How Country Caterers BBQ’s expansion into government contracts and disaster relief has made them ‘more than just great barbecue’

By Wendy Bautista

From their 100 acres of land in Keystone Heights, Tom and Cathy Perryman, owners of Country Caterers BBQ (www.countrycaterersbbq.com), have turned a family restaurant into a turnkey event/catering company that expanded into disaster relief and government contracts feeding the troops.

Ice cream to catering

“Years ago, we bought a little ice cream shop and turned it into a restaurant called Tasty Cave,” says Tom. “When I did that, I also obtained a mentor who taught me about catering. I began shadowing and doing jobs with him, and eventually expanded the restaurant to include catering.”

The Perryman’s clearly and fondly remember their first catering job—it was for Clay Electric Cooperative, whom they still provide services for 35 years later. “That many years ago, there weren’t many caterers,” says Cathy. “We were somewhat of a novelty, which was great.”

They eventually sold the restaurant and went strictly to a catering business, but it wasn’t long before the needs and desires of their customers changed their business forever. “We went from ‘just food’ to acquiring our own equipment; tents, tables and chairs; and moonwalks and other amusement-type things because the customers wanted them,” says Cathy.

“When we first started, Cathy and I had a pick-up truck and a makeshift cooker,” says Tom. “Today, we have 20 rotisseries, 25 flat grills, 15 vans, tractor trailers, trailers, semis, and all this equipment, with some we built ourselves to make jobs easier and to suit our needs.”

Those needs include being able to prepare all of the food wherever they may be.  As no food items arepremade, they bring in all the cooking equipment needed for each event.

A catered affair

With a staff of  about 70, to include their children Teresa and Tom Jr. (Tommy) the Perryman’s achieve close to 1,200 parties a year, which averages to about 25 to 30 events a week and an average revenue of about $4 million a year.

While the hub of their business is barbeque, the scope of what they can do is much larger than most people think—and its pig logo may be the culprit. “While we are known for our gourmet barbeque ribs, pork, slaw, beans, and potato salad,” says Teresa, “Unless you know us, you don’t realize we can do a large variety of meals other than just BBQ like, meatloaf, spaghetti, seafood, gourmet foods, and the like.

“We can do the same events as the fancier hotels do downtown for upscale weddings, banquets, corporate picnics, corporate events and holiday parties—even with a pig as our mascot,” jokes Teresa.

Tom and Cathy also pride themselves on being able to offer turnkey events to customers. “If the customer just wants food, they can get just food. If they want to just rent tents, they can just rent tents,” says Cathy. “If they want it all, they can have it all—it really is all about what they want and/or need for their event.”

This turnkey mindset is also what helped them branch into aiding in disaster relief and obtaining government contracts.

Discovering new avenues

In 1990, during Desert Storm, they acquired their first government contract to feed the troops during amilitary exercise at Fort Stewart. “I remember that we had just bought a fax machine and were still learning how to use it, but we had to get the signed contract to them by midnight,” says Tom. “We faxed it over just before midnight and started feeding thousands of troops the next morning for the next three weeks, 24 hours a day.”

After successfully completing Fort Stewart, they started looking for other jobs that were similar in volume and began acquiring work with power companies such as JEA, Florida Power and Light, Sumter Electric Cooperative, and other commercial companies around Florida. It was then they realized that the training exercise resources could be used in hurricane disaster relief.

When the hurricanes hit in the early 2000s, they were ready to assist. “We would go in with these companies, set up, and be there to support the community and feed the linemen and the tree trimmers and the people that were there to bring the community back to life,” says Cathy.

It was after completing these events successfully that Tom and Cathy began to explore government contracts.

Good work if you can get it

Teresa, who was working in retail management at the time, was asked by her parents to come back and help work the government contracts. “Mom had just acquired a GSA (U.S. General Services Administration, www.gsa.gov) contract, but was just not sure what to do next and asked me to figure it out,” says Teresa. “I soon figured it out and we started winning contracts. Our first major contract was in Wyoming feeding soldiers from Nebraska, 24 hours a day for 30 days during a military training exercise.”

When they returned, they received a phone call from someone who found them through the GSA directory. He had a customer, who was looking to use a GSA contractor, but he was not on schedule, he said would you be interested in priming the contract under your GSA schedule and letting me supply you all the life support resources for the exercise. Of course, Teresa said, “Yes,” and their second major contract ended up lasting 56 days and served 150,000 meals.

“Life support resources include sleeping tents, shower and laundry trailers, toilets, fuel and water tankers, power generation, cots, dining facilities, tents, tables, chairs, lighting—all the items you need to set up what we call ‘base camp,’” says Teresa.

Knowing those same resources are used after an emergency as well, they took some of the contract money and reinvested it into the company. They purchased more life support resources for themselves so they can be the one vendor clients can call that has or can get all the resources—be turnkey.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to continue working for a year and a half in Ohio providing base camp resources,” continues Teresa.

Working the deal

Teresa has spent the last five years focusing on government contracting and post-disaster contracting. She admits to writing hundreds of bids—winning some, losing some, but learning the ins and outs of contracting in general as she went along.

Obtaining government and commercial work, especially when it comes to hurricane relief, takes time, with a lot of backend work. “You have to find the jobs, bid on them, hopefully win them, and then secure them,” says Teresa. “You have to do a lot of work prior to a hurricane because once it hits, you don’t have time to be doing all the details. All I have to do is pull the file and the plan is already laid out, which I can’t execute unless a hurricane hits.”

With many of the foundations laid, she is looking now at expanding. “I have made critical industry connections and am a more knowledgeable bidder now,” says Teresa. “We did a few small jobs to get the big jobs, and did some big jobs so we could go after the even bigger jobs.”

Country Caterers is currently pursuing a second GSA contract. The second contract will position them to be able to bid on more base camp exercises, giving the ability to provide operations, logistics and management support to the U.S. military on a larger scale.

They have also used their GSA contract at the city level to secure post-disaster contracts and other city work. Through the Federal Business Opportunity (FBO), they acquired a post-disaster FEMA contract. “If and/or when a hurricane hits, I come in right after the storm to support FEMA’s search and rescue team, setting up a smaller scale base camp,” says Teresa. “They will use me for various life support resources. It’s a great contract, but, unfortunately, there needs to be a hurricane to execute it.”

Re-energizing focus

Even though they are active in government contracts, they can’t—and won’t—forget about the local market. “We maintain a nice balance between our government work and our local market because it’s cyclical and you don’t know what next month holds,” says Tom. “We don’t focus on just one thing at a time; you can’t. You have to be able to do all the different types of jobs to sustain work 365 days a year—diversifying has been a key to our growth and continued success.”

Over the years they have noticed that their different lines of work “flip-flop.” “Some years the government work will generate 80% of our revenue and the corporate/local side will produce only 20%,” says Cathy. “And other years it flips, and the corporate/local side generates 80% and the government work generates 20%. We just fill in the months with what available to us.”

Teresa, being a numbers kind of a person, thinks it will flip flop again soon and is concentrating on re-energizing the local market. “Our core customers haven’t gone anywhere, they just haven’t been able to do as much as in the past,” says Teresa. “By ‘maintaining’ relationships with our customers through the good times and tough times, we hope to continue their support and commitment as in years past.”

It takes adaptability

“If the customer wants it, you need to be able to adapt and get what they need,” says Tommy. “There is no, ‘I can’t get that for you.’ Only, ‘Yes I can.’ That is one of the reasons why we are where we are today.”

“We may not always get it right, but we don’t fail,” says Tom. “There are times that we could’ve done better, but I haven’t met a company yet that’s perfect. We do make mistakes, but when we make them we admit them and work to correct them for the next time.”

“I can pretty much tell you the growth of the business is because of my parent’s original vision,” says Teresa. “That and my father’s motto of ‘Large or small—we cook them all!’ I am very proud of my parents’ accomplishments; they are my heroes.”

All of this together explains why Country Caterers BBQ has been such a longstanding premiere catering company in Jacksonville and is more than just great barbecue.

Wendy Bautista is the editor of Advantage Small Business Magazine. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-222-8140.

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Business vitals

Owner: Tom and Cathy Perryman

In business since: Late ’70s, incorporated Country Caterers BBQ in 1981

Projected growth: “We will definitely continue to do government contracting work, and will keep the emergency disaster relief contracts active—but you can’t call that part growth unless a hurricane strikes or you land a contract, unfortunately,” say Teresa. “We will also continue to grow our local customers, but the major vision is to have a facility in town to house our own events.

“We would like to own a 20-30 acre facility which contains a banquet space for 1,000 or more people, halls, grounds, etc. where we could do more than one event at a time and sustain all of our customer’s different needs. For our local business, that is the one element that customers need that we have not been able to provide for them. It would be the final episode of our turnkey event solution.”

How you can do it

“Buy and build your company, but constantly reinvest in your company,” says Tom.  “You might have to sacrifice for a few years, but you want to be smart about where you spend your money.”

“There will be times when you are going to fail in one way or another,” says Cathy. “It’s how you pick yourself up and move on that makes you successful because we haven’t always done it right. You have to meet the customer, follow through, do what you say you are going to do and if you still fail, then you correct it.”

“I wouldn’t say there was one thing that made us successful,” says Tom. “It really is the ability to never give up and to persevere. Look around; everything is an opportunity. It’s how you learn from those opportunities, do better, grow, and meet the ever changing demands. I guess it’s about having stamina.”

The growth-through-acquisition strategy of Krystal Klean and what you can learn

By Wendy Bautista

When Jeremy, Claire and Tony Morgan began Krystal Klean (www.KrystalKlean.com) window washing in 2001 with nothing but experience from growing up in the service industry, they never imagined it would become what it is today—a multifaceted company with two divisions which provide services on the exterior building envelope as well as services for corrosion control and coating for boats, cranes, buses, heavy equipment and large vehicles.

Getting started

“It was exciting in the early days when we would compete with each other to see who had the most success each day,” says Jeremy. “We would pass out close to 200 business cards and consider the day a success if we saw a 2.5% return.”

They were working out of Jeremy and Claire’s 800 square-foot home, sharing a car and a cell phone, with the front room acting as the office. “You couldn’t see one inch of wall space because we had notes, cards, charts and jobs all over the wall,” laughs Jeremy. “At that point, every cent we made went into the structure of the business so eventually it would be able to pay for our living.”

That persistence paid off, and within the first year they were able to, one by one, land 400 accounts, including companies such as Solantic, Sticky Fingers and Freebird Café.

Making strides

Shortly after their first year, the opportunity arose to buy a company. While Tony was cleaning windows at a Southside eye clinic, he was approached by a gentleman enquiring how much he was charging to clean windows. As Tony was explaining that he could get a price quote by calling the office, the gentleman was more interested in talking about selling his business.

“After looking into it, we brokered a deal and it worked,” says Tony. “It was just 14 accounts, but we retained them all.” With that, the acquisition of Busy Bee Window Cleaning was complete in 2002, and Krystal Klean has basically bought one company per year since then.

“As part of our buying strategy, we’ve developed a formula using a percentage of gross sales and it has worked very well for us,” says Jeremy. “Busy Bee would be the smallest company we’ve purchased and the largest would be 3,000 customers, resulting in significant gross revenue.”

Some other acquisitions include Hites, Klear View, Vision, and Hobbs Industries, in which 90% of the customers retained Krystal Klean as their service provider.

Handling the sale

“Many of the companies we’ve purchased have been, on average, in business for 25 years so properly handling the acquisition has taken some finesse,” says Jeremy.

“Handing over the reins is a challenging process for anyone, but especially a small business owner who has developed relationships with their customer base,” adds Tony. “The name of their business becomes a part of that individual so they have difficulty handing over their company without confidence that their customers will be treated in the same manner.”

“A few of the companies we have purchased have been distressed sales so walking out this process is challenging as we work our way through a maze of business issues mixed with personal drama,” continues Jeremy. “While helping someone through what might be considered a winter season in their life, you lose if it’s all business. If you can make it a portion of heart and a portion of business, however, you can make your way through the merger.”

Making the transition

The Morgans have achieved success by making the transition process a personal one. Their first step is requiring the seller to write an introduction letter which explains the transition, thanks the customer for their past years of service and introduces Krystal Klean as the new owners.

Then a meeting is scheduled with each customer in which the seller introduces the new owners in person. Krystal Klean then shows a presentation demonstrating their diverse value and service packages and begins discussions with the client on how they will honor the existing rates and presents opportunities for improving or adding services.

“Each company we’ve purchased has had five to 10 key clients which have been loyal for the life of that company.” says Jeremy. “Some have gone back 20 years and the only way we had an opportunity to serve them was through merging.”

“Key to making the merge a success is finding out what the previous company did to meet the clients’ needs, duplicating that process and then asking, ‘What can we do to make it better?’” adds Tony.

“Making that owner transition is huge,” says Jeremy. “There is buying the company and settling with the owner, and then there is transitioning with the customers on his list—and those are two completely different interactions, but they are crucial interactions.”

Moving assets

One thing in the transition that is essential is forwarding the seller’s phone lines to a Krystal Klean line. “From then on, there will be a steady stream of phone calls coming in to our office,” says Jeremy. “We make sure the phone is answered using the old company’s name as well as our name so the customer hears both names. It cuts down on hang-ups or people thinking they have the wrong number and increases continuity.”

Krystal Klean also transfers ownership of the previous company’s trade name and uses the name and logo in a joint advertisement for a six-month period. They gradually drop the previous company’s name—making the transition to Krystal Klean complete.

“In these transitions, it is amazing the intangible emotional attachment people have,” adds Tony. “After owning a business for 25 years or so, a business owner has thought through his logo, he has thought through what equipment he needed—all the things he gave a lot of thought and energy and emotion to to tie it in with him and the person he is, so using it for six months, gives a little bit of excitement and honor to the seller.”

“He gets to show and say he sold it to someone bigger and it provides so much more goodwill,” says Tony.

Not without its problems

“Mostly when we purchase a company we buy a customer list and the goodwill, which is the phone number and trade name,” says Tony. “One instance when we didn’t, someone else picked up the name, hired the old secretary, and started doing business under that trade name. In that case, we lost four key accounts—three of which we were able to acquire through organic growth.”

“There are lots of stories we can tell on different problems because buying a business isn’t a problem-free adventure—every single time it takes your breath away,” says Jeremy. “There is so much to learn and so much to experience each time. Tony, Claire and I sometimes just look at each other and say, ‘What did we do?’ but then the next month the phone rings and you do it again.”

“We’ve encountered challenges with each purchase,” adds Claire. “Each company has had problems which were not discovered until after the sale, but it all comes with good, and of course, some have been better than others.”

“We’ve made mistakes, but shouldered through them and recognized what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.” says Jeremy.

Adding services

They are quickly approaching 50 key customers, which produce roughly 80% of their income, and handle a master list of 10,000 customers—with 2,500 of them being recurring active customers and others on an “as needed” basis.

“We don’t discount the small the jobs,” adds Tony. “The amount of activity makes us highly visible and gets our name out there.”

In Oct. 2008, the Morgans expanded their services and added a second division, and just recently restructured. “Krystal Companies is the name of our company with Krystal Klean as a division,” says Claire.

“Krystal Klean is the building services division consisting mostly of work for the exterior envelope of the building, which includes window washing, pressure washing, painting, restoration, caulking, waterproofing, all and everything to do with the outside exterior façade of the building,” continues Jeremy. “Krystal Companies is the transportation services division, which is everything from boats to cranes to heavy equipment to cars to buses—anything in that arena.”

Gaining ground

In the first two weeks of operation, Krystal Companies landed a military contract for paint and body work on 30 vans with a two week deadline. “After that was accomplished well, it essentially turned our paint and body work division into a huge and successful business overnight,” says Jeremy. “And two years later, the military is 1/3 of our business.”

“We had an 11 boat contract with the U.S. Navy which lasted eight months and consisted of sand blasting, aluminum fabrication, five-step coating system, redoing the electronics, upholstery and many other items. This job led us into many exciting opportunities that have the potential to revolutionize our entire company,” adds Jeremy. “By demonstrating our ability to make it happen in a small way the doors have opened for much larger jobs.”

Taking on challenges

The Morgans are constantly finding ways to better describe what they do and admit they may have possibly gotten too diverse at times, “but we’re not afraid to take on challenges,” says Tony.

“We have Florida contractor’s licenses which increase our understanding of how our services relate to the other construction trades,” adds Jeremy. “We have an understanding of what it takes and how construction works so if a business approaches us to buy them, and it compliments or adds to what we do, we consider it.”

“Another industry challenge we face is working with heights. We have dedicated teams for all of the buildings above three stories. They are certified and trained with rope descension systems, swing stage scaffolding and manlifts,” adds Jeremy. “We maintain the most stringent safety policies due to our family and friends hanging from these ropes. With that in mind, the protection provided for our customers is of the highest quality.”

“We own the systems and the equipment that can access all exterior buildings of any height giving us the competitive advantage,” continues Jeremy.

Wendy Bautista is the editor of Advantage Small Business Magazine. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-222-8140.

Business vitals

Owner: Claire, Jeremy and Tony Morgan

In business since: 2001

Projected growth: “We have some fantastic key customers like Shands, JEA, St. Vincent’s, Bacardi, Anheuser Busch and RingPower, but our goal this year is to double our key customer count to 100,” says Jeremy.

How you can do it

“Window cleaning was always going to be just a stepping stone for us,” says Jeremy. “It wasn’t going to be the end goal, but because we were involved and active in it, it naturally grew—and grew larger than we ever expected.”

“It came from hard work, having a goal in mind and knowing that if we got out there and hustled the opportunities would come,” says Jeremy. “I always wondered what it would be like to have a million dollar company and once I reached that goal, I wondered what it would be like to have a multi-million dollar company. Once you achieve a set goal, ask yourself, ‘What goal am I chasing now?’ You have to set a goal to chase.”

“Success can be confining,” says Tony. “Understand what it means before you get into it. Knowing where you are going makes the road a lot easier to navigate. Project what the end result will be and make sure it is what you want.”

“You need to think long term and make sure you really want it. For some, they think they want to be a small business owner, but don’t look far enough out to see what it really means,” adds Tony.

“My father, Dennis Morgan, currently works for us in sales and quality control/papa and a quote you will often hear him say is ‘Pray as if it is up to God and work as if it is up to you.’’’

A day in the life

See Krystal Klean in action! Anchor Bruce Hamilton of News4Jax experiences one aspect of what Krystal Klean does on a daily basis at www.news4jax.com/news/Bruce-Window-Washing-2/-/475880/8583582/-/2sn5vnz/-/index.html.

Why Chad Perce was chosen as your 2012 Small Business Leader of the Year (SBLY)

By Wendy Bautista

Chad Perce, CEO and co-founder of iMethods (www.imethodsinc.com) and your Small Business Leader of the Year for 2012, began his business education before he could drive when he launched his first startup—a neighborhood lawn care empire in his hometown of Lake Mary. Even then, at the age of 15, he learned about the importance of delivering for the customer. “It was quickly apparent to me that the best way to earn and keep clients was to work hard and pay attention to the details,” says Perce.

Those early insights have served him well. Since founding iMethods’ original iteration, Medical Methods, in 2004, Perce and his business partner Clint Drawdy have grown the company from a clinical staffing firm with two full-time employees to an award-winning Information Technology (IT) recruiting and consulting corporation with a sizable staff and projected revenues of more than $10 million for 2012.

A push start

“I would love to say that iMethods was born out of a long and highly scientific market study, but it really grew out of a confluence of skills, experience and opportunity, given an extra push by a dare,” says Perce. “Clint and I had strong combined backgrounds in IT and recruiting and we’d dreamed of starting our own company since the late 1990s.”

Perce says iMethods might still be a dream if their wives didn’t challenge them to “put up or shut up” at a family barbecue, which was also about the time an existing client helped him identify a need for clinical staffing in the medical field.

Energized by the opportunity and the challenge, Drawdy and Perce started Medical Methods in January 2004, recruiting physical, occupational and speech therapists for national and local clients.

Based on their existing relationships with Baptist Health and Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, Medical Methods was ahead of the demand for contract therapy services, which put them on the leading edge of the market and well in front of their larger competition.

“Our good timing, positioning and newfound expertise in the medical therapy market allowed us to launch nationally with clients such as RehabCare, Heartland and Tenet,” says Perce. “We achieved annual revenues of $415,000 our first year with just two employees—myself and Clint—doing all the selling as well as operating and delivering for our clients. Three years later, that business reached its peak at $3.6 million in annual revenues.”

Making changes

As the market matured and competition pushed margin and supply down for contract therapy services, they diversified their footprint and transitioned away from the now-sluggish clinical skill sets business model to a faster, more agile model in technology.

“It was a wonderful chance to reconnect with old friends in the IT world and continue building our business,” says Perce. “We launched our new IT recruiting business, iMethods, in 2007, well aware that the shift in focus would slow our near-term growth, but believing it would be of great benefit down the road.”

Like many businesses, the recession was a big problem. Perce states that the recession may have affected them earlier than some because demand for recruiting services is an early indicator of economic health.

“The cherry on top of our recession sundae was the fact that we’d made a strategic decision to shift away from clinical staffing to IT services in response to competition and a changing marketplace,” says Perce. “We were in new territory, the economy was crashing around our ears, and the going got pretty tough for a while.”

But iMethods’ growth was noteworthy: revenues for the newer company grew from $1.5 million (2008) to $2.1 million (2009) to $2.8 million (2010). In the fall of 2010, they sold Medical Methods in order to focus exclusively on iMethods and develop the structure of the present corporation and map out the road ahead.

The right decision

For Perce and Drawdy, the decision to refocus on technical staffing was the right one. iMethods has been ranked in the “Inc. 500” (399)/”Inc. 5000” (3,790), placed sixth in the Jacksonville Business Journal’s “Fast 50” in 2008, and was designated twice as one of the community’s  “Companies that Care” by Jacksonville Magazine.

Of the various recognitions, the value-driven Perce particularly cherishes the five “Best Places to Work” awards from Florida Trend and the Jacksonville Business Journal. “I am passionate about the culture of our company,” he says. “If our internal relationships are strong and we stick to our values, our external performance is better and our work is more fulfilling.

“We have diligently worked to create a culture that supports individual growth, healthy relationships and the highest good for all concerned, but we’re well aware that sometimes even the best intentions can erode in the face of the daily struggle to succeed.

“The fact that we’ve been able to preserve a sound culture while garnering positive results for our clients, employees and job candidates is a source of daily satisfaction.”

And with that, iMethods is now an award-winning, values-driven IT staffing and consulting company. Its premier healthcare IT consulting division pairs world-class experts with leading healthcare providers to provide customized consulting options. Its local IT recruiting division identifies and employs top technical professionals in specialties ranging from desktop and network engineering to .NET and application development.

Today, iMethods’ two divisions are expected to exceed $6 million for 2011.

Looking forward

iMethods has been blessed with tremendous growth, which Perce believes has stemmed from strategic thinking, visionary planning, innovative management, and unwavering adherence to their core values—with a healthy dose of outside wisdom and serendipitous timing thrown in.

“I have set and implemented strategies for its growth ever since its inception, successfully anticipating and responding to market trends in a way that has made iMethods nimble and profitable—even in the worst economic recession of our lifetime,” says Perce.

“While our path hasn’t always been easy, our constant commitment to lifting up our employees, recruits and the community has resulted in success beyond our fondest dreams. It has also allowed us to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals and our community. We are truly on a mission!” Perce continues.

“This business was founded on faith, and Clint and I have adhered to our mission and values since day one. By matching skilled professionals with the needs of business, we create value for our clients, ourselves and our candidates, and we are proud and honored to have the opportunity of providing meaningful work for individuals and helping to grow the economy of this community we love.

“Although in different roles, Clint and I have worked together from the beginning,” says Perce, “and any recognition of my leadership is also recognition of his contributions. Our business partnership is a primary ingredient to our success.”

Wendy Bautista is the editor of Advantage Small Business Magazine. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-222-8140.

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Business vitals

Owner: Chad Perce and Clint Drawdy

In business since: 2004

Projected growth: “My role has been to set strategy and direction for both divisions in anticipation of—and response to—market trends; then successfully execute that strategy. I believe our growth has stemmed from strategic thinking and strong adherence to our core values, with a healthy dose of great advice and fortunate timing thrown in.

“By utilizing the expertise of a volunteer advisory board, playing to our strengths and planning at least two steps ahead for the future, iMethods has been on the leading edge of contract medical services and electronic medical records while meeting the ongoing need for high-quality IT recruiting.

“In the process, the company has grown from a clinical staffing firm with two full-time employees and first-year revenues of $415,000 to an award-winning IT recruiting and consulting corporation with a sizable staff and projected revenues of more than $10 million for 2012.

“Our Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for the next three years is to exceed $20 million in revenues,” says Perce.

How you can do it

“My partner Clint Drawdy and I are quick to admit we don’t know everything about running a business. Fortunately, we know a number of people who collectively know everything we don’t—and five of them have generously agreed to serve on our volunteer advisory board,” says Perce.

The volunteer advisory board, which has met frequently since just before Perce and Drawdy formed the original company, provides wise counsel, holds them accountable for results, and is generally a blessing to them throughout the life of the business. With intellect, experience and expertise, they provide a sounding board for strategy; answer questions about banking, legal matters and operations; and perform a host of other valuable functions.

“They are anxious to help and have greatly shaped and influenced our business for the better,” states Perce. “Creating the board may have been the single best step we took in planning our business development!

“When we first formed Medical Methods, Clint and I were experts at sales and delivery, but encyclopedically ignorant on just about every other aspect of running a business,” says Perce. “The advisory board’s expertise and wise counsel has been critical to iMethods’ ability to transcend challenges.”

A book titled, “Now, Discover your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton ended up being another critical success element. Perce recalls how the message of the book—working to address your weaknesses wastes valuable time and energy and how you should play to your strengths instead—profoundly affected the way they viewed themselves and their workforce.

“When we altered some employees’ roles in accordance with this idea, they blossomed,” says Perce. “They gained greater satisfaction from their work and became more productive as well. We continue to apply the ‘strengths’ principle on many levels with excellent results. In fact, we apply it to our interview process, requiring promising candidates to complete a ‘strengths profile’ to confirm they’re the right match for a specific position.”

Perce and Drawdy also account iMethods’ survival, growth and subsequent success with their commitment to trying at least one or two new ideas each year. “Our wheels are always turning, especially when it comes to creating close or synergistic lines of service that could increase our footprint in the marketplace,” says Perce. “We operate on the theory that baiting multiple hooks increases your chance for a good catch, even in the rough economic waters we’ve all had to navigate over the past several years.”

Giving back

Because of iMethods’ focus on service, it’s not surprising that it has been active not just on behalf of its clients and employees, but to the larger community as well. Upon founding the business, Perce started an internal Mercy Ministry to support the employees and the community in times of need.

To date, that ministry has conducted numerous food and clothing drives and provided monetary support for individuals and families in crisis. The company has also supported numerous local charities, including the Boselli Foundation, The Sulzbacher Center, Make a wish Foundation, Heart for the Heartless and the MS Society.

Its major community focus, however, has been its association with Baptist Health Foundation, primarily through activities to benefit Wolfson Children’s Hospital.

“I am the founding and current chair of the One to Grow On Ultra Marathon, which raised more than $1.1 million to date, I served on the 2011 committee for The King of the Court Tennis Challenge, and we all participate annually in Wolfson’s Red Wagon Parade,” states Perce.

Along with the rest of the committee that conceived and implemented the Ultra Marathon, Perce made a three-year commitment (through 2013) to the race, with a goal of raising $1.5 million toward the purchase of a 3 Tesla MRI, a piece of equipment that will reduce the need for invasive exploratory procedures on children. This equipment will be installed in the new tower currently under construction at the hospital’s downtown campus.

“Learning the stories of children who have received care at Wolfson’s has been incredibly touching, and I am honored and proud to be associated with this incredible organization,” says Perce.

Another event connected with One to Grow On is Run 5 to Keep Kids Alive, a five-mile race that takes place during the overall event. iMethods is the title sponsor for the 2012 run and was the Internet Sponsor for the overall Ultra Marathon in 2011.

In the local business community, iMethods is a member of the Chamber’s Jacksonville IT Council (JITC) and is also active in multiple technology groups such as the Jacksonville Developers User Group (JAXDUG). Many of the JITC members are active in JAXDUG, which provides opportunities for developers to learn from each other through speakers, forums and mentoring, culminating in an annual educational intensive called “Code Camp.”

“We have supported this event in numerous ways over the years and enjoy the opportunity to share knowledge with our colleagues in the region,” says Perce.

Business planning

“For many years, we have followed Verne Harnish’s process for developing an annual One Page Plan for our business. As part of the Gazelles organization, Verne mentored us through a three-year entrepreneurial Master’s program hosted by MIT in Boston.

“While the plan is only one page, creating it is a complex exercise that helps solidify the company’s core values, purpose, and actions. The plan defines a one-year goal, a three-year target, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other valuable guideposts that keep us on track.

“Complementing the One Page Plan is our standard meeting rhythm, which follows the metrics outlined in the plan. Our teams have daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual meetings that focus on communication and progress toward our stated goals,” says Perce.

“While this may sound like over communication, quick and effective meetings with well-defined agendas have been critical to iMethods’ success and momentum.”

One of these 11 business leaders will be named the overall 2012 Chamber Small Business Leader of the Year Jan. 19. Stayed tuned to meet the winner!

“We congratulate our 2012 Small Business Leader of the Year winners,” said John Bryan, director of the Beaches Division and Chamber Councils. “They are exemplary leaders who have achieved great success in their respective fields and outstanding representatives of the Chamber’s membership.”

The 11 Northeast Florida business leaders were selected for the honor by the Chamber Councils, the Beaches Division and the Entrepreneurial Growth Division. One of these 11 business leaders will be named the overall 2012 Chamber Small Business Leader of the Year at the JAX Chamber’s Annual Meeting Jan. 19, 2012.

The 2012 Small Business Leader of the Year (SBLY) winners are:

Tara Yvette Forrest, Florida Imageworks and Promotions (www.floridaimageworks.com), Mandarin Council

Yvette is president of Forrest Florida Group Inc. dba Florida Imageworks & Promotions, a company that provides screen printing, embroidery, signs, printing, and promotional items from its manufacturing and retail location in Ponte Vedra. Yvette takes care of your apparel, promotional, sign, and marketing needs and is only limited by your imagination. She takes pride in branding your company in new, energetic, and creative ways.

Dr. Joanna Frantz, In Motion Physical Therapy (www.inmotionjax.com), Beaches Division

Joanna is owner of In Motion Physical Therapy, which provides physical therapy, massage therapy, post-surgical and cancer rehabilitation programs to the Jacksonville community. She works with local doctors to address the patient’s musculoskeletal diagnosis to correct their movement impairments. Along with medical services, she provides high-quality, injury specific rehabilitation equipment as appropriate for individual needs.

Ann Freeman, River City Security Services, Inc. (www.rivercitysecurity.com), Entrepreneurial Growth Division

Ann is president and CEO of River City Security Services, Inc., a woman-owned contract security guard and patrol agency providing armed and unarmed security services to customers in Jacksonville, Orlando and Ocala including non-profit organizations, select residential and special or seasonal security needs customers. She offers turn-key service for first-time security service buyers, with the majority of her customers being seasoned purchasers of contracted security solutions.

Sandy Knowles, Coordinated Benefits Group (www.jaxbenefits.com), North Council

Sandy is account executive at Coordinaed Benefits Group, Inc., an employee benefits and insurance solutions company that is small enough to care and know its clients, and big enough to serve its globally distributed employee population. Sandy researches and develops benefits packages for small to large businesses, implements and manages the company benefits, and provides human resource support, as well as claims and billing assistance.

Jennifer Marko, Bottle Snugglers (www.bottlesnugglers.com, Arlington Council

Jennifer is president of Marko Holdings, Inc. dba Bottle Snugglers, a plush animal designed to support a baby bottle at the proper feeding angle during baby’s feeding time, providing the feeder a free hand to tend to other tasks. She manufactures the patented baby bottle holders and sells them on her website and in stores, as well as on other retail websites in the United States and a few other countries.

Diana Otwell, Spectrum Signs and Graphics (www.spectrumsignsfl.com), South Council

Diana is president and owner of Spectrum Signs and Graphics, Inc., a full-service provider of signs and graphics products to local, regional and national companies. She provides quality sign manufacturing including wide-format digital printing, indoor and outdoor signs, ADA signs, trade show displays, channel lettering, custom banners, dimensional letters, engraved signs, menu boards, magnetics, illuminated signs, directories, routed and sandblasted signs, vehicle/fleet graphics and more.

Chad Perce, iMethods, LLC (www.imethodsinc.com), Jacksonville IT Council

Chad is CEO of iMethods, LLC, an award-winning, values-driven Information Technology (IT) staffing and consulting company serving both the healthcare industry and the broader business community. In the process, he also supports other businesses and entrepreneurs and provides meaningful opportunities for the skilled professionals he recruits. His highly personal, detail-oriented approach to client needs is rooted in his commitment to excellence and integrity.

Sandy Polletta, Edgewood Bakery (www.edgewoodbakery.com), West Council

Sandy is owner and vice president of Edgewood Bakery Inc., an award-winning, full-service bakery that has diversified its product line and structure to now include a breakfast and lunch café, full-service corporate and social catering, an on-premise banquet hall, an evening upscale bistro, outdoor courtyard dining and an online bakery with shipping for corporate or personal use. Her mission is to provide customers the best quality naked goods and food with the best customer service possible.

Ann Sabbag, Health Designs (www.healthdesigns.net), Jacksonville Health Council

Ann is founder and CEO of Health Designs, a company aimed at improving the health, well-being, and productivity of its clients’ employees. She helps companies improve employee health, contain health care costs and build a healthy and productive workplace by providing worksite health assessments, health screenings, and face-to-face health coaching that motivates participants toward positive lifestyle changes.

Kirsten Schneider, Dinners Direct (www.dinnersdirect.com), Professional Women’s Council

Kirsten is executive chef and owner of Dinners Direct, a delivery-only meal service that provides prepared, ready-to-cook meals. Customers order online from a monthly changing menu, and meals are packaged, labeled with cooking instructions, frozen and delivered to their home or office. Her mission is to help busy individuals and families put a nutritious meal on the table and reduce mealtime stress.

Jepp Walter, Marlin Technology (www.marlintech.us), Downtown Council

Jepp is owner of Marlin Technology, a technology based business supplying Information Technology services of many kinds, including but not limited to computer sales and support, PC help desk, network design and support, website design and hosting, telephone system sales and support, and data and telephone cabling. Jepp does this by helping customers understand their IT needs and desires and speaking to them in a language they can understand—not “techie.”

The power of youth in the workplace  

By Wendy Bautista

For the first time in American history, we are seeing four different generations working together in the workplace—with some demographers saying there are really five, depending on how the generations are defined.

With some traditionalists (those generally born between 1927 and 1945) remaining in the workforce and the Millennials (those generally born between 1981 and 2000) making their presence known, the workplace has never been more diverse.

“You need diversity and you need lots of it,” says Diana Peaks, executive director at Jacksonville University Center for Professional Studies and an adjunct business professor at Jacksonville University.

“You need cultural diversity, organizational diversity and you also need age diversity because every business works with people of all ages, and that diversity should provide you with a competitive advantage.”

Using that advantage

One company that uses age to its competitive advantage is 5ivecanons (www.5ivecanons.com). Adam Schaffer, Justin Dennis, and Michael Woeppel—all under the age of 30—together own and operate the Jacksonville Beach-based, full service advertising agency that focuses on consumer engagement.

“We like to say we fuse brands with culture,” says Schaffer, the creative director at 5ivecanons. “What that means is we develop immersive consumer experiences for our clients and their brands.”

While the diversity in this year-old company is not multi-generational, each member brings years of experience to the team from different areas and aspects of the industry.

“We knew each other before we started this company,” says Schaffer. “We’ve all been and worked in the industry for years, just in our separate roles—and we just brought all of those skills together to form 5ivecanons.”

Prior to each member’s work experience came years of schooling as well, with Schaffer attending undergraduate and graduate school to be a creative; Dennis, the digital strategist,  studying management information systems (computer science); and Woeppel, the executive producer, studying digital media art.

Breaking barriers

Even with years of experience behind each team member, they sometimes face apprehension from people in the workforce because of their age and youthful appearance. According to Peaks, this is not all that uncommon.

“There are some very intelligent young people out there and we need that, we need that to move forward, but it can be a barrier,” she says. “Where the younger workforce really should be judged on merit, some people, such as a traditionalist, may misjudge them based on their looks and question their experience and knowledge.”

5ivecanons has faced such apprehension head-on.

“One of the best questions we get asked is, ‘Who owns your company?’” says Dennis, with a laugh. “But I just take that with a grain of salt as there are some things we are still learning and I think we are getting smarter about.

“I do think it throws people off sometimes,” continues Dennis. “When we walk in, we will be immediately discounted because we’re not ‘senior’ or don’t have three offices in New York, Atlanta, and L.A. [yet].

“But what we offer is unique and we’re good at what we do,” continues Dennis. “I think people that see past our age and understand that we are experts in the things that we bring to them are the ones that work the best with us.”

“I’ve seen it happen a couple of times where we’ve gone to talk to a client and they are very standoffish when we first enter the room,” adds Woeppel, “But as Adam or Justin go into detail about Facebook or another channel the client doesn’t know very much about, you can see a change come over them. You can see their eyes light up because it clicks—they realize the potential and they realize that we know all the facets and ins and outs of all these mediums.”

The company’s approach

But none of this apprehension has slowed the three of them down. In their first year of business, they have gone from one to 15 clients, with clients such as Chick-fil-a, Community First Credit Union, Coggin Collision Center and Ethan Allen—and the list continues to grow as word spreads on their abilities. With most of their clients coming from referrals, they believe it is based on their five canons approach.

The idea behind 5ivecanons’s name and the basis of their business comes from ancient philosopher Cicero’s five canons of rhetoric. “Cicero used five canons when he spoke to a forum, and us being a digital agency, we also speak to a forum for our clients—we just use five different canons,” says Schaffer.

For every project they do, they use all of these five canons:

•Listening phase—they learn everything about their client’s audience;

•Strategy phase—they plan goals, timelines and milestones for their clients;

•Creative phase—they develop and produce all of the messaging and content;

•Distribution phase—they look at all the channels their client’s audiences are in; and

•Optimization phase—they try to improve everything they’ve done for every step along the way.

While the timing of each phase is different for each project, client and client’s needs, the phases are based on the scope of work in general. “The listening phase is generally our research phase and it can take some time—and that’s where we tend to see the gaps or areas where they could be benefitting from better systems,” says Dennis.

“We listen to the Internet in real time and then show our clients where their potential consumers are and networks they may want to be actively involved in or a contextual style they may want to use.”

“Many of our clients are somewhat technologically savvy and understand the channels and their audience,” adds Schaffer. “They are just looking for someone to improve where they are—and that’s where we come in. Part of our services is offering ways to brand your business to your audience through editorial plans and immersive Facebook applications.

“We develop something a little bit further than, ‘Here’s a post about what’s going on’ and in fact instruct them on when and what to post—such as separate messages, images, and videos, instead of saying, ‘Come on down for this great deal,’” says Schaffer.

“One thing you always want to do is create and present content that is going to engage people and really get them involved,” says Woeppel.

“We can then build data based on what people are clicking on and define not only a demographic but also a psychographic based on whether they watch more of your videos or click on your photos or answer polls,” says Dennis. “We can then make suggestions on technology that we think might be best.”

Woeppel adds, “And we also think of and consider these things as a whole and how they will all work together for the best result.”

Heart of it all

Knowing all of this helps 5ivecanons develop a strategy and the creative to match who they are addressing and from that they build a plan based on each concept. “We don’t put technology before concept so we don’t force anything into a technology,” says Schaffer. “We can then say, ‘This is the idea, here are the technologies that are best matched to that idea and what would you like to do?’ or sometimes it is, “This is what you should do and here are three ideas, which one do you like?”

Diversity for 5ivecanons also comes from how it utilizes crowdsourcing. The small core team is here, but they utilize an expansive network of 60 to 100 people that they work with—not just here in Jacksonville, but all over the world in places such as Dallas, New York, Mexico, Russia, and the Ukraine.

“What we like to do is reach out to people that we know are really, really good at what they do,” says Schaffer. “After the core team has gone through the listening and strategy phase of a project and are on to the creative phase, we will go to the network for something we need or need better—like a killer logo or someone that is an amazing developer for Facebook or Flash—and we get those people involved.

“It makes us a lot bigger, but keeps us still small,” says Schaffer. “And we get to pick the best to work with us—I don’t think we could ask for a better business model at this point!”

Keeping with the curve

With advances in technology happening every day, Schaffer, Dennis and Woeppel find themselves constantly searching for what is coming around the corner—but that doesn’t mean it will be right for their clients.

“We’ve seen ‘trying to be in front of the curve’ not necessarily work all the time,” says Dennis. “But staying right with the curve and knowing exactly where the audience is in relation to that technology curve is what’s important. We don’t bring technology to somebody unless we know there is going to be a use for it on the other end—it has to be  the right fit for their target audience.”

“We are always looking for new things,” says Woeppel. “But as Justin said, if we get too far ahead of the curve, it will go right over our client’s head and so it’s finding that fine balance.”

“I think it’s always a balance between what our client’s needs are and what their audience is,” says Schaffer. “We’re not a technology shop; we’re not inventing anything new; we’re just leveraging those tools for the right channel and for the right audience.”

Learning and challenging

“Technology changes every month and so we’re constantly being challenged,” says Schaffer. “But every day we challenge ourselves and each other, and we learn new things about business and about ways to communicate—and that’s why we love what we do.

“We are all very passionate and have goals and a vision,” continues Schaffer. “And because of that we’re going to challenge each other and we’re going to argue, but we turn that into a dialogue to make sure we have the best product for our clients.”

“I think with all of us being so passionate about the industry, we always end up producing an amazing product,” says Woeppel.

“I think we are hungry for it,” adds Schaffer. “We’re really passionate and each one of us bring something incredible to the table and these are some of the smartest guys I’ve ever met in my entire life—so it makes it easy for us to do this because we are so hungry for it.”

“And we are super competitive,” adds Dennis. “If a company looks down at us for our young age, we’ll challenge them to place us against another shop.”

“We like those challenges,” adds Schaffer. “If they are going to put us against another, maybe ‘older’ shop in town; we are going to bring our A-game. That’s what it boils down to—we’re in business here and we want to do great work, and being young we like challenges! Bring it on!”

Wendy Bautista is the editor of Advantage Small Business Magazine. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

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Utilizing the youth

5ivecanons’s clientele has climbed from one account to 15 in a year—with the list continuing to grow as word spreads of their abilities. To see what this “young gun” team can do and see some of the companies that are utilizing them, visit:

Chick-fil-a: http://www.5ivecanons.com/rhetoric/mobile/turn-consumers-into-the-advertising-message/
Community First: http://www.5ivecanons.com/rhetoric/mobile/community-first-credit-union/
Ethan Allen: http://www.5ivecanons.com/rhetoric/social-media/ethan-allen/

Business vitals

Owners: Adam Schaffer, Justin Dennis and Michael Woeppel

In business since: 2010

Projected growth: “I think our work speaks for itself,” says Schaffer. “We sent out an email to our network and it was just our reel of recent work and with that people saw the work and want to work with us. It wasn’t like we were trying necessarily to bring in business; they just saw the scope of what we are capable of and want to work with us.”

Dennis adds, “In the first year, we went from one to 15 clients and we are expecting to double our revenue this year—and then we’ll go from there and hopefully the trend will continue.”

“But I do see the most growth happening by way of mobile and social media—that is where we are just really booming,” says Schaffer.

Woeppel adds, “Yes, this year is the first year that mobiles outsold desktops.”

“In the United States, 53% of Americans are using a smart phone,” says Dennis. “Even though it’s still a very personal device and still has a personal sense, if we can get our clients on that very personal device, it’s almost an intimate connection, which is why I thinks it’s going to be a huge market.”

How you can do it

“Be as passionate and as hard working as you possibly can,” says Schaffer. “It’s a really tough economy right now and an even tougher industry, and I think just having skills or an education will not cut it—you have to be hungry, passionate, smart and dedicated to what you do. You have to be committed to the end result.”

Woeppel adds, “It’s being agile and reading and keeping up on trends and just keeping up with it all. You should always be searching, always looking for new things.”

Dennis adds, “I think our model is unique in crowdsourcing. The book ‘The World is Flat’ by Thomas Friedman explained that people who manage their channels the best and how they get their work done from a global perspective are going to be extremely successful.

“It’s no longer this 50-person shop in one place because you can reach different people around the world if  you embrace the idea that the world is flat and get savvy about how to use technology in your business, and even cut corners and save money.”

How AD&D Inc. successfully modified Cold War technology for the needs of today

By Wendy Bautista

With a motto stating, “Success measured by solutions,” you know Gary Donoher, president of Analysis, Design & Diagnostics Inc. (AD&D Inc., www.adndinc.com) sets his reputation on the line and expects to succeed—and he and his team work hard to make it happen.

“We measure our success by the solutions we bring to our customers,” says Donoher, whose customers include defense and commercial industries, such as the U.S. Navy, the oil and gas industry, and port authorities.

With these customers, come unique needs. Since AD&D is a solution-oriented company with a unique knowledge of undersea acoustics in complex marine environments, they make solutions happen by hiring only those with real world experience—with many employees being former Navy acousticians.

Days of yesteryear

“When we first started out in 1992 it was during the height of the Cold War,” says Donoher. “In those days, we basically supplied onsite support and provided mission reconstruction and data analysis—and during the height it was a good business to be in.”

Acoustics during the Cold War generally meant listening for enemy submarines and communications. “As the Cold War started winding down, however, we saw the writing on the wall and said we’ve got to be able to do other things.”

That was when he started looking into what else he could do. “One thing we’ve always done as a company for the Navy was act as an independent agent for them so companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, USSI and others would develop technology and the Navy would have us evaluate it,” says Donoher.

It was during those evaluations that they discovered they knew more about the Navy’s problems and probably had the solutions than the companies who were developing the technology. That was when they started moving into the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, a highly competitive program that encourages domestic small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) that has the potential for commercialization.

Getting innovative

Under the SBIR/STTR program, the Navy issues solicitations four times a year where it identifies a problem it has and then a company writes a response to that problem on how it can solve it. The Navy then evaluates all proposals, and based on your technological proposal, may give you a Phase I award.

According to SBIR, the objective of Phase I is to establish the technical merit, feasibility, and commercial potential of the proposed R/R&D efforts and to determine the quality of performance of the small business awardee organization prior to providing further Federal support in Phase II. SBIR Phase I awards normally do not exceed $150,000 total costs for 9 months.

The objective of Phase II is to continue the R/R&D efforts initiated in Phase I. Funding is based on the results achieved in Phase I and the scientific and technical merit and commercial potential of the project proposed in Phase II. Only Phase I awardees are eligible for a Phase II award. SBIR Phase II awards normally do not exceed $1,000,000 total costs for two years.

The objective of Phase III, where appropriate, is for the small business to pursue commercialization objectives resulting from the Phase I/II R/R&D activities. The SBIR program does not fund Phase III. Phase III may involve follow-on non-SBIR funded R&D or production contracts for products, processes or services intended for use by the U.S. Government.

“If you go to Phase III, it could be up to a $25 million contract where you could now be on every platform out there,” says Donoher.

Finding a solution

“One of the biggest problems the Navy has faced in recent years was being accused of harming and killing whales and dolphins with its active SONAR during exercises,” says Donoher.

In fact, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought a lawsuit against the Navy in 2008 stating the active SONAR poses a deadly threat to whales and other marine mammals. The case went to the Supreme Court, which sided with the Navy—but as part of the settlement, the Navy agreed to do a better job about not harming the animals and to do the best it can to be aware of where they are. They want to be able to take action if they get too close and be able to turn SONAR off or to maneuver around. “If there are whales in front of them, they want to know how to avoid them,” says Donoher.

This opened up many opportunities for AD&D.

“We use an acoustic intercept system which accepts all acoustic noise,” says Mike Jackson, the COO of AD&D. “We kind of knew from the word ‘go’ that yeah you want a marine mammal detection mitigation system and there are things to do with that, but we all knew and understood from our backgrounds that the core of this was what we dealt with for years [in the Navy]. We just need to adapt it to whatever it needs to be adapted to—adding function to what already exists.”

From years of listening for enemies and such underwater, they also knew the sounds of a biological being. So what was of no importance in their Navy days has turned into their competitive advantage.

The successes

•MMDM: AD&D’s Marine Mammal Detection Mitigation (MMDM) program is an automated system that passively detects and automatically classifies marine mammal vocalizations prior to the activation of active sonar systems for the Navy.

“We’ve developed this technology from a Phase I through a Phase III STTR program, with Duke University Marine Laboratory and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution working with us as support contractors,” says Donoher. “This system is on a couple of ships right now and has been at sea and tested and evaluated.”

According to Donoher, the Navy’s P-3 Orion community had a similar problem and AD&D responded to its solicitation with a multichannel system.

“When we first started, we used to classify by saying it’s a marine mammal or SONAR, but we can classify now to a certain species and say if it’s a sperm whale or a North Atlantic right whale,” says Donoher.

The system automatically classifies it, has it show up on a classification display with the points of where the signals were captured and allows the operator to play it back if necessary. “Because the Navy is now looking to reduce manpower levels, we are trying to automate this process 100% to where an operator doesn’t need to be involved,” says Donoher.

Under that same program, AD&D developed a sensor that gets anchored to the ocean bottom and floats about 6 feet to 8 feet off the ocean floor, where it can record data 24 hours a day, seven days a week on an SD card that is integrated into the acoustic modem.

“A file that has approximately 1.5 man years of data—2,772 hours—would take an acoustic analyst 1.5 years to get through, but with our processors with a much higher data rate we are able to get through that data in a short amount of time because of the automation,” says Donoher. “In a two hour file, we can process eight hours of data. We are currently modifying our technology to run at higher data rates.”

•MADPT PS: The Marine Assessment, Decision and Planning Tool for Protected Species (MADPT PS) is a software-based tool for use by environmental and operational mission planners to decrease interactions with protected marine species and assess impact prior to and after exercises.

“Any time the Navy does an active SONAR exercise or training they have to log all of their active SONAR missions and any mammal sightings,” says Donoher. “The sighting info is required any time they do any major exercise, but the sonar is required every day. When a Navy ship turns on its SONAR, they have to log every active emission and report it, and that goes into a central database.”

AD&D has developed two systems to help. One is the Automated-SONAR Positional ReportingSystem (A-SPORTS), which taps into the ship’s network and automatically extracts every time the SONAR pings as well as the latitude and longitude of the ship and all of the pertinent information required; and the other is the Automatic Logging Reporting System (ALRS), which is a handheld device for reporting sightings of marine mammals

Donoher is hopeful these systems will be next to go to Phase III.

Moving forward

“Our goal is to continue to improve that technology (spiral development) so as it goes on board the platforms or is developed, we continue to make improvements,” says Donoher.

“Eventually you come out of the ‘phase’ program, and that’s really the goal,” adds Jackson. “To get it to the point of where they say, ‘Yes, I need to get this in and get this into the budget and we’re going to get it into the program of record.’ Then it just becomes that it was an SBIR program and now it’s a program of record, and you stay in the spiral development for as long as they need to use it and need support for it.”

“We found out that it’s the hardest part,” says Donoher. “What we’ve seen in the past is some sponsors are remiss and slow about getting the funding in place, so we’re trying to get better at working with our program sponsors to start that transition process sooner in the phase process.”

Success is in the staff

Donoher says one of the things he always tried to do as a company was never be a “body shop.”

“We just haven’t gone after contract work just to get contract work because that can only last a couple of years and then all of a sudden you’re laying people off,” says Donoher. “When we bring people on, we want to be able to offer them long-term employment, good benefits, keep them around for a while, and have a good core group of folks. Not have the body shop mentality that a lot of companies out there seem to have.”

So how can a company with 10 people do so well? Be up to the challenges, says Donoher.

“The problem with being a small company is that contracting officers are  more likely to give a contract to a company like Lockheed Martin because if they fail they can say, ‘Well, I gave it to Lockheed—a well-known company in the industry,’” says Donoher. “But if they give it to us and we fail, they are going to get blamed and asked, ‘Why did you give it to that small company?’

“So one challenge is to really show that we can do the same type of work these big companies can,” says Donoher. “That’s a challenge we face every day—but we’re up to the challenge. We love it and are ready to take it on!”

Wendy Bautista is the editor of Advantage Small Business Magazine. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

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Business vitals

Owner: Gary Donoher

In business since: 1992

Projected growth: “We are going to continue to develop technology and try to work with integrators to get our technology into other platforms. Our technology has other applications that can be spun off for many other things.

“Anything that vocalizes, we can track. We are currently working to alter our acoustic detection and classification technology to fulfill an Air Force SBIR request for detecting and classifying desert animals. We have a proposal in to take our technology and modify it to their needs, and use our folks to process the data.

“We are also developing a handheld device for Navy divers that will alert them to the presence of ships or active SONARS and create situational awareness, and we just had a kickoff for a program with John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory working with the Navy’s unmanned undersea vehicles, which could basically replace the submarine fleet,” says Donoher.

“What they need is a lightweight navigation system to navigate those platforms because they can’t surface to get a GPS position and don’t know how fast they are going or if they are drifting. We are building a system that pings at a high frequency and we’re getting the reflections and measuring the vectors and then passing that information along to John Hopkins. They will then develop an algorithm that measures the drift of the vessel as it goes through the water and also measure its speed.

“I was also on phone with Fleet Forces Command and it wants 20 of our A-SPORTS handheld devices with some in Hawaii, San Diego, Jacksonville and Norfolk, and then they will issue them to the ships.

“Now our job will be to make modifications based on their requirements and to put together a training program. Every now and then we will have to show how to use the system and qualify people to use it.”

How you can do it

“It always takes perseverance and hard work,” says Donoher. “Because I had been in the field, I kind of understood a little bit about the contracting perspective but not very much because I worked primarily on the technical side. So I spent a lot of time learning how the system works and still do on a daily basis—it’s a learning process.”

“I’m not sure I can say we would be where we are today without doing the SBIR/STTR program,” says Jackson.

“Even though it has pretty clear-cut guidelines, it is still trial and error for some SBIR/STTR bids,” says Donoher.

“It takes a lot of patience and time,” says Jackson. “You also have to let some of these other people or program sponsors that may not know you or your work , get to know you. “

“Yes, it takes a lot of developing personal relationships and branding, and in the last two years I’ve spent more time in Washington, D.C. than I ever have,” says Donoher. “It is getting up there in front of folks and talking about and showing them our technology. Some say they can do it, but I take a laptop running our technology with me to show what we can do.”

Classroom Technology Solutions is doing more with less in the modern classroom.

By Wendy Bautista

What started with a 2-foot-by-2-foot square metal ceiling projector mount has turned into amultimillion dollar business that supports the K-12 classroom teacher’s need for technology. Classroom Technology Solutions Inc. (www.ctsed.com) not only fills that initial need, it builds upon it by finding and filling ongoing requests for more related products.

Working together

Business partners Walt Mischley and Cy Marshall have known each other for years, having crossed paths many times throughout their separate careers, but it wasn’t until August 2008 that they decided to work together.

Combined, Mischley and Marshall have more than 40 years of professional experience in both technical and teaching environments. Mischley, who was a teacher for several years after graduating from San Jose State with a master’s in history, mainly focuses on marketing and field operations, while Marshall, who has spent most of his career in technology including working for Bell South, the Air National Guard in its electronics program, and most recently for Gateway Computers, focuses on product development and the operational side of the business.

“While working at Gateway, I was part of a team that was developing what they call 21st century classroom technology products,” says Marshall. “I developed mounting products while I worked there and when Gateway got out of the commercial computer business and sold it off, I was able to keep the manufacturing relationships to those products.”

They were both working in real estate and joke that they were retired, but admit  they were not “really retired,” when Marshall started receiving phone calls from people wanting to know where they can get the mounting products. “That’s when Walt and I started talking about a little hobby to keep us occupied,” says Marshall.

That little hobby now occupies a lot of their time with 70-hour work weeks, working on weekends, a staff of 22 people, an ever-growing product line that can be found in the 48 contiguous states, and revenues of $2 million in its first year, $5 million in its second and projected revenue of $10 million this year—with north of $15 million, already accounted for, in existing contracts alone.

Mount up!

And to think it all started with a projector mounting product. The mount itself is a 2-foot-by-2-foot metal square plate that can accommodate an audio-visual projector and essentially take the place of a ceiling tile in the classroom. A safety wire made of aircraft cable attaches onto the plate and is then placed up and over part of the building structure, where a slip ring will lock it in place so it can’t come loose from the ceiling.

The plate is painted with an eco-painting process known as anodic electrode position. The plate passes through a number of baths, and then goes into a tank that has acrylic paint suspended in liquid. An electrical charge is applied to the plate and the paint adheres to it. After which it gets lifted out and placed into another tank to wash off any excess material—which go back into the painting process—and then the product gets dried.

“By design this process assures us that the entire plate gets covered—there are no missed spots,” says Mischley. “The underside, the crevices, everything is covered so there is no chance of rust or chipping paint. Especially when dealing with schools, we try to keep the ‘green’ in mind to support their concerns for the children’s well-being.”

Building a business

“What’s interesting is when we started, our original plan was to manufacture a couple of products and then get them distributed to resellers across the country,” says Marshall. “But we found that to be a lot more of a challenge than we had anticipated.”

When they didn’t get the traction they wanted, they decided to pick a market area and market direct. They made a list in a specific area, did an email blast with a flier and sent it out that morning. By the afternoon, orders were coming off the fax machine.

As they were answering the requests for mounts and dealing with more people, they started getting asked if they also sold the projectors that went on the mounts.

“At the time the answer was no, but we decided to look into it and found that maybe we should,” says Marshall. “Then as more time went by, our customers said they would also like it to be hooked up, so we looked into adding the wiring and found that that would also be beneficial.”

“The next biggest thing that happened was we started winning contracts,” says Mischley. “We went from buying a hundred products at a time to buying containers full. These are multimillion, multiyear contracts with major school districts in the Southeast.

Mischley says one of the most important aspects of the contracts was it made their vendors and suppliers take notice, which placed them on their radar screen as a company to watch—and it didn’t hurt that it helped with pricing.

“Our prices went from ‘single unit’ to ‘high volume,’ and the vendors started bringing us customers because obviously from buying a hundred of something to buying 4,000 of something, it changes things,” says Mischley.

The start of something new

“We don’t go out and find a product and take it to the school and try to convince them that they need it,” adds Mischley. “Customers drive our product line by letting us know what they want and or need.”

Marshall continues by saying, “The set of customers that we’ve developed will come to us and say, ‘This is what we are looking for and these are the projects we want to do, what is available and how can you help us?’ and we’ll bring them up to speed with what’s new or try to find solutions to what they need or want.”

From there they started adding or manufacturing other products such as projector screens, wireless tablets, document cameras, DVD players, anti-bullying software, Internet security, as well as a line of speakers that fit in the ceiling which are incorporated into the sound and audio visual systems in a classroom —all at the request of their clients.

“We’ve now taken the mount products and bundled them with other manufacturers’ product(s).  These bundled solutions provide greater value to our customers, give us a competitive edge and have allowed us to expand our business,” says Mischley.

“Essentially, what our clients were telling us was they would like to have a one-stop shop, and now we basically offer them a technological classroom in a box,” says Marshall.

Building from a box

“We design everything around ease of use, functionality and speed of install,” says Mischley. “With 95% of our business in that K-12 market, these elements are essential.” But in the beginning, the install speed was missing from the equation and was called to their attention by their customers and it needed to improve.

An average install, where the technician took all the equipment, tools, wires, and products with them to the field, opened packages, assembled the items, installed the units and then checked to ensure it was all working, would take more than two hours.

Since many of the technicians Marshall and Mischley hire have Audio Visual installation experience, they were not without ideas on how to better the system and devised a way of pre-assembling the ceiling mounts.

All products needed for an order are unpacked, checked, and attached to the mount; the items get wired according to what will be required; the safety support cables are attached; and the completed unit is placed and ready for delivery—taking that two hours that used to be in the classroom installation and putting it to better use at the shop getting all mounts ready.

The technician then takes the completed unit into the classroom for installation and can now install it in about 30 minutes. “For the most part, the technicians are doing on the spot trainings, which is included with all installations” says Mischley. “The training is very important because it alleviates a lot of the problems on the back end and gets the user acclimated to the new technology on the spot.”

The technician writes the room number on each box tag and brings the box back to the shop, where administration will cut each tag from the box and record the information, serial number and product information and provide it back to the school for its asset management program.

Finding and funding

“While school and teacher funding is going down, the lower technology budgets are a plus for us,” says Mischley. “When we source our products, we don’t look at price or for a brand-name product, we look for functionality and for something we can put a three-year warranty on for the life cycle it’s going to be in the classroom, and we offer that to the customer. We also make sure that many of our products are from here in the states so the schools can qualify to use federal funds for products Made In America.”

“We have a lot of companies calling us to sell their products and we will probably expand our product offerings,” says Marshall. “For now, all of the vendors we settled on really work closely with us, but where there are holes in our product line and we have requests, we will source those.”

“I remember when the ratio in a classroom was 42 students to 1 teacher, then it went down to 25:1, then as low as 16:1, which then became the norm,” says Mischley. “Well, it’s heading back the other way again because of teacher budgets being cut. So when we do a product search, we have to do something that allows that teacher to do more in the classroom with less. That’s what drives the whole thing.”

The changing classroom

“In today’s classrooms, you have varying levels of teacher skills,” says Marshall. “We need to make sure we have products that get all of these different teachers comfortable with technology because the dynamic in the classroom is changing.

“With technology, there really is no need for teachers to stand with their back to the class. They can take the wireless tablet and be walking around or standing in the back of the classroom while still having all the functionality and interaction to teach a lesson and operate the projector,” says Marshall.

“If we can get that teacher untethered from that ‘back to the students’ mentality and put that teacher out in the class where they can sit alongside the student and show them how to do something, it creates a better learning environment and keeps up with what students are accustomed to.

“The problem a lot of schools have is the students have more technology in their hip pocket than they do in the classroom,” says Marshall. “We want to change that.”

Wendy Bautista is the editor of Advantage Small Business Magazine. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

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Business vitals

Owner: Cy Marshall and Walt Mischley

In business since: August 2008

Projected growth: “One of the first things to grow, and is still growing, was our space,” says Marshall. “When we started out, we had a 3,000 square foot mini warehouse and we quickly outgrew that. We moved over here to 25,000 square feet in August of last year and spent about a month and a half to two months painting and moving in and we’ve been doing the rest of the renovations as we can and as time and money permits.”

“This facility was just a box warehouse that had been sitting empty for about three years, so we’ve had to put a little money into it,” says Marshall. Some of the renovations include a briefing center, a showroom, a training room, conference room, reception area and lobby, a sales area, a soundproof test product area, a product assembly area, a stage for presentations, and a secure area for high-value products.

Some other changes include a change in staff. They’ve recently expanded their sales force, are looking to develop a marketing team with a director of marketing, and brought a graphic artist and web staff in house—with plans to expand to an online shopping cart.

Another area they are looking at is digital signage and bulletin boards. “Schools are starting to show real interest so they can push out bulletins, announcements, and menus, and even have interactive kiosks where a parent can come in and see what is happening and get a lot of information and not disrupt or tie up a staff member,” says Marshall.

“Most of the markets we’ve done were through emails and calling people on the phone and we’ve been really successful at it, but you can only get so far,” says Marshall. “Our next level is to build out a nationwide field sales organization.”

“The sales side is going to grow, integration side is going to grow, and all segments of the business are going to grow,” adds Mischley. “Vision wise, I want the mount business to grow.

“We are able to focus on other parts of the business because the mounting products are very profitable. That small square up there has allowed us to do all of the other things,” continues Mischley. “The business is built around that 2-by-2 square mount and that is what keeps us going.”

How you can do it

“Don’t be afraid to fail—even if it’s more than once,” says Mischley, who then adds, “As the saying goes, ‘There is no successful person that hasn’t failed.’ You better get into something you know and know all of the dynamics of it, you have to be debt free because I don’t think you can drive a business by amassing a lot of debt, and you better understand tax codes. The federal government makes it difficult so you have to understand how they make it difficult—not so you can get around it, but so you can get through it.”

“It’s more than doing something you like,” says Marshall. “I don’t care how much you like it if there is not market for it, it won’t succeed. I see so many businesses start up and they are passionate about what they want to do, but it’s passionate to them or a close-knit group they associate with. If there isn’t a general market, perhaps reconsider.

“You’ve just got to be smart about it,” adds Marshall. “You’ve got to know what you’re going to do, like what you’re going to do, have a market for what you’re going to do, and then you can go for it.”

“Oh, you have to go for it! Even at the stage we’re at now, I still want to go for it. Go for more,” agrees Mischley.

Leigh Burdett set her tires in motion and built a sustainable tourism business with her bike tours.

By Wendy Bautista

While her company’s name often gets jumbled, Leigh Burdett’s vision for her e2ridebiketours (www.e2ride.com) doesn’t. “When I first came up with the name and logo, I wanted something recognizable that if and when e2ride bike tours (red “e” to ride bike tours) becomes something either nationwide or worldwide that when you saw the red e, you would know that that’s my bike tour and you could expect the same type of service and experience,” says Burdett.

“I wanted a symbol that was clean, big and bold, and could stand on its own, and I felt the red e eventually could. Right now I find that most people call me e2ride bike tours or ezride bike tours, and I just gently correct them,” she continues. The red e logo and company name represent how she runs her bike tours—when you show up, she has everything set and you are “ready to ride.”

“Often when we are on a tour, riders will be looking at the license plate signs on the bikes with the logo and all of a sudden I hear, ‘Oh, I get it now!” and I laugh knowing exactly what they are talking about. But once people get it, they never forget it!”

Getting inspired

For Burdett, it took losing her job in corporate America as a general sales manager to find her true calling. She found herself watching Oprah one afternoon when the book, “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle was being touted. Burdett says they were discussing how the book basically teaches you to lose your ego and fear and follow your passion, and if everybody in life followed what they were good at, the world would operate more smoothly, people would be happier, and it would be a better earth— therefore a new earth.

The words touched home for Burdett, who then read the book, and she began to wonder what she would want to do if she didn’t have any fear. “I started to look at the things I enjoy versus what I had at my old job because I could have gone to another company and gotten a job doing what I was doing,” says Burdett, “But my old office had no windows and I was practically in front of a computer all day.”

While she continued her analysis, she would hop on her bike and ride through her neighborhood, and it was then she realized she wanted to do something outdoors. “Even as a child I would be on a bike or was heading outside to do something; I was never an inside person,” she says.

On the right path

Still forming her idea, she continued to think of what else she liked to do. As a younger adult, she gave tours at the Anheuser Bush Brewery and remembered how much she loved meeting people from all over the world, hearing their stories, communicating with them, and sharing her stories. That’s when she asked herself, “What can I do that is outdoors and I can talk to people?”

“I had friends go on bike tours in France and on wine tours, and they all said what a great time they had,” says Burdett. “And I thought, ‘My goodness. There are places in our own community that are beautiful enough to create similar bike tours!’”

While she was contemplating the administrative element of creating week-long bike tours, the right idea came to her—why not daily bike tours?

Practice rides

Once she had her epiphany, she set her wheels in motion. She began gathering information,researching, and learning the history of the area and of each location she was considering, with much of the information coming from the communities’ preservation societies.

She then did test runs with friends and watched their reactions to the information she was putting out. “If it made them light up, I did more research on it; if they seemed uninterested, I took it off,” says Burdett. She wanted it to be like bike riding with a friend who just happens to know the history of the neighborhood. She didn’t want to bore people with a myriad of dates and history that will be “snoozey.”

“I then basically took that information and put it to a route that had not only safety as a factor, but a ‘fun feel’ factor as well.” During all of this planning, she realized she wanted to provide an opportunity for people to “step off the gerbil wheel of life,” as she calls it, and be able to throw on whatever is comfortable and show up, which meant supplying gear for every rider and getting it to the locations without having a storefront at each location.

Ready, set, ride

What she has is a fleet of 20, easy-to-ride Trek 7200 hybrid bicycles that can be adjusted for anysize and comfort and a trailer to haul 16 of them—wedged like a puzzle—with room for the other four in her truck, if needed. Each bike is outfitted with a computer to measure mileage and speed, a basket for personal belongings, and a red flashing tail light for inclement weather, and each rider is provided a biking helmet, ice cold water in an e2ride bike tour souvenir water bottle, and healthy snacks, along with Burdett’s history knowledge and preservation tips and facts.

“Riders can also bring their own bikes and gear and enjoy a $25 discount off the regular price. I built it that way to offer flexibly to my customers as well as my company,” says Burdett. “I have 20 bikes, but once I’m out of those 20 bikes I can’t take any more riders. By offering the opportunity for people to bring their own bike, I can have tours as large as possible, which I have had up to 82 people.”

e2ride bike tours has five tours to choose from—Riverside/Avondale, San Marco, Springfield, Beaches, and Old Mandarin—with each tour starting at a select location in the community (such as the Riverside Avondale Preservation Society for the Riverside tour). They each run about three hours and are 10 to 12 miles in length, but Burdett says it’s an easy ride that is set to the pace of the slowest rider with plenty of sightseeing stops.

“I’ve taken thousands of riders and nobody has had to stop,” she says. “Some riders are so proud of themselves for doing the distance that they have pictures taken next to the odometer to prove they did it!”

Pedals and preservation

One aspect of e2ride bike tours that came as an added bonus was Burdett, without really knowing it, created a sustainable tourism business. “While I operate in five neighborhoods, my business doesn’t alter the way a neighborhood looks—it works in harmony with the natural habitat. I do not have a physical structure or a business that may look out of place in these neighborhoods,” says Burdett.

Her business also works with a community to support the businesses within that community. For example, when a tour is over, riders can buy their food, visit the shops, and purchase souvenirs at different businesses in that community. “I am bringing people who wouldn’t necessarily be coming to San Marco or Springfield or Riverside into these pocket neighborhoods and helping the communities with their goal of being sustainable communities.

“I look at it as more than a business or more than a bike tour, I see it as a cog in the wheel of preservation and ecology,” says Burdett, who is an ambassador for the St. Johns Riverkeeper and a member of the Riverside Avondale Preservation Society, Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council, Mandarin Museum & Historical Society, and the Beaches Area Museum and Historical Society.

“I basically learn from these societies and then pass the information along on the tours, such as the health of the river and the world’s waterways and what makes a river-friendly yard. I am trying to be a business and a cog in a wheel that educates people in the importance of preservation, going green, being environmentally conscious, and having community engagement—all while having a good life and remembering to get off that gerbil wheel.

“I want people to know that this business is about fun and relaxation, but it is also about preservation and being green,” says Burdett. “Put what you are feeling and learning on the tour today in your life when you go back to your everyday life.”

Being greener

Burdett knows she, personally, is doing different little habits and she hopes that others are doing different little habits based on what she talks about on the tours. “I don’t think they are going home with every little fact, but I like to think they are going home with say three little things that they remember and those three little things are helping them to be a little greener, a little more into preservation and conservation, and a little more thoughtful with their actions,” says Burdett.

One of the biggest thrills for her is that fact that she’s made neighborhoods the biggest attraction in Jacksonville (as rated #1 on TripAdvisor). “And isn’t that what we really want to get back to? That off-the-gerbil-wheel, happy, and relaxed way of life?” asks Burdett.

“I love it because instead of being in an office without windows, I will either be with a group of people leading a tour or I will be going to other communities to learn their histories and setting set up bike routes. It’s an opportunity for me to be out and about and an opportunity to change the world and make an impact or footprint on the world in my small way.”

Wendy Bautista is the editor of Advantage Small Business Magazine. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

Business vitals

Owner: Leigh Burdett

In business since: September 2009

Projected growth: “Along with bike tours, I realized so many companies are looking to involve themselves with employee wellness or associate their branding with things that are green and about preservation, conservation, and community engagement, so one thing I am doing is talking to businesses about sponsorship opportunities.

On my tours I have heard many riders say, ‘If my wife saw these houses, she would want to buy a house here’ so another aspect I am looking into is real estate. I will talk to these companies and see if they want to sponsor so people can see the houses in the neighborhoods and communities by bike as part of what they offer as a service.

In some of my research, I discovered that business groups don’t want to book events in Jacksonville because there are not many activities right out the front door. So I have been working with hotels such as the Omni and Hyatt to book group tours. It’s a wonderful thing to have such a flexible business that I can offer this service and make people feel like they can walk right out the door and there’s the bike tour.

And of course, the more sponsorships and business deals I can make means there are more opportunities I have to grow e2ride bike tours—either growing this location or other franchises.

How you can do it

“It may sound a little simplistic, but start by reading ‘A New Earth’ and really get an understanding of putting that ego and fear on a shelf. Then ask yourself, ‘Is what I’m doing providing a service to others or is this just what I like to do?’ Then you have to be in a place where you have a passion for what you do and an enthusiasm that you’re never going to give up. Listen to what customers are saying, as they are offering good advice, and fine tune your business by what they were saying. When people come on the bike tours they say I was born to do this and I feel like I would not have found this without putting my fear and ego on a shelf and following my passion.”

Learn how The Broach School initiated a green movement

When you walk into Joseph Wood’s classroom at The Broach Schools of Jacksonville’s Westcampus, it’s far from the traditional setting.

Besides the typical desks and marker board, there are a number of plants sitting around the room, hanging from the ceiling, and sunning from the light coming through the windows.

But if you asked Wood where his students learned the most, he wouldn’t even mention the classroom. Instead, he would walk outside the building and around the corner to a greenhouse both he and his students built by hand.

Grant to grasp science

Wood originally started the greenhouse project from a grant designated by the University of Florida to give Broach School students a hands-on learning environment and an alternative approach to grasp science concepts.

“Teaching is not a script. We educate and treat students as unique people, so they can become successful in direct proportion to their potential,” he said. “In the greenhouse project, we are creating a living, breathing classroom where they can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste what they are learning.”

In addition to accomplishing these goals, however, students have discovered their talents through the greenhouse project.

“Being at The Broach School has allowed me to have a hands-on experience, especially on the greenhouse project,” said Austin Martin, a ninth-grade student at Broach West. “The school has allowed me to do what I’m good at.”

“The students have gotten really excited about it,” said Darrell Lewis, director of

Broach West. “They’re working harder in their other classes to get their work done, so they can spend time in the greenhouse.”

Turning into a movement

Because of the impact of the greenhouse project at Broach West, The Broach Schools ofJacksonville turned the program into a movement both at the organization’s other campuses and out in the community.

“What started as one teacher’s project has now become a primary focus of our entire school,” said Tommie Broach, the president and founder of The Broach Schools of Jacksonville. “As we move further into the 21st century, we’re seeking more ways to go green and be environmentally friendly.”

With the help of Home Depot, Broach South students and staff are taking the initial steps toward forming their own greenhouse project, while Broach Beach and Orange Park look to follow suit. And with assistance from the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s West Council, Broach West expanded its green efforts to the entire school grounds through an Earth Day beautification project.

Branching out

In addition, the Broach West students branched off campus at a solar cooking competition, where although they did not place, they became known as the only school to cook using vegetables they grew themselves. And they are helping beautify other gardens in the community and donating their fruits and vegetables to those in need.

The goal, according to Wood, is to teach the students education is about more than just yourself. It’s about helping others using your knowledge, and in this case, using your knowledge to help the environment.

The Broach Schools of Jacksonville are a group of small, non-profit private schools with five locations in the Jacksonville area. They specialize in helping students getting lost in overcrowded classrooms succeed at overcoming learning disabilities by providing them small classroom sizes and individualized attention from their teachers. It can be reached at 904-637-0300 or through www.broachschooljax.com.

The results of the nominations for Advantage Magazine’s Top 50 Small Business Influencers

We put it to you, the small business community, to come up with who you thought were the top 50 small business influencers in Jacksonville—and you exceeded our expectations.

After hundreds of nominations to sort through and multiple back-and-forth conversations between many, the list has been narrowed down to this Top 50 (in alphabetical order) and some honorable mentions that just couldn’t be eliminated.

Be sure to attend the Meet the Top 50 event on June 8 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Aloft at Tapestry Park and meet the “dream team” of influence makers that will open doors and help you make connections to push your business to reach new levels of success.

Bring your magazine along and check the box next to the influencer  to be sure you’ve met every one!

Tawnia Adams, Hancock Bank

Tawnia is a “must know” because she works diligently to help all of her business clients meet their financial goals and dreams. She is more knowledgeable about the inner workings of small business than most business owners and strives to assist each company to be the best they can be by offering financial solutions that make a difference in their financial world.

Al Bagocius, The A & I Consulting Group/Creative Packaging Solutions

Al is a “must know” because he is an inspiration to small business people learning how to be successful using social media. Al would admit he’s older than the average hipster trying to make a splash in the social media world, but that hasn’t stopped him from setting the pace for many in Jacksonville. He is all about the other person, and firmly believes that good deeds will be rewarded. He is a delight to work with,  a man of his word, and willing to freely share his social media knowledge to help others.

Richard T. Balog, CPA, Balog & Tamburri CPA

Richard is a “must know” because of his 25 years of experience as a CPA and his dedication to the success of small business. Not only is Rick associated with many networking groups and has many certifications, he constantly strives to bring the “best of the best” together in the business community and provide them top options to assist them with their business.

Sandra Bartow, Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce

Sandra is a “must know” because she is a powerhouse of information and connections, both of which helps her run the Jacksonville Women’s Business Center for the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.

Pat Blanchard, Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce

Pat is a “must know” because she is dedicated to the success of women entrepreneurs at every stage of their business development. She assists aspiring and existing small business owners gain access to education, capital, resources, and networks to help them become more successful. She spearheads and implements programs designed to deliver these benefits in support of women as they launch and grow their businesses.

Nancy Boyle, Small Business Resource Network (SBRN)

Nancy is a “must know” for her extensive involvement as director of the SBRN, where she provides a free resource and referral service for small business owners and coordinates activities for professional and agency members; and for the local, 30-minute, television interview show, “Speaking of Business,” devoted to discussing topics relevant to operating a small business, which she produces and hosts; and for being an adjunct professor teaching organizational behavior at the UNF Coggin College of Business.

Anna Brosche, Ennis Pellum & Associates

Anna is a “must know” because she is a person of action, and those actions are executed in a thorough, professional, and inclusive way. Anna’s ability to synthesize—groups of people, ideas, goals—to support the small business community is remarkable.

John Bryan, Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce

John is a “must know” because he is one of the top networkers in Jacksonville and a “must know” with the Jacksonville Chamber. His knowledge of who, when, where, why and how to network is second to none. Plus, he is the nicest guy you will ever meet and a lot of fun to be around.

Ellen G. Bushnell, Bushnell & Company, PA

Ellen is a “must know” because she is a highly motivated CPA who always has the best interests of her clients on the top of her “to-do” list. She does not let her clients, no matter how big or small, feel like they are just a number. They are treated with respect, courtesy, and with the utmost importance to their needs while never losing the small business advantage.

Tresa Calfee, BROOKSLACAYO Advertising

Tresa is a “must know” because she really does know everybody and everybody knows her—mostly because, above all else, she works to help businesses succeed and shares her connections specifically to do so.

Camille Clement Gregg, Outside the Box Consulting

Camille is a “must know because she is a networking queen and the best referral source when you need to do business in the North Florida business community. She either knows everyone or knows how to get to everyone. She works diligently to connect businesses, forge great relationships, and promote businesses—even those who are not clients—all of which helps the small business community flourish.

Lynne Coggin, BNI Northeast Florida

Lynne is a “must know” because as executive director of BNI, she helps businesses expand their networks, build strong business relationships, and effectively communicate their goals for business and personal growth through networking and referrals.

Sheila Collins, Collins Capital

Sheila is a “must know” because in a period of extreme financial uncertainty, not only has the company she built survived, it has prospered as never before. She is also a pioneer that blazed a path through a historically male-dominated investment management industry so other women didn’t have to. She serves as a role model for women in our industry and never shies away from what she feels is her responsibility to encourage and promote diversity.

S. Roger Dominey, Financial Design Associates

Roger is a “must know” for all of the associations in which he is a part of, the successful salesperson he is, the outstanding leader that he has come to be, and the community service initiator that people are happy to work with. Within the company, he developed a team of specialists in the areas of investments, marketing, brokerage, annuities, long term care and disability, and life insurance, to help the small business owner—all at the needs of our clients.

Janice Donaldson, Small Business Development Center at UNF

Janice is a “must know” because as the regional director of the Small Business Development Center at UNF, she assists thousands of existing and potential business owners through individual counseling, facilitating SBDC workshops, and teaching entrepreneurial classes through the UNF Coggin College of Business. She is one of North Florida’s strongest supporters of small business and economic development, and is often found at meetings and events in support of SBDC clients and stakeholders.

Barbara English, English Solutions

Barbara is a “must know” because she helps small, minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses become city, state, and nationally certified and be positioned to win identified government contracts, which can be a very confusing, difficult, and challenging area for small business owners to navigate. Over the past three years, she has used her 36 years of government contracting experience to provide winning government contract insight to more than 600 small businesses in Jacksonville. Her one-on-one consulting has enabled small businesses in Jacksonville to be awarded $3.1 million in government contracts in the last 12 months. She is a winner who helps others to win!

Jen Errair, Admin 911

Jen is a “must know” because she truly dedicates herself to her clients in a very unique way. No matter the circumstances, no matter the work, she jumps in with both feet and frees her clients of the administrative headache of running a business.

Raul Espinosa, Fairness in Procurement Alliance (FPA)

Raul is a “must know” because he helped establish a procurement Think Tank at UNF and his peers in the Jacksonville business community voted him as a “Minority Champion” in 2010.

Jessica Evans, Regions Bank

Jessica is a “must know” because she can get lending done for people seeking to buy a business, expand, build, or buy equipment. She assists many clients capture the American Dream of business ownership. If it is something she is unable to do through the bank, she will suggest alternatives to them.

Deb Eveson, Allstate

Deb is a “must know” because she left a long career in financial services because she knew there was a need to serve at a personal level for those needing insurance and has become the go-to girl for all things insurance….honest, fair, supportive. She is a great example of leadership

Wilfredo J. Gonzalez, U.S. Small Business Administration

Wilfredo is a “must know” because of his diligent dedication to ensuring the small business community in North Florida has access to capital, technical, and management assistance to open a business or expand an existing one. In addition, he ensures that the issues affecting the small business community are heard at all levels of government. He is the number one advocate for the small business community in Jacksonville.

Eva Greenfield, Hometown Threads and Chair of the Chamber Councils

Eva is a “must know” because of her ability to help foster the success of business women in the Jacksonville community. As immediate past president of Professional Women’s Council, she also helps develop women leaders and enhance business relationships.

Cathy Hagan, Small Business Development Center (SBDC)

Cathy is a “must know” because she is the heartbeat of the SBDC and has helped businesses in countless ways. She is always full of ideas, helps make connections to the right people if she can’t help, provides new opportunities, and gets the word out there about all the ways small businesses in Jacksonville can receive help and so much of it free. She is a tireless crusader for small business!

Brad Hollett, Accelerated Construction and ACT Architects

Brad is a “must know” because he has helped hundreds of Florida businesses connect with health care related work. He helps new business owners with special advice and referrals on everything from acquisition to construction to marketing and advertising and beyond. He is an amazing man and gives back to the community every day.

Keith Johnson, Keith E. Johnson CPA PA

Keith is a “must know” because he has a passion for the needs of small business owners and help them achieve their dream of success. He has been in practice since 1997 and has worked with organizations devoted to small business needs such as the Beaver St. Enterprise Center, UNF Small Business Development Center, and the Jacksonville Chamber Small Business Center for many years. He is also active in many professional, business, and social organizations.

Scott Keith, BB&T

Scott is a “must know” because as the regional president of BB&T, he has the influence internally at BB&T as well as in the community to make business happen! He can connect influential business people with just about anyone in Jacksonville.

Keith Kessler, Kessler Creative

Keith is a “must know” because he enjoys assisting other businesses reach their goals. Whether it’s a new business, mom-and-pop shop, or an established business looking to expand, he works with them one-on-one to ensure their expectation is his mission. He understands the pitfalls and obstacles one must face to be successful. He also understands that it never hurts to have a helping hand to lead in the right direction. In addition to working with small businesses, he also assists with non-profit organizations throughout Jacksonville.

Suzi Lemen, Dynamic Corporate Solutions Inc. (DCSI)

Suzi is a “must know” because she is a tireless proponent of small business development. She is a much requested speaker on small business, HR, and women’s business issues, and is an active member and past president or Women Business Owners of North Florida. She will begin her third year as the instructor for the e200 program which the SBA sponsors annually to help small businesses grow. She also sits on several committees including the Mayors Commission on the Status of Women.

Joe Lemire, eLYK Innovation

Joe is a “must know” because he helps business owners have a clear understanding of how their website can help them grow, as well as help design, develop and implement an internet strategy that will work for them.

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Lauren Little, Edible Arrangements

Lauren is a “must know” because she is influential and very involved in the Jacksonville community and devotes time out of her schedule to assist other business leaders and aspiring leaders. She is driven, inspirational, focused, and determined, as well as a veteran.

Michael Margolies, Littlebanc Advisors

Michael is a “must know” because he leverages his extensive expertise and deep professional relationships with many of Wall Street’s most influential professionals to enable Littlebanc’s clients to meet their funding and M&A goals. He and his team provide the best financial and strategic investment services to traditionally under-served growth companies. He believes in long-term relationships and focusing on each client’s individual needs and circumstances. Michael and his team deliver quality results quickly.

Daniel McCarthy, Lifestyles Realty Web

Daniel is a “must know” because even though he is still under the age of 30, he helped form Lifestyles Realty Web and lead it into a profitable small business during what is supposed to be a “down market” where other Real Estate companies were cutting cost and some even closing their doors. He is very active in the community with charities, has been named one of the 40 under 40 by Jacksonville Business Journal, and has formed alliances with other small business owners to help all involved.

Mike McCreary, Baymeadows Moving and Storage

Mike is a “must know” because he knows who is going where, with who, and why, but won’t say! His connections and business sense are undeniable, which is why he is also the Small Business Leader of the Year 2010-South Council.

Michele McManamon, Sandler Sales and Training

Michele is a “must know” because she trains some of Jacksonville’s finest to make them better. She helps many small business owners develop winning strategies to reach the level of success they desire. She is truly amazing!

Kevin Monahan, Small Business Development Center (SBDC)

Kevin is a “must know” because he is a staple in the small business community in Jacksonville. He specializes in community economic development, small business development, and nonprofit technical assistance. As special projects director and certified business analyst at SBDC, he works with small business owners through individual meetings and seminars to help them start and/or grow their businesses. He is also responsible for all nonprofit curriculum, contracts, and technical assistance.

Candace Moody, WorkSource

Candace is a “must know” because she has helped countless business owners who have come to her for advice on everything from marketing to public relations to business strategy to hiring and objectives—mainly because she is so well connected.

Janice Newton, Flippin’ Good Cookies

Janice is a “must know” because her and Michael have done an incredible job to create an image for their cookies in business, personal, and charitable contributions. No house is complete without a Flippin’ Good Cookie within reach.

Linda Nottingham, SCORE

Linda is a “must know” because her personal experience as a small business owner and her strong desire to help, guide, educate, mentor, and support other small business owners and aspiring business start-ups, makes her a very effective business influencer. She has served as a coach for SCORE for 10 years, was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of the Jacksonville Urban League, and currently serves as a consultant to the Business Advisory Counsel program on behalf of the Jacksonville Women’s Business Center. During the last six years, she has mentored dozens of women business owners—many of whom have since received business awards and acknowledgements for their contributions to the community.

Diana Otwell, Spectrum Signs and Graphics Inc.

Diana is a “must know” because she is extremely helpful, produces signs that are tailored to each client’s needs and provides rewarding partnerships. Her service is second to none and she is truly an asset to our local community.

Kendall S. Park, Merrill Lynch

Kendall is a “must know” because he has worked with small- and medium-sized businesses for the past 17 years advising them on everything from retirement plans to cash management and commercial lending. He provides one point of contact for his business owners who can call him and get access to everything from capital markets to investment banking. He adds a lot of value to a business owner because of his years of experience and vast amount of knowledge in knowing what business owners need.

Jackie Perry, Beaver Street Enterprise Center (BSEC)

Jackie is a “must know” because she took the reins as executive director of BSEC and has never looked back. She is a tireless advocate for small businesses and has been honored several times for her drive and advocacy for small businesses. She also serves on other boards connected to small business development, including the Chamber’s GrowJAX initiative for second stage business growth. Jackie is a wonderful example of a small business influence.

Donna Reade, Car-Tech USA

Donna is a “must know” because she leads one of the few 100% women owned auto repair shops in Jacksonville. Her business is few and far between when it comes to the quality and reliability of the firm’s services and she has made sure that the customer is truly number one. Customers do not go unnoticed when they walk in the door and as soon as you walk in, you feel at ease. It is a true example of a client relationship.

Marshall Reddy, FranNet

Marshall is a “must know” because he has great expertise in small business with a specialization in franchising. He is a long-standing committee member of SBRN and was recently added to the Board of Directors for the Ponte Vedra Chamber. He is willing to do anything to advance the small business community and is extremely well networked.

Peter Reynolds, The Griggs Group, CPAs

Peter is a “must know” because he brings leadership, knowledge, and effective strategy to the complex financial matters of high net worth individuals and closely held businesses. His dual role as an accountant and firm managing partner has helped him provide clients with accounting and consulting services as well as insight into business planning, operation management, and oversight issues. He also volunteers his time and accounting expertise to help some of his favorite charities.

Elton Rivas, Zero Confines

Elton is a “must know” because he helped establish Downtown’s first co-working space and is instrumental in helping us promote Downtown as the creative, innovative and technological hub of Jacksonville.

Ann Sabbag, Health Designs

Ann is a “must know” because she is a pioneer in the health and wellness business with a proven record of success in the small business community. She has been a long-time supporter of women-owned businesses and has a strength for connecting people. She is a native to the Jacksonville area and truly believes in the city and the development of Jacksonville and being a positive influence in the business community.

Heather Sams, HAS Art Solutions, LLC

Heather is a “must know” because she knows and works with every small- to medium-size business. She is active in numbers of associations like CREW, the chamber, IFMA, and others. More significantly, she enjoys learning about a business and promoting its success by connecting other people to it.

Dr. Judith A.M. Smith, HandsOn Jacksonville

Judith is a “must know” because she is your “go-to” person to help position your business as a community transformer. She has led Volunteer Jacksonville for 16 years and successfully brought the organization through the brand evolution in 2008 to become HandsOn Jacksonville. She provides opportunities for people to bring solutions to critical community needs that affect health, literacy, the environment, homelessness, and the arts, and other impact areas by knowing how to mobilize volunteer resources and non-profit management. Her energy and enthusiasm is infectious and she is one of those rare individuals whose passion will inspire you to do great things.

Patsy D. Underwood, Atlantic Laser Office Products

Patsy is a “must know” because she has been a role model for women business owners for at least 20 years. She was one of the founding members of the Women Business Owners (WBO) group, holding several leadership positions during her tenure, including president. Whatever her chosen project is, Patsy gives generously of her time and of her heart to make her business community a better place. She has served as a mentor to many small businesses, and has helped grow companies by providing the guidance and products they need to survive and thrive.

Vicky Zelen, Zelen Risk Solutions

Vicky is a “must know” because she is a no-nonsense, go-getter that will fight to get you the best deal for your insurance. She understands the needs of small business and will work day and night to provide service. She is also an excellent connector, matching a small business with others that can support them, and looks for business opportunities for her clients.

Honorable Mentions

Nancy Alvarez-Hernandez, SBA Jacksonville

Nancy is a “must know” because of her willingness to take the time to help, regardless of the everyday pressures of her day-to-day responsibilities. She is accessible, knowledgeable, and most importantly truly able to assist in the success of small business.

Michael J. Bernhardt, Academic Dermatology Consultants, P.A.

Michael is a “must know” because after having his own practice for over 25 years, he has grown his practice from a staff of 10 to a staff of over 40 employees in the past two years. He continues to provide excellence in patient care and is expanding to further meet his patients’needs.

Sandra Brooks,  BROOKSLACAYO Advertising

Sandra is a “must know” because she is a mentor to all, a connector, a brainstormer, and a pillar of the Jacksonville Business Community connecting “the giants” to the little guys.

Fraser Burns, Ocenture

Fraser is a “must know” because he is an advisor and friend to small business throughout Jacksonville. He invests in local businesses and is the founder of one of Jacksonville’s only Inc. 500 companies. Without a doubt, Fraser leads by example and is well known in our business community.

Ricky Caplin, HCI Group, Inc.

Ricky is a “must know” because he is a dynamic, young, and influential business person willing to help your organization grow and prosper. He has been very helpful and knowing him can only help a company grow.

Martin Cohen, SCORE

Martin is a “must know” because he undertook to develop small business support services in the St. Augustine area. This pioneering effort has been most successful and continues to positively impact small business development in the northern part of St. Johns County. He has extensive, practical business experience and possesses expertise in the marketing and advertising realms. Now that he is retired, he is leveraging his skills and experience to guide and mentor small businesses in Jacksonville and St. Augustine. He has partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to conduct small business counseling on a regular, scheduled basis with effective ongoing support and mentoring.

Kimberly Deas, Tioli Marketing

Kimberly is a “must know” because she is well networked everywhere and knows exactly who to match with you to help increase sales and create strategic alliances. She loves helping small businesses succeed and goes out of her way to do so.

Jack Manilla, Portofino Pools

Jack is a “must know” because he is a very active leader in many organizations: business, professional, civic, and church. He is the president/owner of Portofino Pools and the founder of the Portofino Aquatic Technical Institute. He holds numerous certifications, speaks at and moderates conferences, and is a technical consultant for the first Go Green GeoThermal commercial pool heat/cool system in northeast Florida. In the spring of 2010, Jack was retained as a technical consultant/certified instructor for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

Mayor John Peyton, City of Jacksonville

John is a “must know” because during his administration, he was a champion of small businesses. His leadership and support of the small business and minority business program has afforded companies to thrive. His unwavering interest in community outreach and genuine concern for the community was a positive for not only small businesses, but the city as a whole. He was always attentive and recognized those he worked with by name and projects.

John Ream, Connect Integrated Marketing

John is a “must know” because he provides clients access to extremely educated specialist in a consultancy role which promises lower execution cost vs. the full service agency. He’s also helped in the revitalization of Downtown Jacksonville through his commercial and residential real estate work, most notably along Bay Street where he turned an abandoned, deteriorated property into a thriving, state-of-the-art residential and retail space. John is passionate about what he does and he’s hard working, genuine, focused—he is everything you’d want in a small business leader.

Bud Sikes, Sikes & Stowe, Inc./Downtown Collision

Bud is a “must know” because he has successfully run this collision business with knowledge and wisdom, and is the best boss in the world according to his long-standing employee’s. 85 years in a family business.

Ladi Stepps, Brinmar Construction & Development Group LTD

Ladi is a “must know” because she helps create jobs in the Jacksonville community through city and private contracts. She is also the executive director of Operation Community Restore, Inc., a non-profit service agency whose mission is to keep homeless families together. She serves our Jacksonville community as a hero, role model, and business owner showing others that giving up is not a viable option.

Howard Stockdale, Jacksonville IT Services

Howard is a “must know” because of his integrity, straight forwardness, and his knowledge of the IT services business what a small business needs. His many years of business and IT experience helps him fine tune their business operations through smart technology integration and builds a solid foundation for growth and efficiency.

Tanya Waller, Computer Solutions

Tanya is a “must know” because she has assisted more than 2,000 businesses in Jacksonville and surrounding areas for over 15 years by directly lowering the total cost of ownership for their office environment by implementing proper procedures for their network. She is active with the Assoc. of Medical Office Experts, is the 2011 Small Business Leader for the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce-South Council, and is a member of the Clay County Chamber, AIA, and various other networking groups.

Vingevity has found that friendship and success go hand in hand

Chad Munsey and Fraser Burns sit down with a bottle of wine at III Forks with our own Brian Barquilla to discuss their backgrounds, how they came together to form their new company Vingevity (www.vingevity.com), and the recent success they have found—all while remaining friends. Below is the Q&A session.

Brian Barquilla (BB): You guys are friends and each accomplished businessmen in your own right and decided to get together on this new venture. Tell us a little bit about yourselves.

Chad Munsey (CM): I was born and raised here in Jacksonville, but moved away to go to college. Shortly after college, I started bartending because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and that lead me into the restaurant industry.

After a few years of managing restaurants outside of Jacksonville, I moved back in 1996 and started managing Biscotti’s. I then went on to manage Bistro AIX and then opened The Grotto in 2001. It was the first, official true wine bar in town. I sold the business in 2007 and went to work for a big wine company in Santa Barbara, Calif.

When I was living in California and our corporate offices were relocated to Sonoma, I thought, “This is it. I’m going to be living in wine country—where for the last 14 to 15 years I’ve traveled to at least once a year. This is going to be heaven.” But quite frankly, there was just something missing.

Basically, it was the good friendships and sense of community that I have here. I spent a lifetime building those friendships and it’s difficult to be in a place that you think is your dream, but not have your friends to share it with.

I’ve always felt that Jacksonville was a great area to base a business and that it has a lot of things going for it.

BB: Now Fraser, you are quite the entrepreneur yourself, aren’t you?

Fraser Burns (FB): Well, I have lived vicariously through guys like Chad for most of my life as I am kind of the opposite of the restaurateur. My background comes from the pure business side of things.

I started my first company when I was 18 years old and, in 2000, started another company that I currently own and operate called Ocenture, which does wholesale private label development of products and services for Fortune 500 companies. I started branching out and doing some other things within the business world, such as I am an investor in the new Alhambra Dinner Theater, co-founder and chairman of a healthcare staffing firm, and a co-founder with Chad in our wine distribution company, Vingevity.

I’ve had a good opportunity to partner myself with intelligent people, knowledgeable people, and very passionate people like Chad to start businesses that allows me to earn a dollar with good friends and good opportunities. I’m a sheer entrepreneur at heart.

BB: How was the company conceptualized?

FB: That’s not a very easy question to answer; the idea really was forged over time. We are both passionate about many of the same things including wine. Chad’s knowledge in the wine industry and my background in building new businesses make for a great opportunity.

Basically, the way it all started was shortly after Chad returned from California we were introduced through a mutual friend and started to discuss a few possible ideas he had within the hospitality industry. Because of his past ownership in The Grotto, we were very conservative about competing with that particular company.

Our first conversation about a wine company was at my house over a glass of wine, I think it was a glass of Curran Grenache Blanc, it’s a great bottle.

CM: It was, yeah. It was brought to my attention by dear friends of mine—this husband and wife in California that are wine makers—that their wines weren’t available in Florida and they began telling me how they would love for me to represent their wines.

And over that glass of wine with Fraser, we started kicking around the idea of starting up a wine brokerage company. After doing some homework, I found that the large distributors weren’t really interested in these little, family-owned, small boutique wines.

FB: We decided that if we can’t get the ‘big boys’ interested in these brands that we feel bring value, quality, and opportunity for everyone here in Jacksonville as well as California and other communities around the world that we have family partnerships with, that we were just going to do it ourselves.

So we filed the required paperwork with the state, obtained a 7,500 square foot warehouse, filled it with wine, and took a leap of faith. We opened the doors for business and have been astounded by the support we’ve received.

BB: So tell me more about your new business.

FB: We have two segments of our business. One is our distribution company and second is our own wine brand where we produce a red and a white wine named Huguenot Cellars. On the distribution side, we partner with family-owned wineries from around the world to help them distribute their brands into Florida. Currently, we have about 70 brands, and that’s growing every day. The Jacksonville restaurant and fine wine shop community have been very supportive of our distribution philosophy; we really are doing things a little different on the distribution side.

CM: The other side of our business is our own Huguenot Cellars brand. We currently produce both a white and a red wine out of the central coast of California, more directly from the Santa Ynez Valley. Huguenot Cellars is a project that I was previously working on for some time and that we were able to push to completion because of our new partnership. It’s been a fun project. We are also working on a few more brands that will hit the market soon; our next project is called Esplanade, it’s going to be a Napa California wine with a little New Orleans attitude.

BB: Tell us a little bit about the infrastructure, such as the number of employees, trading area, whatever you feel comfortable with.

FB: I would prefer not to get into too much of our trade secrets, but I can tell you that our current trade area is the entire state of Florida. We currently distribute throughout Jacksonville to most, if not all, of the top restaurants, and we just opened up the Orlando and Tampa Bay markets. Our main goal is to expand throughout the state as soon as feasibly possible.

CM: We have coverage and the ability to ship throughout the state—and we have, down south and in other areas. Within the next long side of four months, we’re also going to have someone full time down in the Palm Beach and Del Ray area covering that south Florida market as well.

BB: What makes your business different from your competitors?

FB: Our model is a lot different than most distribution companies. Based on an extensive amount of industry evaluation, we feel the large distribution companies have lost their way in how they manage their supply chain. We are a hands-on organization, and we value our relationships with our clients. We do not treat them as just another number; we truly care about their businesses.

With all the industry consolidation happening right now, the distribution industry has become a check-the-box business. Typically a new, untrained representative shows up at the restaurant door and simply checks the box of your order without understanding how their brands may affect the overall wine list.

CM: We want to bring the romance back to what the wine industry was about—relationships and food and wine. We learn the restaurant’s menu so we can bring them the proper wines that work with their menu. We want to teach the staff and educate them so they can educate their guests and be able to make suggestions.

It seems that every time you talk to someone who’s been to wine country, they say, ‘There’s this little place I went to in … have you ever heard of them? I can never find that wine in Florida.’ Now we are the distributor that’s bringing you that little place you love so much. It’s treating our customer base, our accounts, and restaurants as partners. We want to partner with them to grow their business, which will in turn grow our business

FB: The industry as a whole has also gotten away from relationship building. We are bringing the old school model of relationship building back. Some other big differences between our competitors and Vingevity is that our entire supply chain uses climate control delivery to make sure our products are delivered at its very best. Our warehouse and delivery trucks are climate controlled, and that is a big deal when you are transporting such a delicate product.

We are also using technology to our advantage, our drivers and wine representatives use iPad’s to check inventory and communicate with the home office. We are adopting very new ideas in a very old industry that is slow to evolve. And as you know, a nibble and a well-run company will gain market share every time.

BB: Most emerging businesses have an ‘ah-ha’ moment when they realize they are on to something good and excitement is at its peak. Tell me about yours.

FB: I am not sure we’ve had our biggest ah-ha moment yet. We are just scratching the surface and have a tremendous amount of growth opportunities going forward. I guess you can say our first ah-ha moment, if you want to call it that, was when we finally decided to compete with the large distribution companies and not just be wine brokers. Being our own distribution company was the only way to go—we understood that very quickly and made it happen very fast.

CM: I was going to say another ah-ha moment or realization was the first day we went into the warehouse and it was ours. It was like, ‘All right, we’re doing this.’ But the full Aaaaa-haaa moment hasn’t happened yet—but it will. We’re in this for the long haul, no doubt.

BB: What has been your biggest surprise?

FB: I do not think anything has totally surprised us yet, but what we are very excited about is the warm reception we have received so far. Restaurants like III Forks, Bistro AIX, Orsay, Biscotti’s, and Vino’s have all been early adaptors of our brands, including our Huguenot Cellars brand. In fact, III Forks is serving Huguenot Cellars, Cuvee de Blanc, our white wine by the glass.

I can tell you that it feels great to see our products having great success in the market. Jeremy the Sommelier and Curtis one of the proprietors here at III Forks has really gotten behind our brands and has helped us a great deal. Let’s face it, wine just goes better with great food and good friends. We truly value our relationships with these great restaurants and look forward to future growth with them.

CM: I can tell you a really cool surprise is when you walk into a restaurant and you order your own wine. It’s one thing to order a wine that you represent, it’s a whole other thing when you sit down at a table and order your own wine.

Business vitals

Owner: Chad Munsey and Fraser Burns

In business since: 2010

Projected growth: The business will certainly look a lot different than it does now in three to five years. Short term, we are expanding into the Orlando and Tampa Bay markets and within the next 12 to 24 months, we plan on being in the South Florida market. As far as our three to five year plan, we would love to have full coverage throughout Florida and then we will look to expand into a few other states like Louisiana and South Carolina.

We also want to expand our brand management and import divisions. In the coming years, we know our Huguenot Cellars and Esplanade brands should become a staple in many Florida restaurants and fine wine shops. Our plans are to grow the company using solid business practices and just keep building relationships.

I know over time our business model will allow us to scale effectively and allow us to provide a superior service to all our clients.

How you can do it

Take a leap of faith, but put together a very solid portfolio, especially when entering a proven, long-term successful market. It also doesn’t hurt that one business partner owned the hottest wine bar in town for years and knows almost everyone, and the other has a proven track-record for starting up new businesses. At the end of the day it’s all about relationships.

The story behind the Huguenot Cellars brand

Chad Munsey: The first evidence of modern wine making was in 1564 on the bank of the St. Johns River by the French Huguenots. There is a longstanding history with the French Huguenots who fled France, landed here, and built Ft. Caroline—and this kind of stemmed the naming of the brand.

Talk about an ah-ha moment! I was reading a book on wine history on one of my many flights and that’s where I learned about the history. It’s just an amazing background story. Many of the wineries that we represent have great stories associated with them and I don’t know if there is any other better story.

The genesis of the wine was I wanted a white wine and a red wine that somebody could put on their table and regardless of whom in the group liked white or liked red, everybody at the table would find something about that wine they liked. I wanted it to be the kind of quintessential everyday wine.

One of the big things I used to tell people was to drink what you like, eat what you like, and it will all work out. I wanted this to be a wine that people just opened and it’s good.

Baymeadows Moving and Storage’s new channel partnership will help drive Mike McCreary and his crew forward

By Wendy Bautista

While he might have gotten into the moving business “kind of by accident,” the success Mike McCreary, owner of the family-owned and operated Baymeadows Moving and Storage (www.baymeadowsmovers.com), has found is no accident.

“I started out in 1974 as a truck driver, hauling just about anything, and after six years, I learned not to like it,” says McCreary. “I didn’t like being gone all the time, so I got into a sales position.” That sales position lead to a couple of different jobs in sales, but nothing related to the moving and storage industry, until he saw an ad in the paper.

“There was a sales company looking for a sales representative for a moving company and I thought I would give that a try,” says McCreary. “So I went to that address only to find I was at the wrong place! But it was another moving company and they hired me.”

Over the years, he worked for various movers and after too many unfulfilled promises about becoming a part owner, he decided to start his own company. In August 1996, McCreary bought the name Baymeadows Movers from the gentleman who owned it. He took that and all the years of work he’d done making contacts with people and businesses and let everyone know he was starting his own company. “And you know what?” asks McCreary. “They were right with me the whole time; I never lost a customer.”

Business booms

What started as one truck, three men, and a 10-foot by 20-foot storage unit quickly grew to two trucks, six men, and a 5,000 square foot space within the first year. Over the years, they have expanded to the current 15 trucks, a staff of about 50, and 36,000 square feet of warehouse space on 6.5 acres.

Most of that warehouse space is used to store household goods and commercial storage, such as office furniture, cubicles, etc., and all the items needed for packing (paper, boxes, blankets, etc.). They will not store chemicals, perishable items, steel, lumber, or freight.

It is not uncommon for McCreary’s crew to do 10 to 12 jobs a day, six days a week, sometimes even stacking jobs if the truck is capable and depending on what the logistics are of the moves.

“Military members’ household goods are a big percentage of what we do—about 40% to 50% of our business,” says McCreary. “We represent 15 different carriers for military work and move people to anywhere in the world they want that person to go. Sometimes, they will be gone for a couple of years and their stuff is still here.”

They also do a lot of work where trucks aren’t even involved, with many of their commercial jobs just needing equipment and manpower at a job site—but not just any old manpower. McCreary ensures all of his employees are clean cut, respectful, have manners, and are upstanding, ethical people with a great work ethic.

“I have a dress code and an employee manual that they all must follow,” says McCreary. “If I have rules about dress code and ethics that they are willing to follow, and encourage everybody that works for me to educate themselves and get training or go to trade school, then that’s the kind of people I want to hire—and I think I will get a better employee for it.”

Life mission

Whether it’s blanket wrapping something to ensure its safety, loading the trucks so you get your rugs first, or stacking some of your boxes in the garage so you have room in your home, McCreary has learned over the years it’s all the little things that you do that make a difference in life.

“I tell everybody that I want to be better today than I was yesterday,” says McCreary. “What can I do tomorrow that I should’ve done today or I didn’t do today, and how can I be better? I always want to do something just a little bit more.”

That little bit more he gives is what brings in the referrals and provides a competitive edge. While others were sitting on their wallets during the recession, he decided to spend money.

“I just did everything I could to promote my business, even changing the image of company by going to red, white, and blue lettering on the trucks—and now the trucks are so recognizable.”

Getting noticed

McCreary says he’s always been “incognito” and didn’t really want his competition knowing what he was doing, but sometimes it can pay off. North American Van Lines, one of largest moving companies in the world, has chosen Baymeadows Moving and Storage to represent them in northeast Florida—and he has a competitor to thank.

“They say one closed door is an open door for someone else, and I believe it,” says McCreary. “When the other North American agent that was here opted to close for whatever reason, the general manager from that competing company told them I’m the one they should look at. So essentially my competition is what got me this relationship.”

The relationship began with North American wanting to see was his financials. Once they saw his financials were decent, they then came down to meet the staff and see the facility and find out all they possibly could about the company.

While this relationship may be new, McCreary has competed against them for years, but says he never really paid any attention to them. “On a local level, you pay more attention to the local agent than the van lines itself, but after I went up to Fort Wayne, Ind., and met the CEO and each of the department heads, I felt really comfortable with their laid back, family approach to business.

Getting connected

Baymeadows Moving and Storage’s strength lies in the southeast, but their affiliation with North American Van Lines allows them to go anywhere in the world using their network of agents.

“The fact that they are represented in 200 countries and have 350 agents in the continental United States and Canada just adds to my network because anything coming or going within this city, whether I’m doing it or their doing it, they may need to use me,” says McCreary. “From here to somewhere else, or from somewhere else to here, they may need me.”

For the past 90 days, even before officially signing on with North American Van Lines, McCreary’s warehouse has been busy doing work for them. North American Van Lines has an 80-person call center that operate 24 hours a day, 364 days a year that he is now linked up to. When anybody needs a move in this zip code area, they make appointments for McCreary to go see who might be moving where.

“The nice thing about that is the lead is pretty qualified already,” says McCreary. “Getting the lead and having it qualified is 50% of the sale, so then it becomes a matter of the McCreary boys putting on the charm!”

McCreary is referring to the charm of him and his two sons, who also work at Baymeadows Moving and Storage. “I am trying to have my boys be the face of the company as someday I will hand them the keys.”

Moving forward

McCreary says they are in the learning process of how to adapt to their system because the way they do things is real in-depth and a little different from what they are used to, but it will net him half a million dollars to a million dollars just from the relationship.

“It’s not easy; in fact it’s complicated, but I’ve got smart people around here and we will figure it out. It will take about a year to get to where we want it, but North American Van Lines gives me the support I never had in the past,” says McCreary. “There are all these different people that are there to help you that I didn’t have with the former company we were with.”

Part of the support they are provided are laptop computers that allow McCreary’s sons to do in-home estimates by using a service that lets them to do inventory electronically. “It brings us out of the ice age and into a new world, and we can print the quote in residence or send it to e-mail. That is something new through driver services,” says McCreary.

Being better

“Their philosophy is perfect for me—they specialize in one thing and one thing only and that’s household goods relocation,” says McCreary. “This puts me over the top because I already do everything else, but I’ve been reluctant to do long distance because I never had the support they can give me, but our strengths are still in whatever we can do locally. And now this relationship pretty much puts us where we need to go.”

Wendy Bautista is editor of Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

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Business vitals

Owner: Mike McCreary

In business since: 1996

Projected growth: “We don’t know how big this new relationship is going to be, but I know that if things continue the way they have been, it will gross us a half a million dollars to a million dollars in revenue. I’m already in the position where I might have to hire more people.”

How you can do it

“I am not sure this could be done in just any community. But in this community, I found my place here and I’ve been able to be successful because of this community and the people that I’ve made contacts with over the years.”

Green efforts

Baymeadows Moving and Storage makes it a point to go green whenever possible. They have their own baler, recycle at their desks, and each warehouse has a recycling area.

After clients unpack, they make truck runs to get the opened, used boxes and paper for recycling. “Some may be reused for certain jobs and customers depending on the situation, but the paper and boxes that are damage are baled,” says McCreary. “Bales are anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds each.”

He says he has literally been paid thousands of dollars for recyclable materials, and most of the big movers in this city do it and see the value in it. They recycle paper and cardboard in the tens of thousands of pounds, with one of the largest pick-ups weighing in at 41,000 pounds.

He also has a container for metal recycling for things such as steel bedrails, old file cabinets, and bases of certain chairs.

“I try to do everything I possibly can,” says McCreary. “I even took out ads in the local newspaper about recycling stating, ‘Recycle Jacksonville. It’s the right thing to do! Sponsored by Baymeadows Moving and Storage.’ Whether it made a difference or not, who knows?

“You can’t find it all the time but you can certainly try,” says McCreary. “The recycling program is basically me because I feel guilty if I throw something into the dumpster that I know could possibly be reused somewhere or recycled.”

As movers, they get a lot of furniture that people don’t want any more. McCreary gives HabiJax or Angel Aid anything he thinks they can sell for a profit that goes to charity. He also helps the Kiwanis Club with their auction by donating a tractor trailer and a couple of big containers loaded with stuff that they can auction off to generate money to give to their charities.

Surrounded by good people and furry friends, Fred Goldsmith has found the secret to success for Pet Paradise Resorts

By Wendy Bautista

When he needed a place to leave his Bichon Frise, Fred Goldsmith, current CEO and chairman of Pet Paradise (www.PetParadiseResort.com), did what any good “pet parent” would do—he shopped around for the best, and what he found was a facility in St. Augustine.

“I toured the facility and met the owner, Frank Charles. After leaving Samantha there for the 10 days I was gone, along with my daughter’s dog Sally, I got into a conversation with Frank about the business,” says Goldsmith.

“Frank told me about a conversation he was having with the Jacksonville International Airport, and that’s where the light kind of got started for me. It was not so much to build something better, it was the airport concept,” says Goldsmith. “Part of the reason people will go to you is because it’s convenient—and if you’re at the airport, it’s not out of the way; you’re going to the airport.”

Getting going

Goldsmith met with Frank and bought the St. Augustine facility in December 2002, “mainly to start working on reporting, policies, procedures, and the kinds of things you would do if you were going to try and build multiple locations,” says Goldsmith.

In May 2003, he bought another facility in Palm Coast called Happy Dog Inn, which “offered an in-ground swimming pool, lots of play areas for the dogs to run, indoor/outdoor rooms…the things I envisioned for Pet Paradise going forward,” says Goldsmith.

They operated those two facilities while working the architectural drawings and the structural, mechanical things for the airport location. Goldsmith says he probably talked with more than 200 different kennel owners during the process, mainly to find out the good and the bad aspects. He wanted to make sure that when they built, they were building all the things they needed and not making some of the same mistakes the others had made.

Goldsmith jokingly adds, “Of course, I made lots of mistakes anyway. But as we built the current 13 locations, we think we’ve got the model down now where we can’t make too many more mistakes.”

Like a hotel

While being a Wendy’s franchisee, Goldsmith started a software company called Tridata Inc. He basically started writing software to help him run his own franchise, but as a bi-product of that he got into labor management working with hotel restaurants.

“The labor management system for hotels is really what got me into the hotel market—and as you might imagine, we’re running a hotel,” says Goldsmith. “Although I’ve never owned or operated a hotel, if you write software for an industry, you get used to what they need.”

Just as a hotel would, Pet Paradise has statistics on revenue per available room, occupancy, rack rate, and check-out times. When people come in, they have to check in their pet. The dogs then go to their individual suites with raised cots and indoor/outdoor access and auto-fill water bowls, and cat guests go to the cat room where they have an individual seven-level cat condo.

“People do the things they do at the Ritz, and the pets come here and they do the things that they would do at the Ritz,” says Goldsmith. “It’s just a vacation for them. This is for the parent who wants to make sure their ‘kids’ are getting the best that’s available—and that’s what we do.”

Goldsmith says really what they sell is peace of mind. When the customer is gone, they can use the Web cameras to check on their pets or they can certainly call, but Pet Paradise wants the customer to know that when their gone, their pets are having a great time—they are not stuck someplace they don’t want to be. Sometimes owners will even receive a video of their pet.

Working the plan

Knowing the industry and the potential of Pet Paradise, Goldsmith came up with a business plan, which helped assemble his impressive board of directors (see sidebar). Two board members, David Messerlie and John Foster, were friends of Goldsmith’s who had read the business plan and decided to invest in the early rounds, which got them through buying St. Augustine and Palm Coast.

The other board members—Dean Beckwith, Bob Hood, Fernando Acosta-Rua, Dan Rice, Buck Griswold, and Gary Chartrand— joined as the concept expanded.

“Actually, when we got started with this, it was people coming to me. Normally, if you’re trying to start a new business, you’re out in front of venture capitalists. But these guys heard about the concept, thought it was a good one, and came to me and said they would like to be involved,” says Goldsmith.

For the most part, Goldsmith knew the board members socially as they all live at the beach, but he made it clear that they didn’t invest because they were friends. “They might have looked at the business plan because we were friends, but they invested because the opportunity looked like something to build,” he says.

Good people

Goldsmith’s board is not just figure heads; they all play a part in the success of Pet Paradise, with many of the great ideas they’ve implement coming from experiences the board has had.

There are nine board members total and when they have a board meeting, all nine members are there. He says they are really just a great bunch of guys with vast amounts of experience and vested interests, but all of them do it because they were in business and have a business mind.

“If you look at the resumes of the people on the board, you would think they could be running General Electric—and to think they are involved with 13 dog kennel facilities is kind of ‘wow,’ but they have a lot of faith in our long-term goals.

“Even when I sit here and look around, I can’t believe it because really if you picked up General Electric’s 10k and read that that was the board, it would make sense to you,” says Goldsmith. “Everybody would go, ‘Gosh they’ve got the guy from McDonnell Douglas and AT&T and Acosta and Siemens, what a board,’ and we’re sitting in here talking about 13 dog kennels.

“The point to all of this is like most great minds, they can’t stop. You can retire from Boeing, but your mind is still business because you’ve done it for 35 years. That’s what they bring to the table,” says Goldsmith.

Mutual admiration

After the last board meeting, Goldsmith and John Foster went to dinner and were talking about the knowledge that was in the room. “John was just so impressed. Here I am impressed with his and John is with everybody else! It really is unique for a company this size to have that much talent,” says Goldsmith.

He says that sometimes there is a stigma that goes along with somebody that ran a multibillion dollar company with 50 thousand employees, but you won’t find it with this board. “There are people with big jobs that will tell you how important they are, but these guys would never tell you—I can’t even get them to brag when I need them to like in front of an investment group,” says Goldsmith. “They just don’t do it, they won’t do it—but that’s the kind of people they are and why I’m crazy about them.”

Inner workings

American Pet Resorts LLC (the parent company of Pet Paradise) has 13 owned facilities (no franchises) in four states throughout the southern region of the country, nine are located throughout Florida, two are in Houston, and one each in New Orleans and Charlotte, N.C.

In total, they are just under 200 employees, including all 13 facilities and the corporate office, with the Web design, legal, graphic design, and marketing being done in house. Goldsmith says they’ve got an organization here now internally where they can continue to grow and not have to do anything else from the administrative side.

He thinks they will be back on board with another two or three locations this year, and as money frees up maybe more. He says it can be difficult because in order for him to buy an already built location, it has to meet Pet Paradise standards.

“If we buy a facility, it may be one that has a play yard but it’s not artificial grass, or has an area that could handle a pool but they haven’t put one in, but when I get through, it’s got to look and feel like Pet Paradise—and the offer has to be something you understand,” says Goldsmith. “If you don’t know what you are going to get when you walk into a place, then you’ve lost your brand.”

For the love of it

Goldsmith spends as much time at the corporate office as he has to, but his love is to be over at the kennel, which is right next door. “We’ll be in meetings talking with lawyers or accountants and I will just stand up, and they know I’m gone,” he says. “I’ll go and play for 20 minutes with the kids and when I come back, we’ll start again.”

He says playing with the pets and seeing them happy helps remind him what they do because you can sometimes forget. “When we began, we just had an idea that if we built the Ritz Carlton but could be the same price as a Days Inn, they would come—and that ended up being the case. We are just trying to make sure we are meeting the needs of the pets and the people.”

Wendy Bautista is editor of Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

Business vitals

Owner: Fred Goldsmith

In business since: 2002

Projected growth: “We envision a national chain. We are at 13 and were on the path to 25 by 2012 when the economic downturn took the banks out of play. It’s not new news that banks aren’t doing regular banking and they are certainly not in the lending business, so until the world kind of gets straightened out, we’ve got acquisitions we are looking at now and a couple of relationships we are building—one of which is with  Park ‘N Fly, an offsite parking facility at airports.

They have 18 facilities at 14 airports and we are involved with them at five of those airports now. There’s a growth strategy there with Park ‘N Fly and the reason that is good is they got a customer base of people that already come to the airport and so just getting your name out is a challenge when you are in any business.”

How you can do it

“I’ve found all my life that if I surround myself with people a lot smarter than me, then I win,” jokes Goldsmith. “But having a good business plan that piques the interest of others and makes them want to invest in your idea also helps.”

The board of directors

Fred Goldsmith, CEO and Chairman, led an investor team to purchase Pet Paradise Resort in 2002 and has been the CEO and driving force behind the growth of the company.

Fernando Acosta-Rua, COO and executive vice president of finance, has been involved with American Pet Resorts LLC since August 2004 and joined the company in an operating capacity in January 2007. As a former partner with L&L Capital Partners, Fernando led an investment group to invest $4 million in American Pet Resorts LLC in October 2005.

John Foster, a director and founding investor in American Pet Resorts LLC, held a variety of executive and managerial positions, primarily in marketing and operations, during a 30-year career in the telecommunications industry. His later assignments at AT&T included regional vice president-marketing, president and CEO of a wholly-owned subsidiary in Jacksonville, Fla., and president and managing director of AT&T Services Group, Europe.

Robert H. Hood, Jr., a director and investor in American Pet Resorts LLC, is the past president of Douglas Aircraft Company, the commercial aircraft division of McDonnell Douglas Corporation. He served as president of Douglas Aircraft Company from February 1989 until April 1996.

David Messerlie, a director and investor in American Pet Resorts LLC, is the president and chairman of the board of directors of LCI Ltd., the world’s largest supplier of inorganic fluoride for water fluoridation and the production of silicon Tetrafluoride for the silicon wafer market.

Dean Beckwith, a director and investor in American Pet Resorts LLC, held a variety of executive and managerial positions in the computer and telecommunications industries for over 33 years. He created a joint venture company, ROLM Sales and Service, which was purchased by Siemens AG. He became SRVP of Services for that company and later SRVP of service for Siemens Private Communications in Munich, Germany.

Dan Rice has served as president and CEO of Mayport Venture Partners, LLC since its founding in 2000. Prior to assuming this position, Rice was a partner in one of America’s premier law firms, McGuireWoods LLP.

E. Bulkeley “Buck” Griswold is the founding partner of L&L Capital, an investment banking and consulting firm focused on middle market and emerging companies. Buck has more than 40 years’ experience in the financial services and investment management sectors.

Gary Chartrand is executive chairman of Acosta Sales and Marketing and has been the pivotal force behind Acosta Inc., one of the most effective in-store sales, marketing and service companies in the industry. Chartrand joined Acosta in 1983 as a business manager and subsequently was promoted to vice president, regional vice president of Florida, president, and in 1996, president/CEO.

Forward thinking RadiatorBarn.com unlocking new customers online

By Wendy Bautista

Randy Amos has always pushed himself to do better and to go above and beyond what anyone else would do, and that drive and determination has paid off for him in his life and career.

Randy was only 9 years old when his father and brother opened the family business in 1958 as Lake Shore Radiator and Welding Works, which primarily consisted of a small welding facility and one repair tank to service automobile radiators.

“I was in elementary school then and would come by the shop after going to school and learned how to weld and then how to do radiator repair,” says Randy, the current company, Lake Shore Radiator & Specialty Auto Parts, president and CEO.

“By age 12, I was one of the better repairmen of radiators in the city. I used to think it was a big deal for a young guy like me learning how to repair radiators and weld at such a young age until I started seeing these young folks today that are 5 and 7 years old that can take a computer and do unbelievable things. I realize now that age was not really a factor, but I was probably better than a lot of older guys because I learned the new way and the right way of repairing radiators.”

Randy continued to work at Lake Shore while graduating from high school and continuing his education at Jacksonville University.

Making changes

After graduating in 1970 with his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a concentration in economics and finance, and a minor in political science, he decided to stay in the Jacksonville area.

“I looked at my brother and said, ‘If we are going to stay here, we are going to expand and do more than just repair radiators.’ And that’s when we started dabbling a little bit in selling the product more, as far as a complete radiator,” says Randy.

While still keeping the business going, Randy was elected to the Jacksonville City Council in 1975. At that time, he was the youngest city councilman ever elected. He served through 1979 when he left elected politics to devote full time to Lake Shore, which he had purchased a 50% share.

“I decided to run for tax collector and was unfortunately, or maybe I should say fortunately for the business, defeated by less than 3% of votes. I decided it was time to go to the next step with the business,” says Randy.

Making strides

That was when Lake Shore became a complete, full wholesale division and pulled that away from the repair side. In 1981, it started distributing radiators and condensers in the local region of North Florida and South Georgia.

“Back then, we were what they considered new pioneers in the business,” says Randy. “Traditionally, you would have a three-step process. But when I went out on the road, we did what we called a two step. We bought it directly from the manufacturer and sold it directly to the installer. By doing that, there was a lot more efficiency for us and we could lower the cost point to the garages and who we went to.”

1983 marked the first expansion to Fayetteville, N.C. Knowing the logistics of overnight delivery was 200 miles from a location, he took out a compass and drew a circle 400 miles outside of Jacksonville. “So between Fayetteville and Jacksonville, we covered everything from southern Virginia through Florida, and all the way over to eastern Alabama,” says Randy.

He has since opened up other branches in Macon, Ga.; Dothan, Ala.; Raleigh, N.C.; Greensboro, N.C.; and Charleston, S.C.

In addition to operating in those six physical locations, he also uses 3PL (third party logistics) warehouses, which are a fee-type warehouse, in Austin, Texas, and Sparks, Nev. (just outside of Reno), to help make delivery times shorter for those surrounding areas.

Making the move

Robert Amos, Randy’s nephew, joined Lake Shore in 1999. While he says he was not a computer professional per se, he was always actively interested and knew there were some capabilities out there that could take Lake Shore in a different direction and maybe to a different level.

“Rob was the founder of the Internet division and I am the funder,” says Randy. “I had the money and he had the knowledge, and we paired that together to get RadiatorBarn.com going.” And in 2002, the website launched.

“Randy has always been one to grasp something by the horns and then let our competitors adjust to what we do in a lot of ways,” says Robert, when asked if it was a challenge to get Randy to agree to an Internet site. “Randy has always been on the edge of technology and always embraced it so when I brought the idea to him about going to the Internet, he was willing.”

Robert, who has bachelor of business administration degrees in transportation/logistics and business management and is currently going to school at Florida State to get a masters in management of information systems, says “as far as taking the established company and moving it toward being on the Internet, there really wasn’t much of a transition as many of the procedures were in place with the warehouses.”

Randy says a lot of what Robert did he may be downplaying a bit because the  information and knowledge he has about how you set up these businesses and how the Internet works and how you do things the right way is the key to Lake Shore’s and RadiatorBarn.com’s success.

“Rob and I talked early on that we wanted to do everything professionally right and technologically right, but we still had to remember that we are an existing business and should never forget where we came from and how to treat customers,” says Randy.

“I like to say we are technologically advanced and future thinking of a Buck Rogers but have the customer service, smile, and friendliness of a Will Rogers.”

Making adjustments

Once they were up and running online, they saw an immediate boost in business. Knowing how other companies went from .com to .gone, they decided to take a slower approach and ease into it. And that decision paid off—by the end of the second year of being on the Internet, they were doing over $1 million in online business and have been multimillion ever since.

Of course, success doesn’t come without its growing pains. With Lake Shore being the parent company, they use the same warehouses and staff for both operations and for some branches there was an adjustment period.

“They were taking care of their normal garage and walk-up customers and then in the afternoon all of a sudden they would have four or five orders coming in that they had to rush, pull, write up, and ship out for RadiatorBarn.com,” says Randy. “It did take a little while for the culture to set in and some gentle reminders from me that we are one team, one company, and it’s not RadiatorBarn against Lake Shore,” says Randy.

Robert was able to turn these issues into solutions by developing a system where the orders are more consistent throughout the day instead of at once so these branches can write them up at any time.

“We’ve definitely gotten a lot more efficient,” says Robert. “We’ve gotten to the point where the time from when you order a radiator and send your order through to where we bill it out and get it to the location where it is shipping from is less than a minute.”

Randy jokes with Robert that some of the other changes he made were just things he didn’t like or didn’t want to deal with.

“That’s exactly true!” says Robert, “and some of these changes definitely save time and phone calls—especially in regards to tracking numbers.” Robert says that not having a tracking number was one thing he changed because he himself would want it. “People provide their e-mail address when checking out so why not?” he says. “We just do it as part of our customer service now and it makes them feel good to know exactly where the package is and when it is going to get there.”

“It’s one thing if it’s a book, but it’s another thing when it’s a radiator and your vehicle is down and you have to get it back up and running,” says Robert.

Making advances

And getting that car back up and running is being handled by only 38 employees, and all 38 work for Lake Shore and RadiatorBarn.com. “That’s the advantage with our technology,” says Randy. “A company our size with the volume we do would have somewhere between 60 and 70 employees, but with our high-level telephone system and electronic cataloging, we are able to get by with about half and we’re not sacrificing any level of customer service.”

“We do take care of the customers, number one, but the customer is only going to be taken care of as well as that employee feels like doing it that day,” says Randy, which is why he makes sure his employees stay happy and are kept up-to-date. “In today’s market, I see too many companies that don’t appreciate the employees they have.”

Many of the employees have been with the company for a great number of years, with some reaching more than 20 years. “I have a good strong group of people that have been here quite a while and my biggest equity is in those employees,” says Randy.

“Lake Shore and RadiatorBarn.com are really big marketing companies that sell a product—the difference is we know what the product is we are selling and how it functions,” says Randy. “I think that’s another big key for us versus other distributors in our industry.”

“If and when a customer does have an issue or problem, they are comfortable calling us because all of our guys are trained in keeping up with the mechanics on the car, not just selling the part. Our people are ASE certified, which means they are just a little bit more up on the cutting edge of technology and they know a little bit more about selling parts and taking care of the customer’s needs.”

“We want to make the sale just as much as the next guy,” says Robert, “but if a customer calls up and they describe a problem and they don’t need a radiator, we’re not going to try and sell them a radiator—we’re going to help them fix their problem. And when they need a radiator, they will come to us. Future business to us is just as good as current business.”

Making a prediction

“In 2006, the national average of how long people kept a car was 7.3 years, but now it is predicted at 10.6 years,” says Randy. “Just adding that three to four year increase in the time a car is kept on the road and operating, there will be more need for radiators and parts like we sell, so I know we are definitely in a growing business. We just need to be here and around to service more cars, and all indicators are we are going to be growing and doing really well online.

Currently, 15% of Lake Shore’s total volume is on the Internet. “Probably the most growth is going to come in that area in two to five years because we’ve strategically planned several more branch operations that were going to open up. We actually look at a map and figure out where we can get overnight delivery,” says Randy.

“The key to that, too,” says Robert, “is to get that overnight service at regular ground shipment rates without having to pay for the overnight service.”

Randy says he is looking for more brick and mortar locations across the country so he can provide service in the local area and be able to get parts delivered to a customer overnight and not pay additional fees. “Long term, I would like to see coast-to-coast Lake Shore and RadiatorBarn.com overnight delivery, and maybe even save money for the companies.”

“We may not have been the first one selling radiators on the Internet, but we are probably the best now,” says Robert, with Randy interjecting, “and our testimonials prove that! You can go to the section online and see an unbelievable amount. Continually hearing the good things people have to say makes me so proud.”

“The Internet, the way we do business through RadiatorBarn.com, the way we look at expanding down the line, and taking care of customers has created and keeps the passion and enthusiasm up in me,” says Randy.

“I feel there is a .com boom coming again for the correctly built companies on the Internet—for the good guys who develop good systems—and RadiatorBarn.com is definitely one of those companies.”

Wendy Bautista is editor of Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

Wholesome Tummies tackles childhood obesity by offering nutritious options to schools

Every day there’s a surprise waiting at the end of the lunch line for Promise Land Academy first-grader Jada King. When it’s her turn, 6-year-old Jada doesn’t receive a lunch tray, but a small, white box adorned with a brightly colored logo.

Will it contain a lo mein noodle bowl, spaghetti and meatballs, or maybe all-natural chicken tenders? Jada tears open the box to find a fresh, healthy meal, made personally for her.

Thanks to Wholesome Tummies, a new innovative healthy school lunch business, midday meals have become more interesting and appetizing for Jada and children at four area schools. Wholesome Tummies creates foods that cajole picky eaters to make healthy food choices.

Parents order the meals through an online system and lunches are delivered directly to local schools including Promise Land Academy in Jacksonville, and Grace Episcopal Day School, High Point Christian Academy, and The Broach School — all in Orange Park.

The Wholesome Tummies service is getting traction having just contracted with San Pablo Elementary, the health and fitness magnet elementary school in Duval County. The company will be providing healthy snacks for an estimated 300 children who participate in San Pablo’s after-school fitness program. Students will fuel up on wholesome snacks, such as organic baby carrots with hummus, before or after enjoying tennis, gymnastics, Zumba, dance, and swimming activities. More schools are expressing interest in providing Wholesome Tummies as a lunch option.

For parents like Jada’s mother, Casey King, Wholesome Tummies offers convenience she feels good about.

“I’m extremely busy, and mornings can be tough. With Wholesome Tummies, I don’t have to worry about packing a lunch. I know that Jada will have a healthy, tasty lunch,” King says. “Jada loves the food, and it takes only minutes to order her lunches online. Wholesome Tummies has made healthy food exciting to Jada.”

That’s the kind of validation Wholesome Tummies owners Bradley and Carrie Farnsworth were hoping for when they purchased a Wholesome Tummies franchise in July 2010.

The jump-start

Carrie grew up in Colorado while Brad was raised in Arkansas. Both value an active lifestyle, and share their love of sports with their sons, Jacob, 10, and Zackery, 8. They met in college at Baylor University in Texas where Carrie double-majored in finance and international business, and Brad in environmental studies and business.

Dismayed by the constant marketing of unhealthy foods to children, the couple was immediately interested in learning more about Wholesome Tummies when they discovered the company’s business page on Facebook.

“We noticed how little attention is paid to providing healthy meals for children,” says Brad Farnsworth. “So my wife and I decided to make the move to help change the way parents and school administrators view children’s nutrition.”

The couple secured commercial kitchen space inside First Baptist Church of Mandarin in Jacksonville and launched their operations in October 2010. So far, initial feedback from school administrators, parents, and children has been overwhelmingly positive.

Making healthy easy

Wholesome Tummies only uses fresh, all-natural, or organic ingredients—no trans fats, no high-fructose corn syrup, no nitrates, and no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. The menu also offers entirely vegetarian, gluten-free, and dairy-free offerings.

Parents register on the Wholesome Tummies website where they can view different menu options for any given day. They select the meals for their children and pay for them online. The Wholesome Tummies crew prepares all the meals fresh daily and delivers them to the schools hot and ready for lunch.

“We are very concerned about the state of nutrition and health of children. Wholesome Tummies is an efficient and effective way for parents to make sure their kids eat right at school,” Farnsworth says. “Childhood obesity is a major problem and we want to be a part of the solution. We are investing in this business, but also in the health of our community’s children.”

Addressing concerns

Alarming childhood obesity trends have made access to healthy food an important concern for parents and lawmakers alike. Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years, according to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, (NCCDPHP), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In one study, 61 percent of obese children ages 5 through 10 exhibited risk factors for heart disease, and 26 percent had two or more risk factors for the disease. The United States spends as much as $147 billion annually on the direct and indirect costs of obesity, according to the NCCDPHP.

School lunch has been the subject of national attention for lawmakers. The $4.5 billion “Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act” was signed by President Obama in December after passing unanimously in the Senate and by the House 264-157.

The act eliminates junk food in school lunches, increases reimbursement rates for meals, and makes school lunches available to more children. First Lady Michelle Obama released a statement calling the act, “…a groundbreaking piece of bipartisan legislation that will significantly improve the quality of meals that children receive at school.” The First Lady launched her “Let’s Move” campaign last February to end childhood hunger and fight childhood obesity.

The Farnsworths share the same concerns as other parents.

“Parents and schools everywhere are demanding healthier food choices and Wholesome Tummies offers a much-needed and convenient solution,” Farnsworth says, noting that the couple envisions growing their business over the next five years and expanding into more local public and private schools.

Wholesome Tummies was founded three years ago by two working mothers in Orlando. The Farnsworths became the company’s second franchisees, with the first opening in Tampa. Other Wholesome Tummies franchises were awarded in 2010 in West Palm Beach and St. Petersburg.

Giving food a makeover

Combating the notion that a children’s meal should consist of fries, soda, and chicken nuggets is a challenge. Those associated with Wholesome Tummies know that children can be picky eaters by nature, so Jacksonville chef Ace French gives traditional favorites a healthful makeover.

“We have to introduce healthy food to children to show them that all-natural food can be tasty,” French says.

Take, for instance, macaroni and cheese—the franchise’s best seller. Wholesome Tummies uses whole wheat, high-protein, high-fiber pasta with no preservatives or additives. French uses four all-natural cheeses, and adds a puree of organic carrots and white beans to sneak in extra protein.

The New York style pizza, another favorite, is made with an all-natural pizza crust and fresh marinara sauce that also has pureed vegetables for added nutrition.

French brings more than 25 years of experience to Wholesome Tummies. He has worked as an executive chef at a Marriott resort and Houston’s restaurant, in addition to owning a restaurant and catering business.

“When I heard about the Wholesome Tummies concept, I thought it was a great idea,” French says. “While my children are older and out of school now, I remember being horrified about the school lunch that was available to them when they were in school. I wouldn’t let them eat it.”

A typical day

French arrives to the Wholesome Tummies kitchen around 7:30 a.m. each morning, and begins preparation including cutting up veggies and fruit, making fresh hummus, and mixing yogurt.

“I truly believe that we are food missionaries,” French says. “I’m excited to have the opportunity to share wholesome food with children, and hopefully set them on the path for healthier lives.”

Farnsworth arrives by 8:00 a.m. to help pack anywhere between 50 to 100 lunches. They work until 10:45 a.m., when Farnsworth leaves the kitchen to deliver the hot lunches to the schools. Promise Land Academy serves the meals directly from the kitchen since the school and kitchen exist on the same property. Farnsworth is finished with all deliveries by 12:30 p.m. and sometimes stays to watch the children’s reaction to the food.

“I love to hear them comment about how good the food is,” he says. “I used to do electronic distribution sales and also called upon IT staffing managers who needed contractors, so delivering healthy lunches to children is a very different experience. I feel like we’re really making a difference in educating parents about the importance of natural, healthy food, and making this food available to children.”

The price you pay

The price of a typical Wholesome Tummies meal—$4.50—is more than a typical public school lunch of less than $2.00, but many parents are willing to pay the difference to ensure that their children receive a healthy meal.

“Unhealthy food can lead to so many health problems later,” Farnsworth says. “You can pay for high-quality food now or pay for high healthcare costs later.”

Martha J. Milton, headmaster of Grace Episcopal Day School, agrees.

“Parents are willing to pay more for Wholesome Tummies because they realize the incredible value of what they’re getting,” she says. “Being able to ensure that their children have fresh, healthy, organic food makes them feel good.”

Before Wholesome Tummies, the school—which doesn’t have a kitchen—brought in lunches from eateries such as Subway and Chick-fil-A. Milton wanted to offer healthier options to the parents. Today, Milton estimates that about 40 percent of students at Grace Episcopal eat Wholesome Tummies lunches.

“Wholesome Tummies is so user-friendly, and the quality of the food and service is excellent,” Milton says. “They have been able to provide superior nutritional value, taste, and presentation. The numerous selections keep the children from getting bored, and the parents love it.”

The moms behind Wholesome Tummies

Orlando-based Wholesome Tummies was founded in 2007 by two working mothers, after a Fourth of July pool party.

Samantha Gotlib says that she and Debbie Blacher shared their frustrations about the lack of convenient options for providing healthy lunches for their children.

“As a business owner, I needed the convenience of a school lunch, but I refused to have my kids eat pizza every day,” Gotlib says.

Gotlib and Blacher opened their kitchen in 2008 starting with five private schools. They have since grown their business to preparing thousands of meals each month and delivering them to 20 public and private preschools and elementary schools in Central Florida. The initial success and rapid growth prompted the owners to expand their concept to a much broader scale.

The co-founders launched the franchise option this year to expand their mission to change school meal plans from high-fat and processed foods to more fresh and natural selections. In addition to the existing franchises, several others are under review and with potential to expand nationwide

“We care passionately about children eating foods that are fresh, all-natural, and free from artificial ingredients,” Gotlib says. “Some people may not realize, but we are faced with an epidemic of childhood obesity because poor food choices are the tradition in our nation’s schools. Our mission is to change that.”

By Wendy Bautista    

Myron Pincomb has always considered himself an entrepreneur, even starting his first company as a freshman in college. But when he started Educational Tools 11 years ago with less than $10,000 of his own money, one employee, and a dream that he could make a difference, he only aspired to be running a $100 million company with more than 500 employees someday.

Well, that “someday” has become “today” with the recent sale of his company to Triumph Learning.

The beginnings  

When the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) added science to its test, many teachers were concerned. With his degrees in biology and chemistry, Pincomb understood the “pain and panic of science.”

“Most elementary teachers have never had any formal training in science, so dissecting a frog was one of the scariest things they could do,” says Pincomb. “What we did was develop tools to help make that easy for them.”

He hired some of the best writers and curriculum experts in the county, including some from the department of education that wrote the FCAT for Florida, and asked them to be a part of his vision to change education.  

With the forethought of how to make a teacher’s job easier and how to help students learn faster and more effectively, he started the company as a print-based curriculum provider, essentially “aerating workbooks and textbooks for students,” says Pincomb, in the form of activities and worksheets in the subjects of science, math, and reading.

“We were a pretty good size and in 17 states,” says Pincomb. But as in most industries, the past few years have brought about a lot of change. “Even when we were print-based, we pushed the envelope and did some very creative things. But in the last three to four years, we have gone 100% digital and today, are on the cutting edge of educational innovation.”

Changing with the times

While Pincomb says education has generally been slow to adopt technology, recent events with the economy and some state and federal mandates demonstrates the need for education to speed up its conversion. 

According to Pincomb, the state of California has a new law that prohibits schools from using state money to purchase conventional textbooks. “The reason being is textbooks are usually outdated before they are printed and are rarely used in todays’ classroom,” says Pincomb. “It is difficult to engage a student in today’s classroom by sticking him or her in front of a book.”

And that’s where Educational Tools’ digital product iCORE steps in. “What iCORE does is take every topic taught in the classroom and provides the teacher 12 to 15 different ways to teach it,” says Pincomb. “So literally, you can reach every learning style and every learning level within a classroom.”

It takes what is conventionally known as a textbook, workbook, lab book, video library, audio library, or curriculum-based gaming tool, and delivers them through the Internet so teachers can access the curriculum on anything from a laptop to a smart phone.

Teachers can pull it up on screen and print it out if they don’t have any other technology, or they can use it on LCD projectors and smart boards. “Everything is available digitally so it doesn’t matter how they want it delivered, they can use our curriculum on just about any device,” says Pincomb.

The curriculum consists of full activities; if it is printed, it looks like a worksheet, but if it is used it on a smart board, it is interactive.

Gaining momentum

Pincomb says as soon as they converted to digital and had that competitive advantage, people started to take notice of them. “I think we were one of the first ones to really define what technology means in education,” says Pincomb. “For a lot of years, there were LCD projectors and smart boards and all this hardware in the classroom, but no one utilizing it. Basically, what we did was create the curriculum to work on all these different hardware.”

In the past three to four years, they have been very successful in their approach. During this time, Pincomb tried to be very active in industry associations and get the name in front of a lot of key people. As a result, he was courted by several companies before making the final decision on Triumph Learning.

Once he started to get offers and a lot of people started to show interest, he surrounded himself with a really good team of people in legal and accounting who knew what they were doing, and he says he could not have done it without them. 

“Ironically, the company that bought us was one of our biggest competitors six to eight years ago when we were just a print company,” says Pincomb.

On this deal alone, it took six months of grueling due diligence that went on 24/7. Pincomb says they had eight teams of consultants checking with each team member and every customer. “They look at you upside down and every way,” says Pincomb. “I mean it’s a very in-depth process to go through, but in the end it was worth it because it was successful.”

 In this case, Pincomb took over as President/CEO of the new company, so his main concern was not just to sell the company, but also to position the new combined company so that it could be successful in years to come. 

Moving forward

With Triumph Learning still a 100% print publisher and one of the largest supplemental print publishers in the country, the big draw for acquiring Educational Tools and its iCORE product was finding somebody that knew how to convert to digital and then grow a digital business. “That was the match for them as they acquired our platform, but then also our team and now were running the whole company,” says Pincomb.

With competition increasing every day, Pincomb says it’s nice to know there is a ton of potential with Triumph Learning. “The good thing about the new company is we now have more content available to provide teachers and educators,” says Pincomb. “We have more content than probably any other publisher in the United States and we’re digitizing it. We’re working with teams all over the world to digitize it quickly and be able to deliver it for classroom use.” And that potential has grown iCORE from being available in 17 states to all 50 states.

 Pincomb says that part of what they’re doing right now with the merger is integrating the sales force and integrating every department. The sales force will roll out in January for a full, nationwide coverage with all 50 states.

This merger has brought a lot of change to Pincomb’s life. He now works in three offices—Jacksonville, Fla., New York City, and Littleton, Mass., which is just outside of Boston—and oversees about 580 employees.

His Jacksonville office will also see some changes. Pincomb foresees hiring about 12 to 15 people in the next four to six months to create an inside sales team for Web sales, increase his development team, and bring on a CTO. He also has plans to build a marketing team in the near future.

While Educational Tools will only retain its name through the end of the year, at which point it will become Triumph Learning, iCORE will remain as the brand.

Looking ahead

“We will continue the print element as it’s a large piece of our business, but it’s going be as a customer dictates it,” says Pincomb. “We will be able to go to a school and say, ‘Would you like this content in print or in the full digital version?’ and I think the natural erosion of print means we can expect huge growth in digital.”

Pincomb says that while it’s a different world working for a $100 million company, you just have to apply a lot of the same principles you learn in small business to your current situation. He says it all still comes down to hard work, honesty, and relationships with employees. “That’s what it’s all about,” says Pincomb. “It’s just on a bigger scale.”

He says one of the best things you can do is find your passion. “I knew I wanted to make a difference,” says Pincomb. “And it sure is easy to get out bed knowing that more than 10 million students use your product every day.” 

Wendy Bautista is editor of Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

How you learn

Research shows that if you can actually bring in content or information in several different ways at once, your retention will be higher. For example: If you can read something while you’re hearing it and watching a video about it, the retention of that information will be increased.

However, everyone learns in different ways.

• Audio learners learn through listening,

• Visual learners learns through seeing,

• Tactile learners learn through touch and feel, and

• Literary learners learn through reading.  

Any way you look at it, it is called differentiated learning. Everybody is not one style learner, but everybody has a preferred way to learn.

Which is the reason iCORE offers 12 to 15 different ways to teach one topic.

Whether it’s through an LCD projector, a smart board, a computer screen, a print out, or a game, iCORE takes the content that was locked in a book and unlocks it, with the intention of reaching more students on different levels.

“With the games, students can play them on their smart phone, or whatever it happens to be, and play it live with other students from all over the country,” says Pincomb. “But because it’s an educational game, they’re learning something as a result. It’s just another tool in the teacher’s bag when and if they are having trouble engaging their students.”

Data driven

In the business world, people are familiar to receiving data all the time. They may even be used to watching the stock market ticker go across the screen to see what happens. Essentially, that is what iCORE brings to the education world.

iCORE uses what is known as data driven instruction Every time a student touches one of the activities, iCORE collects data on them. The data reveals how long a student is using it and what he or she is doing correct and incorrect, and then feeds it back to a teacher through a dashboard. 

A teacher can then pull up the dashboard and see that this group of students performed well and here’s why they did—bringing one other element of data that was never available to a teacher previously.

By Wendy Bautista   

What began as an idea for an online portal has turned into a mobile photo lab with a retail environment.

And that is just the patent Haim Ariav, president of Glossy Finish (www.GlossyFinish.com) and professional photographer, has applied for—mostly to protect the intellectual property, but also to add value to the Glossy Finish enterprise.

When he started four years ago, the intention was to maintain an online portal for photographers to take pictures around the country at sports tournaments and then upload them to Glossy Finish, where he would help market the photographs to families. But what looked great on paper just wasn’t the same in person.

While photographers were great at getting the photos, they lacked at obtaining the proper contact and marketing information. Ariav learned early on something had to change.

“I either needed to get out completely or find a better way to do it—and that’s when I said, ‘let’s build something and take the pictures to the people,’” says Ariav.

That something is a custom-built, 32-foot mobile photo lab trailer complete with 16 viewing stations, several printers, and a six server rack, which he can access to check the status of each computer and adjust the workload if need be.

To ensure safety, the gas-generated or electric-powered trailer was designed a little wider, a little taller, with air circulation and overhead lights. The on-board computer network is a closed system, but it has Internet access to remote in with the Glossy Finish office and developer working on the application.

All of the viewing stations’ wiring is inside the walls, with the monitors securely hanging off support system beams and the keyboards secured to shelves on top of cabinets.

“It was really made for this purpose,” says Ariav. “I joke that I could do camel races in the Sahara Desert as long as I had enough gasoline.”

Application is the true beauty

When Ariav did analyses of northeast Florida and sports, he found it ideal with its year-round abilities and felt the “evergreen” youth sports market, which is a $2 billion industry, was a large enough pie to get a slice of—then he built the two-part Glossy Finish model based on it. The first part is the traditional team picture day, and the second part is attending events with the trailer.

“We’re not the first people to shoot sports photography,” says Ariav, “but we’re probably the first company in the country to bring it to this level—meaning that we’ve built a business model specifically for the youth sports industry that allows instant gratification.”

That instant gratification and success comes from the application—all photos are shot, viewed, ordered, customized, printed, and delivered before a customer leaves any given event.

Part of that success is due to its proprietary software’s capabilities to run the entire operation. The software collects the customer’s cell phone number and e-mail address to allow their favorite photos to be collected and stored, thus alleviating “window shoppers” and giving those customers complete and fast access to their photos during the event. 

From there, the customer can choose from a number of different packages including collages, posters, and digital CDs full of all the high-resolution images, and customizable options such as name, event, player number, etc. Then after just a few administrative steps, they cash out in the system. “It’s all shot there, processed there, and delivered right there,” says Ariav. 

Change is good

 He used to hire photographers to photograph 100% of every athlete and get five or six shots of each one, but he soon realized that at any event they never sold to more than 20% of the families attending.

From this realization, he created a model of only photographing kids with a reservation. So now when a tournament begins, the brand ambassadors (salespeople) walk around with samples and inform everyone that if they want their child photographed, they need to sign up because we don’t do random photographs.

If they sign up, a $20 deposit is required, which is a credit toward anything they purchase. If they don’t like any of the photos, they receive their money back. 

“We joke that we don’t want their $20, we want their $120; and once people see the value, they spend $120 because now they are looking at a screen filled with shots of nothing but their child, and not just five or six shots embedded in hundreds of photos,” says Ariav. “They start spending more and buying digital files, and all of a sudden we are still selling to 20%, but that 20% is now buying a lot more than it used to.”

Evolving with your market

 “From our first event to where we are today has evolved so much. We know what sells, we know how to sell it, and we know what parents are looking for,” says Ariav, recalling their first 3,000 player tournament event on President’s Day weekend 2007 where they made $3,000, “but now we go to tournaments with less players and we can make $35,000 to $45,000 for the same time.”

In the beginning, they would attend any event they were invited to, mostly because they were happy to get a job and they were still testing the idea. But as he knows now, not every event is successful—so he looks at the return on investment and weighs it against the cost of towing the trailer and hiring photographers, salespeople, and graphic designers.

“We are an equal opportunity photographer,” says Ariav. “We’ll go out and shoot any sport as long as there’s an opportunity for us to sell a critical mass of images.”

Knowing his target audience is very narrow, that is an important factor. “It’s not like we are creating one picture and selling it to a million people. No, we are creating one picture and selling it to one person.”

Keeping overhead low

While at an event they may look bigger than life, Glossy Finish is actually a small business. Ariav says to manage his expenses and keep overhead low, they “inflate” on weekends and “deflate” on weekdays.

“I’m not going to deny that from an image capture perspective, we really are probably the best at what we do and it’s because of the people we hire—but I can’t have a staff of photographers sitting around with no event,” says Ariav, “so I have a pool of about 100 professional photographers from different areas of the Southeast U.S. that I call on.”

The minimum amount of people needed to run an event is three; one graphic, one sales, and one photographer. During the week, it is usually himself and two others running the office, but on weekends or depending on the event, they could have anywhere from 10 to 20 people working at a time.

The staff and all contractors are there from the first day of an event to the last day of an event and are required to wear a custom-made bib complete with the Glossy Finish logo on both sides, pockets for brochures and cards, and a lanyard for a walkie talkie.  This helps assure the look of professionalism and the brand that Ariav is building.

Expansion is in the air

“The initial thought was to build a business and then become a franchisor,” says Ariav, who already has another trailer built but not outfitted. “But with the economy taking a turn as it did and the startup costs of something like this, we decided to just keep building, pushing, and tweaking what we already established—and we’ve been fortunate to have some great events.”

For a while, he thought he pulled the trigger too soon on that second trailer, but he now has serious interest from another photographer based in south Florida who he has worked with for over a year and already understands the Glossy Finish marketing, photography, and computer system, and can really “own it.”

Ariav is structuring a relationship/partnership with the photographer for a possible first of the year launch where he will become a Glossy Finish division under Ariav’s umbrella and will be supported with software, computers, the trailer, and other intellectual properties that will allow him to spread his wings and build the Glossy Finish brand.

Ariav says he has been fortunate to have the success he’s had and plans to continue growing by changing up his products and creating partnerships and considering expansion plans that allow the brand and brand equity to be seen in other parts of the Southeast.

Ariav says, “It’s all about quality, service, and product mix, and at the end of the day you hope that when you get that triangle figured out, you can start generating money as well.”

Wendy Bautista is editor of Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. She can be reached at Wendy@advantagebizmag.com or 904-536-2234.

 Partnership promotion

Haim Ariav, president of Glossy Finish (www.GlossyFinish.com) and professional photographer, figured out how to leverage the parents who like what his company does, but don’t want what they do, and he approached Shutterfly Inc., a $250 million company and one of the leading solutions for photo sharing and publishing on the Internet, with his idea.

 Parents at events with digital cameras and the recent upswing in sales of his CD product got him thinking about how many people don’t do anything with these images—they stick the CD in a drawer or download the images off their camera and forget about them. But with Shutterfly they can do something.

 Shutterfly liked the idea and believes in what Glossy Finish is doing and agreed to the deal. Glossy Finish will pass out $20 Shutterfly gift cards to its customers that contain a unique code. Once it is activated and the customer signs in, a customer acquisition fee will be given to Glossy Finish for generating a new customer for Shutterfly.

 “I don’t want to build what Shutterfly already has,” says Ariav. “Let’s give them the opportunity to use their product line, and if I get a little something back in residual, great.”

 Giving back
 Haim Ariav, president of Glossy Finish and professional photographer, occasionally puts on photo workshops at various events for photographers interested in shooting sports photography.
He doesn’t charge for this, but does limit it to about five or six “students” for the half day course.
“It’s part of my way of giving back and embracing the Business 2.0 model of thinking—be open and show others as it will breed success,” says Ariav.

By Dawn Josephson    

The year was 1984, and 19-year-old Clara LeBlanc had the idea of a lifetime: Open her own restaurant.

What did a 19-year-old “kid” know about entrepreneurship? Not much, she freely admits. However, after working in restaurants since the age of 13, she knew two important things

• She loved the restaurant business, and

• She wanted to put her strong work ethic to good use in her own business.

“From a young age, I knew I had a different type of work ethic,” she says. “I’d see my co-workers hanging out and chit-chatting during down times, and I’d be polishing the brass or taking spots off the glasses. I didn’t have to be asked to do things. I just did them because I loved doing them. I saw the big picture and the result of my work. For instance, if I washed the potatoes for baked potatoes, I saw how my effort at that task affected my customers’ dining experience. I don’t think my co-workers noticed those kinds of things.”

The first taste: bittersweet

Armed with a lot of determination and a little bit of cash she had saved over the years, LeBlanc went out looking for commercial space to open her own restaurant. Unfortunately before she even started her search, she had three strikes already against her:

• It was the 1980s, when getting a commercial real estate lease was difficult;

• She was a woman; and

• She was only 19 years old.

“Needless to say, I faced many roadblocks, one after the other,” she says. “But I kept going around them in different ways. When I was told that I couldn’t lease commercial space to open my restaurant and that I couldn’t even hold a lease for equipment, I found an existing sandwich shop, complete with equipment, that I could purchase with an option for taking over the lease. So I went around all the roadblocks any way possible.”

Her next roadblock was finalizing the lease. When her real estate broker and landlord were negotiating her lease, they asked her to leave the meeting! “It was a man’s world back then, and I was a young woman,” she explains. “Even though it was my lease, I knew when to pick my battles, and I let them handle it. It all worked out OK, and I still have the same landlord to this day. Fortunately, it’s not like that for women anymore.”

The sandwich shop LeBlanc purchased needed a lot of work. There were no profits coming in, and she knew she had to make some major changes. She did a complete makeover on the restaurant, changing the décor, the menu, and the name. “I didn’t have a new name for the sandwich shop going in, so I had to think of one fast,” she says. “As I was thinking about it, I remembered an old family friend who used to always call me ‘tidbit’ when I was a kid. It was an endearing term to me, and as soon as I recalled that memory, I knew I had my sandwich shop’s new name: Tidbits.”

Hungry for opportunities

LeBlanc knew that in order to make Tidbits successful, she couldn’t sit around and wait for customers to walk in; she had to go out and get them. Immediately, she canvassed her local area, going door-to-door to tell everyone about the new restaurant that was open for breakfast and lunch. Her approach worked, and new customers arrived daily.

She soon noticed that her sales fluctuated based on the weather. Rather than dismissing this revelation as part of the ups and downs of business ownership, she did something about it. When the weather was bad, she called local businesses nearby and asked if they’d like their lunch delivered. With that one simple question, Tidbits’ lunch delivery service was born.

Catering soon followed.

“Back then, IBM was in the neighborhood,” she explains. “They did a lot of lunch-and-learn meetings. I called them one day and offered to prepare sandwiches on platters for their meetings. That’s how our catering business started. I then offered the same service to other companies downtown.”

Once she realized that catering was profitable, she made the tough decision to eliminate breakfast service and focus primarily on lunch and catering—and later to add a retail component. “One of the main lessons I’ve learned over the years is that you have to focus on what you do best,” explains LeBlanc. “Deciding to close for breakfast was not something I took lightly. It was a big decision. We had regular breakfast customers that I didn’t want to lose. But all businesses need a focus. When you hone in and focus on what you do best, that’s when the sales start coming. I’ve seen many companies that are so scattered in terms of their focus, they don’t do any one thing particularly well. Those companies don’t last long.”

Today, LeBlanc’s focus is clear, since she’s found a good mix of restaurant sales, catering, and wholesale. Restaurant sales make up approximately 50%of her business revenue, while catering and wholesale comprise the other 50%.

“We’d definitely like to expand our wholesale business,” she says. “Currently, Tidbits’ sandwiches are available pre-packaged at local Gate gas stations. I’d like to see them at more places in the future, such as grocery stores.” 

Her approach to gaining wholesale accounts is similar to how her catering services started: She simply asks for the business. “If I can envision my sandwiches being sold at that location, I have no problem talking with the decision-makers to make it happen.”

Cooking up one great business

More than two decades since opening her doors, LeBlanc still has the same passion for Tidbits as she did in 1984. And that, she says, is one reason why Tidbits is so successful. “If you have a passion for what you do, the growth comes,” she reveals. “You have to be excited about your business. Whether I have two people in the dining room or 200, I’m still excited about my product. Some people lose their passion when sales dip, but you have to keep it up. If you have passion, when sales are down, you won’t sit there and complain. You’ll want to get up, get out, and get the business you deserve. That’s why passion is so important.”

LeBlanc’s passion is evident. Whether she’s up front making a sandwich order or behind the scenes motivating her staff of 25, LeBlanc has an infectious attitude that makes everyone excited about the business. No wonder her husband, Greg, and two adult sons, Austen and Mason, are eager to work in the restaurant with her. And when she’s out in the community talking with potential patrons about Tidbits or offering her sandwiches wholesale to retailers, her sheer joy for what she does shines through.

“It’s all about loving what you do,” says LeBlanc. “I’ve seen many businesses come and go over the years. It seems that many of the owners are not ready for what it really takes to have a business. They think of the glamour of having a business or that they’re going to have a flexible schedule. They don’t realize all the hard work it takes, especially in the beginning, to turn a profit. That’s when they get frustrated, lose their passion, and close their doors.”

LeBlanc believes that if more business owners would shift their thinking from “I have to wait for customers to find me”  to “I want to go out and find my customers” it would make a big difference in their success. That mindset shift only comes when people truly love what they do, she says. “When you’re happy with what you do, you’ll put the most effort into your work.” 

And as any business owner knows, effort is the secret ingredient for long-term success.

Dawn Josephson is a contributing editor to Advantage. She can be reached at dawn@masterwritingcoach.com.

SIDEBAR

Lessons learned

LeBlanc has learned a number of lessons throughout her 26 years in the restaurant and catering business. Here are a few:

• Learn to recognize opportunities. Bad weather to LeBlanc was an opportunity to get into the delivery business.

• Don’t be afraid to ask. Much of her ventures came about because she asked for the business.

• Focus on what you do best. In other words, build on your strengths.

• Stay passionate. Success is contingent on the love you have for your business.

• Accept that success means hard work. It doesn’t come just because you want it.

• Go find your customers. You cannot just wait for them to find you.

A look at how Optimum Springs got its start

By Jim Molis

Optimum Spring Solutions has honed a niche in producing and exporting customized springs for other manufacturers by researching its market, refining its business plan, and resolutely pursuing opportunities to grow.

“They’re a great small company started by two industrious people,” said Nick Sacia, executive director of the Economic Development Council of the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce.

That industriousness emanates from a multi-generational commitment to manufacturing quality springs and offering them at competitive prices with fast delivery and personalized service.

As a young girl in Argentina, Andrea De Palma grew up in her family’s spring factory. She watched how springs were made, played with them, and often helped count them, sometimes for fun.

Her family started the company, Resortes De Palma, in the 1970s. They grew it into a multinational corporation, exporting springs to the United States and Europe.

In 2006, she and her husband, Marco Fortini, started working with the company’s U.S. customers a few hours each month while living in North Carolina. Though they were both in computer sciences at separate companies at the time—he as a project manager in software development and she as a software trainer—they helped her family when they could.

Initially, the couple provided administrative support, following up on deliveries and payments. As they learned more about spring design, they started answering technical questions and recommending materials. “We were learning about the business by accident and it became interesting,” Fortini said.

The couple became more involved, wanting to add U.S. customers and increase volume. But with a sagging economy, rising gas prices, and increasing shipping costs, it was becoming more difficult to import springs. “It felt like we were swimming upstream,” De Palma said.

So, they started researching the possibility of manufacturing springs in the U.S. and exporting, rather than importing. With small-business counseling from SCORE, the couple compiled an exhaustive business plan.

“We recognize that planning is a key component of success,” Fortini said. “Implementing a carefully crafted plan is the easy part. The hard part is making sure that the planning addresses as many variables as you can anticipate, and controlling those risks.”

In compiling their plan, they identified Jacksonville as an ideal market, citing its transportation infrastructure, access to industrial equipment and materials, quality schools, and leading healthcare facilities. De Palma also referenced the Port of Jacksonville as a competitive advantage.

“[The decision to move to Jacksonville] was half and half the decision—half for the company and half for us,” Fortini said, alluding to the good quality of life in the greater Jacksonville area.

So, in June 2009 the couple opened Optimum Spring Solutions in a 5,000-square-foot space off U.S. 1, near CR 210 and Interstate 95 in St. Johns County.

They started with a single machine, which in itself was a risk. And to finance their operation, they approached 20 prospective lenders, who all (except one) turned them down. The one offer they received? Financing at an interest rate of 40%—hardly an attractive offer.

Despite having strong personal credit scores, since they were starting a new company, lenders repeatedly told them that there would not be enough volume to support the purchase. The couple disagreed. “We knew from the planning and risk assessment that there were opportunities for our company,” De Palma said.

The couple purchased the machine after combining $500,000 from their savings and family loans. Her father also trained Fortini on a similar machine at her family’s factory in Argentina, so that Fortini maximized the value of his training time with the machine’s manufacturer. 

With Fortini producing the springs, Optimum Spring Solutions rapidly began filling orders. Shortly after beginning, they received a large order related to a defense contract. Together with existing orders and a need to manufacturer larger springs than the first machine could handle, the couple soon added a second machine and related equipment.

Optimum Spring Solutions now manufactures custom springs for the U.S. military, large domestic companies, and businesses in other countries, including Canada, New Zealand, Singapore and China.

Building relationships and credibility have been vital.

The couple learned early to seek help wherever possible. They met two of their closest advisors, Sacia, from the St. Johns Chamber and Larry Bernaski from Enterprise Florida, while attending an exporting seminar hosted by Congressman John Mica, R-FL.

“It came through to me loud and clear speaking to Marco and Andrea that they wanted to export,” said Bernaski, regional manager of international trade development and Canada specialist for Enterprise Florida. “They’ve demonstrated their commitment.”

They also have grasped the importance of having Enterprise Florida, a public-private partnership with offices throughout the state as well as internationally, vouch for them with overseas customers. Enterprise Florida provides introductions and letters confirming that Optimum Spring Solutions is a reputable company.

“Many companies don’t fully understand how significant this introduction can be and the positive impact it can have on the foreign company’s decision to buy from a U.S. company,” Bernaski said. “An introduction can qualify the U.S. company and allay any fears a foreign company might have in doing business with a U.S. company,” he added.

Optimum Spring Solutions also alleviates fears by thoroughly addressing the needs of its existing customers, so that they will recommend them to others. Trust in their expertise is crucial for referrals.

 “We learned from Andrea’s family how to listen to what the customer needs and to provide the optimum solution for their project,” Fortini said.

With training in computers and industrial trades prior to starting the company, Fortini has evolved into a materials specialist who can recommend the proper springs to meet a customer’s technical specifications. He does so by evaluating variables such as size, durability, heat resistance, and corrosiveness.

Fortini no longer does all of the manufacturing himself. He has trained an employee to run the machinery and is teaching an intern to do so as well. With four workers total, including themselves, Fortini and De Palma now focus on developing the infrastructure and resources that the company needs to grow.

Fortini focuses on spring design, customer service, and technical matters. De Palma oversees purchasing, billing and shipping. They share responsibilities for sales.

The couple culls from their technology backgrounds, emphasizing search engine optimization for lead generation.  “Our storefront is our website,” said De Palma, noting that the company services other manufacturers outside of the area, not end users.

De Palma and Fortini want to expand steadily, preferring to emphasize service and technical support. “You can grow without taking care of your customer’s needs but it will lead to failure,” De Palma said.

“Our goal is to keep growing at a rate that enables us to maintain a personalized level of service and excellent technical support to our customers.”

They maintain quality and service by collaborating closely with one another, meeting at least weekly to focus on operations and at least monthly to review strategy and plans. They also maintain fluid and constant communication with her family and advisors such as Sacia, Bernaski and Mike Zollar of SCORE, learning much from each group.

 “It’s a lot of work,” Fortini said. “But you can control the risk with proper planning and by building a close network of people and resources who can assist you.

“Without that we would not have succeeded.”

Jim Molis is a contributing editor to Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. He can be reached at jim@creatwoodpr.com.

SIDEBAR

How to export successfully

Optimum Spring Solutions has succeeded by committing to exporting.

“Some companies consider exporting a secondary revenue stream,” said Larry Bernaski, regional manager of international trade development and Canada specialist for Enterprise Florida. “Successful ones see it as a primary revenue stream.”

Enterprise Florida has helped Optimum Spring Solutions and other companies cultivate business by developing relationships internationally. Optimum Spring Solutions owners Andrea De Palma and Marco Fortini, both of whom are from Argentina, immediately grasped the importance of doing so, Bernaski said.

“Generally speaking, owners of U.S. companies who are from different countries have different mindsets when it comes to exporting,” Bernaski said. “These kinds of companies are more predisposed to exporting because their business experience was formed in countries with economies that relied more heavily on exporting,” Bernaski added. “Because exporting is a more common practice outside of the U.S., it follows that Andrea and Marco, who grew up in Argentina, would feel more comfortable exporting.”

Successful exporters do the following, Bernaski said.

• Have a “go-to person” through whom all exporting matters flow. They champion exporting and ensure that it does not become of secondary importance.

• Handle inquiries from abroad quickly. “Foreign companies often like to deal with U.S. companies who take their questions to the go-to person and get an answer.”

• Get help. They use resources available through networking and other means.

• Know the market. “Learn everything you can from the small transactions then start tackling the larger transactions.”

• Commit to the export process. “Commitment is just as important as size, perhaps more important than size.”

Optimum Spring Solutions exemplifies these traits, Bernaski said. He has enjoyed watching the company grow, generate jobs, and support the local economy.

“That’s the great part about this job, to see companies like Optimum Spring Solutions doing what they’re doing.”

Planning for success

Planning winds through everything that Optimum Spring Solutions does. From crafting their initial business plan to their monthly strategy sessions, Andrea De Palma and Marco Fortini have identified the proper path through planning.

“You need to put yourself in that moment in the future and see what has to take place for that to be feasible,” Fortini said.

Before starting their company, the couple spent six months compiling a 75-page business plan, including their competitive analysis, goals, marketing strategies, financials, and other key areas. They learned how to use Census Bureau data and other resources to compile relevant information. “We went to every kind of seminar you can imagine,” De Palma said.

The couple also worked closely with SCORE, a nonprofit advisory service for small-business owners.

“Optimum Springs Solutions is an example of a company where the owners are very receptive to learning,” SCORE Counselor Mike Zollar said. “That’s very helpful.”

Fortini and De Palma would listen, learn, revise, and implement their plan, then come back for more advice, Zollar said. Not all business owners are so thorough in their planning.

“One of the biggest problems we find with many small businesses is people are very passionate about their ideas and overlook some of the basics like cash flow,” Zollar said.  “They need to be open to learning that kind of thing.”

Zollar worked closely with Fortini on how to develop relationships with new clients and how to handle new business. He also helped them adjust their quotation systems and financial projections to handle growth.

De Palma and Fortini review and revise their plans often, breaking down each year, month, week, day, and seemingly hour. The bigger the challenge, the more they plan.

“At the most stressful moments, the stress was relieved with planning,” Fortini said.

They plan to keep planning—and to keep growing.

By Linda Segall    

Whenever a “big box” store—such as a Walmart, Home Depot, or Best Buy—announces its intent to come into a community, small business owners cringe. They fear the fallout of the big box presence: lost customers and revenues.

Some businesses, however, have found ways to succeed despite sitting in the shadow of these monoliths. Turner Ace Hardware is one of them.

Mike Turner, owner of two Ace franchises—one in Jacksonville Beach off A1A and J. Turner Butler Blvd. and the other on Atlantic Blvd. near Hodges—admits, however, that when Home Depot and Lowe’s entered the picture, his businesses felt the fallout. Yet, his Ace stores continue to serve their communities as they have done for more than 50 years.

As Turner describes his family’s half-century retail journey, it becomes apparent that endurance and success have resulted because Mike Turner and other Turner family members have done four things:

• Taken advantage of opportunities,

• Remained flexible,

• Differentiated their stores, and

• Delivered great customer service.

Taking advantage of opportunities

“The store started with my grandfather, A. J. Sr.,” reflects Turner. “He had been selling Fords at Lynch-Davidson Ford downtown, but he saw an opportunity to go into the hardware business for himself. He sold his house on the river by Fort Caroline Monument and built a store with an apartment above it in the Arlington area. That’s how he got started with an old-fashioned hardware store, with barrels of nuts and bolts in the aisles.”

Other opportunities, including becoming an Ace franchise in 1963, came along as the years passed and Turner’s father got into the business. Those opportunities included buying, selling, and building other stores and expanding into new business areas.

After Turner’s father got into the business, the original store was moved to a new location in Arlington. “That happened in 1972. That store is still standing; my brother owns it,” said Turner. (His brother Steve recently opened another Ace franchise in Fernandina Beach.)

Turner himself got into store management at age 20, when the family bought a store on Normandy Blvd. “It had basic hardware and a garden shop, but we sold a bit of feed and a lot of fencing, something I didn’t know much about but I learned,” he says. The Turners sold that store several years later when a retired steel executive wanted to get into the hardware business. “He lived his dream for a little while, but it got the best of him.” says Turner with a smile. “The hardware business isn’t something you retire into.”

When an outdoor nursery with 2.5 acres and a True Value store on the property came on the market, the Turner family saw a new opportunity. “We turned the store into an Ace,” relates Turner. That was our first venture into outdoor nursery. We’d had garden shops on the sides of our stores, but never a true nursery. That put us on the map in nursery in a big way.”

Opportunity knocked again in 1995 when property became available in Jacksonville Beach. Turner’s father bought five acres and built the biggest store building codes would allow—50,000 square feet with a garden shop. In 1999 the family did a repeat by acquiring property at Atlantic and Hodges and duplicated the Beach’s store on it. “We didn’t know exactly how we would use such a big building,” said Turner. “But we didn’t want to make the mistake we made earlier at our Regency [Atlantic and Southside] store, which had been on a good corner. It originally was a small building, and over the years we kept adding onto that store so we could offer floral and a garden center. The old building became a conglomeration that didn’t look very appealing. We didn’t want to have the same thing happen…adding on like that. So we built big in Jacksonville Beach and on Atlantic and Hodges.”

Remaining flexible

Flexibility is the ability to bend. In retail, that means being able flex with the times and economic conditions.

“One of the best decisions we made was to become an Ace franchisee,” says Turner. “Ace allows you a lot of latitude. You are not required to buy anything from them, although it behooves you to buy everything that Ace offers because they have the buying power, since they have 5,000 stores. But the good thing is that Ace encourages you to bring in other things to serve your neighborhood.”

Not only can the store add items, it can also subtract items, too, something Turner has been willing to do to remain competitive, because of the economy as well as because of the proximity of Home Depot, Lowe’s, and even Super Walmart. “You have to watch your inventory closely,” he says. “If you see that something that turned over four or five times a year is now only turning once a year, you have to reduce the inventory or eliminate the item. You have to know what’s making you money and what’s not.”

Turner has also been willing to recognize when it is time to “fold his hand.” The family had a store in the Regency area (Southside and Atlantic) for a number of years. But when Home Depot came in with a new building, the family recognized the rambling old store had seen its better days. The location was prime, however, and they sold the building and real estate to buy property and build a new store at Atlantic and Hodges.

Similarly, as the economy turned south and Lowe’s joined in the big box battle on Atlantic Blvd. near his store on Atlantic and Hodges, Turner assessed the store’s strengths, trimmed it down to an appropriate size, and leased 30,000 of its 50,000 square feet to Lifestyle Family Fitness. Owning the property instead of renting gave him options, he says. Likewise, owning the Arlington building and land behind it gave the Turners another option for income: They put up a stretch of warehouses behind the store, which have provided a “nice monthly income.”

Differentiating

Although Home Depot and Lowe’s attract some of the same customers as Ace, in some respects they are not direct competitors, says Turner. That’s because Turner has successfully differentiated his stores from all the others.

“We don’t carry lumber; never have,” he says. “And Home Depot caters to commercial trade—maybe 60% or more of its sales are to contractors. We only have about 10% commercial.”

Turner takes full advantage of Ace’s corporate policy that lets individual stores carry items specific to its constituency. He watches trends and seeks out quality products he thinks will sell. His stores carry high end patio furniture, as well as spas and outdoor kitchens. Home Depot carries those items, too, but not the same quality. “We go to furniture shows in Chicago, the Merchandise Mart in Atlanta, and grill shows in Orlando to find higher end patio furniture,” he says. “When customers buy from us, they can get custom-ordered fabrics. They can’t do that at the big boxes. Customers get what’s on the floor. They have no choice, something we give.”

Customer service

Another way in which Turner differentiates his businesses from the big boxes is through excellence in customer service. “You try to give what they don’t—customer service,” says Turner. “You make sure when people come in, they are greeted and let them know you are happy they are there.”

To provide that high level of customer service, Turner prides himself on hiring mostly full-time employees. “We do have some part-timers,” he says, “but we try to keep as many full-time people as we can. We feel we get a more loyal person that way. If someone is here making a living, they are more apt to give it their all instead of someone who is here temporarily. And it’s expensive to train new people, so we don’t want turnover.”

Turnover has not been a problem, especially in the management ranks. His managers have been with him a long time—20 years in Beach’s store, 10 in the other. “They are familiar with the products and make sure employees get trained,” says Turner. That training is important, because customers rely on Ace employees for advice on not only what they need to buy but how to use various products. “If the person who’s waiting on you can’t answer your question, there will be someone in the store who can,” promises Turner.

Ace offers training programs, but Turner makes sure his employees get training on products local customers want, such as shallow-well pumps. He says a vendor put together a training program on pumps for his employees. It was so popular that it had to be repeated.

 “Training is constant,” he says. And it is through training that he makes sure his stores reflect Ace’s slogan—“the helpful hardware place.”. “If anything,” he says, “that’s what makes us different from Home Depot.”

Most customers would agree.

Linda Segall is editor of Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. She can be reached at Linda@advantagebizmag.com or 904-677-2463.

SIDEBAR 1

Competition among Ace franchises?

Turner Ace Hardware is a franchise operation, operating in two locations: 13164 Atlantic Boulevard Jacksonville, and 784 Marsh Landing Parkway, Jacksonville Beach.

A few miles down the road from the JAX Beach store is Proctor Ace Hardware in Ponte Vedra. And Steve Turner, Mike’s brother, operates an Ace store on Arlington Rd., as well as one in Fernandina Beach. There are several other Ace stores within the Jacksonville area.

Do they compete with one another?

“Not at all,” answers Turner. “Ace is good about not saturating the market with franchises. The stores are far enough away that we do not compete. Customers go to store closest to them. Very few will go out of their way to go to another store, unless the one they visited doesn’t have what they need. We actually advertise together because it makes good business sense.”

SIDEBAR 2

How Turner Ace Hardware endures

Turner Ace Hardware has survived numerous economic recessions as well as the onslaught on big box stores. Its endurance is directly related to the Turner family’s willingness and ability to:

• Take advantage of opportunities,

• Be flexible;

• Differentiate; and

• Provide top quality customer service.

By Linda Segall    

You know the saying: “Stuff happens.” And “stuff” does happen, especially when you own and operate a family-run business. That “stuff” can range from the death of a family partner to an irreconcilable relationship problem between managing owners. When these things happen—whose cause is generally a lack of planning and poor communications— too often the fatal consequence is the business itself.

Despite the possibility of “stuff” happening, family businesses comprise the backbone of American businesses, with an estimated 80% to 90% of all small businesses falling into that classification. And many of them are highly successful.

Advantage: The Resource for Small Business talked with the owners of three successful family businesses operating in Jacksonville:

• Selby Kaiser and Linda McMorrow, owners of The Legends of Real Estate (www.sellinglegends.com), 8777 San Jose Blvd., Suite 903.

• Rebecca and Carlton Walden, First Coast Signs (www.firstcoastsigns.com), 3728 Philips Highway, Suite 37. First

Rebecca and Carlton Walden

 Coast Signs designs, manufactures, installs, and supports custom signs including large format digital prints, interior and exterior signs, vehicle  graphics (wraps and lettering) , and LED signs.

• Tracey and Mark Hebert, AlphaGraphics (www.us549.alphagraphics.com), 7999 Philips Highway, Suite 309. AlphaGraphics provides design and printing services to businesses and individuals.

We explored with these owners their secrets to running a family-owned business.

How did you decide to go into business together?

Selby: Because we are identical twins, Linda and I have always been close, and we have always shared common interests. As children in a military family, we moved around the country frequently, and although we both swore we wouldn’t marry a military man, each of us ended up marrying a West Point graduate and later settling in Jacksonville.

Our careers were also somewhat parallel. I was into branch office management, while Linda had developed a brand of her own as an sales agent for a large real estate company in Jacksonville. When our parents’ health demanded more of our time, Linda invited me to join her in sales, which I did for eight years, and in 2006 we decided to open our own real estate office, The Legends of Real Estate.

Our vision initially was to operate a small company, with only us and an administrative assistant. I didn’t go out and recruit associates, but our friends and colleagues wnted to join our way of doing business, and today we have two offices and 35 agents working for us.

Rebecca: We looked for an opportunity to go into business for ourselves. In my past life, I was president and CEO of two community banks in Michigan. I relocated to Jacksonville to be an SBA lender with CIT Small Business Lending. Unfortunately, the economy fell apart, and I had to make decisions about what to do with my life.

Carlton was working in the golf industry and is a PGA  professional. He and I had been together for a couple of years. We decided to get married and to make a lifestyle adjustment that would also allow a flexible schedule to accommodate family situations. We investigated the opportunity of opening our sign company  and got married at the same time.

Tracey: Mark and I were married in June 2008. His job at the time kept him on the road virtually full time, something that we did not want. Working with an entrepreneur coach, we started to do due diligence on several different franchise opportunities, including AlphaGraphics. Mark was familiar with the AlphaGraphics name, since he lived in Utah, where the company is headquartered. We decided to go out to Utah for the company’s “Discovery Day,” which is actually a mutual screening process: We met the AlphaGraphics people, and they met us. Six potential owners participated in Discovery Day class with us.” To our knowledge we are the only ones that completed the process to become owners. We took over our store in December 2008.

How do you divide up your responsibilities?

Rebecca: We intuitively do things we are strong in. Carlton is in charge of inventory—ordering it, making sure it comes in, making sure we get credit for it. He also does purchasing, which is good, because I hate to shop! He does all the banking and facilities. We both are responsible for business development. I do a lot of marketing and take care of the administrative work and working with customers.

Linda: We do essentially what Rebecca and Carlton do—cater to our strengths. Selby was in management for 10 years; she is very skilled at doing the brokerage side of the business. I can do it when she’s not available, but my strength is in sales and working with our clients and customers. Selby is one minute older than me, and I think it shows in her personality! She’s always been the stronger personality. She’s very good with public speaking. She can talk in front of 5,000 people without blinking an eye, whereas I would be quaking in my boots and reading off note cards.

Selby: And if something needs more attention than the other person who usually does it can give, we just jump in and do it together.

Mark: After we decided to purchase the AlphaGraphics franchise, we went through three weeks of training in Utah. One of the things they put us through was to look at our strengths and to divide our duties accordingly. They helped us identify who should do what. We’ve had to trade some of those around, but it has worked out well for us.  

Tracey: My role is to bring sales in and develop relationships with outside customers. Because we are a business-to-business company, our goal is to become a business partner. I also have an accounting background, so I do the bookkeeping, payroll, and marketing.

Mark: My role is in production management. Tracey may get the initial business, but I do the actual quotes. At first she did ordering; it seemed to fall into the realm of accounting. But then we realized that ordering supplies was part of production, so I took on that role.

What kind of business agreement do you have?

Tracey: We have a mutual respect and trust for each other. That said, Mark came up with the idea to make me 51% owner, in order to have a woman-owned business. He owns the other 49% in the company.

Rebecca: Carlton and I got married at the same time we opened our business. We went into this 100%. We do have a pre-nuptial agreement, but we would have had that even if we hadn’t gone into business.

Selby: We have written agreements with all of our agents, but Linda and I have never seen a need to formalize our business arrangement with an agreement. If we were to dissolve the business, we would figure it out. If someone wanted to buy us out, we would split it down the middle. That’s the way we’ve always done it, including buying our building.

How do you handle conflicts?

Carlton: My mother always said, ‘”Think before you speak.” If I have a conflict with Rebecca, I try to sit on it for a while, because I know she is busy and I don’t want to interrupt her strong thought processes. I let her stay in the moment.

Rebecca: I tell Carlton, “Tell me before I go onto the next thing.”

Selby: Because we’ve been together so long, we really don’t have a lot of conflicts.

Linda: A few years ago, though, we were approached by a developer and asked to handle a high-rise condo downtown. Selby knew the players better than I did, and she was excited about it. I had some reservations. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it didn’t feel right. It took me a few weeks to work through my feelings, and during that time, I didn’t share them with Selby. Then it finally hit me: This was not the time to do this project because we would be abandoning relationships we had built over many years.. That evening, we got our husbands together and we talked it over. We finally agreed it was not the time.

It was a good decision. Within a month or two, we finalized opening our own business. And interestingly, that other project has been put on the shelf. So, the short-answer is this: When we have a difference of opinion, we just talk about it. We trust each other and love each other enough that we want to hear what each has to say, even if it is different.

Mark: We’ve had a couple of conflicts and differences of opinion. Generally, what we end up doing is going back to what we want to accomplish in 10 years. We ask, “What resolution will get us closer to that goal in the long run?” That approach has worked very well for us. It’s not always easy, because sometimes conflicts are emotional. But we try to separate the emotion from the conflict, focus on where we want to be and which solution will get us there. It seem to work pretty well.

What are the secrets to your family-business success?

Tracey: I think mutual respect and appreciation of our employees’ strengths  is our secret.

Mark: Knowing your limitations and trusting the strengths of your spouse. That’s important.

Selby: I don’t think running a successful family business is different from running any other business. We treat associates and employees like family. We buy locally to support other small businesses. And we show that we value our customers. We don’t even use voice mail; we answer all calls ourselves, no matter what time it is.

Rebecca: I think the real secret is this: Remember everything you hated about big business and don’t do it.

Linda Segall is editor of Advantage: The Resource for Small Business. She can be reached at Linda@advantagebizmag.com.

SIDEBAR 1

How to avoid common family-business failures

Experts agree: The most common causes of failure in family-owned businesses can be boiled down to two: a failure to plan and inadequate or inappropriate communication.

Planning—or more precisely, a failure to plan—affects cash flow, your estate, management succession, transfer of ownership, and business practices.

Communication problems course throughout all of the planning areas, but also include managing the business, resolving conflicts, and maintaining a positive workforce.Both planning and communication issues can be addressed in a well crafted business agreement.

Paul Arrington

Paul Arrington

, certified business analyst and director of micro enterprise development at the University of North Florida’s Small Business Development Center, identified several other problem areas inherent to family businesses:

• What’s really in charge? “In some family owned businesses, a parent may be the president, while other family members actually manage the business,” he said. In others, one family member may have the title of president, but ultimate decision making is deferred to the “elder stateman.” To avoid confusion in decision making, Arrington suggests clearly establishing the lines of authoring. Also, consider establishing an advisory status for founders who have transferred management to others.

• Equity or loan? Money creates problems, especially if transactions are informal, said Arrington. Anyone who makes a transaction should know—in writing—if it is a loan or an investment in the business.

• Tunnel vision. If you only involve family members in the business, you can get tunnel vision concerning where the business should go and how to get there. Get business counseling or coaching  and join a peer-to-peer roundtable, said Arrington. And, as your business grows, hire out talent to bring in new ideas.

• Hiring cousin Joe. “An underqualified or unmotivated relative employed in the business creates morale problems with other employees and reduces productivity,” said Arrington. If you hire relatives, put them in positions where their talents can best be cultivated, and pay them commensurate with similar positions in the area. And, be prepared for the difficult task of discipline if the relative does not work out.

• Death, divorce, and disease. “These three D’s can impact the ownership or operation of the business significantly,” said Arrington. Periodically conduct retreats so the family can discuss the business, contingency planning, and problems. Consider asking an impartial facilitator to lead these retreats.

 SIDEBAR 2

Know your strengths and weaknesses

To plan for success, the Family Business Institute (www.familybusinessinstitute.com) recommends doing a complete assessment to identify your business and family strengths and weaknesses, establish priorities, and work on your business, rather than in your business.

Here are some of the questions the Institute recommends every family business owner should consider:

• Are family members compensation fairly and adequately?

• Do you use a proven method to resolve conflicts?

• Is the future ownership of your family company clearly defined? If not, why not?

• What do you want to get out of the business?

• What provisions have you made to exit your business with financial security?

• Have your wills and associated trust documents been updated in the past three years?

• If there is more than one shareholder in your family business, do you have a binding buy-sell agreement?

• Do you have and use a formal or informal board of advisors or board of directors? If not, why not?

• Do you meet regularly to discuss your strategic plans as well as operational plans?

• Do you have written job descriptions for everyone, including family members?

The Family Business Institute recommends taking action on the one or two items you consider are most important to the success of your business. A complete assessment of 80 questions is available at www.familybusinessinstitute.com.

By Robyn A. Friedman    

Rob Lee had spent 11 years working at ALLTEL Information Services when he came up with a better idea. “I saw that many of our clients at the time were very interested in more effectively engaging their customers,” said Lee, who headed up product strategy and software development at ALLTEL. “And most organizations aren’t very effective at that.”

Lee thought that if a company could improve its ability to cross-market to customers—selling a credit card to a customer who already banked with a financial institution, for example—then it would dramatically increase the retention of its customers. After all, it’s easier and cheaper to sell to an existing customer than to go out and find a new one.

But, at the time, the technology that would allow a company to cross-market that way was “not very elegant,” according to Lee, and required a large upfront investment. So instead of asking companies to purchase millions of dollars of software to replace their current systems and then take years to install it and teach employees how to run it, Lee decided to keep the software “in the cloud,” selling it instead as a service platform.

“The organizations that use our platform don’t install it—they access it over the network,” he said. “Whenever and however they engage their customer, they’ll link our platform into that engagement process.”

In 2004, Lee and three partners founded XSell LLC, a Jacksonville-based company focusing on delivering multi-channel cross-sell solutions to its clients. Its software improves targeting, delivers personalized value propositions, and ensures offer consistency for customers across any communication channel.

The four partners initially funded the company with about $4 million from savings and friends and family, “bootstrapping it” for about two years. The first customer using XSell’s solution went live in March 2005.

Basically, XSell’s platform does the following:

• Aggregates and scores detailed public and non-public customer information to match product criteria with customer attributes;
• Builds and continuously enhances a library of offers that are assembled in real time to create personalized customer value propositions at the point of a service interaction; and
• Securely transmits customer transaction information for fulfillment once offers are accepted.

An example: You walk into a cell phone store to check out the latest phones. The salesperson enters your phone number into the computer. In seconds, he knows how long you’ve been a customer, what you’ve been offered before, what you like and dislike about the service, how often you call in, how you use your phone, and what packages are available in your area.

Based on that information, the XSell platform creates a narrowly targeted offer to entice you to buy an additional product from the company. The offer is based on your specific needs. In other words, a 20-year-old may be offered an upgrade that allows unlimited texting, while a senior may be offered high speed Internet service to facilitate video chats with the grandkids.

“It’s all about engaging that individual end customer with the most compelling offer—something that’s right for them,” Lee said. “We don’t want to sell things to customers that they don’t need.”

When Lee was at ALLTEL, he led the acquisition of a number of companies, and he noted a common theme among small companies seeking funding. “A lot tried to raise capital before they were ready,” he said. “That can put you in a very dangerous position because the days of raising a significant amount of capital without giving up most of the company are over.”

So Lee and his partners waited. Their strategy was to have XSell’s product used by a target set of early adopters. That way they could show potential investors that the company had paying customers who were seeing real economic benefits from using the XSell platform. “With a few of those customers, we then went out and sought investment in order to expand the company,” he said.

While XSell was already profitable, Lee wanted to raise capital to increase his sales and marketing budget—to hire additional salespeople and a public relations firm. So he sought angel investors. “Jacksonville is a very fertile area for raising angel capital,” he said. “You have to have the right network, know the right people.”

Lee did. Within 60 days, XSell had its financing. “We had a product that was delivered, installed, was working, and providing a result,” Lee said. “So it wasn’t something speculative, like in the days of Silicon Valley. It was something people could see and that had a customer base already.”

XSell raised $2.5 million during that first round of financing.

About 18 months later, the company went back into the market for an additional round. At that time, XSell had a customer base comprised largely of financial services firms, but Lee felt there was a significant opportunity to expand into the cable, telecom, healthcare, and insurance industries. To do so, he would have to hire personnel with some expertise in those industries. After successfully raising an additional $3.5 million from angels, the company hired four more employees to do sales and marketing.

“We’ve leveraged that investment a lot of different ways,” Lee said. “If you look at the resumes of our management, we definitely are moving from a financial -services bias to a communications/cable/telecom bias. And we’re going to make some moves in healthcare this year that will broaden us further.”

Lee won’t disclose how much of the company he had to give up to the angels in order to lock in the financing. But he will say this: “We’ve been in business six years, and the founders still have controlling interest in the company. And we’ve raised $6 million.”

The firm is up to 20 employees. Lee won’t release specifics about revenues, but he said that the company grew 400% from 2008 to 2009 and is on track to more than double this year.

What’s next for XSell?

“The exit strategy for us is that we are likely to be an acquisition target for a larger technology firm,” Lee said. “That’s really no secret. We’ve certainly had a lot of overtures from organizations that have related technologies. Fortunately we’re in a great position, and we’re not in a hurry.”

What advice does Lee have for other entrepreneurs trying to raise capital? “I can’t imagine going out for financing without a shipping product, a customer you can use a reference, and a result you can quantify,” he said. “There’s a lot to do before you get to those, but once you have it, that opens up a lot of options.”

Xsell (www.goxsell.com) is located at 10151 Deerwood Park Blvd., Bldg. 200/Suite 115, Jacksonville, FL 32256. Rob Lee can be reached at 904-854-6700.

Robyn A. Friedman is a contributing editor to Jacksonville Small Business Advantage. She can be reached at RAFWriter@att.net or through her Web site www.everythingwrite.com

By Linda Segall    

For the last 22 years, every Tuesday 139,000 readers have grabbed a free copy of Folio Weekly from racks placed in businesses throughout Northeast Florida. Most of those racks are empty long before Tuesday, when the new issue is published—a testament to the publication’s popularity. The loyalty of Folio Weekly’s readers can be traced to its founder—Sam Taylor, who recently handed over his responsibilities as publisher to David Brennan.

Throughout his tenure as publisher of the popular weekly, Taylor has never backed off controversy or hedged on digging for the truth, even if it meant “ruffling the feathers” of area business leaders or politicians.

He has also been a mystery man: He says his photograph has never been published locally , and he has shunned interviews and publicity. Because Folio Weekly is a sterling example of a small business success story, Jacksonville Small Business Advantage asked Taylor to talk with us and unveil how he made Folio Weekly the success it is.

Advantage: How did you get your start in publishing?

Taylor: When I was a young man, I earned my way through college by working in the shipyards in Norfolk, Va. I was earning very good money as an outside machinist, the guy who installs finished machined parts. I was making such good money that I never saw my future except in the shipyards, even after I got my degree. But, times changed. I got laid off. I thought, “What am I going to do now?” There was a newspaper 1,500 yards down the street. I walked down there and applied for a job. They hired me in advertising sales.

Advantage: So, you dipped your toe into publishing by selling advertising. How did that lead you to Jacksonville and the start of Folio Weekly?

Taylor: Back in the early 1980s, newspapers got muscle-bound. They had market share and pricing power. But, they realized there was an audience they weren’t reaching—active affluents. These are women and men who are so busy they don’t have time to read a seven-day-a week daily. They read it perhaps twice a week, maybe Saturday and Sunday. So, the active affluents were not being served by the dailies.

The newspaper needed a product for this market. One option was what eventually became Folio Weekly. The newspaper I worked for didn’t invent this format. It saw a market for it in Jacksonville, and the owners asked me to start it up here. That’s how I got here.

Advantage: Was it an immediate success?

Taylor: No, I failed! My bosses promoted me too fast. They assumed because I was good at one part of the business—advertising sales— I would be good at everything else—editorial, production, management, and business operations. They were wrong. I was 30 years old and didn’t know what I didn’t know. I did so poorly that the owners decided to sell Folio Weekly 33 months after I started it up.

Advantage: What kinds of mistakes did you make that caused the venture to fail at first?

Taylor: We hired too many people, and we didn’t pay them enough. We had legions of untrained, poorly motivated people. We had 20 start-up employees. We would have done much better with 11.

Another thing: I got smitten with the entrepreneurial thing called “let’s go shopping.” I went out and bought office stuff, but I wasn’t spending time meeting advertisers. I was busy, but I wasn’t busy on the right things. I didn’t need to pitch a product; I needed to find out what was working to add to their success or reduce their failure.

Advantage: Obviously something happened. Folio Weekly is a highly successful newspaper.

Taylor: Actually, Folio Weekly is not a newspaper. It is a newsprint magazine. There is a difference. News is technically ‘history in a hurry.’ We never had much news. Most of our editorial does not look back. It is “news you can use” of what will happen in our town during the coming week.

But, to answer your question, when the owners decided to sell, they couldn’t find a buyer. So, they ended up selling it to me and one of my co-workers, a buddy of mine. We bought it on March 15, 1991. We made it profitable one year after buying it, and it’s been profitable ever since.

How did we do it? Well, you can see I am 5 feet 5 inches tall. I walked around like a rooster; I made stuff happen. So as soon as I bought the business I laid off every department manager and got costs down. With the operating losses we had time to improve the publication.

Advantage: How as Folio Weekly changed over the years?

Taylor: At first we started with food, fashion, festivals, fitness, and fun. We published on Tuesday, because we wanted to give our readers time to plan their weekend. But, those active affluents—our 25- to55-year-old audience—wanted more. They wanted victims, villains, and heroes. So that’s what we gave them. At first we went out to find our stories. Then, all of a sudden folks who felt like they were being mistreated started calling us. We got into investigative journalism, which neither the TV stations couldn’t handle, and the newspapers never had much stomach for it.

Advantage: What makes your audience so loyal?

Taylor: We have two types of readers: interested readers and determined readers. Interested readers don’t see many of the articles. They look at the horoscope; they really into the food, fashion, festivals, fitness, and fun part of the paper.

Determined readers read 11 pages or more and dig deeper. They are the ones who are looking for the stories on villains, victims, and heroes. And they are the ones who pushed us to go one more notch—to give opinions. Once you get people to check in as citizens, they are interested in opinion. Opinion is like a knife sharpener. You sharpen your knives by taking metal off the edge. You sharpen a citizen’s ability to be incisive by buffing back what they think is true. What’s left is the original point of view, but sharper. When they read Folio, even if they say ‘Folio is full of crap,’ they are better informed. That what citizenship needs. That’s what we give them.

Advantage: What stories stick out in your mind for stirring up controversy?

Taylor: We did a story on a hospital incinerator that wasn’t properly loaded. It wasn’t burning right; it was polluting the air. The hospital said, “How dare you say something like that?” We ran a piece on a megachurch. The minister didn’t like it, and he tried to rattle my editor’s cage. And then there was one on how the Marines recruit. The story was about how the military was not living up to its promises after it got people to sign up. A Marine was upset about the story and came in here. He was outraged that we would publish something like that.

Advantage: You are perceived as a liberal paper in a conservative part of the country. Your editorial content stirs up a lot of controversy. How do you deal with it?

Taylor: For this part of the country, we are perceived as liberal because we are in a relatively conservative area. If you were to take Folio Weekly and publish it in New England, we would look much less liberal.

But to answer your question, if somebody in a story feels like they’ve been wronged, it’s important. We do our homework; we check facts. If we are wrong, we will say so and we will run a correction, but that doesn’t happen often. Usually complaints come because people don’t like what we’ve published. If we don’t believe we were wrong, we tell them they can write a letter to the editor, and if they don’t think a letter is enough “real estate” in the paper, we’ll give them a full page.

The exercise is for us to get it right. We don’t get sued very often, and we’ve never spent a day in court in 22 years, due to our editorial integrity and editorial humbleness.

Advantage: You started this paper. A few months ago, you stepped aside. Why? And what are you going to do now?

Taylor: I trained my replacement. He was ready to take over, so it was time for me to go away. He’s doing a great job. Now I can turn to my other passion—restoring old motorcycles. I have a comfort level in doing that, it’s like going back home, using skills I learned when I worked in the shipyard. I’ll continue to do restoration as a hobby.

I’ve restored some Japanese bikes from ’60s and ’70s. A reader who lives in Japan told me the Japanese want their bikes back, so I am going to Japan in the fall to set up some trade pipelines.

I am a very lucky man..

Folio Weekly (www.folioweekly.com) is published on Tuesdays. Its offices are located at 9456 Philips Highway, Ste. 11, Jacksonville, FL 32256. Linda Segall is editor of Jacksonville Small Business Advantage.

SIDEBAR

Taylor’s tips for small business success

Taylor told Jacksonville Small Business Advantage, “After 35 years of doing what I do, I’ve found that one-third of what I thought was true is true; one-third I thought was true, was true then but is not any longer; and one-third I thought was true was never true.” With those words of wisdom, here are some of Taylor’s success tips:

• Train, don’t reprimand. “Early in my career, I was taught to set goals, praise in public, and reprimand in private. I found out that was bad advice. Setting goals and praising in public were good. But a manager should take ‘reprimand’ out of his tool box. If somebody screws up, look at it as a training opportunity.

• Learn your customers. “When you are first starting out, spend time with your customers. Find out what you can do to make them successful. That’s why you are in business.”

• Hire well, pay well. “Hire good people and pay them a fair salary, even if you are just starting up. If you hire mediocre people, you will get mediocrity.”

• Be kind, not correct. If you have a choice between being kind or being correct, choose being kind. Doing so will maintain personal relationships while you work on perfecting the task.

By Ashley Feit    

When Debbie Burgess lost her high-paying, financial services job, she never dreamed it would lead her to

 opening her own business. Like many people, Burgess thought she would one day retire from her corporate America job and live comfortably ever after. She went through the emotions that most people experience when losing a long-time position, and then she started clearing out her closets.

Burgess started with all those wool business suits she had collected traveling the country as a training specialist working with financial institutions. She suspected that she would never need them again and gathered them up to consign. It was then that she started thinking about a new business concept in consignment.

“I thought about all the motorcycle apparel I saw in my closet, and that my husband had in his, and wondered what we could ever do with the clothes that are in good condition, but didn’t fit anymore,” Burgess explains. “Most consignment shops don’t really have a customer market for motorcycle apparel.”

A unique idea is born

After consigning her suits, Burgess went home and did some Internet research. She could not find a single consignment shop anywhere in the country that specialized in motorcycle apparel. She did find the National Association for Resale and Thrift Shops (NARTS), and she found it just in time to attend its 25th annual conference in Scottsdale, AZ.

Burgess attended the conference as a future business owner and pitched her plan to a few successful shop owners. She wanted to validate her concept since her initial research didn’t reveal another shop like it in the country.

Her concept was centered on her desire to do something for the motorcycle enthusiasts, who, like herself, are always so willing to help others. By giving them a shop where they could recycle those expensive motorcycle apparel items that no longer fit, they could get part of their investment back and help the planet. It would be a small, local solution toward the growing problem of post-consumer textile products contributing to our landfills.

Burgess also wanted to do a few things different for her customers such as allowing them to choose the charity that their unsold items would go to.

By the end of the four-day conference she was known as the “motorcycle lady,” and she also knew that her idea had been validated.

Developing the plan

After confirming her idea at the conference, Burgess returned to Jacksonville ready to bring her idea to life. She contacted the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the University of North Florida where she attended workshops and was introduced to a Certified Business Analyst for guidance and idea sharing.

As Burgess was putting together her advisory team, she discovered, much to her surprise, that most all of them shared her same passion for two wheels and the open road. The attorney she partnered with, the insurance agent she’s using, and several people at her bank all ride motorcycles.

“It was great to know they were all motorcycle enthusiasts too. It’s hard to fail when you have a team that believes in what you are doing and shares your passion,” says Debbie.

Location, location, location

Burgess worked on implementing her business plan and set a budget of $25,000, which she pulled from her personal savings and her 401(k). After developing her budget, she began the most difficult part of her new business set up— finding the right location.

“Securing a location was the most challenging part of starting my business,” explains Burgess. “I wanted to be in Mandarin close to my home, and I wanted the location to have safe, easy access for motorcyclists.”

She didn’t have a hard time finding a location, but rather in negotiating an acceptable lease.

“You would think that with all the vacancies in strip malls, this wouldn’t have been so difficult,” Burgess says. “The issue was that I didn’t want to sign a multi-year lease until I knew that my business would work.”

With no examples or history to base her unique business on, Burgess didn’t know what to expect for the interest and profitability of her shop. She didn’t want to get tied into a long lease. After much looking and negotiating, she finally secured a location and a lease to her liking.

Setting up shop

With a lease signed for 2nd Ride Around Consignment Shop in Mandarin, Burgess began working on building the inventory for her shop. She had to do this quickly because a commercial lease agreement requires the business to be active within 30 days of signing the lease, but she was able to negotiate a little extra time. Burgess contacted all of her friends and fellow riders for consignments and shopped garage sales and other stores. She invested about $2,000 of her budget in her initial inventory.

The largest investment for the shop was in the store set up. Burgess spent around $10,000 for furniture and fixtures, and she looked for short-cuts to save money. For example, she used shower curtain hooks for hanging jeans and bought them on markdown all over town. Then, she contacted the manufacturer to purchase them wholesale.

She also visited several motorcycle dealers in town to let them know what she was doing. She asked them to donate posters to help her decorate the inside of the shop. This obviously saved in some decorating expenses, but, more importantly to her, she wanted all motorcycle enthusiasts to feel welcome in her shop, regardless of what brand of motorcycle they ride.

Getting the word out

With a new shop, a sign, consigned inventory, all Burgess needed was customers, and it didn’t take long to find them.

“Motorcyclists are a tight-knit group. Word of mouth is very powerful with all the connections of biker events and groups,” says Burgess. “I was counting on this, along with doing personal presentations at motorcycle riding groups’ monthly meetings. I didn’t have an advertising budget.”

After soliciting her friends and connections for consignments, Burgess had already developed interest in her business. Then she started networking through all of the motorcycle associations, shops and events across town, and people started coming in.

One of her first customers was a relative of an employee at Channel 4. The customer passed the word on and the connection resulted in a story on The Morning Show shortly after 2nd Ride Around Consignment Shop opened.

“I had a lot of people come in after that spot ran, and they said they heard about it on the news,” says Burgess. “You just never know who is going to walk into your store and what they will do for you.”

Re-cycle business is rolling

After less than four months of business, Burgess has more than 55 consignors at 2nd Ride Around Consignment Shop.

“What a ride this has been! I knew it would work; however, I never dreamed it would take off like it has,” Burgess explains. “If it keeps going this way, I’d like to start looking at more locations.”

The idea for more locations has always been part of the big picture for Burgess. “I’d like to offer more locations, and one day, take the concept nationwide with franchise opportunities.”

Sidebar 1

2nd Ride Around Consignment Shop

11018 OId St. Augustine Road, Suite 111

Jacksonville, FL 32257

904-379-9167

www.2ndridearound.com

2nd Ride Around Consignment Shop accepts: men and women’s motorcycle apparel, jeans,

T-shirts and shoes, as well as motorcycle themed purses, jewelry and home décor items. Consigned items are on the sales floor for up to 60 days. The sales price is based on competitive market price and brand research. Consignors will receive 40% of the selling price excluding sales tax. Items that do not sell at the end of the 60 days can be picked up by the consignor or donated to the charity of the consignor’s choice. 2nd Ride Around works with Hubbard House, Humane Society, and the Vietnam Vets.

Sidebar 2

A Passion for riding

Debbie Burgess wasn’t always a motorcycle enthusiast. It wasn’t until she met her husband, Jim, that she got the riding fever.

“I can remember seeing folks on motorcycles back in the ’90s when I was commuting to my corporate job in downtown Jacksonville,” she explains, “and I would think that they must be nuts doing 65 miles per hour on a motorcycle.”

Burgess met her husband in 2002 and he liked to ride; by 2005 she was riding her own motorcycle. “I quickly started enjoying riding, even when I was on the back. There is something about being on a motorcycle, with the wind blowing through your hair, that allows you time away with no worries. That’s what gets you hooked on the lifestyle.”

They both enjoy riding so much that they rented motorcycles on their honeymoon and rode the coastal highway in California. “It was a great thing for us to share on our honeymoon—a common interest that we both have a passion for.”

When she lost her job, Burgess’ husband suggested doing something she would enjoy this time around. As she began to think of what kind of job she would enjoy, riding her bike with Jim came to mind, but she knew no company was going to pay her to do that. She began to think about how she could work with people who shared her passion for riding. She knew she’d had enough of the corporate traveling life—flying all over the country all week and only home for the weekends.

“I thought it would be a given success story because it would be owned and operated by motorcycle enthusiasts that understand the lifestyle,” Burgess said. “I wanted to make a difference by doing something for all the bikers that are always willing to give to others. At the same time, I could help our local economy by opening an independently-owned store in my Mandarin community.”

Ashley Feit provides writing and public relations services to small business. She can be reached at acfeit@att.net.

His business model with nonprofits spurs growth         

By Ashley Cisneros   

A slow economy didn’t stop Brock E. Fazzini from entering the saturated coffee market three years ago. Neither did the bankruptcy sustained by his parent company. Instead of being put off by a sluggish economic outlook, the 24-year-old CEO has led Fazzini’s Coffee & Tea to exponential sales growth. His secret: an unorthodox business model based on giving away generous profit percentages.

A natural businessman

Fazzini grew up in a business family in Frostproof, Fla. “No one in my family had degrees, but everyone had their own business, especially in real estate and development,” says Fazzini, who showed early interest in business as state president of the Future Business Leaders of America, an organization that helps prepare high school students for careers in business.

After studying at the University of Central Florida and Valencia Community College (admittedly taking only “fun” classes) and dancing two years in the Festival of the Lion King theater show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Fazzini moved to Jacksonville, where he eventually became a coffee master and a learning coach at Starbucks. He studied Howard Schultz’ book, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, as well as all of the company’s policy and procedure manuals.

“I admired [Starbucks founder] Schultz’ idea about bringing community into business and the notion of selling an experience,” Fazzini says. Coffee (and Schultz’ philosophies) got into his “blood” and never left—even after he joined Dixie Sales Company USA, Inc., a photographic film distributor. There his boss, Harry Shmunes (who is now Fazzini’s Coffee & Tea president and chief operating officer), recognized his passion and asked him to head up a coffee business, with backing from Dixie Sales. In 2007 Fazzini’s Coffee and Tea was born.

Sustainability matters

From the beginning, Fazzini and his team focused on selling wholesale beans and a tea line. “I also wanted my company to serve the highest quality coffee and revolve around community,” Fazzini says. Today, Fazzini’s Coffee & Tea offers 100% USDA Organic, kosher, halal, and Transfair-certified fair trade products. Cultivating an environmentally and socially responsible business was paramount to Fazzini. The company donates 10 cents for each product sold to the Trees for the Future Foundation (www.treesftf.org), which plants tree saplings in deforested rain forests. Fazzini’s Coffee & Tea has planted tens of thousands of saplings in Kenya, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

“Trees for the Future lets us choose the species of tree to plant,” he explains. “The type we prefer is called the moringa tree, which is extremely fast growing. Although it seems unbelievable, within nine months a sapling grows to be 20 feet tall. And almost every part of the moringa tree can be used for human and animal consumption—as well as for biofuels. Scientists claim this tree may solve the world hunger problem,” Fazzini says. “What is amazing is that planting trees in deforested areas has caused dormant species of plants to reactivate and grow. This replaces oxygen, improves the biodiversity in the region, and creates jobs.

“A lot of business owners think that they can’t afford to take up green initiatives, but purchasing coffee and tea from us allows them to play a pivotal role in planting trees,” Fazzini says. “We even recognize our customers for their sustainability efforts. When a customer’s sales reach the point of planting 400 trees, it gets naming rights to a new forest and we present a certificate from Trees for the Future.”

The role of nonprofits

In addition to being environmentally conscious, Fazzini is passionate about nonprofits. He serves on boards for the American Red Cross of St. John’s County, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach. He also has served as an Ambassador to the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce, and chairs the board of directors for Oasis, the GLBT Center of Northeast Florida.

Fazzini leverages his relationships with nonprofits to align with their corporate partners. A corporate partner that uses Fazzini’s coffee service effectively increases its giving to the nonprofit because up to 50% of the profits from the coffee sold in its establishment go to the agency. In the Northeast Florida area, since July of 2009, all no profits that enter into a relationship with Fazzini’s are part of the HandsOn Jacksonville partnership. This relationship leverages charitable donations by Fazzini’s from 20% to 50%, depending on the nonprofit gifting structure under which the relationship falls.

Fazzini also offers nonprofits a customized Fazzini’s Coffee and Tea Web site. Just as with corporate sales, a generous portion of profits made through Web-site sales goes back to the organization. 

Judith A. M. Smith, D.M., president and CEO of HandsOn Jacksonville (www.handsonjacksonville.org), calls Fazzini’s business model “brilliant.”

“Brock’s company blurs the lines between the for-profit and nonprofit worlds,” Smith says. “His business model makes use of the access and relationships of nonprofits to move a business forward. There are a lot of good causes and good organizations that will benefit from this type of entrepreneurial philanthropy.”

Working with HandsOn Jacksonville helps Fazzini to familiarize as well as establish credibility with more than 100 worthy nonprofit organizations. Smith says that in 2009 Fazzini’s company contributed at least $20,000 to Jacksonville nonprofit organizations and in excess of $75,000 in-kind. Fazzini’s Coffee and Tea has earned residual and in most cases significant revenue for over 60 agencies. 

Fazzini says a total of 50% of the company’s  Northeast Florida sales profits go back to nonprofits—plus approximately 3% goes to reforestation projects. With nonprofits looking for revenue and companies looking for ways to give back, Fazzini’s model works.

Like many businesses, Fazzini’s Coffee and Tea has had its challenges, especially when its parent company was placed into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. “When Dixie Sales went under, Fazzini’s had to start over. All of our assets were Dixie’s, but we were so good at customer service no one knew. It was a depressing time, but in the end, it’s just another interesting part of who we are,” Fazzini says.

In the future, Fazzini plans to replicate the model used with HandsOn Jacksonville with other HandsOn Network affiliates located in target markets, such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, or Denver. “We want to start using this exact same model in other cities. We will grow due to our partnerships,” Fazzini says. “We’re adding values to a cup of coffee; we are doing well by doing good.”

Ashley Cisneros is a contributing editor to Jacksonville Small Business Advantage. She can be reached at ashleycisneros@gmail.com.

Fazzini’s business model: Unorthodox but successful

Fazzini credits the growth and success of his coffee business to an unorthodox business model: He gives away a large portion—53%—of his Northeast Florida sales’ profits. The model is based on three things:

• A partnership with local nonprofit organizations,

• A commitment to sustainability, and

• A desire to give back to the community.

Here is how it works:

Fazzini partners with HandsOn Jacksonville, an umbrella nonprofit organization that serves as a “matchmaker” between volunteers and projects benefiting its 95 members. HandsOn arranges for Fazzini to make semi-annual presentations to members to explain how his company can help them in their fund-raising efforts.

When an organization agrees to partner with Fazzini, an executive from the nonprofit arranges a meeting with a decision-maker at one of the nonprofit’s corporate benefactors. During that meeting Fazzini explains that by using his coffee and tea service, the company:

• Supports fair-traded, organically grown products;

• Provides Roasted to order coffees

• Helps reforest rain forests; and

• Gives between 20% and 50% of profits back to the agency, depending on its gift structure.

Fazzini says his model removes the need to advertise or cold call, but by partnering with nonprofits, he has achieved an approximately 95% success rate.

By Linda Segall   

By viewing the old we learn the new — Chinese Proverb

It has been said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Jacksonville Small Business Advantage talked with three retired small business people who reside at Taylor Residences, a community of adults age 62 or older, to discover if that adage is true. What they told us showed that although some things in the business world have changed (technology and workplace demographics, for example), others (such as credit problems and a need to work long hours) have not.

Louise Register, Connie DeLoach, and Ellis Touchton shared some “senior moments”—memories of their years running a small business— as a way to help a younger generation appreciate how business has changed as well as how to take a shortcut to success.

Our retirees

As co-owner with her husband (deceased) of Register Sod & Turf Co., a sod and landscaping company that was located, until recently, on Beach Boulevard, Louise Register, age 94, was active in the company for 47 years until she retired in 1985.

“My husband and I got into the business accidentally,” she said. “He didn’t like to work for other people, so he started landscaping and cleaning up yards for other people. We’d buy shrubbery and go down south to buy sod. People started coming over and asking to buy some of what we had, and pretty soon we were making enough to pay for our load. Then we began to get more landscaping material and developed a backyard nursery. We stayed in one location for 20 years. Sometimes we had upwards of 20 employees during the season.”

Connie DeLoach, 78, is a retired realtor whose business, First Class Properties, was located in Daytona. Like Louise, she “fell” into her business. She was a stay-at-home mother to her three children, but when the last of them went to school, she began working as a secretary in a property management office in Jacksonville. “I got my broker’s license, never thinking I would have the opportunity to use it.”

That changed when Connie moved to Daytona and began to work for a developer of Pelican Bay. “When the builder went under, the Pelican Bay advisory board asked me to stay as its property manager and agent.” For two years, she worked onsite. Then she opened her own office and ran it as a sole proprietor for a couple of years. As she grew the business, she hired agents and took in partners. She ran her company for 10 years before moving back to Jacksonville in 1992.

Although he was not a small business owner, Ellis Touchton was a vice president with Skinner Dairy Co., and worked for the company for 37 years. He achieved his executive position in a classic manner—by working up through the ranks. “I started off loading the trucks, about 3 o’clock in the morning. Next, they gave me the order processing for the next day. Finally, I was put in charge of a few routes, four or five of them. Jacksonville was growing tremendously fast back in those days, and we had to keep putting on more routes… I was asked to be a sales manager.

He explained how he became a vice president in the company: “The owners often flew around in a company airplane. They were fearful that if they had a wreck and were all killed there would be nobody to run the business. They made me vice president so there would be somebody to run the company.” Retiring from the dairy when he was 65 in 1981, he held that position with the company for 15 years.

Challenges

Advantage: What was your biggest challenge as you ran your business?

Connie: Computers! It took me three years to let go of paper. I just could not figure out how the computer worked; I didn’t trust it. I’m one of those people who have to know why something works. It was tough, but I finally got to where I really liked using computers, but it was the hardest thing.

Louise: Sometimes it was hard to make payroll and pay the bills. When the weather was bad, business was bad. We had to borrow money and work hard to pay it back. Sometimes we just broke even. We had one man [a banker] who was real good about loaning us money. We’d even mortgage our house. It was hard; sometimes we’d do without. If a payroll was hard to make, I would do without my salary so the men could have their money. But we managed and did all right. We even bought enough property to build our home and bought the property on Beach Blvd.

Ellis: One of my problems was that I was a little younger than some of the other people. As the promotions came, I had to go over older people, who didn’t like it. We had to make some “adjustments” [firings]. The boss called me in and said, “If so and so gives you any trouble, we’ll just pay him three months.”

Biggest surprise

Advantage: What was the biggest surprise you had as a small business owner?

Louise: It was hard to balance my time. I worked from daylight to dark at the nursery, then came home and worked. And when I was home with my five children, I was close enough they could get me if they needed me. I was sales lady, bookkeeper, everything. I even propagated the plants. It was hard to manage everything.

Connie: The hard work and long hours. I worked by myself for the first two years, from 9 to 9. I didn’t even have a secretary. My husband had been in sales. I never understood why he didn’t like to take phone calls at night, because I figured that was money calling. But after being in business with rental properties, I found the phone rings at all hours and you have to get up at all hours and do things I never thought I would have to do, especially when the maintenance man wasn’t there.

Ellis: I was surprised I had to get involved in the lives of the men I managed—personnel issues. A call might come in at 5 a.m. One time I got called and the person said, “You better get out here. We have a man with a gun waiting to kill one of your salesmen for dating his daughter.” The problem was that the salesman and the woman he was dating were both married. We had these surprises all the time. During my time, the ladies were invading the workplace, so there was more romancing going on all the time. The very ones you didn’t expect to have these problems were the ones who did. We even had to let people go and it fell on me to do that. I guess that was one of the worst things I remember.

Keeping up

Advantage: Times change. How did you manage to stay on top of trends?

Connie: Real estate became hard because of the regulations and paperwork. I took courses and got a GRI (Graduate Realtor Institute) in property management. Finally I hired an attorney to help me stay on top of everything.

Louise: Continuing to learn was important to our business. We had a state association, and we’d meet every so often to keep up to date. We also had one man who was really good at aerating and propagating and I’d learn a lot from him.

Ellis: You had to be willing to learn new things and do new things. When I drove a milk route, I was the first to switch to all paper cartons. Milk was delivered in glass bottles. It was a lot easier to deliver paper cartons; you didn’t have to bring back the bottles. I used to go up to Cincinnati with my boss where there was a meeting once a year. We’d find out what others were doing. For example, we found out one time they were putting milk in gallon jugs. We weren’t doing that here. So we came back to Jacksonville and starting using the gallon jugs; we were the first to do that in the city. We also put in the drive-through dairy stores. The stores took away from the route sales, but made it easier for consumers, so we sold more.

Motivating employees

Advantage: Each of you had employees. How did you engage them to do their best?

Louise: Our employees knew my husband would not fire them if they did a good job. One of the men worked for us for 40 years and retired when he was 65. My husband was good to employees. He’d go pick them up at their homes and bring them to work. He treated people with respect. They knew they could depend on him, so they would go out of their way to do right for him.

Connie: My employees were real estate associates and were on a commission schedule. When sales went up, their commissions grew. Money was a motivator.

Ellis: It wasn’t easy to engage people. We found older people worked better than young people. Employees made what they earned through commissions. We had meetings and incentives and sales contests. We sometimes brought in motivational speakers to get them to work harder and make more money. Money talked.

Insights

Advantage: What kind of advice would you give to small business owners today, based on what you have learned from your career?

Connie: Always be honest; don’t try to scheme. Find your passion and be happy in your job. It’s not worthwhile working at something you don’t like.

Louise: There is no free lunch. Go out and find the jobs. My husband had to do that when times were tough. We’d get in the car and drive around looking for where people were building houses. He’d talk to the builders about putting in landscaping and get jobs that way. 

Ellis: Don’t lie; what you did might get you into trouble at first, but if you lie, you’ll have more trouble. And be willing to start small. You can’t start out high on the totem pole.

Linda Segall, linda@advantagebizmag.com, is editor of Jacksonville Small Business Advantage. The three retired small business people reside at Taylor Residences, part of Taylor Foundation Services, www.taylor-residences.org.

SIDEBAR 1

What has changed?

When the three retirees were beginning their small business careers, a number of changes have occurred in business:

• Demographics. In 1950, approximately 33% of women over the age of 16 participated in the labor force. Today, that rate is approximately 60%. Among women ages 25 – 34, only about 50% worked in 1975, whereas 75% work today.

• Laws. The first civil rights laws did not go into effect until 1964.

• Technology. Manual typewriters were still used in offices, although the popularity of electric typewriters increased significantly when IBM began producing them in 1958. In 1961 IBM introduced the IBM Selectric typewriter, which permitted faster data input, since it replaced typebars with a “ball” of letters. Eventually 75% of all typewriters used in offices were Selectrics. The Apple I personal computer was first sold in 1976; IBM introduced its first PCs in 1981. Car phones grew in popularity in the 1970s, but were still considered a luxury.

SIDEBAR 2

What has stayed the same?

• Need for continuous learning. All of the retirees said they needed to “stay on top.” The need for continuous learning remains today.

• Credit problems. Small business owners in the past have had to find credit to make it over slow periods.

• Human needs. Workplace surveys indicate that the top employee need is to be treated with respect and dignity.

• Long hours. Hard work with little time off was the norm for our retirees, the same as it is today.

Area small business owners find satisfaction and success through philanthropy   

By Ashley Cisneros   

Local small business owners find that supporting philanthropy helps the success of their small businesses. In addition to receiving personal satisfaction from supporting their surrounding communities, business owners report benefitting from their affiliation with respected charities. They receive increased exposure to new segments of the market, forge deeper relationships with clients, and network with fellow entrepreneurs and corporate executives.

These benefits often result in new business leads and work referrals.

Giving doesn’t always mean conferring money. In tough economic times, many companies find it difficult to give monetarily to charitable and philanthropic initiatives. Tourea Robinson, president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Florida First Coast Chapter, says that most small business opt to demonstrate their support of philanthropy through in-kind donations and services. Robinson reports that corporate and small business giving has remained steady in Jacksonville in 2009.

“Business owners want to know that their contributions are being used in an effective way to improve the community,” she says. “They also appreciate the recognition they receive by giving, and look to have their name affiliated with a certain philanthropic program. They want to be good corporate citizens in the communities in which they operate.”

Instead of contributing financially, several Jacksonville area small businesses donated time and talent as a birthday gift  to Wolfson Children’s Hospital. The hospital, part of Baptist Health, will celebrate 55 years of providing premium pediatric care in 2010.

To commemorate the occasion, the hospital is hosting the One to Grow On Ultramarathon on January 30, 2010. Marathoners have each committed to run 55 miles in honor of Wolfson’s patients. Each mile will be dedicated to a child who has an amazing story at Wolfson.

Julia Handley, Wolfson director of development, calls the involvement of Michael LeGrand Photography, iDrive Marketing, and Hire Methods, Inc., “absolutely essential” to the development of the ultramarathon. The owners of these three small businesses say that their  involvement with the event was good for business.

Increased exposure

Michael LeGrand of Michael LeGrand Photography has built a business providing photography services to companies, educational institutions, hospitals, architecture firms, and more. Clients include The Home Depot, Baptist Health, and Visit Florida.

LeGrand, whose business mostly entails shooting business professionals and physicians, took photos of 55 children for the Wolfson event. The photos appear on the event website at Wolfson55.org and associated materials. (Editor’s note: Some of the photos illustrate this article.)

“My normal work is pretty serious for the most part, so this was a fun project for me,” LeGrand says. “I was especially excited because this is my first opportunity to do philanthropy work.”

LeGrand believes that business owners who get involved with philanthropy projects benefit from exposure, but more importantly from the good karma.

“It definitely gives us more exposure than we would otherwise get,” LeGrand says. “It helps us grow in that respect. Aside from that, doing good to others makes others do good things for you.”

LeGrand says that his involvement in the project allows him to contribute to his community. Businesswise, he says that he also benefits from new additions to his portfolio.

“Larger corporations have more opportunities and ways to give back either with manpower or money, whereas small businesses are limited by manpower and finances,” LeGrand says. “We give back by providing the services that we give to our regular clients to foundations and charities. I would definitely consider contributing to a philanthropic project again.”

LeGrand has donated five day-long photo shoots, plus photo editing services for each child. He says that he usually charges $1,200 for a day-long shoot.

“I photographed a set of four-month-old twins to toddlers who were barely standing to older children,” LeGrand says. “I did the photo shoots at the children’s rehabilitation center in one giant room filled with toys, maps, bikes and scooters. I wanted to make sure that each photo really represented the child.”

Networking opportunities and referrals

Alex Benavides founded iDrive Marketing almost two years ago to provide quality branding, marketing and advertising services to businesses without the large ad agency premiums.

Benavides become involved with the Wolfson marathon though his clients Clint Drawdy and Chad Perce of Hire Methods, Inc.

Benavides leveraged his full-service advertising agency to help coordinate the Wolfson project. He developed all of the marketing materials including the Web site, posters, fliers, and a Facebook.com event page. Business owners benefit from giving back to the community as long as certain conditions are met, Benavides says.

“You have to be doing this for a good purpose,” Benavides says. “You can’t get involved with charity work to make money; that’s not how this works. You have to really care about the cause, and be willing to follow through with what you promise. You have to be authentic. This truly reflects to the people who are involved with the project. When you care about the people, that’s when you get the true networking benefit.”

Due to his involvement with the Wolfson marathon, Benavides has already generated two leads. In addition to helping Wolfson, iDrive Marketing has also contributed Web site development services benefiting First Coast No More Homeless Pets (FCNMHP). Before launching iDrive Marketing, Benavides performed philanthropic work with another agency benefiting the Brunell Family Foundation, the North Florida School of Special Education, and the Sister to Sister Campaign, to name a few.

Most of Benavides’ contributions to philanthropic projects have been through service.

“I’ve contributed to projects by finding resources for charities and leveraging my relationships with other vendors such as printers,” Benavides says.

One of the biggest challenges for Benavides was finding a vendor to manufacture 55 three-foot glass birthday candles for the event. The Wolfson 55 committee is also planning a charity concert in the spring.

“If you would have asked me how to go about planning a concert six months ago, I wouldn’t have had a clue. Now I do,” Benavides says. “I’ve learned to stretch dollars and do amazing things with a modest budget for clients. The more avenues you have, the more creative you can be with your solutions.”

Benavides estimates donating 500 to 525 hours to the Wolfson project.

“You have to be genuine when giving, and it will come back to you,” he says. “The doctors at Wolfson can do amazing things to improve a child’s life. Parents don’t have to fly to a major metropolitan city; they can get quality care right here at home.”

Stronger client relationships

Business owners Clint Drawdy and Chad Perce make service of paramount importance in their business practices at Hire Methods, Inc., the parent company of Medical Methods and iMethods Technical Recruiting.

Drawdy and Perce have been affiliated with Baptist Health for years, and Perce serves as chair person of the Wolfson event.

“Service is a large part of the culture here at our company,” Perce says. “Wolfson speaks to us both professionally and personally because of the important work they do to impact children.”

Perce finds that good things happen to business owners who serve their communities.

“There is a fine line between genuinely and authentically being involved in the community and having selfish motives for gain,” he says. “Service is rewarding for the soul. Positive things happen to business owners when they give genuinely. These include forging deeper relationships with clients, gaining trust and credibility, and winning referrals through networking. This is about rallying around something bigger than yourself.”

Drawdy believes that even smaller businesses can have a tremendous impact on the community. He says that getting involved can boost a company’s morale and increase retention.

“When businesses get involved with philanthropy, they can give their vendors opportunities to give back to the community as well,” Drawdy says. “In addition, business owners also have the opportunity to meet with company executives and CEOs that would otherwise be difficult to meet.”

The owners say they haven’t spent a lot of time quantifying the services they’ve contributed to the Wolfson 55 event.

“In this economic environment, we did more in-kind services this year than we have any other year,” Drawdy says.”We love the fact that we give our time. If we weren’t involved in the Wolfson project, many of the people in our network would not be involved either.”

Drawdy has advice for business owners wanting to get involved in philanthropic activities.

“Speak to your personnel and find out what they want to rally behind,” he says. “Find a cause that your staff is passionate about. Once you get a handle on that, opportunities will come more naturally.”

Perce encourages businesses to not select a cause blindly.

“Picking a charity simply because they are a big name is not the way to go,” Perce says. “Slow down and ask questions. You will find plenty of opportunities to serve. Don’t think you’re too small. No one is too small to give. Challenge yourself to get involved. If you’re not involved, get involved.”

Ashley Cisneros is a contributing editor to Jacksonville Small Business Advantage. She can be reached at ashleycisneros@gmail.com.

SIDEBAR

Ultramarathon culminates Wolfson birthday celebration

An ultramarathon in which a select group of runners will complete 55 miles as part of the One to Grow On celebration in honor of Wolfson Children’s Hospital’s 55^th birthday will be Jan. 30. A mini-marathon of five miles—Run 5 to Keep Kids Alive—will also be held on the same day. Runners will complete the same five-mile loop as the ultra marathoners. The events are fund raisers for the hospital and culminate the birthday celebration.

More than 120 local companies are supporters of the One to Grow On celebration. Individuals and companies wishing to support the hospital can donate at www.wolfson55.org or call 904-202-2881.

By Ashley Cisneros    

People can’t stop talking about Three Layers, A Coffee House. The Springfield business was named the Best Coffee House of Jacksonville by Folio Weekly, gained coverage in Southern Living, and garnered a visit from Gov. Charlie Crist. Like many other entrepreneurs, partners Jeff Wright and Shawn McGuire have an interesting story.

The couple moved to Florida from Atlanta in 2007. McGuire was successful in the construction and real estate industries. Wright worked in health care, and made special-order cakes from his home kitchen for more than a decade.

For as long as Wright has been making cakes, people have told him that his cakes were the best they’ve ever had. Guests have called the hosts of parties where Wright’s cakes were served because they wanted to compliment Wright on his cakes. They even sent flowers. Friends and family urged Wright to start a business.

McGuire suggested that Wright name the would-be business. Months later, Wright announced that he would call it Three Layers, A Coffee House. The name represented the three layers he used in every cake he baked  and his belief that true inner peace embodies the mind, body and spirit—three layers.

Months after deciding on a name, the opportunity to launch Three Layers presented itself, but it was completely unexpected.

New Floridians

Wright and McGuire moved to Orlando after McGuire was recruited by a real estate firm in Central Florida. But they discovered the city wasn’t the right fit for them.

“We started to consider other areas of Florida, and we had a few requirements for our new home,” Wright says. “It had to be a place where Shawn could sell real estate, specifically historic homes. We’re urban dwellers, so it had to have an urban core. And it had to be near the water.”

After reviewing city information on the Internet, Wright and McGuire kept reading about the historic Springfield neighborhood of Jacksonville. After a visit to the active community, they were hooked.

Some locals tried to persuade them not to move to Springfield.

“People told us, ‘Oh, you don’t want to be there,’” Wright says. “The neighborhood was rundown and crime-infested about 10 years ago. But it’s nothing like that now.”

McGuire began searching for offices for his new real estate venture. He found a four-unit building at 1602 Walnut Street. Although he decided it wasn’t suitable for his real estate office, he wanted to show it to Wright because of the unique architecture.

When Wright walked in the 1925 building, tears filled his eyes, McGuire says.

“He turned and told me, ‘This is it. This is where Three Layers is supposed to be,’” McGuire recalls.

The building offered not only a place for a new business, but a place for the couple to live as well.

Their decision was a surprise to both of them. “I remember telling Jeff, ‘A coffee house? But, we’re looking for a place for the real estate business,’ Three Layers wasn’t on our radar at that point,” McGuire says.

But Three Layers was meant to be.

A financial plan

“Starting Three Layers was a new experience for us,” McGuire says. “I’d done construction, restoration, and real estate, but nothing like this before.”

Another entrepreneur gave McGuire a contact at the Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA required McGuire to produce a business plan. He spent three days writing his first business plan using Business Plan Pro software. He used a how-to book about opening a coffee house, and demographic information from the Springfield Preservation & Revitalization (SPAR) Council.

The partners secured a loan from CenterBank of Jacksonville guaranteed by the SBA, and put down $60,000.

“We did an interest reserve deal. It included $175,000 to cover the cost of the building, $50,000 for build-out, $25,000 to cover our mortgage payments while we got started, plus $25,000 in equipment start-up costs,” McGuire says. “The interest rate was good, and it all happened pretty fast. If we would have pursued the same loan now that we did back then, the scenario would be very different.”

A budding business

Wright and McGuire worked tirelessly to build Three Layers, A Coffee House, in only a few months. A then-threatening recession presented challenges, but they believed in the vision for the coffee house.

“Shawn had his real estate business, and I was bringing in income from a part-time job at Memorial Hospital,” Wright says. “We lived in the same building of the coffee house, and we didn’t have a mortgage payment thanks to the great deal we received from the SBA. We knew we would have to put in long hours and hard work, but we figured if we can make it in this economic climate, we’d be OK.”

The owners say that their slogan, “Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly,” is not only a foundation for Three Layers, but a personal mantra they live by. Wright received it an e-mail several years ago, and it stuck with him.

The partners conducted guerilla market research by visiting coffee houses each time they traveled to a new city. They studied the corporate giants, networked with local roasters, and researched equipment.

“We asked a lot of questions to find out who was using what equipment, the advantages and disadvantages of using certain products, and what changes the owners would make if they could,” Wright says. “We checked out the prices other owners were charging, too.”

The menu was designed to showcase Wright’s treasured recipes from family and friends. The recipe for Italian Cream cake, Wright’s favorite, came from a friend’s family in Knoxville, Tenn. The cookie recipes originated from Wright’s mother, and his English Muffin Bread recipe came from his father. The partners drew non-compete and confidentially agreements to protect the recipes. Today, they’re also trademarking and copyrighting the best-selling “Jeff Squares.”

They also found great deals on equipment.

“Sometimes people just gave us things,” Wright says.

The marketing plan was simple. The partners printed fliers and spoke to everyone they met. As people visited the coffee house, word spread quickly, and soon the press began to call. A visit from a local television producer resulted in news coverage.

McGuire says that the first operational plan entailed him opening Three Layers in the morning, tending to the long lines, and closing at 11 a.m. Then, he’d work on his real estate business. Wright would leave his part-time job at 5 p.m. to open the coffee house by 5:30 p.m.

 “Well, there just weren’t long lines at the beginning,” McGuire says. “We had a very limited menu in the beginning consisting of cake, coffee and espresso.”

Soon customers were asking for lunch.

Expansion

Wright and McGuire decided to repurpose their guest bedroom to give Wright more room to prepare food. Out came the guest bed, and in went new commercial equipment.

After finding a four-bedroom house, only steps from the coffee house, Wright and McGuire moved out of the building. They turned their old bedroom into a special events room, and opened a wine bar called The Cellar.

They also hired a landscaper to transform their courtyard into a lush Zen Garden featuring reclaimed bricks, drought-tolerant bamboo, and underground water storage ponds. Now, the Zen Garden is reserved at least once a week for birthdays, receptions, book club meetings, and more.

The owners have also given back to the community through events such as the Springfield Autumn Music Festival that benefitted the American Cancer Society and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The buzz about Three Layers, A Coffee House, has translated to awards, press coverage, and even a visit from Gov. Charlie Crist.

The governor was in Jacksonville to sign a piece of legislation. When he told his local driver he wanted to go to Starbucks, the driver told him he should try Three Layers.

“Gov. Crist and his entire entourage came to the coffee house,” McGuire says. “We had a guitar player during lunch that day. Gov. Crist borrowed his guitar and played a Beatles song for us.”

Challenges and goals

Wright says it is still a challenge to get some native Jacksonvillians to visit Three Layers, A Coffee House, because of Springfield’s stigma from years ago.

“We actually had some part-time applicants call and cancel their interviews once they looked up the location of the coffee house, or when their family or friends heard that the business was in Springfield,” Wright says.

Positive press coverage and word-of-mouth have helped the owners combat the old reputation of Springfield.

McGuire says that one of the partners’ biggest goals is to implement processes to make the coffee house so systematic, that it can be run easily.

“This will free Jeff and me up to focus on other ventures,” McGuire says.

McGuire calls the success of Three Layers more of a statement than a cause for the neighborhood.

“We thought we’d offer a great place to hang out, but we soon became the flagship business for a neighborhood long forgotten. We proved that, yes, you can start a business in a once horrible neighborhood and succeed.”

Ashley Cisneros is a contributing editor to Jacksonville Advantage. She can be reached at ashleycisneros@gmail.com.

SIDEBAR

Three Layers, A Coffee House

1602 Walnut Street

Jacksonville, FL 32206

(Corner of E. 6th Street and Walnut)

904-355-9791

Hours of Operation

8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday

8 a.m. to 11 .m., Friday and Saturday

8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday

Closed Monday

www.threelayersacoffeehouse.com

threelayers@gmail.com

By P. Douglas Filaroski     

Considering all the places she’s been, it wouldn’t be surprising if Greta Carter should find herself in the right place.

The former Citibank executive traveled widely for 20 years, introducing new initiatives for the financial services giant. Now Carter is launching Brite Sky Solar at a time when government programs are making the renewable energy light bulb come on for many consumers.

“The interest in solar now is incredible,” Carter said. “We think northeast Florida is ready.”

Carter said she’s ready, too, as majority owner to achieve success with the Jacksonville-based company, having worked from 1984 to 2002 primarily starting up enterprises nationally and internationally for Citibank.

Her last assignment in Jacksonville, launching a PayPal-like online payment system for the financial services giant, ended with her retirement in 2002 to pursue her own entrepreneurial interests. 

She became a licensed realtor and opened 1 Zero C Realty, a full-service real estate firm in Jacksonville. Later, she created GretanJim Inc., to manage rental properties she and her husband Jim own. She also helps run Jim Carter Construction Inc.

She launched Brite Sky Solar in April to sell and install solar panels and other green energy systems in homes and businesses, just as relatively new state rebates and a recently expanded federal tax credit began to light up the market.

Three months later, in July, city-owned electric utility JEA announced it had revamped its program to supplement and buy solar power from its customers, thus improving and expanding a residential program that now includes small businesses.

JEA’s Net Metering program hooks customers using solar to the electric grid and installs a second meter that measures solar-generated electricity a customer sends back to JEA when there is excess or a customer is not using it. The customer receives a credit it can use to lower its JEA bill.

For companies like Brite Sky, these new or expanded government programs have the potential to spark business. “I see the market [for solar power] expanding,” said Jay Worley, JEA’s director of environmental programs.

Worley, who oversees the net metering program, said it’s only a matter of time before word spreads. “It’s really an educational process,” he commented.

In addition to selling and installing photovoltaic solar panels and tankless water heaters, Carter’s Brite Sky Solar company intends to operate a Solar Academy that will be open to the public to educate those interested in learning about solar power, its costs, and its benefits.

In its short life, Brite Sky has already landed contracts and installed solar systems on a handful of homes and businesses. Since April, more than 40 customers have asked for estimates, Carter said.

She said the company expects to exceed its sales projections of $1 million this year. It recently added 10 sales affiliates and expects to reach 20 sales affiliates by 2010.

Optimism about the market is not only due to a relatively new state tax rebate of $20,000 or an expanded federal tax credit of 30% over five years. A 40% drop in cost of solar panels themselves, due to improvements in technology and growth in the market, has fueled market expansion.

With these changes, the math now made sense for Ronan O’Donohoe, who is installing a 5 kilowatt solar system atop the 4,200-square-foot home at St. Johns Golf and Country Club he shares with his wife and three children.

“To me, it’s all about the dollars and cents,” O’Donohoe said. “I’m glad I get a good feeling about helping the environment, but I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t make sense economically.”

Recent drops in the price of solar panels figure to decrease the average time in the United States it takes for them to pay for themselves through savings on electric bills. The average payback time nationally is expected to go from 22 years to 16 years, Glenn Harris of solar consulting firm SunCentric said in a recent New York Times article.

Florida’s $20,000 rebate program, in place since 2006, and the removal this year of a $2,000 cap on the federal tax credit program dramatically alter that equation for area customers such as O’Donohoe.

O’Donohoe said the state rebate and federal tax credits will eventually reduce his $40,000 capital expense in the solar system to $8,000, meaning the system will have paid for itself in energy savings in his home in about five years.

While an exact payback time would depend on a customer’s monthly energy use, there is wider agreement that more factors are working these days to make renewable energy systems make sense for more customers

In California, despite an economy as sluggish as Florida’s, residential installations in July increased by more than 50%.

Although California is much further ahead on the education curve than Florida, Brite Sky officials think the Sunshine State will catch up.

“If you turn on the news, all you hear is healthcare and renewable energy,” said Duke Sochalski who invested in Brite Sky as a partner after working as an executive superintendent with Jim Carter Construction.

“I think all Americans want to be green. It costs a little bit more up front, but in the long run it saves,” he said.

The spiraling residential and commercial real estate markets forced Carter and her partners to get creative in their business dealings. “It prompted us to reinvent ourselves,” Carter said.

They conducted research on possible enterprises related to real estate. They studied markets in four states, briefly considered wind power, but finally settled on solar power.

“You go to California and you see solar everywhere,” Carter said. “You come to Jacksonville—the Sunshine State— and you can’t understand why it’s not [everywhere].”

Carter capitalized the business through partnerships and recently signed on a fourth partner. The company soon will be announcing details of an expansion into Nevada.

The time seems to be right. Politically, renewable energy seems to have support from both sides of the aisle. The left feels it is the right thing to pursue environmentally and the right thinks it has the potential to provide jobs, she said.

Although it’s early, Carter said she is projecting excellent growth in Brite Sky’s revenue in 2010.

“When people start seeing all the solar panels going up in this state, it’s going to become the state’s new symbol,” she said. “I’ve never felt so right about anything in my life.”

SIDEBAR 1

Brite Sky Solar

Principal: Greta Carter

Headquarters: 8613 Old Kings Road South, Bldg. 500, Jacksonville, Fla.

Founded: April 2009

About Brite Sky Solar: The solar technology and installation firm specializes in photovoltaic panels and tankless water heaters for commercial and residential properties. CEO Greta Carter is a former Citibank vice president who spent nearly 20 years launching new products and programs for the company.

SIDEBAR 2

The birth of Brite Sky

Greta Carter and her husband’s livelihood and lifestyle revolved around real estate and construction. Then, the housing bubble burst. “We thought about what to do,” said Carter. “Where was the money? At some point in thinking out loud, Duke [Sochalski] said, ‘How about putting little windmills in backyards for wind power?’ We all laughed, but his remark led us to think about the solar industry. And here we are!”

SIDEBAR 3

Getting the word out

One of the most daunting tasks facing a new business is getting the word out to potential customers. Realizing that solar electric generation is new to northeast Florida, Carter decided her initial marketing efforts would focus largely on educating the public.

“We currently attend a lot of the trade shows,” she said. “They give us an opportunity to talk to people on their time. We also get a fair number of folks who visit our office looking for information, and we are opening up the Solar Academy, which will give folks another avenue to learn without feeling any pressure for a sale.”

In addition to education efforts, the company has invested in advertising, marketing, and Web development. Hiring a public relations specialist has also helped give the company additional media exposure—something that helps in the education process, said Carter. In the future, the company will engage an advertising and media company to help implement a comprehensive 12-month marketing strategy.

SIDEBAR 4

Solar by the numbers

Solar energy is a cost-effective investment that also adds resale value to a building or home. Here are examples that demonstrate the savings:

Commercial solar panel system: Assume the business spends $200,000 for a 25 kilowatt system. Florida currently has an energy rebate program, which will rebate up to $100,000 to a business that installs solar panels. Additionally, the federal government has a 30% tax credit for energy investment. The 30% tax credit on a $200,000 solar panel system would come to $60,000. Once the rebate is received and the tax credit is calculated on the business’ 2009 tax return, its net cost for the $200,000 commercial solar panel system comes to only $40,000.

A system of this size should be able to save and or earn the business approximately $700 a month in utility expenses and give a return-on-investment in approximately 4.7 years. 

Residential system: Assume a home owner installs a 5 kilowatt solar panel system for a gross cost of $40,000. The state will rebate up to $20,000. The federal tax credit is 30% of the cost ($12,000). After receiving the rebate and applying the tax credit to 2009 taxes, the net investment for a homeowner is $8,000.

A 5 kilowatt system should be able to save a homeowner approximately $140 a month in utility costs and give a full return-on-investment in approximately 4.7 years.  

SIDEBAR 5

How solar panels work

On a bright, sunny day, the sun shines about 1,000 watts of energy per square meter. If we could collect all that energy, most homeowners or businesses could power their buildings for free with the use of solar panels. Here’s how:

The most common type of solar panels contains photovoltaic, or PV, cells. They convert sunlight directly into energy. Photovoltaic cells are made of semiconductor materials, such as silicon, which absorb light, and hence energy. This energy knocks electrons loose and allows the electrons to flow freely.

PV cells use electric fields to force these electrons to flow in a certain direction, creating a current. By placing metal contacts at the top and bottom of PV cells, that current can be drawn off to use externally.

Not every home or building is ideal for solar panels. Non-tracking PV systems in the northern hemisphere need to point south and be inclined at an angle equal to the area’s latitude. They should never be shaded by trees or buildings. If just one of 36 cells is shaded, power production will be reduced by 50%.

Because PV systems do not produce energy when the sun is not shining, owners should store energy in batteries or to connect to an electric grid to receive electricity at night or on overcast days.

Jacksonville-based JEA offers a net metering program that provides electricity when solar power does not. Better yet, the program buys excess solar power from the customer and deducts the credit from the customers electric bill.

Source: HowStuffWorks.com

SIDEBAR 6

Net metering for energy savings

Net metering is for customers who choose to add renewable generation, such as solar power, to their businesses or homes. Customers offset the electricity they would have purchased from a utility, such as Jacksonville-based JEA.

Customer-owned renewable generation up to 100 kilowatts is allowed under JEA’s net metering policy and saves customers the cost of expensive batteries. Generation exceeding that amount requires a specific purchase power agreement with JEA.

Here’s how it works:

• Customers are charged for the metered electricity received from JEA each month.

• Customers are credited for the metered kilowatts they send to JEA each month from their own renewable generation systems.

• They accrue credit balances month to month through the end of calendar year. Like some cell-phone plans, they can roll over credits.

• At the end of the calendar year, JEA pays out any credit balance due to the customer. Customers can track credit balances onto their monthly billing statement.

• Net metering programs vary from utility to utility.

JEA customers interested in net metering must install solar systems within the guidelines of JEA’s engineering standard DPE-902. This standard requires equipment to protect JEA personnel working on circuits where solar systems may be grid-tied.

To apply, JEA requires customers to read, review, and sign several documents: Net Metering Policy 2009, JEA PV Application Form 2009, JEA Net Metering Standardized Interconnection Agreement 2009, W-9 Request for Taxpayer ID# and Cert. 2009

Jay Worley
JEA
Director, Environmental Programs, can provide additional information. He can be contacted at 904-665-8729 or worlja@jea.com.

By Robyn A. Friedman      

Chris Hanks has served in the U.S. Navy. He was a construction manager on commercial projects. He’s currently fleet manager for Auto Carrier Express (ACE), a Jacksonville-based auto transport firm.

And now, Hanks is something he never thought he would be—an inventor.

Last October, Randall Long, the father of twin 8-year-old girls and a driver for ACE, fell while loading vehicles onto a car carrier. The fall turned tragic. Long hit his head, and within two days, he was dead. Hanks and his dad, Gilbert Hanks, who founded the company, were left wondering what they could do to prevent future injuries, which Hanks says are not uncommon in the auto transport industry.

“Every company out there that hauls cars has had somebody fall from the head rack [the part of the track that is above the truck’s cab],” Hanks said. “We found it hard to believe there was nothing out there that could protect the driver, so we started thinking about it and brainstorming.”

Hanks tinkered with ideas. He was stymied because there is little room on the head rack to install any sort of safety device without interfering with its function.

But Hanks persisted and realized that he could harness a three-inch gap on the head rack. He ultimately came up with an idea for a product he felt would make loading and unloading vehicles safer. The result: The Surefooting Safety Platform, which provides protection from falls for truck drivers who have to load and unload cars from the tops of car carriers.

After considering various alternatives, Hanks conceived the idea for the platform one weekend and sketched it out for his dad. “You could see the lightbulb go off in his head as well,” Hanks recalled. “He said, ‘We’ve got to get a patent on this right now. We need to protect ourselves.’”

Features of the Surefooting Safety Platform, which has a 300 pound capacity, include:

• Hydraulic activation, which makes deployment and storage easy for the operator;

• Bypass prevention, to help ensure the operator will use the system by limiting access to stowed vehicles when the platform has not been deployed;

• Safety cables, so the operator has a good gripping surface; and

• Door safety zones, which provide ample room to open vehicle doors without damage.

Within 24 hours, Hanks—who is not an engineer but says he’s “just a handyman”—built a prototype—a 1/18th scale model—in the company shop. A few weeks later, he had a working model on one of his trucks.

Chris and Gilbert Hanks also visited a patent attorney, Jo-Anne Yau, with Wood, Atter & Wolf in Jacksonville. She guided them through the steps they would need to take to apply for utility and design patents for the platform. The patent applications have since been filed, and Chris said it will take between 18 and 24 months before the patents are approved. Application and legal fees cost approximately $10,000, he said.

The invention has been well-received in the industry. Dave Campbell, who has been involved in the auto transport industry for 20 years and writes an industry blog from his home in Wewoka, Okla., said it’s easy to fall when loading or unloading a vehicle, especially at night, when many deliveries occur. He was impressed with the platform. “This will make it better for drivers,” he said. “And that will make it better for our whole industry. I can’t believe somebody didn’t do this sooner.”

Campbell said if the platform ultimately proves to lower workers’ compensation claims, then the insurance industry might encourage companies to install it, and that will help fuel sales.

Barriers remain

But despite an apparent need for the platform and indicators of demand, Hanks faces several barriers to bringing the product to market.

The first: The current state of the economy. “We couldn’t have picked a worse time,” he said. “This is something everyone needs but something no one can afford now.”

Another barrier is the size of Hanks’ company. ACE is a small business—just 30 employees. To build more platforms, Hanks said he needs not only additional employees but also a new building. “We don’t by any means have the ability to mass produce these,” Hanks said. And even if he licenses or sells the patent to another company—and he’s considering doing so—research and development budgets have been slashed, and it will take deep pockets to bring the invention to market.

The platforms are constructed from thin-walled steel, expanded metal, and hydraulic cylinders. Hanks said pricing has not yet been finalized, but he estimates that each unit should sell for “somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,500 to $6,500.”

Despite the challenges, opportunities exist for the invention. Philip Kopman, an ACE co-owner who is handling marketing for the product, said there are about 20,000 car carriers currently on the road, and that the trailers have a 10-year lifespan. “About 2,000 a year are being replaced,” he said. “And we hope to capture—eventually—75% of that.”

Kopman said the firm is considering selling the patents or entering into a distributorship with a larger company that can better produce the product, such as Cottrell Inc., a manufacturer of car hauling equipment. “This is not our expertise,” he said. “It was a great idea, but Cottrell has the engineering expertise in-house and the large-scale manufacturing facility, as well as the connections and market capitalization to do this.”

Chris Hanks agrees. “It’s a challenge for us to find the time and ambition to develop a second business right now,” he said. “There’s a learning curve.”

Still, Hanks would advise other would-be inventors to have confidence in their product and follow their dreams. “If you have an idea, move forward with it,” he said. “Be persistent.”

Chris and Gilbert Hands and Philip Kopman can be reached through Sure Footing Safety (www.surefootingsafety.com) or Auto Carrier Express (www.acecarrier.com), 904.358.3830. Attorney Jo-Anne Yau works in the law offices of Wood, Atter & Wolf, PA (www.woodatter.com).

Robyn A. Friedman is a contributing editor with Jacksonville Advantage. She can be contacted at RAFWriter@att.net.

SIDEBAR

6 steps for getting an idea to product stage

If the light bulb is glowing above your head, and you’re bursting with joy because you just came up with an idea for the next great [whatever], before you start calling your friends to celebrate the good news, stop. Your idea needs to be protected. What to do?

Jacksonville patent attorney Jo-Anne Yau advises her clients to take the following steps:

1. Document it. Yau has her clients create an “inventor’s diary” to describe how the product works, what the design looks like, and how it will be built. She said documenting the steps it takes to invent a product helps to show the thought process involved and creates a paper trail. That might make it easier to prove that you are in fact the inventor if anyone ever presents a challenge.

2. Research. Conduct a patent search to confirm the originality of your idea. The place to do this is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), http://patft.uspto.gov/.

3. Build a prototype. After the prototype is completed, Yau asks clients for sketches, photographs, and even video. Those are provided to a draftsperson who prepares CAD drawings for submission to the USPTO.

4. File the patent application. There are two main patents to choose from: a utility patent (for a new and useful process or machine) or a design patent (for an original and ornamental design for a manufactured article).

5. Be prepared to wait. Yau said it can take several years before a patent is approved.

6. Market the product. After you have applied for the patent, you can use the term “patent pending,” Yau explained. Only after this point does she advise clients to begin looking for a manufacturer to mass produce the product or to engage in negotiations to license the idea or sell the patent. 

Video

To watch a video demonstration of the Surefooting Safety Platform, click here.

By Ashley Cisneros

Following the Golden Rule is usually deemed as a nice principle for living one’s life, but can a company use the rule to become more profitable?

Dwight Cooper, CEO of PPR Healthcare Staffing, would probably tell you “yes.” Cooper says that building a positive corporate culture can yield a significant return on investment. The corporate culture at PPR in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., has developed from a foundation based on the Golden Rule in the company’s early years, to a robust structure of systems and processes today.

Business texts and human resources consultants offer several definitions of corporate culture, but most agree that corporate culture encompasses the values of a company and guide its business practices. Some references cite corporate culture as the character of an organization, reflected from the vision of the founders.

Dwight Cooper

Whatever the definition, PPR has been doing something right. The Society for Human Resource management (SHRM), the largest of all HR organizations with more than 250,000 members, has named PPR one of the “Best Small and Medium Companies to Work for in America” for five consecutive years. Only three other companies share this distinction. SHRM’s “best company” designation is derived from independent, confidential employee surveys. Using these surveys, employees offer honest feedback on their workplace experiences.

“We’ve been in business for more than 13 years, during which time we have outgrown our market in multiples of 10,” Cooper says. “Today our market has become commoditized, and we have literally hundreds of competitors. But our ideology has allowed us to outgrow everyone. It speaks to our vision and the execution of our most important mission—to create a great place to work.”

People often assume that PPR has great benefits, compensation, and flexible scheduling. But what really makes it a great place to work is something else. “We do fun stuff, but what we really focus on is building trusting relationships,” Cooper says. “You nurture these relationships by being a great communicator and by implementing processes and systems that ensure transparency companywide.”

Culture not an accident

PPR’s success wasn’t an accident. Cooper has been intentional and strategic about the development of PPR’s corporate culture. “We manage it every month, every week, and every day,” he says. “This has allowed us to attract better people who work better in teams. Because of this diligence, we win.”

PPR employees speak with one another every day, and every employee has complete clarity about their role within the company, Cooper says. “PPR’s corporate culture is one in which efficient two-way communication allows us to be dynamic and nimble,” he says. “This communication helps us perform better and make better decisions.”

Every work week begins with a 20-minute standing meeting held Mondays at 8:31 a.m. Employees receive and share information about metrics, financials, strategies, and tactics. The meeting also presents an opportunity for peer recognition and presentations from local organizations.

Cooper believes that it is difficult to have too much communication if done right.

“Our 8:31 a.m. meetings are attended by about 70 employees. Ten of the 70 may not care are financial statements, and five may already know every detail of those statements. The remaining 55 fall everywhere in between,” he says. “In theory, we may be wasting the time of 10 people, but without the meeting process in place, we don’t have the opportunity to talk to the rest who actually may be interested. The face-to-face time is essential to business performance.”

Cooper says that PPR has a lot of meetings, but they are short, often stand-up meetings, and their purpose is to provide incremental clarity.

“These short meetings save us from junky stuff down the road. Without the short meeting, we risk going in different ways,” he says. “I’m a big fan of lots of meetings, making sure they are done in a very efficient and smart way.”

Culture one person at a time

Since PPR is a staffing company, it really has two sets of employees— the company employees, plus the healthcare professionals who are placed with PPR’s clients.

“In our home office in Jacksonville Beach, we’re able to see each other every day. But we also have 300-500 healthcare professionals in 42 states at any given time,” Cooper says. “We try very hard to incorporate our healthcare professionals into the systems we use to create a great corporate culture. This means being great communicators, touching them on regular basis, and being very transparent.”

Cooper says he has hired 80 people in the last six years without ever running an advertisement.

“If we send information to our 70 employees who then turn around and email it to 15 contacts, we’re able to attract the right kind of people simply through referrals,” he says.

Cooper says that the most important thing in PPR’s selection process is determining if a job candidate has the right values to fit into the company’s corporate culture.

“Through our screening process we look at a candidate’s experiences to find out whether they are passionate about their work and whether they are good team players,” he explains.

Those applicants who make it through this screening process enjoy unique benefits, such as eight hours a year to volunteer in the community. In addition, PPR subsidizes fitness programs to support employees who wish to work toward health goals.

“Three years ago, it was about recruiting folks who may have already had jobs. Now, this has obviously changed,” Cooper says. “I’ve had people tell me it has been their dream to work for PPR.”

Cooper says managers must genuinely care about employees in order to be successful. “Everyone has different emotional intelligence. Some people may argue that I care too much,” he says. “Some companies may not view building a positive corporate culture as a priority. To me, it’s very important.”

Great culture yields success

The value of PPR’s corporate culture has manifested itself through positive financial returns and national recognition.

“We attract very talented people who are awesome teammates,” Cooper explains. “If my best people are better than my competitor’s, and if these people work together in an efficient and powerful way, then we win. We benefit financially and intrinsically.”

He describes the Best Companies to Work for in America honors as validating. “I already knew that corporate culture led to better results, but having employees confirm this through confidential surveys is a testament to the power of great work experiences.”

The awards have led to a new core competency at PPR. Cooper has been asked to offer seminars about the principles of corporate culture. “This has provided us with a unique opportunity to be thought partners with our clients,” Cooper says.

Advice for CEOs and executives

Building positive corporate culture takes time, Cooper says. “Implementing corporate culture processes and systems wasn’t always readily accepted by management,” he says. “But once they saw the positive results, any resistance diminished.”

Great corporate culture will not protect a company from the realities of the current market conditions.“No business is immune to the effects of our economy,” Cooper says. “At a time when employees are fearful about job security, it has never been more important to be transparent.”

Cooper encourages CEO’s to avoid catching employees by surprise. “Share the good, bad and the ugly. At the same time, always lay out path to good circumstances. This communication is vital for keeping people motivated,” he says. “If we have to lay off employees, we treat them with respect. We show them that we care. We do the most we can in terms of severance and providing support in helping them find other employment.”

Dwight Cooper, CEO of PPR Healthcare Staffing (www.pprhealthcare.com) can be contacted at 904-241-9231.

Ashley Cisneros is a Jacksonville Advantage contributing editor. She can be reached at ashleycisneros@gmail.com.

SIDEBAR

How you can create a great corporate culture

Think of your corporate culture as your corporate identity, suggests Richard Hadden, a Jacksonville-based workplace expert and partner in Contented Cows Partners, www.contendedcows.com. He explains that corporate culture—that is, corporate identity—is driven by the assumptions a business’ leader has about people. “Assumptions leaders have about their employees drive their behavior, and that behavior drives the culture,” he says.

Hadden suggests four steps to build a strong corporate culture:

1. Identify your assumptions about people. How do you view them? Are they assets or liabilities? “Organizations that see people as assets to be capitalized seem to get more from those people than those that view employees as expenses to be minimized,” Hadden observes.

He notes that if you realize your assumptions are less than optimal, you can change them and subsequently change the culture of your company.

2. Create a sense of mission in your organization. Once you clarify your assumptions about your employees, it’s time to provide a mission. “Mission is not to be confused with a mission statement,” he says. “We see mission statements manifested in plaques and logos, yet they do a lot to create a sense of mission. A mission answers the question, “What are we all about?”

To find out if everyone in your business is working with the same sense of mission, he suggests asking 10 employees to list the three top priorities of your company. “If you get 30 different priorities, you probably have a culture that is not highly defined,” he explains. “People may be working very hard in a lot of different ways, but nothing comes to a critical mass.” But if you get no more than five or six priorities, then you know people are focused on the same mission.

3. Go for it! Whatever culture you decide to develop, go for it all the way, he urges. Strong cultures are felt throughout the company, from top to bottom. He cites Chick-Fil-A as an example of a company with a strong culture. “Whether you work in one of their stores or at their corporate office, you see assumptions borne out in behaviors, and the behaviors are consistent.”

In cultures with weak or diluted cultures, behaviors are inconsistent, and it difficult to know the organization’s identify.

4. Hire people who fit the culture. “This does not get in the way of diversity,” he explains. “Organizational culture transcends all of the diversity elements, such as race, gender, age, background, and education.” Hire people who are comfortable with your culture. “

The real test is, ‘Does this applicant have the potential to be happy, productive, and successful in our culture? If yes, then there is the potential to perform well. If no, it is not a good fit. The person will constantly struggle against the organizational culture, spending a lot of time trying to fit in and not putting as much into performing,” says Hadden.

Richard Hadden can be contacted at Contented Cows Partners, 904-720-0870.

By Ashley Cisneros Michael Johnigean describes himself as a self-made man. The Jacksonville native and owner of HealthyWay Café has enjoyed incredible success since launching the organic restaurant in St. Johns Town Center in November 2006.

“I’ve always loved to create things,” Johnigean says. “Nothing gets me going than creating something out of nothing.”

A natural businessman

Johnigean was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug while he was still in high school.

“I bought boats during the summers, fixed them up, and sold them for profit. My dad had me work at a car dealership every winter for four years. It was a good training ground for learning to be a businessman because I learned about human nature, persistence, and how to make a sale,” he says.

At 20, Johnigean purchased his first piece of property — a duplex. He fixed it up and sold it. Next, he purchased three fixer-uppers. He paid about $10,000 for one, invested about $7,500 in it, and sold it for $35,000. Soon, Johnigean founded MJ Investments and enjoyed a 15-year career in residential real estate.

Like many entrepreneurs, Johnigean started several other companies, including River City Realty, Southern Home Lending, Fortress Title, and Kingsley Beach RV Park. In addition, he created InvestorClub.com, an innovative online real estate investment club, and USell.com. Johnigean‘s experience in residential real estate paved the way for his interest in commercial real estate. Soon, he started developing waterfront commercial properties throughout the Jacksonville area and founded Empire Development Group.

It was his experience as a developer that put Johnigean on a path toward HealthyWay Café.

“As a developer, I traveled a lot and had to prepare my meals ahead of time in order to have things to eat throughout the day,” he says. “There were only fast food choices and not too many nutritious options. Even the salads available at fast food restaurants were packed with preservatives.”

Johnigean saw the shift in the real estate market as an opportunity to pursue his true passions — health and fitness. HealthyWay Café was born in 2006 as the first all-natural and organic, fast-casual restaurant franchise.

Cooking up success

One of the most essential steps in building HealthyWay Café was creating the menu.

“It was important to me to include items that people were already familiar with. People know what sandwiches, salads, and wraps are,” Johnigean says. “One of my best-selling items is the Meal Pack. We take a box and pack it with delicious steamed brown rice, meat, or beans and veggies. It’s tasty and nutritional.”

You won’t find any soft drinks in HealthyWay Café. Instead, the restaurant’s juice bar features sparkling teas, juices, bottled water, flavored organic water, and original smoothies.

“It took me a year and a half to formulate HealthyWay Supplements,” Johnigean says. “I sat down with a chemist with the objective to make the healthiest, best-tasting supplements. Now we can’t keep them on our shelves. Having our own supplement gives us an edge over our competitors because they don’t carry our supplement line.”

Other customer favorites include HealthyWay Café’s oil-free chicken quesadillas, which are prepared in the oven, and organic banana splits.

“The banana splits are about 369 calories,” Johnigean says. “We sell about 20 of those per day.”

He also invested in a reverse osmosis system for HealthyWay Café. “The water we use to wash our veggies and cook with is completely free from chemicals,” Johnigean says. “We’re completely green. All of our paper products are from recycled, biodegradable material.”

Healthy growth

Despite launching HealthyWay Café in a troubled economy, Johnigean has experienced significant growth. In addition to the first location on Midtown Parkway, he has two franchise restaurants in Jacksonville.

“No matter what economy you’re in, there’s no replacement for quality. We have great products and excellent services. Our customers see the difference in the way we do business,” Johnigean says. “They acquire a taste for us, and they’re hooked. I don’t think that people mind paying for quality; they just need to know that they’re getting their money’s worth.”

Since starting to offer franchising last year, Johnigean has received at least 200 applications from prospective entrepreneurs. He plans to open 20 corporate locations across the country within the next three years, which will serve as training stores for new franchisees. The stores will be located in South Florida, California, Arizona, New York, Texas, and Colorado, to name a few.

“We wanted to target high-end cities with health-conscious populations,” he said. “I’ve already invested $2 million into the HealthyWay Café concept, including branding, formulas, Web presences, and more. Franchisees have a winning formula to replicate. The hard part is over. The interest in franchising has been tremendous.”

Expansion has also meant savings for Johnigean.

“Since we’re growing, we have better buying power,” he says. “We’re actually preparing to do a price cut on our products to benefit our customers and their families. While the price will be lower, the quality will stay superior.”

Children are very important to Johnigean and his mission. Besides offering free meals for kids when their parents purchase entrees, Johnigean has decided to venture into schools.

He has signed a contract to serve HealthyWay Café cuisine at Bolles School. Agreements for Providence School of Jacksonville and the Abess boulevard location of The Cambridge Prep School are also in the works.

One of his goals in providing food to the school is to study the effect healthy eating has on children. He plans to evaluate 100 students by measuring their weight and assessing their knowledge of nutrition. At the end of the year, he plans to reevaluate the same students and study any differences in their weight, knowledge, or even grades. He hopes to find that improvement in a child’s diet can translate to improvement in their health and academic performance.

“For us, it’s more than simply providing healthy menu items; we want to educate consumers about nutrition and ultimately make a difference. It’s about empowerment,” Johnigean says. “People acquire tastes and many habits when they’re children; we have to start nutrition education and smart eating habits with kids while they’re young.”

Johnigean has raised his children to eat vegetables, fruits, and fish. He says that they have acquired a taste for healthy food and don’t care for fatty or fried foods.

“My family inspires me. I want to leave this legacy for them — something that truly made a difference,” he says.

Leveraging technology

Johnigean cites the Internet as one the most powerful tools to create buzz.

“A big key for us was e-marketing. We developed a social network, online videos, and Web sites to get the word out about the restaurant,” Johnigean says. “You can’t beat the price point for marketing on the Web.”

In addition to the restaurant’s main Web site at HealthyWayCafe.com, Johnigean developed HealthyWay.net to showcase his supplement offerings and HealthyWayClub.com, an online community.

“I have always been into health and fitness,” Johnigean says. “I always wished there was a place where I could get healthy, high-quality food conveniently, and at a reasonable price. The HealthyWay Café brand fills that need and more.”

“Food is fuel. You need good food to keep your body running in tip-top shape,” Johnigean says. “Food is essential to your performance.”

The Customer is still always right

Customer service is paramount to HealthyWay Café’s business model. When asked about his secret to success, Johnigean always cites superior customer service.

“I want my customers to feel like they’re family,” Johnigean says. “Every food product must be perfect — from the vegetables to the presentation. Word of mouth referrals are huge. People talk about what they love and what they hate. We want every customer’s experience to be perfect. Happy customers can be ambassadors for your business.”

Johnigean has received a lot of positive feedback about his organic venture. One businessperson told Johnigean he made it a point to visit HealthyWay Café when he flew into Jacksonville for work. Another customer came in to grab dinner for his sick wife. The woman told her husband that food from HealthyWay Café would be the only thing to make her feel better.

“It makes me feel good,” Johnigean says. “And it’s motivation to continue to innovate and reach for new goals.”

Even Johnigean’s employees are benefiting from HealthyWay Cafe. All of them have lost weight since working for Johnigean and have increased their nutrition savvy.

“If that’s not a testimonial, I don’t know what is,” Johnigean says.

Johnigean can be reached at Michael@healthyway.com or 904-735-7515.

SIDEBAR

A cyber road to healthy living

HealthyWay Café is more than a restaurant; it is a cyber road to healthy living. Johnigean is harnessing the power of the Internet to market his brand and provide additional services to his customers through HealthyWayClub.com and HealthWay.net.

Johnigean’s HealthyWayClub.com is a social network that allows like-minded users to support one another in staying fit and eating smart. Site members can use a nutrition counter to plan meals and keep track of calories, plus rate photos, read blogs and join interest groups.

“Users will be able to post classified ads, create events and invite friends to join Healthy Way Club.com,” Johnigean says.

The Web site boasts key features that have become standards across popular social networking sites including a calendar, user profile, capabilities, a forum, and polls. The Web site is up, but it is still developing and should be completely operational within a short time.

The HealthyWayClub.com site will offer a number of opportunities to engage visitors. For example, Johnigean plans to host a “Food for Life Challenge” that will allow HealthyWayClub.com members to upload before and after photos of themselves to show the results of their new eating habits over time. Other users will be able to vote for the winner, who will get a cool $10,000. In addition, the winner will win a spokesperson advertising contract with HealthyWay Café, plus prices and gifts from the restaurant’s affiliates.

“I envision the contest winner do for us what Jared did for Subway. And it’s not just about weight,” Johnigean says. “The winner should be the person who made the biggest changes to achieve a healthier lifestyle.”

Johnigean also plans to build live chat capabilities to the site. It’s all part of his mission to help people get healthier.

In addition to HealthyWayClub.com, Johnigean has a Web site, HealthyWay.net, where customers can purchase his customized line of supplements.

SIDEBAR

5 achievement truths

Johnigean says his success can be attributed to five simple “achievement truths.” They are:

1. Always be honest.

2. Your name is everything. Guard it.

3. Treat people the way you want to be treated.

4. Never take “no” for an answer.

5. Nothing is impossible.

Ashley Cisneros is a freelance writer from Panama City, Fla. Her articles have appeared in Florida Trend and Florida Trend’s NEXT. She has also worked as a staff writer for the Lake City Reporter in Lake City, Fla. She has a B.S. in journalism and an M.S. in entrepreneurship from the University of Florida. She can be reached through her Web site, www.ashleycisneros.com, or by email at ashleycisneros@gmail.com.