received a lot of enthusiasm from both venue owners and band managers about his EventBooking. But of course, as I have seen from the lectures, no entrepreneur goes without experiencing hard setbacks. Mr. Platallero’s was that the concert venues were not updating the schedules on the calendar, essentially rendering the service useless. His saving grace was that he listened to his customers, changed his approach to the software and essentially started fresh.
Their application is now much more complex and individualized because each large venue uses his program as their main scheduling application. Mr. Platallero attributes his success to making his company very customer centric. They are very conscious about giving the customer exactly what they want, which sometimes means leaving out other parts of their program. After hearing Mr. Platallero speak, I will attribute his success to the energy and enthusiasm in which he talks about his product. He is obviously very passionate about what is business is doing which means he works very hard and it and thus has created a successful business.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Berry Goss and Pro2Serve
Berry Goss founded Pro2Serve about 14 years ago after working for SAIC for in a variety of positions. While there he learned all about business from acquisitions, to proposals, to being a program manager. He eventually decided he wanted to build a business from the ground up and not spend 50% of his time doing administrative duties. After discussing it with his family, he took the plunge as an entrepreneur and moved to Oak Ridge to start his service based business. Pro2Serve is an technical and engineering services firm that sells knowledge and solutions mainly in the nuclear industry. Its four business units are design engineering, physical security systems, environmental management, and nuclear security division.
The most valuable thing I took away from the presentation given by Berry Goss was what he said to us about values. His philosophy was to set baseline values in a company that would attract people who believed in those. He also believed that good long lasting companies have a set of core values that are constant in changing markets. When he started Pro2Serve, he wrote into the bylaws that they are committed to giving back to the communities in which they work. Specifically, every year they would take 10% of their profits from and disperse it over the next year to a variety of charities. He was able to successfully defend these values when pursuing venture capital which he said was one of the more difficult parts of his journey.
Because Mr. Goss’s business is heavily dependent on the quality of his employees and their ability to solve their customers problems, I asked him what is strategy was for hiring and retaining quality employees. He said that the main way was through the network of people he and his current employees know. This affirms they many times I have heard how important networking is.
The most valuable thing I took away from the presentation given by Berry Goss was what he said to us about values. His philosophy was to set baseline values in a company that would attract people who believed in those. He also believed that good long lasting companies have a set of core values that are constant in changing markets. When he started Pro2Serve, he wrote into the bylaws that they are committed to giving back to the communities in which they work. Specifically, every year they would take 10% of their profits from and disperse it over the next year to a variety of charities. He was able to successfully defend these values when pursuing venture capital which he said was one of the more difficult parts of his journey.
Because Mr. Goss’s business is heavily dependent on the quality of his employees and their ability to solve their customers problems, I asked him what is strategy was for hiring and retaining quality employees. He said that the main way was through the network of people he and his current employees know. This affirms they many times I have heard how important networking is.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Terry Douglass and Provision Foundation
Terry Douglass has been a long time mentor of our professor, Dr. Martin. He holds a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee. While working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he helped develop a technology that changed health care call the PET Scan or, Positron Emission Tomography. He founded CTI Molecular Imaging and acted as Chairman and CEO until they were acquired by Siemens in 2005. He now runs Provision Foundation which manages a number of profit and nonprofit healthcare related ministries. Mr. Douglas has been an extremely successful entrepreneur and had some very interesting experiences to share with our class.
The first experience he shared with us was when CTI was able to get approval to commercially use PET Scans in 1997. “In healthcare”, he told us, “there is no such thing as free enterprise.” CTI tried a number of ways to get the technology approved through the EPA and other sources and was never successful. After talking to a friend who worked in government, he tried to get the technology approved legislatively instead of administratively. It was finally passed by congress, tacked onto a bill that was approved in 1997. After this their revenues skyrocketed and many different companies were interested in acquiring CTI, including Siemens. They decided not to sell but instead held an IPO in 2002. I thought this was very interesting because it a real example that there are, as the common phrase goes, “two ways to skin a cat.” It also showed Mr. Douglass’s impressive drive to run a successful business because he never gave up in seeking getting the technology is business hinged on approved for public use.
This brings me to his next experience, running a public company. Terry Douglass is the first entrepreneur we have talked to that has acted as CEO in a public company, he referred to them as “the dark days.” There are many differences in running a public and private company, the first is that you have to start thinking quarter to quarter instead of long term. This was one of Mr. Douglass’s mistakes. He had always looked 5 to 10 years down the road to see what was best for his company, but once you go public, you have to try and act for the shareholders and make sure your quarterly statements are sound. He missed his mark on several quarterly projections and their stock fell dramatically from 2002 to 2004. Eventually, he learned a few tricks of the trade by projecting on the low side so that the company can exceed expectations. The stock started growing and was eventually sold to Siemens for about 3 dollars a share more than what is was originally priced at.
During Mr. Douglass’s stint at CTI, he and a few of the other founders continually put stock of CTI in a trust which now funds Provision Foundation. The main purpose of Provision Foundation is to provide seed Monday and administrative support such as accounting and technology support to small businesses across the southeast, the most notable one being East Tennessee Health Center. He made a point that Provision makes sure to identify a CEO or entrepreneur and let them run their company as they feel called to do.
Terry Douglass is truly a great man who feels called to service. He has helped many, many people, both here in the southeast and also abroad in places such as Haiti. He left us with a few points that, “no matter where you are in your career, there is always the opportunity to support others. Many people think that service only comes from NGO’s and ministries but in fact, everyone has the capability to serve others.”
The first experience he shared with us was when CTI was able to get approval to commercially use PET Scans in 1997. “In healthcare”, he told us, “there is no such thing as free enterprise.” CTI tried a number of ways to get the technology approved through the EPA and other sources and was never successful. After talking to a friend who worked in government, he tried to get the technology approved legislatively instead of administratively. It was finally passed by congress, tacked onto a bill that was approved in 1997. After this their revenues skyrocketed and many different companies were interested in acquiring CTI, including Siemens. They decided not to sell but instead held an IPO in 2002. I thought this was very interesting because it a real example that there are, as the common phrase goes, “two ways to skin a cat.” It also showed Mr. Douglass’s impressive drive to run a successful business because he never gave up in seeking getting the technology is business hinged on approved for public use.
This brings me to his next experience, running a public company. Terry Douglass is the first entrepreneur we have talked to that has acted as CEO in a public company, he referred to them as “the dark days.” There are many differences in running a public and private company, the first is that you have to start thinking quarter to quarter instead of long term. This was one of Mr. Douglass’s mistakes. He had always looked 5 to 10 years down the road to see what was best for his company, but once you go public, you have to try and act for the shareholders and make sure your quarterly statements are sound. He missed his mark on several quarterly projections and their stock fell dramatically from 2002 to 2004. Eventually, he learned a few tricks of the trade by projecting on the low side so that the company can exceed expectations. The stock started growing and was eventually sold to Siemens for about 3 dollars a share more than what is was originally priced at.
During Mr. Douglass’s stint at CTI, he and a few of the other founders continually put stock of CTI in a trust which now funds Provision Foundation. The main purpose of Provision Foundation is to provide seed Monday and administrative support such as accounting and technology support to small businesses across the southeast, the most notable one being East Tennessee Health Center. He made a point that Provision makes sure to identify a CEO or entrepreneur and let them run their company as they feel called to do.
Terry Douglass is truly a great man who feels called to service. He has helped many, many people, both here in the southeast and also abroad in places such as Haiti. He left us with a few points that, “no matter where you are in your career, there is always the opportunity to support others. Many people think that service only comes from NGO’s and ministries but in fact, everyone has the capability to serve others.”
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Vig Sherrill and Aldis Inc.
Vig Sherrill is the CEO of Aldis Inc. which commercializes and sells patent-pending, efficient traffic and energy management technology and services to municipal partners. They have a product line called GridSmart™ which is a significant advance in intelligent traffic management. Using an ultra wide angle lens with a horizon-to-horizon view in concert with proprietary software, GridSmart™ utilizes advanced vision processing science and the ability to apply logic to what is seen in the intersection and for several hundred feet in all directions around the intersection. Before starting Aldis, Vig Sherrill has been a serial entrepreneur heading Flextronics Semiconductor and ASIC International.
Aldis is still a Venture Capital backed company and has yet to post positive cash flows yet. However, the fact that they are VC based shows that Aldis shows strong promise for large profits in the future. A large advantage Aldis has over its competitors is that their system is entirely software based which means the hardware it runs off of, a PC, will inherently get cheaper and faster over time. Aldis is leveraging off of other proven technologies that other companies do the engineering on. Because Vig started the company in 2006, which is relatively late compared to his competitors, he is not stuck trying to use or upgrade old hardware but instead has leverage off of a proven technology, the PC, that other companies do the engineering on to improve.
Vig also shared with us some of the financial planning of Aldis. He explained how it is important to sell to the engineer who will be using the product who will then convince the CFO who will ultimately write the check. This was a reoccurring theme, that the ultimate user is not necessarily the person who writes the check. Another example of this is the fact that the beneficiaries of the traffic control system, the citizens, will not be the ones writing the check for the GridSmart™ system but instead the city will. Vig also shared that because there are only a limited number of intersections to place their system in, about 350,000 total in the US, even if they sold a system at every intersection, eventually, their income stream would stop. Aldis has reacted by selling in emerging markets such as China which plans to build about 200 cities larger than Knoxville in the next 25 years.
An additional opportunity that spawned from the GridSmart™ System is that they could sell the data collected by the systems to companies such as Walmart or Exxon who would like to know traffic patterns in different areas to help plan on where to build new stores and stations. This brings me to another point of advice Vig shared with us. That is, he doesn’t know a single entrepreneur who is making money on what they initially set out to make money on. Therefore, it is important to recognize that as an entrepreneur there will be a lot of left turns, and that success is dependent on knowing when and when not to make them. As Dr. Martin likes to say, “the only way to get experience is by bad judgment,” so don’t be discouraged when you make mistakes.
Vig is a very energetic man and obviously loves his work. He gave us some very insightful knowledge on owning your own business and on Venture Capital funding. A few stats he gave us which I found particularly interesting were that about 1 in 1000 companies that ask for VC funding actually get funded and of those, only about 1 in 5 are successful. Additionally, since 9/11, not a single venture capital company has made money. Vig shared that venture capitalists are not the bad guys they are made out to be but that it is important to know that whoever controls the money, ultimately controls the business. If you end up seeking VC money, you must be willing to let go of the control of your company.
Lastly, the story from Vig that most sticks in my mind is when one of Vig’s friends asked him what it was like not to have a boss. Vig replied that when you have your own company, every single customer who walks through the door is your boss. He takes his job very personally and wants to his company to reflect positively on himself and therefore he makes sure to always please his customers. It is the old adage, “the customer is always right”. This is what I believe to be Vig’s greatest success as a leader. He is a leader not that takes total control and does what he wants, but a leader that serves and does what his customers want or need.
Aldis is still a Venture Capital backed company and has yet to post positive cash flows yet. However, the fact that they are VC based shows that Aldis shows strong promise for large profits in the future. A large advantage Aldis has over its competitors is that their system is entirely software based which means the hardware it runs off of, a PC, will inherently get cheaper and faster over time. Aldis is leveraging off of other proven technologies that other companies do the engineering on. Because Vig started the company in 2006, which is relatively late compared to his competitors, he is not stuck trying to use or upgrade old hardware but instead has leverage off of a proven technology, the PC, that other companies do the engineering on to improve.
Vig also shared with us some of the financial planning of Aldis. He explained how it is important to sell to the engineer who will be using the product who will then convince the CFO who will ultimately write the check. This was a reoccurring theme, that the ultimate user is not necessarily the person who writes the check. Another example of this is the fact that the beneficiaries of the traffic control system, the citizens, will not be the ones writing the check for the GridSmart™ system but instead the city will. Vig also shared that because there are only a limited number of intersections to place their system in, about 350,000 total in the US, even if they sold a system at every intersection, eventually, their income stream would stop. Aldis has reacted by selling in emerging markets such as China which plans to build about 200 cities larger than Knoxville in the next 25 years.
An additional opportunity that spawned from the GridSmart™ System is that they could sell the data collected by the systems to companies such as Walmart or Exxon who would like to know traffic patterns in different areas to help plan on where to build new stores and stations. This brings me to another point of advice Vig shared with us. That is, he doesn’t know a single entrepreneur who is making money on what they initially set out to make money on. Therefore, it is important to recognize that as an entrepreneur there will be a lot of left turns, and that success is dependent on knowing when and when not to make them. As Dr. Martin likes to say, “the only way to get experience is by bad judgment,” so don’t be discouraged when you make mistakes.
Vig is a very energetic man and obviously loves his work. He gave us some very insightful knowledge on owning your own business and on Venture Capital funding. A few stats he gave us which I found particularly interesting were that about 1 in 1000 companies that ask for VC funding actually get funded and of those, only about 1 in 5 are successful. Additionally, since 9/11, not a single venture capital company has made money. Vig shared that venture capitalists are not the bad guys they are made out to be but that it is important to know that whoever controls the money, ultimately controls the business. If you end up seeking VC money, you must be willing to let go of the control of your company.
Lastly, the story from Vig that most sticks in my mind is when one of Vig’s friends asked him what it was like not to have a boss. Vig replied that when you have your own company, every single customer who walks through the door is your boss. He takes his job very personally and wants to his company to reflect positively on himself and therefore he makes sure to always please his customers. It is the old adage, “the customer is always right”. This is what I believe to be Vig’s greatest success as a leader. He is a leader not that takes total control and does what he wants, but a leader that serves and does what his customers want or need.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Protomet with Jeff Bohanan
Jeff Bohanan is the CEO of Protomet, a manufacturing and machining company based out of Oak Ridge, TN. Jeff and another partner started Protomet in 1997 with the goal of becoming a world class provider of engineering and manufacturing services. Jeff started his career, not as an entrepreneur, but as a design engineer at the Y-12 Complex at Oak Ridge National Lab. He used the skills and knowledge he learned from that job to start Protomet.
At the very beginning, Jeff and his partner did a lot of consulting work for Y-12 because they still needed the engineering support. He got his big break finally when he landed a contract with Johnson Controls to manufacture a part for a Mercedes SUV. The job was a 5 year 2.5 million dollar contract to make about 1 million parts. The deal was very gutsy for Jeff because he didn’t actually have the equipment to make the parts and could only buy it after he landed the contract. This meant that he had to use contract out work from other machine shops to make prototypes of the design before they landed the contract with Johnson Controls.
Since then Protomet has expanded their business does work in the Medical, Automotive, Boating, Homeland Security, Energy and Power, Architectural, and General Industrial Hardware industries. One of the keys to Protomet’s success is the quality of its employees. Jeff would feel perfectly comfortable not working for a few weeks because he is confident in the people he has surrounded himself with. A testament to this point is that one of his process engineers was working late the night we visited. Protomet is able to compete in the globally competitive manufacturing industry because of the lean measures it has implemented. They work around the clock with three CNC machines to one person.
Jeff no longer works in a technical engineering role but is the primary sales person for Protomet. I gathered that part of the reason for Jeff’s success is the way in which he treats people and the passion he has for his work. This has been common thread in all the talks we have had with local entrepreneurs. Jeff, just as the other we have talked to, believes in treating everybody with respect and not holding secrets from the people you work with. He also loves getting up in the morning to go to work which in turn allows him to be good at what he does. One of our classmates used to do business with Jeff and told everyone that part of the reason they continued doing business with Protomet was because Jeff was so enthusiastic ,interested, and had a great ability to remember a lot about every part that they produced.
Jeff finished his talk with the following quotes to help guide those who want to run their own business one day.
“We tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in 1 year and we tend to underestimate what we can accomplish in 3 years.”
“The formula for Innovation is a step function… output is not proportional to input… though steady input is required to get to the next step.”
At the very beginning, Jeff and his partner did a lot of consulting work for Y-12 because they still needed the engineering support. He got his big break finally when he landed a contract with Johnson Controls to manufacture a part for a Mercedes SUV. The job was a 5 year 2.5 million dollar contract to make about 1 million parts. The deal was very gutsy for Jeff because he didn’t actually have the equipment to make the parts and could only buy it after he landed the contract. This meant that he had to use contract out work from other machine shops to make prototypes of the design before they landed the contract with Johnson Controls.
Since then Protomet has expanded their business does work in the Medical, Automotive, Boating, Homeland Security, Energy and Power, Architectural, and General Industrial Hardware industries. One of the keys to Protomet’s success is the quality of its employees. Jeff would feel perfectly comfortable not working for a few weeks because he is confident in the people he has surrounded himself with. A testament to this point is that one of his process engineers was working late the night we visited. Protomet is able to compete in the globally competitive manufacturing industry because of the lean measures it has implemented. They work around the clock with three CNC machines to one person.
Jeff no longer works in a technical engineering role but is the primary sales person for Protomet. I gathered that part of the reason for Jeff’s success is the way in which he treats people and the passion he has for his work. This has been common thread in all the talks we have had with local entrepreneurs. Jeff, just as the other we have talked to, believes in treating everybody with respect and not holding secrets from the people you work with. He also loves getting up in the morning to go to work which in turn allows him to be good at what he does. One of our classmates used to do business with Jeff and told everyone that part of the reason they continued doing business with Protomet was because Jeff was so enthusiastic ,interested, and had a great ability to remember a lot about every part that they produced.
Jeff finished his talk with the following quotes to help guide those who want to run their own business one day.
“We tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in 1 year and we tend to underestimate what we can accomplish in 3 years.”
“The formula for Innovation is a step function… output is not proportional to input… though steady input is required to get to the next step.”
Friday, February 19, 2010
Mark Medley and CTI
Last Monday our class had the pleasure of going to CTI and meeting their CEO Mark Medley. CTI builds electronic circuit boards for logic controls in manufacturing plants. His company is different from the previous two companies we saw, Protein Discovery and Micro Types, in that CTI has been around since 1972 when he went into business with a few of his friends. Mark actually spun off CTI later on as its own entity, separate from the original business he and his friends started.
The entrepreneurial spirit developed in Mark in a different way from our previous two contacts. Mark’s dad was a brilliant mining engineering but was afraid to take a gamble and pursue his own business. His dad never regretted any of his decisions but always had a mentality of I wish I had done that and so Mark decided he never wanted to be like that. When the opportunity presented itself for Mark to run his own business, he took it.
As a manufacturing manager at Proctor and Gamble, Mark learned a lot about the business a manufacturing which helped him run CTI. One of the most important this he told us was to let machines do what machines are good at and let humans do what humans are good at. In other words, let machines do repetitive work and let humans make the decisions in a manufacturing line. Another point of advice he gave us, which is consistent with previous talks, is to have good judgment when selecting the people you go into business with. A large part of his success was due to the fact that he trusted all of his business partners and they in turn trusted him to do their jobs.
Financing a start up business has been a topic of our class and Marks advice to us was that it is extremely important to look at the length of financing and arrange your financing to meet the life of your business. Too many people these days are financing short term when they should be financing long term and are unable to make their payments. Mark was lucky to have friends who were bankers that trusted him when he was first starting his business and exclaimed that it was probably not possible to finance a business the way he had done it.
Finally, Mark finished by leaving us with a few bits of advice to take with us into our business endeavors. First was that it is very important to do what you say you are going to do and that credibility is everything. You must always try to keep your customers and employees informed so that there are no surprises and generally you will keep everyone’s trust. Another was to govern your business by policies instead of rules. Lastly was that it is very important to find a balance in your life. Time management is critical for both your personal and business life. It is ok to be out of balance for a short period of time but in the long run, you will not make it if all you do is business and neglect your family and spiritual life.
The entrepreneurial spirit developed in Mark in a different way from our previous two contacts. Mark’s dad was a brilliant mining engineering but was afraid to take a gamble and pursue his own business. His dad never regretted any of his decisions but always had a mentality of I wish I had done that and so Mark decided he never wanted to be like that. When the opportunity presented itself for Mark to run his own business, he took it.
As a manufacturing manager at Proctor and Gamble, Mark learned a lot about the business a manufacturing which helped him run CTI. One of the most important this he told us was to let machines do what machines are good at and let humans do what humans are good at. In other words, let machines do repetitive work and let humans make the decisions in a manufacturing line. Another point of advice he gave us, which is consistent with previous talks, is to have good judgment when selecting the people you go into business with. A large part of his success was due to the fact that he trusted all of his business partners and they in turn trusted him to do their jobs.
Financing a start up business has been a topic of our class and Marks advice to us was that it is extremely important to look at the length of financing and arrange your financing to meet the life of your business. Too many people these days are financing short term when they should be financing long term and are unable to make their payments. Mark was lucky to have friends who were bankers that trusted him when he was first starting his business and exclaimed that it was probably not possible to finance a business the way he had done it.
Finally, Mark finished by leaving us with a few bits of advice to take with us into our business endeavors. First was that it is very important to do what you say you are going to do and that credibility is everything. You must always try to keep your customers and employees informed so that there are no surprises and generally you will keep everyone’s trust. Another was to govern your business by policies instead of rules. Lastly was that it is very important to find a balance in your life. Time management is critical for both your personal and business life. It is ok to be out of balance for a short period of time but in the long run, you will not make it if all you do is business and neglect your family and spiritual life.
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