Mentors

“Get a good mentor.”
This is advice that we hear early in our working careers. But sometimes, it is offered in a rather casual way almost like, “find a good dry cleaner and, oh yea, get a mentor while you are at it.’ However, a good mentor is like a true friend — neither comes along that often.
I have been blessed to have had a few good mentors in the various stages of my working life. Some I still keep in touch with, while others I lost contact with over time. One of the important mentors in my entrepreneurial career was my father, Bob Cornwall, who is still active as an entrepreneur himself at 85. My father called me yesterday to tell me that one of the most important mentors in his life, a man named Jack Murray, passed away this past weekend at 93.
My dad worked for over 25 years at a company called Speed Queen in Ripon, Wisconsin. Those of you my age and older probably remember this company as a popular brand of washers and dryers in the mid 1900s. Those of you who are a bit younger may recognize this name from laundromats. Dad started out working there in purchasing not long after the end of World War II.
Early in his career at Speed Queen a man named Jack Murray took my dad under his wing. Jack’s grandfather, Joe Barlow, was a co-founder of Speed Queen. My dad progressed through the ranks at Speed Queen under Jack’s mentorship. Jack became not only a mentor to my dad, but a close friend.
In the late 1960s Jack took a position with the conglomerate that owned Speed Queen at that time and my father succeeded him as President. Eventually my dad left corporate life and began the entrepreneurial phase of his career, which has been going strong for about the last 30 years. However, even after leaving the corporate world, Jack and my dad kept in touch.
When you find a person who is willing to invest the time and energy it takes to be a true mentor to you in your career, cherish that relationship. I appreciate the support and guidance I received from my father, just as I know he appreciated his relationship with Mr. Murray. May he rest in peace.

New Study Confirms that Small Business is Half of the Economy

From the Office of Advocacy of the SBA:

Small business is a big contributor to the nation’s economy, generating 50 percent of the private, nonfarm gross domestic product (GDP), according to a study released today by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The study covers the period 1998 – 2004, and confirms the findings of earlier research.

You can find the full report here.

Entrepreneurship Becoming Path to Economic Independence

A study released by the SBA finds that more minorities in the US are pursuing entrepreneurial careers.
The highlights:

– In 2002, minorities owned approximately 18 percent of the 23 million U.S. firms.
– Using a proxy for measuring minority business growth, Black-owned firms had the highest growth rate for several measures between 1997 and 2002: 45.4 percent for the number of firms; 24.5 percent of total receipts for the group; and 16.7 percent for employer buy topamax canada firm receipts. Asians also experienced growth in the number of employer firms, 12.6 percent, and in annual payroll, 25.3 percent. American Indian and Native Alaskan business growth was 2.1 percent.
– Hispanics or Latinos constituted the largest minority business community and owned 6.6 percent of all U.S. firms; 3.7 percent of employer firms and 7.4 percent of nonemployer firms.

You can see the full study here.

Pet Food Scare A Boom for Some

I had no intention of having a theme week dealing with “when lightening strikes” stories about small businesses, but just could not resist one more story in this vein.
The pet food scare has created a boom in business for small pet food companies that manufacture all natural products.
From TwinCites.com:

In the month since the recall, Pet Chef Express [in the Twin Cities] added 150 accounts, increasing its customer base to 1,100 pet owners. The small business’s typical weekly sales of $2,000 to $3,000 almost doubled in the past few weeks.
Kukla can barely keep his warehouse stocked. The 1,300-square-foot room sat more than half-empty Tuesday. To meet the demand, Pet Chef Express broke ground this week on a 2,100-square-foot warehouse in Lakeville.

So let’s recap some of the lessons from the posts this week on what happens to small companies that have a sudden boom in demand:
– Publicity is one of the most powerful forms of bootstrap marketing for a small business. Just ask the folks at SeeMore Putter and Bamboo Comfort.
– But if you don’t meet demand, the benefits of the publicity soon vanish, and you run the risk of alienating even your most loyal customers. This includes those from before your “fifteen minutes of fame.”
– While meeting your new-found demand, you have to balance opportunism with realistic caution. I hope that demand for the pet food in today’s example will continue. But this can never be assumed. Pet Chef Express must work deliberately to build loyalty from new customers who certainly came to them in some cases out of desperation. Their marketing plan must now include tactics to lock in their newly expanded customer base, and build on the sudden windfall that the national news story has brought to businesses like theirs.

When Too Much Business is a Bad Thing

Getting mentioned in the Wall Street Journal is generally considered a good thing for a business. However, if you are not prepared for the surge in demand that such publicity can bring it can also spell disaster. (I had cautioned about this in my previous post below on the small putter manufacturer whose putter was used by Masters winner Zack Johnson).
The Tennessean offers the cautionary tale about Cyndi Collett and husband Chris Tait’s new product — a brand of environmentally friendly towels and blankets called Bamboo Comfort. A mention in the Wall Street Journal did not work out the way that they had at first hoped it would.

But sweet success has its dark side, as the couple quickly learned.
After The Journal article came out more than a year ago, orders flooded the Web site of their store, Mad Mod. Shortly thereafter, they had no Bamboo Comfortto sell, and it stayed that way for four months.

Small Putter Company Hits the Sweet Spot

zackjohnson.jpg
Once in a while lightening strikes a small business. That may be the case for a small putter manufacturer located right here in Franklin, Tennessee. It seems that Zack Johnson, winner of the Masters on Sunday, used a putter made by SeeMore Putter Co.
From the Tennessean:

The four-person company based in Franklin received some major publicity thanks to Zach Johnson’s winning the Masters golf championship on Sunday in Augusta, Ga.
Johnson used a SeeMore putter to stiff-arm Tiger Woods and win the green jacket. Television commentators Nick Faldo and Jim Nantz constantly referred to Johnson’s superb putting, and CBS routinely showed close-ups of the putter.
“We probably got way more free publicity than we could ever pay in advertising,” said Jim Grundberg, managing director of SeeMore.
Grundberg said he was jumping around his Brentwood home with family Sunday during the action. Johnson’s playing partner and good friend, Vaughn Taylor, also was using a SeeMore putter, used by only a handful of PGA Tour players.

So an unlikely winner teams up with a small-time player in the golf equipment industry and both hit it big. Cool story!
SeeMore needs to carefully nurture this publicity. They need to leverage it to build momentum for their company. They cannot just rely on their fifteen minutes of fame. They have done a great first step at their website, which is already full of the big news for their little company.
On the flip side, they also need to be ready for a possible onslaught of demand. If they do not monitor and manage their growth carefully, their own success could sink them. They do not meet demand and have the systems in place to satisfy what can be a fickle market.
I hope Zack and SeeMore make the most of their success and that both are around for a long time!

Angels are Bullish

A new report from the Angel Capital Association finds that angel investors are optimistic about the general climate for early stage investments.

In the Angel Group Confidence Report of North American angel group leaders, ACA found that angel groups forecast that the quantity and quality of entrepreneurial investment proposals will increase in 2007, that more than 80 percent of groups will continue investing in seed and early stage companies, that there is a strengthened opportunity for more positive exits, and more plans to co-invest with other sources of capital.

This follows a strong job report last week that included a big jump in self-employment. The entrepreneurial economy seems to be picking up steam….