Five Star Painting Franchise

Starting a business with nothing can be intimidating. Those who can relate to this will agree that having support helps you succeed. But, how can we succeed in the face of recession and VCs laughing at the very idea? Bootstrapping it – making smart decisions and never lose focus on the end product and the buyer. Find clever ways to bootstrap, no matter what your business is. Running a business is all about believing in yourself. Check out a previous post about the motivation of an entrepreneur.

If you think something is a good idea, don’t let yourself get talked out of it. Apply common sense and try not to let naysayers get to your head. If you feel something is a bad idea, keep your eye on it. To keep your business goals on track, you need to research your business idea to the max. Try not to plow ahead without taking the time to thoroughly plan and research. Be sure to trust your instincts when you want to succeed because you don’t want to overlook that first feeling of discomfort.

There are three different customers you will need to think about in relation to your idea. Purchasers – those who make the decision. Influencers – the organization who decide on the purchasing decision. End users – the person who directly interacts with your service or product.

Starting your dream company with nothing can be frightening, but it is possible with a few crafty moves and keeping your eye on the prize. Figure out where to save and how to bootstrap can mean the difference between the smell of success and the sourness of defeat. Let your natural instincts lead the way to success.

To learn more about starting a business, go here or give Five Star Painting a call at 1-866-965-STAR.

Running your own business isn’t for everyone. Most cannot deal with the huge time, energy, and financial investment required, all without knowing what’s around the corner. 93 percent entrepreneurs are males, with close to two-thirds in the 26-39 year range. A quarter of them have undergraduate degrees, while 69 percent had master’s degrees. All had been employed for five to eight years before starting their first business. Being an entrepreneur is no easy task, so what motivated them to start out in business and why did they choose to break out on their own rather than going to work for someone else? It is the motivation to work on something because it is interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging.

Businesses can start-up in a garage and end up being a global Fortune 500 company. Blog.gcase.org states that it starts with an entrepreneur who perceives an opportunity, creates an organization to pursue it, assembles the required resources, implements a practical plan, and assumes the risks and the rewards. It was once said that entrepreneurship is a lot like driving fast on an icy road. Entrepreneurship is a continual problem-solving process. It is like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle; at first pieces will seem to be “missing,” obscure, or not clearly recognizable. Entrepreneurs do what they love, and they love what they do.

Entrepreneurs stick it out through thick and thin, they have passion. When you truly love your work, you have motivation fueled by passion. This is why you the stories of people that failed over and over again, and finally, they ended up having their success. Their passion never could allow them to give up. So they kept going, trying different angles, until it finally happened for them. When the going gets tough, that’s when you need your motivation. You’ve got to keep feeding and building it. Read books about other successful people, see what they did, and think about how you can incorporate their ways of thinking into yours.

Unlike many working people, entrepreneurs truly enjoy their work. When they find something new, they might view it in terms of “how can this help my business?” and “what opportunities does this open up for me?” Many entrepreneurs enjoy the challenge of building something out of nothing. Many people in the wider business world are only involved with part of a product’s lifecycle, whereas entrepreneurs generally enjoy a bird’s-eye view of it all.

Many people give entrepreneurship a try only to fail miserably very quickly. There is a reason why 95% of startup businesses aren’t around two years later. These people see running their own business as the route to financial freedom. So after a few setbacks, they give up. An entrepreneur will see the big picture, even during those dark days they will focus on the end result. When you first start a business, you will have pour your heart and soul into it. When the results are less than what was expected, it can be very difficult for some to take. A failure is a lesson, and a step in the right direction. That’s how a motivated entrepreneur analyzes any setback. So if you ever think of starting your own business, remember to have passion for it. When you truly love what you do and put so many hours into it, you will not allow yourself to fail miserably at it.

What is driving so many young people to pursue careers as entrepreneurs? What are they searching for? They want more freedom and love the rush. They insist on the flexibility they can create through their own business. They like working for their own goals and their own measures of success in life. Know-accounting.com states that Purdue University conducted a survey between 2004-2006, in which they questioned 101 Indiana entrepreneurs to see what motivated them to start their own businesses. They found that those making more than $100,000 a year were less likely to start their own businesses than those in the $50,000 to 75,000 range. In a Yahoo survey, 21.4 percent of small business owners said they were interested in enjoying a more flexible work schedule and quality time with their family. When you start your own business not only do you become your own boss, but you’re able to enjoy a more flexible work schedule.

To learn more about entrepreneurs, check out a few of our previous posts by clicking here.

I recently read a quote from a judge in a local entrepreneurship contest (Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year – Utah) that mentioned how he was looking at contestants based on not necessarily how much money their business made, or how high their sales were, but rather how innovative their idea was. If it was at least moderately successful in both sales and profits, and it was a new idea, then that was the entrepreneur that would get the quoted judges vote. I thought about his viewpoint for a minute and realized that I will probably never win the entrepreneur of the year award…and I am okay with that. At least I won’t win one where his criteria are used.

Why?

Because the vast majority of my experience and ownership is and has been in businesses that are franchise concepts. They aren’t new and exciting compared to say some new web 2.0 software startup in Silicon Valley with 13 ex-Microsoft engineers and a bunch of VC money backing the business. Of course you could also sell bean-bags that are cool looking and expensive – as long as you sell a lot of them, and fast- and win a bunch of awards (including entrepreneur of the year) just prior to going bankrupt. I am not interested in winning awards; I am interested in making money. I don’t really care if what I do isn’t new – in fact, I kind of like the old proven stuff (thus increasing my chances for success). I think most entrepreneurs who are getting started would do themselves quite a service if they owned and operated a franchise before going out and starting their internet based web 2.0 buzzword of the moment business. Why? Because whether or not you are running a Taco Bell or Bell Labs, there are some common business principles that apply to all companies – old and new. I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to walk and then jog and then run – particularly if you are a younger entrepreneur and don’t have a ton of work experience. If you haven’t seen it done before, why not learn it yourself in a structured environment with a much higher degree of success? I am most certainly not saying that franchise businesses are what you should base your entrepreneurial career around. In fact, I am saying you shouldn’t. Go out there and start a company that really is new and different…but consider owning and operating a franchise business first. There are a lot of great skills and concepts you can take into your new startup from day one if you do. Namely:

• Learn how to hire, fire and deal with employees. What, you haven’t had employees before and you want to start Yahoo! in your dorm room? Hey, go for it. I am telling you though, even if you only had two kids working at your auction-Ebay-stuff-for-other-people-in-a-strip-mall business before it went under (and all of those places eventually will), you will learn a lot about employee management. Payroll taxes, insurance, workers comp, schedules, vacation tracking, bonuses and pay rates – these things are not unique to franchise employee management. You will use them in the billion dollar technology start-up that you take public in a few years! Just don’t forget to give me some pre-IPO shares.
• Customers are another unifying trait amongst all things business. Although customers come in all shapes and sizes, dealing with them can be very similar despite their idiosyncrasies. They all want to get your product on time, for a fair price, and have it work the way it is supposed to. Pizza, software, bicycles, consulting hours – you name it, customers use the measurements I just described to value your product or service. Learning how to deal with customer complaints is a unique skill in its own that is universally valuable.
• Money management, regardless of how big or small the numbers get, is always easier to get a handle on when you are doing it yourself. Receivables, payables, and learning QuickBooks are all skills that will help any startup. How does the money move in and out of your business? It is easy to play spreadsheet bingo when you are doing your startup business plan stuff, but having some real world experience with actual dollars will help your financial projections get more accurate in a hurry. It will also make you more frugal. Running a franchise business can often be about nickels and dimes. Your startup probably doesn’t have a lot of nickels and dimes in excel forecasts you created. It is important that you acquaint yourself with these smaller denominations because they can be great contributors (or detractors) to net income!
• Negotiation is another universal tactic that you cannot learn in a classroom or as some grunt in a giant corporation. Negotiation is learned on the front lines. It is a battle tested skill and you have to have some wounds before you can be good at it. Why not get into a fight with some gloves first instead of going straight to bare knuckle? A small franchise business will allow you to work with Landlord’s and vendors. You can make a few mistakes – i.e. get taken to the cleaners – and not have your company go down in flames. Also, you can learn a thing or two from your franchisor and how they negotiate their “national” deals that you will piggy back off of. Take these skills learned in the trenches with you as you start to talk to lawyers, venture capitalists and potential partners. Although the negotiations are at a higher level and use larger numbers, the tactics and styles of negotiations you learned in your small franchise business will help!
• You can develop relationships with accountants and lawyers (both worthwhile investments of money when given to the right professionals) in advance of your big money raise for company XYZ. My bet is that you will hire and fire a few different accountants and lawyers for different reasons as you wade thru your franchise business. Why not have this process done and your team of professional service providers ready and tested for when the time comes to really utilize their skills? Nothing is worse than spending a bunch of time and money on lawyers and accountants and then being less then pleased with their work product. Let their interview take place on a smaller scale and using smaller dollar amounts.
• When you decide to move on to another company, maybe your super-startup, you will inevitably learn how to sell a business or at least learn how to turn over the management of it to someone else. While you will need the skills of your accountants and lawyers in this area (as well as your negotiation skills), the process of selling a business – any business – is one that can only be learned by doing. You can also learn a lot about buying a business as well (even though you are the seller) because the process has an innate transparency in that at the end of it, you know exactly what the buyer and seller were thinking and doing. If you don’t sell your franchise and instead keep it open as you move on, you learn a lot as well. Namely, how to pick great people, how to delegate and how to incentivize others to perform at the level you are accustomed to doing yourself.

Perhaps the most important thing you can take from franchise ownership is simply the title of “owner”. If you are a new entrepreneur and want to be your own boss then this is the chance to try it out. While investors and VC types want the huge home runs, you really only need a solid double your first time out. Don’t get caught trying to swing for the fences the first time out. The chance that you can hit a major league fastball after having skipped the minor leagues is slim. Keep in mind that often time’s people who are investing or backing a business will push you to go for the fence early. They are out very little if you fail, but they get a huge return if you don’t. They are playing the numbers – many will fail, a select few won’t. It’s the few that pay off all of their other failures. If you want to do what is best for YOU and not THEM then get some experience – real experience – in a franchise business before you run out and try and do a start-up. My bet is you will learn a lot, make some money and put yourself in a position to succeed when you move onto your Entrepreneur of the Year award acceptance speech.

How to Know the Difference

Most of the people I know think that I am a heavy risk taker. My friends who don’t really know exactly what it is that I do for a living think I am a HUGE risk taker. My business associates and fellow entrepreneurs have a better understanding of what I do, so the risk associated with my work is not as foreign to them. With that being said, I think that generally speaking I am not a big risk taker. The vast majority of the decisions I make that have a reasonable to large downside have some serious thought and homework put into them. I also rely heavily on my “gut instinct” which has been right more than it has been wrong during my career. Having said that, at the end of the day, how do you know if you are afraid of risk or if you are just smart and good at avoiding bad risks? The answer is simple and doesn’t require a long post. If you haven’t taken a reasonable to serious financial risk on behalf of a business or investment idea before the age of 40 years old, then you probably don’t have what it takes to be an entrepreneur as your full-time career.

Yeah, that’s right – I just called out any of you that are older than 40 that read this. Prove me wrong and post it! I am not saying you have to be some wildly successful entrepreneur before your 40th birthday. I am not even saying you have to invest your life savings in a start-up prior to the big four-oh. I am saying that if you haven’t bought a rental property or put $20K into a Subway sandwich shop by now (or better yet, bought a Five Star franchise) that you probably won’t ever do anything terribly entrepreneurial. There are always exceptions to the rule of course. But as I love to say, if you are reading this blog, you are probably Joe or Jane Normal like me and that means you are likely not the exception I am referring to.

So am I right or wrong? I would love to hear your impressions of my stance on risk. Let me know what you have experienced and seen in others. I want to know if my view of the world is the same as yours – what have you noticed, read or been through that would agree or disagree with my assertion?

I enjoyed a lunch a few weeks ago with some successful entrepreneur and business owner friends of mine. These guys are all “movers and shakers”. The grass doesn’t grow under their feet and they have the track record to prove it. One is a serial entrepreneur with successes in multiple areas, the other has a vast financial background in NY and is now a real estate developer, and the third is a very highly educated individual who is also a real estate developer.

The luncheon made me ponder the subject of what makes these different types of entrepreneurs successful. I think part of the reason they are successful is because they share a common trait. They don’t sit still well, they make educated decisions quickly and they embrace the theory of risk = reward. I rarely hear people who will admit they hope that things stay the same for them forever. People always seem to aspire to be and do more. When was the last time your co-worker or partner said “hey, this is good right now – let’s just ride it out and stay where we are at”? Probably not too often. Most people talk about growing, achieving and building. Very few talk about settling, average and rigidity. Although few talk about it, many are secretly hoping that things stay as-is since their salary, sales, and/or profit margins seem to be enough for them to manage the life they like. I believe that most people have an inner goal that differs from their outward one. Most people are content and happy with a certain level of performance and if they achieve it, would be more than happy to stay at that level forever.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite happens to those that simply stand still and watch the world go by. You are either moving forward or backward. It may be inches, feet or miles, but you are moving in one direction or the other. The scariest movement is the smallest one. If we only move an inch backwards, it may be months or years before we realize just how far behind we have gotten. By then it may be too late. While I don’t suggest leaping off a cliff or running blindly thru a dark forest, I do think that it is critical to react quickly and jump on good opportunities. Those that I know that have done this have found varying degrees of success – meaning they all are generally successful entrepreneurs. Some are better at assessing opportunity then others, thus the higher degree of success, but generally speaking those that act quickly, keep in motion, make educated decisions and are willing to take calculated risk are going to be in motion enough to keep ahead of the game.

Are you stuck in the mud doing the same-old, same-old? Is your salary and benefits enough? Or do you want more, do you keep moving – sometimes backward, but then further forward – so that you end up getting somewhere? You are never standing still – other entrepreneurs and businesses are going past you slowly, and in time, they will move across the horizon and out of sight. Choose to be the one who is moving away in the distance, not the one watching it. Trust me; the view is better out front.