Small businesses reduced to survival mode

By Jeff Harrington, Times Staff Writer
In print: Sunday, December 14, 2008

TAMPA — Like many of the small-business owners crammed into the classroom-sized seminar, Judi Belanger had a problem.

Her Ruskin-based pet-sitting business, This Little One Stayed Home, was handling up to 15 customers a day until business dramatically fell off in September. She’s lucky to pull in one or two new customers a month.

"Money is tight and people aren’t traveling and leaving their pets," Belanger told fellow entrepreneurs during a Small Business Survival Expo last week. Organizers for Hillsborough County’s Small Business Information Center pulled together the expo in less than three weeks and were part-encouraged/part-dismayed when almost 400 people showed up.

"We’ve never done something like this before," Beth Calhoun, an expo coordinator, said before adding in a half-whisper, "Things have never been so bad before."

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Small businesses reduced to survival mode

By Jeff Harrington, Times Staff Writer
In print: Sunday, December 14, 2008

TAMPA — Like many of the small-business owners crammed into the classroom-sized seminar, Judi Belanger had a problem.

Her Ruskin-based pet-sitting business, This Little One Stayed Home, was handling up to 15 customers a day until business dramatically fell off in September. She’s lucky to pull in one or two new customers a month.

"Money is tight and people aren’t traveling and leaving their pets," Belanger told fellow entrepreneurs during a Small Business Survival Expo last week. Organizers for Hillsborough County’s Small Business Information Center pulled together the expo in less than three weeks and were part-encouraged/part-dismayed when almost 400 people showed up.

"We’ve never done something like this before," Beth Calhoun, an expo coordinator, said before adding in a half-whisper, "Things have never been so bad before."

Amid all the bailout talk for financial and auto giants, the country’s vast and varied pool of small businesses, the proverbial backbone of the economy, is taking it on the chin.

Depressing data abounds: Small-business loans taken out have fallen 38 percent from a year ago; two-thirds of senior loan officers report tighter credit standards on loans to small companies. Small business makes up 90 percent of the retail and restaurant trade, one of the sectors suffering most in the recession.

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If you’ve read more than a couple of business improvement books, you’ve seen many focus on the same basics. The authors may be different and the examples used may change. However, the basic formula for success that they recommend remains the same.

After having read many of these books, and with a healthy dose of practical experience, I’ve developed my own formula for business success. Here it is, and you don’t even have to spend $20 for the book:

• Develop a great product/service.
• Care more about how it helps the customer/ client than you.
• Sell it in a fiscally responsible manner.

How does our Company, and how do you represent, this formula for business success?

Develop A Great Product/Service
This Company has a great service to offer. More than 50 years ago, George May realized that the many small companies created in the 1940s needed help if they were to survive the change from the war-time economy of World War II to the peace-time economy that followed. In the decades that followed, small and mid-size businesses have become the true economic engine for this country. They represent more than 99 percent of all employer firms, more than half the private gross domestic product, and 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs created annually in the past 10 years. Thousands of new businesses are being created every year, and thousands of others change ownership.

Care More About How It Helps The Customer/Client Than You.

Put the client first, and the rest will follow. How often have you heard the old adage: “People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy.” In other words, don’t sell them; give them a reason to buy. It is all about the perspective. Are you thinking of yourself - what you need? Or are you thinking of the prospect/client - what that business owner wants and needs? If your words focus too much on yourself or George S. May International Company interests, the prospect/client feels it is all about us. However, if you focus your words and actions on the prospect/client, then that person feels the center of attention. Become “client-centric.”

Sell The Product/Service In A Fiscally Responsible Manner

There are very few business people who complain about price if they believe they are receiving value for their money. Value must always be the key element in any presentation we make to a prospect/client. The value to the owner must be key when making a telemarketing appointment, when selling a Survey Analysis, when presenting the reasons for a Go-Ahead, and when explaining the appropriateness of a MS Recommendation to a client.
We find out what is valuable to the business by remembering the key phrase: “What does the client want?” Value is defined by the prospect/client. The value of our services is obvious to us. Your challenge is to put the value we offer into an understandable value statement that the businessperson understands and accepts. Selling an unnecessary service to a business results is dissatisfaction. Motivating the owner to buy our services results in satisfaction.

The real point is to help your client. If you do that, you’ll win - incidentially! Helping a client in order to win, is not the same as helping a client for its own sake. And your client knows the difference.

Plating is Golden

Sales shine as chief named Entrepreneur of Year

Columbia City- C&R Barrel Plating had two customers when Daryl Lambert bought the corrosion- protection business in 1968. Lambert quickly made changes. In order for pieces to be coated individually as well as in groups tumbling in barrels, Lambert added rack plating to the business, although he didn’t drop “Barrel from the company’s name years. “I had four-man operation there at the end of the first week,” Lambert said.

Lambert expanded the mental plating business four times over the years, including moving from original site, which formerly housed a dry cleaner. The company now has 202 customers, two nearly identical plants across the street form its first digs and 120 employees working weekends to keep up. “We need about 130, but we can’t get them,” Lambert said, citing Whitley Country’s low unemployment rate, which was 2.4 percent in June and 2.8 percent in July.

“We turning down business all the time,” he added.

Last month, Lambert was named “Entrepreneur of Year” by management consultant George S. May International Co., which chose his from more than 10,000 companies it counseled in 1996. George S. May International Co. was called in to prepare C&R Plating for QS 9000 certification and improve management as 65-year-old Lambert slows down Lambert remains chief executive of the company, but Dennis Blaugh was named president a year ago. Blaugh started at C&R as a high school senior a few months after Lambert purchased the business. C&R Plating, owned by Lambert and his wife, Eloise, also was named the top Hoosier pollution-prevention company by the Indiana Industrial Operator Association earlier this year.

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SH Firm implements standards of quality management system
By Mary Wright

South Haven- A quality management system that was implemented at a city business this summer has already produced what one company official describes as “remarkable strides” in implementing the system’s standards and guidelines. Double J Molding, a second-tier (sells to an auto industry supplier, which in turn sells their products to companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler) company that makes injection-molded plastics parts for the automotive and other industries, initiated its QS 9000 quality management system in July of this year, with the assistance of consultants from the George S. May International Company of Park Ridge, Illinois.

QS 9000 is an expanded version of a quality management system developed in Europe called ISO 9000, which the American auto industry began using in 1987. under the QS 9000 system, companies adopting its 84 business standards, or sub- elements, can apply for certification by a third- party registrar. Once a company’s policies and procedures meet the system’s requirements and it is certified by a registrar, the QS 9000 certification can be placed on company’s letterhead and building to indicate that it is a business that adheres to a rigorous quality standard.

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Our Mission

To become the leading provider of quality contract services for the State of Alaska

Our History

M. C. Corporation (Morning Calm Corporation) focuses on the enhancement of small
businesses in the State of Alaska. Its mission is to provide “Quality Services through
Excellence”. MCC’s business strategy is to identify niche business opportunities and
embellish its market potential through methodical innovations in its processes. During
the last eight years, MCC has developed businesses in contract and retail services.
MC Corporation was formed on December 9th, 1991 by a group of minority residents in
Anchorage, Alaska. At the time of incorporation, MC Corporation (MCC) provided
cleaning services on-post for the quarters at Ft. Richardson, the local US Army base,
and professional office buildings in Anchorage. Upon receiving 8(a) status in February
1994, MC pursued various 8(a) set-aside contracts with the Federal Government in its
respective fields.

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Bob Fram

President, Garden & Valley Isle Seafood

Bob Fram began distributing seafood out of the trunk of his car in the early ’80 to any restaurant in Hawaii that would open its kitchen door from him. It helped that he had farm-raised Kauai blue prawns in his trunk. The oversized bright-blue shellfish opened a lot of doors early on, says Fram. As business picked up, he eventually persuaded his childhood friend, Dave Marabella, to join him in Honolulu, and the duo founded Garden & Valley Isle Seafood in 1984 as a seafood distributor. Fram is president/ secretary and Marabella is vice president/ treasurer.

The company has since grown to shipping fresh seafood to restaurants and wholesaler worldwide and boasts sales in excess of $15 million. Seafood is processed and shipped a 10,000-square-foot plant in Honolulu and a 7,000-square-foot facility on Maui, both of which have state-of-the-art food-production equipment. The distributor employs 45 and offers product from Hawaii, Japan, Tahiti, Fiji, Costa Rica, Chile, the Pacific Rim and Canada.

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East Penn Canada

News Surge – Message from the President

I am very excited about our prospects for a new fiscal year. We anticipate our rapid growth to continue and as a result we have hired George S. May, an international consulting firm, to review our corporate structure and recommend changes we should make in order to position ourselves to strategically handle future growth. Some of you may remember that we engaged this same consulting firm about 10 years ago and that their recommendations were instrumental in taking us from a $20 million company to a $75 million company. Their objective this time is to help us organize ourselves so that we can quickly, efficiently and profitably grow into a $120 million dollar company.

I would like to emphasize that our company right now is very profitable and that we are not experiencing any significant problems at this time, financial or otherwise. It’s because we are doing so well that we can afford to hire George S. May and be proactive about ensuring a bright and positive future for the company and all its employees.

The entire management team at head office is very excited at this timely opportunity to turn East Penn Canada from a good company into a great company. Our goal is to make East Penn Canada one of the best companies to work for in all of Canada.

I will keep you posted as this project moves forward.

Obtaining Operating Information: Crucial For Effective Management

Operating a small business requires a mix of skills and knowledge. However, “control” is the one essential ability that every small business owner requires. Control means the ability to quickly and accurately determine the condition of the business. To often owners is think this means involvement in everything. This is wrong. A major fault of many owners is trying to do too much-wearing too many hats. While many entrepreneurs are experts in their specific business activity, they are often overwhelmed by the reality of the day-to-day operations. Instead of focusing on basic business practices, too many get caught up in the minutia and lose their dreams. The solution is to adopt systems and procedures that provide the essential information about the operation. With efficient systems feeding information, the owner can effectively manage. Without these systems, small business owners will forever feel like there are never enough hours in a day. The owner senses that the business has become a monster- it runs the owner running the business. Efficiently tracking key measures of a business allows a tremendous amount of control that continually surprises many owners.