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Businesses get ‘right' start at seminar
Free meeting gives entrepreneurs advice and tips
Friday, Aug. 28, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by EMILY BARNES
Jackie Gray of Pomfret asks a question during "Start Right for Success," a seminar put on by the Southern Maryland region of the Maryland Small Business Development Center at the College of Southern Maryland in La Plata Aug. 11.
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A room full of budding businesspeople got the biggest possible bang for their bucks one evening earlier this month, when they attended "Start Right for Success," a seminar on entrepreneurship.
The class, offered at College of Southern Maryland La Plata campus Aug. 11, normally costs $50 but registrants got advice on getting on their feet for free.
The presentation was given by Bill Hitte, counselor for the Southern Maryland region of the Small Business Development Center. He has all but mastered many trades over the years as he helped clients find their own way, but he was certain he'd find something new.
"You never have a boring day with SBDC because you never know what you're going to get," he said.
One of his clients was Kim Briscoe-Tonic. She made some missteps when starting her Waldorf funeral home, but counseling got her on the right track, she said. An experienced mortician, she found she knew her trade but not the ins and outs of entrepreneurship.
When she first applied for a loan, a banker "said, ‘What's your business plan?' I said, ‘I don't know,'" she recalled. With Hitte's help, she created a plan and filled out the necessary applications. At the time, she had a vision for what she wanted to do but didn't know how to get there. She wanted a modern building — not a retrofitted house — that would include the latest amenities.
Her chapel includes a wide-screen TV for memorial videos and services can be transmitted by webcam to absent mourners.
"I wanted something beautiful for people to see. So I waited until I was ready," she said.
She opened her doors last summer, four years after purchasing land in Waldorf. In her first six months in operation she had the number of clients she had projected to see in a year.
She advised other business owners to be patient and persevere.
"I got cancer, which slowed down the process. I had a 12 pound 7 ounce baby after I had the cancer. But I got it all done," she said, to applause.
Hitte warned that new ventures are risky. Seventy percent of new businesses fail within the first three years, while 95 percent of restaurants fail in 12 months, he said. But owners can shift the odds in their favor by being smart.
"You have to be prepared. You have to go through some steps. Things usually don't just fall into your lap," he said.
He told the cautionary tale of a restaurant whose owner, a client of his, didn't bother to survey customer satisfaction. Business boomed at first, then disappeared as word of cold food and bad service started to get around. The place closed after only 75 days in operation. The owner had invested $500,000 of his own money, and taken loans for another $750,000 that would still have to be repaid.
A huge amount of capital isn't necessarily required to start a business, but experience in the field is vital. At the same time, some money is necessary.
"I'll give you a tip: If you don't have $50 to spend on a seminar, you're not ready to go into business," he said.
Dawn Tucker, president of Calvert County Minority Business Alliance, said the community needs more local opportunities for business training.
"Here in Southern Maryland we are really working hard to provide more resources to people in Southern Maryland," who usually have to go to Baltimore or Washington, D.C. to take classes, she said. "We do not need to do that. We should have training opportunities right here in Southern Maryland."
Jeff Nixon, chief of client services at Charles County Economic Development and Tourism Department, warned listeners not to get ahead of themselves.
"I've been where you are: You have a brilliant idea. You're so passionate about it. You're going out, signing a lease, starting a business and then you don't have one customer. Cut it out. It don't work like that," he said.
Meeting other people is essential to growing a business, several of the speakers said. Dolores Moses with the Minority Business Advisory Council of Charles County, said "You have to get involved with the community — do volunteer work — and that's how you get to be known. … Don't give up. You're going to have struggles, you're going to get upset, you're going to want to shut down, but just stick with it. Don't give up, because the work is out there."
After the class ended, a Calvert County woman said she was still perplexed about starting her own company but would avail herself of the free counseling offered by SBDC.
"I think probably that is something I need to sit down [to discuss], because I still have questions." Not wanting her boss to know of her plans, she declined to give her name.
Norma Stratchko is seeking to replace her Hughesville antique shop, which burned down in 2003, with a sandwich shop.
"Actually, it's because that's what most people I talked to in Southern Maryland Electric said they'd like to see in Hughesville," she said. SMECO's headquarters is in Hughesville. A former client of Hitte's, she said she'll go to him again for help getting into such a different trade. In a display of entrepreneurial spirit, she said she's not frightened to be starting over again, doing something new.
Mark Stevens of Waldorf plans to retire from his job as a logician in about six years, and would like a business to supplement his savings and pension. He plans to sell audio books over the Internet, and is turning to the SBDC to "find out about what I need county-wise and state-wise, what paperwork needs to be submitted. I'd see just the overall feeling, what needs to be done, to get a vibration about it," he said.
The seminar was sponsored by the Nu Zeta Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
