Small Businesses Giving Back

Since small businesses are so well connected with their communities, they are in a position to do a lot of good! Giving back doesn’t have to mean a large financial outlay or donating hours and hours of your time. By connecting how you give (and to whom) with your interests, skills, services or products, you can contribute in a meaningful way and have a large impact.

Here are some ways that you can contribute – and some San Francisco Bay Area business owners who are doing just that!

Mentor other small business owners

There is a strong possibility that your success is due in part to the people that helped you along the way. You, too, can help others be successful. Do you have business expertise that could be valuable to someone either inside or outside your industry? Heidi Gibson, owner of The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen has made mentorship a priority. She offers internships to new food entrepreneurs and volunteers her time to help small business entrepreneurs in Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center’s Business Planning Class with their business financials.

Organize a volunteer day for your employees

This can foster increased engagement and team-buildinghelp and also boost employee morale. You don’t have to have employees to volunteer. My volunteer experience with fellow Potrero Dogpatch Merchants Association members at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank was a fun bonding activity for our local merchants association.

Share your knowledge/skills with local organizations

Create a partnership with a local organization that is in alliance with your business and offer your expertise. Avital Food Tours offers unique culinary adventures in the Mission District, the Haight Ashbury, North Beach and Union Square. Owner Avital Ungar volunteers with the Legacy Bars and Restaurants Project run by SF Heritage. She has helped train tour guides for SF Heritage’s Haas-Lilienthal House and organized a pop-up speakeasy to raise money for the Project.

Create customer incentives

Commit to donating a certain percentage of each sale to an organization, offer discounts to customers who support particular causes, or create a contest to encourage customers to engage. Shivani Ganguly, owner of Bom Dia Market in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood supports the non-profit Kitchen Table Advisors. In February, she supported them by donating all proceeds from the sale of prepared foods on one day.

Donate products

Donating products or giving away samples at events can be a great way to reach new customers and support a cause that you believe in. Claire Keene of Clairesquares frequently donates delicious products to support organizations doing good work. She recently donated her treats to a silent auction supporting Techbridge, an organization that inspires girls to discover a passion for technology, science and engineering.

Donate to organizations in line with your values

Supporting organizations that you believe in shows your customers your business’ values. Keith Goldstein, founder of Everest Waterproofing and Restoration Inc. is committed to donating a minimum of 10% of pre-tax profits to charitable organizations, both local and international, He also sponsors Tibetan refugees for jobs, helping them create new lives for themselves and their families in the United States. Neal Gottlieb, founder of Three Twins Ice Cream launched an initiative called Ice Cream for Acres. Three Twins donates money to land preservation efforts every time they sell a cup or pint of ice cream.

Join a non-profit board

Ken Stram, owner of 2Bridge Communications is a board member of the Golden Gate Business Association, the city’s LGBT chamber of commerce. “I’m a bit introverted,” he says, “so being a board member gets me out of the office and keeps me engaged with the LGBT small business community. The board experience is sharpening my leadership and collaboration skills, too. The experience is also good for business—it positions me as a leader and puts me in front of an important audience on a regular basis.” The Volunteer Center helps to match Bay Area non-profits with individuals looking to give back and get involved at a deeper level. Check out their Board Match events.

A Circle of Giving

Your small business can also get a lot in return by giving. The causes and organizations you support will differentiate your business from competitors and can strengthen your ties to customers and clients. Giving back to your community can increase your visibility, increase customer or client loyalty and also increase employee morale. There is no reason NOT to give, and there are so many ways to make an impact!

How do YOU give back? Who are the small business owners that you know who are making a difference?

Managing my business in partnership

The first business I owned in San Francisco was a gourmet cheese shop, called Cheshire Cheese, located in the Fillmore District. In a previous blog post I shared how my business partner, Michael, and I decided to go into business together and start Cheshire Cheese. Here’s the story of how we managed and expanded our business partnership.

Seize the opportunities

Six months after we opened Cheshire Cheese, the retail space next door became available for lease and the primary lessee offered us the master lease. (He also gave us his Pacific Heights mailing list and all his demographic studies on the neighborhood!) We discovered that our sublease was already 75% of the master lease so we jumped at the chance to take over the entire lease. We successfully negotiated a new 10-year lease with the building owner. Now we could double our size with the security of a long-term lease.

With limited capital to cover the expansion, Michael and I created a new partnership. We found two women who could bring new strengths and additional capital to the business. Tara was a graphic designer and display expert and Lynn was experienced with HR and motivating employees.

With the new next-door location, we added a small café and expanded our identity. Cheshire Cheese became Cheshire Cheese & Mad Hatter Tea. With the infusion of additional capital, we could now afford to hire more part-time employees.

Communicate openly

We were now four owners who each brought different skills-sets and personalities to the business. We had our differences but we were in agreement where it mattered most: our vision for the business, the impact we wanted to have in the community and, most importantly, how we would manage the business together.

We decided on a consensus-driven approach to management. (An early philosophical decision was to continue only offering vegetarian items and to not expand into wine sales.) We created a written agreement that reflected our values and our equal ownership.

We held “official” business meetings every Wednesday after the store closed. We used this time to plan work schedules, discuss personnel, review financial statements, prepare for holiday celebrations, and eat all the free samples that new vendors would drop off for us to taste. Transparency and honesty was essential for us, so we made sure we talked about money — how we were doing both by the day, the month and based on our annual budget.

Build on lessons learned

Every day was a team learning experience. We learned about the subtleties of food products, how to serve customers well, how to make strong relationships with vendors, and how to follow health department codes. Through a lot of trial and error, we were also getting better at running the business profitably, managing it jointly, and working through management and personnel challenges along the way. The best lessons learned were from hands-on experience.

Plan our exit

After running the business together for five years, two of the partners wanted to move on – one to another business and the other to go back to school. We all decided we would sell the business. To get ready to sell, we had to learn how to value our business as an asset, organize our internal systems, leverage our long-term lease, and negotiate with potential buyers. After several months of planning and negotiation, we successfully sold the business to new owners! (Cheshire Cheese & Mad Hatter Tea continued to operate for 15 more years.)

Business partnership means attending to both the business and the relationship

Like a business with one owner, a business with multiple owners must be based on a viable business concept and a solid plan for marketing, money and management. Unlike a business with just one owner, co-owners must be constantly attuned to the needs of both the business and the owner relationship(s).

Starting off, Michael, Tara, Lynn and I were aware of the qualities that each of us brought to the business – our personalities, passions, purpose, work styles and areas of expertise. Once we were in business together, we had to pay attention to the dynamics between us — how well our individual strengths or weaknesses meshed, and how well we communicated and made decisions together. Our written partnership agreement was key — both as a guide for managing the business and as a road map for how we would approach our business exit.

Owning a business with others took a lot of work! But it was also incredibly rewarding. With business partners, we didn’t have to tackle business challenges alone and we all got to share in the business’ success.

Are you starting a business in partnership or already managing a business in partnership? At Paul Terry & Associates we help both new and established business partners understand key business issues and how to work best together. We help co-owners define roles, address key financial issues and minimize areas of conflict. We also help business owners write partnership agreements and create business action plans so that they can move forward with clarity.

My first business partnership

The first business I owned in San Francisco was a retail food business. It was a crash course in how to launch a small business and what it takes to start a business partnership.

Behind the counter at Cheshire Cheese

Know your business partner

My business partner, Michael, and I were good friends before we ever thought to go into business together. We lived in a house with six other people and spent a lot of time in the kitchen. We enjoyed cooking big meals and feeding the rest of the house.

At the time, Michael co-owned a small manufacturing business. As we became friends, I volunteered to help in his business. It was soon clear that we had complementary work styles and had a similar approach to business management. We both saw small business as a vehicle to the principle of “right livelihood” and shared a collaborative approach to decision-making. It didn’t take long before we connected on a common business idea and decided to start a food retail business together.

Start with a good foundation

By the time we agreed to go into business together, we had a solid foundation for a business partnership. Michael had already started a business from scratch and had the technical and computer skills essential for smooth business operation. I had been to business school and had helped other friends start businesses. But what was most important was that:

We liked and trusted each other,
We knew we could work well together,
We had complementary skills,
We were both committed to working hard, planning ahead and taking on the risk, and
We shared a passion… for gourmet food.

Agree on a viable business model

Our first idea was to start a catering business, making and delivering gourmet lunches to corporate offices. We thought we could use our home kitchen to keep it simple and lower costs. But we quickly learned that making food in a home kitchen wouldn’t be legal. It also couldn’t easily scale.

We then researched taking over an existing restaurant. We found a restaurant that we could acquire. We researched the legalities related to using the kitchen, building out the space, and hiring staff. But the size and complexity of the restaurant was going to require more capital than we had or could raise.
Given our skills, timeline and budget, we decided to compromise and start a gourmet deli.

Do the shoe leather research – street by street

We scouted several commercial strips in the city looking for a location with good foot traffic and reasonable rent. We pounded the pavement on Haight Street, Potrero Hill, West Portal, Noe Valley and Upper Fillmore. Finally, we found an available narrow storefront on Fillmore Street. It was an old laundromat available for sub-lease from the tenant next door, a tennis racket repair shop.

The space was the right price and we negotiated a fair lease. There was a hospital nearby and many new retailers moving into the neighborhood. But now we had another problem – competition! There was already an established deli right across the street. So we pivoted to focus on cheese. We signed the sub-lease and named our new gourmet cheese shop Cheshire Cheese. We were off and running!

Share the load

We spent the next six weeks building out the storefront. It was a community effort. While we focused on legalities and plans, we recruited friends to help with carpentry, plumbing, interior design and graphics. We figured out how to share responsibility for the business, each taking charge of certain aspects given our interests and skills.

Our partnership success

The success of our partnership and, I believe, any business partnership, was based on:

A shared passion and common purpose
Compatible personalities and work styles
Complementary skill sets and areas of business expertise
Good communication and joint decision-making, and
A solid plan for how to market and manage the business… and make it work financially!

My partnership with Michael started with Cheshire Cheese and continued on into two other businesses. This hands-on business partnership experience continues to inform my consulting work today.

Owning a business with others can be an incredibly rewarding experience — but to work well it must be based on a solid foundation and good planning. Are you starting a business with others? Check out these three important steps when considering a business partnership or joint venture.

At Paul Terry & Associates we help both new and established business partners understand and assess what they each bring to the partnership and how they work together. We focus on partners’ expectations, strengths and weaknesses. We help define roles, address key issues and minimize areas of conflict. And then, we help create a written agreement and a plan for how to move forward together.

Business skills and lessons learned

March 23, 2016
Profiles
PTA
No Comments

Some of the most enjoyable moments during my years of teaching the Renaissance Business Planning Class were when past students came back to class to share their experiences and business advice. They would talk about their successes and also reveal their struggles and mistakes, and what they might have done differently. They would share how they improved their skills and their capacity to meet the business’ complexity, and also how it was a constant juggling act. Often, they stressed that “learning from doing” was a primary teacher. Their advice always had a profound impact on the students who were about to launch or expand enterprises of their own.

Here are some words of advice from small business owners (and past students) about tackling complex business issues, building on lessons learned and honing your management skills.

Elizabeth Leu
Fiddlesticks

When Elizabeth Leu started Fiddlesticks, a children’s boutique in Hayes Valley, she thought she was prepared. She first worked for someone else and learned as much as she could about the retail business. Elizabeth also took the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center Business Planning class.

She started her business with a solid foundation of hands-on experience, working for others, and thoughtful planning. Yet she couldn’t prepare herself for what it would actually feel like when she was completely responsible for her own business and all its complexities.

“As a small business owner, you have to be the master of all in everything you do, and that’s not easy. You have to wear ALL the hats and ideally, they should all fit. I think management capacity is finding the correct fit with all those hats — and that’s hard! It takes a lot of time and experience to get them all to fit.”

Elizabeth’s advice for small business owners:

LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ABOUT EVERY ROLE IN YOUR BUSINESS.

“You may love only a few of those hats but you have to figure out, master and tolerate them all — at least in the beginning until you can outsource. Once you get strong enough to outsource, you still need to understand how it all works to keep a watchful eye on the whole operation.”

STAY POSITIVE AND JUST KEEP GOING.

“I have worked very hard to grow my business and I have had some significant setbacks. With every setback I can either choose to learn from it or become bitter and harbor frustrations. I have worked hard to learn from them. All of the setbacks were complex and difficult, especially because it was uncharted territory for me. But I learned and I am still learning. What is it they say, ‘two steps forward, one step back’? As long as you move forward, business complexity feels easier because you keep breaking it down, tackling it piece by piece.

Heidi Gibson & Nate Pollak
The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen

When Heidi and her partner Nate opened The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen they already had general business expertise, people management skills and financial management experience but they were new to the restaurant industry and lacked specific industry skills. Heidi and Nate’s approach was to be honest with themselves about their own abilities and get help. “We took a cold hard look at what we did and did not know how to do, and then we recruited advisers who could teach us, or hired staff who already had the skills we lacked.”

Heidi and Nate took a similar approach when opening their second location. They had never run a multi-unit operation before. They sought consulting from other multi-unit operators, and hired general managers for each store who had come from multi-unit backgrounds. “We tasked the managers in the stores with the responsibility of ensuring consistency across the stores, not just within their own. For us, hiring managers who brought experiences and skills to the table that we did not have ourselves was crucial.” With the added complexity of two locations, Heidi and Nate decided to outsource their bookkeeping, too. “We hired a bookkeeper who had deep experience with multi-unit restaurants, which brought more expertise to our operation and freed up our time to handle other issues.”

Heidi’s advice for other small business owners:

BE BRUTALLY HONEST ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT AND WHAT YOU’RE NOT.

“For the things you are not good at, find a way to outsource them to someone who is good at them. This goes double for bookkeeping and accounting if you are in a high-volume, low-margin business.”

ASK FOR HELP.

“There are a lot of resources out there for growing business owners, including Renaissance, SBDC, ICA and most importantly, other business owners. People want to see you succeed and you’ll be surprised at how much they want to help.”

DON’T SKIP FINANCIAL FORECASTING.

“Many small business owners underestimate their financial management needs and make mistakes with finances when starting or expanding a business. The worst-case scenario is running out of cash, and sometimes growing can really chew up cash. You’re in a much stronger position to secure financing before you run out of cash rather than waiting until you’re down to the wire. Take the time to forecast cash flow, accounting for your growth needs, and start investigating funding options early rather than late.”

Claire Keane
Clairesquares

Claire Keane, owner of the artisan, handcrafted sweet treats company Clairesquares, says that her business skills did not match the complexity of her business when she started. She had a steep learning curve. But Claire gained the skills she needed by seeking out specific business knowledge and support and her daily experiences in business brought many lessons learned.

Claire’s key steps for developing core business skills:

Write a business plan.

Claire took the 14-week Business Planning Class at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center and wrote a business plan. “To this day, I frequently remember key pointers from each class.”

Join an incubator.

Claire joined La Cocina’s Incubator Kitchen and received the help of that community and all their support services.

Attend lots of workshops.

Claire learned from others to increase her skills. “Whenever there was a workshop relevant to my lack of skills, I made sure to attend it. I was able to take tips from each training and apply it to my business immediately.”

Develop a support team.

Claire knew that she could not do it all alone. “It was very helpful to have a business mentor, new business friends with similar start-up business pains and other friends and family to lean on for advice to get me through the learning curve.”

Keep at it, even through failure.

Ultimately it has been Claire’s tenacity and her perseverance that has made her business a success. “No amount of workshops can prepare you for real world experience. In the end, I learned from trying, failing, and trying again.”

Check out these additional tips on balancing business skills with business complexity. What has worked for you and your business?

Sustainability in Business

We frequently teach and meet with entrepreneurs who want to run sustainable and responsible businesses. For them, it’s not just about the bottom line but the triple bottom line – people, planet and profit. How do we care for our employees? What kind of impact are we having on the environment? Can we build a good business that is also profitable?

Financial sustainability is a must for any small business’ survival and long-term success. But socially and environmentally responsible business practices are also essential if we want our businesses and communities to thrive.

What does “sustainability” mean for a small business?

It could mean…
• Offering employees great working conditions, paying competitive wages, and/or providing educational options and opportunities for advancement.
• Creating and/or selling products produced in ways that minimize harm to the environment and preserve resources.
• Sourcing materials locally and supporting local industries.
• Operating transparently – sharing data and treating competitors as colleagues.
• Giving back to the local community – donating profits to a charitable purpose, mentoring other small business owners, etc.

Sustainability has certainly become a buzzword in business. Yet when implemented in real ways, it not only benefits the wider community but can have positive benefits for your business directly – attracting new customers and committed employees and increasing efficiency and profit.

We asked some of our clients and colleagues about their sustainability practices. They shared their advice for other small business owners who want to incorporating sustainable practices into their businesses.

Melissa Joy Manning
Melissa Joy Manning Jewelry

When jeweler Melissa Joy Manning started her business, Melissa Joy Manning Jewelry, in 1997 she wanted to create jobs for other artists: “I distinctly remember being told that I could never operate a business in such a competitive market with on-shore labor. Thankfully, I followed my heart and built a business around a local community. Now “American Made” is a driving marketing force in our industry and we lead the fashion industry in responsible practice.”

Sustainable practices are central to both jewelry production and packaging at Melissa Joy Manning. They use only 100% recycled metal sourced from a “green” certified US refiner, their precious stones follow the Kimberly Process, and they are buying more of their stones directly from mine owners to have true clarity on their gem chain of custody. Additionally all MJM packaging is recycled, jewelry pouches are made in the US from certified responsible felt, and MJM carbon offsets every box shipped to neutralize their carbon footprint.

For Melissa, though, the most important sustainable business practices relate to the reason why she went into business in the first place. All Melissa Joy Manning jewelry is hand made in her own studios in New York and Berkeley by artists earning a living working wage, with full benefits, competitive bonuses and retirement packages.

Melissa’s advice to other business owners: Start small!

“Make little changes that can be easily incorporated into your business practices. You can then add or change your practices to increase your sustainability. It can be incredibly intimidating to try and change everything at once. Starting small, however, leads to greater, more successful cumulative change that can be grown as the business can afford it. In the long run being responsible is not only more efficient and sustainable, it is cheaper and leads to greater profit and stronger ties to your market.”

Gwen Kaplan
Ace Mailing

Gwen Kaplan, CEO and founder of Ace Mailing, has been focused on sustainability since founding her direct mail business almost 40 years ago. When she was president of the Small Business Commission in the late 1980’s she started the Green Ribbon Panel which provided small businesses with sustainable or “green” solutions and recognized San Francisco green businesses. (This panel ultimately became the San Francisco Department of the Environment.) Ace Mailing was the first company in the US to sell recycled paper retail in bulk cartons for copy machines. Since 2007, Ace Mailing has been carbon neutral through TIST and the Institute for Environmental Innovation.

Gwen’s advice to other business owners: Evolve!

“Ace Mailing is continually living, breathing and changing to meet the needs of our clients.”. Sustainability requires strategic evolution of your business. Focus on your target market and meet their needs to achieve long-term sustainability.

Ultimately, it is important to remember that…

There are many ways to create a sustainable and responsible business. The sustainable practices that you decide to employ will be unique to your type of business and your style of doing business.

Instituting new business practices may not be easy or quick to implement. Changing how you operate takes commitment, and often time and money to get new ways of operating established.

Creating a more sustainable business is a process. As Mark Dwight, founder of Rickshaw Bagworks in San Francisco says in this Inc Magazine article, “Sustainability is a journey, not a destination.”

The first step is to just take a step! As Melissa says, choose one small way to improve your practices. Implement that practice into your business and see the results. (This is what business action planning is all about.) You will learn from it and build on it!

How is YOUR business embracing sustainable practices?

Baseball and small business… oh the similarities!

I’ve been a fan of baseball ever since Willie Mays roamed center field for the New York Giants. When I played Little League in Vancouver, Canada my teammates and I all had heroes who played our position in the Majors. I was a center fielder so Willie was my hero. I moved to San Francisco over 30 years ago and re-connected with my love for Giants baseball.

The recent Giants World Series win (woo hoo!!) has me thinking about the similarities between playing Major League baseball and running a small business…

It takes specific skills and years of practice
A baseball player must spend years in the Minor Leagues honing his craft and developing the skills, strength and confidence to perform well. He also has to get noticed.

Similarly, in the world of small business, successful entrepreneurs are those who have had a lot of practice developing the skills relevant to their product/service. By educating yourself about your industry, doing thorough market research, working for others, and starting with a pop-up or a simple business model that can grow with time, you can set yourself up for “major” success.

Success comes from trying, failing, and trying again
An excellent batter in baseball is only successful 30% of the time. Occasionally a batter might get on base with a walk or because of someone else’s error but he has to face failure with each batting experience. It is very hard to hit a small round ball hurdling through the air from 60 feet away at 90+ miles per hour!

A small business owner won’t be able to make a sale with every customer or client interaction. Being successful means putting yourself out there and reaching out to customers and clients over and over. You may have to contact a potential client 5 to 10 times before they are convinced to “take as swing at your pitch”. Yet with every business “failure” you will gain experience and confidence.

It is a team effort of stakeholders
The pitcher needs to throw fast and get the ball over the plate, the catcher needs to catch the ball, and each infielder and outfielder needs to be ready for every pop-up, fly or ground ball. Everyone has to work in coordination to keep a runner from scoring. That coordination and synergy is central to success—both for the offensive team and those on defense.

As a small business owner, your most important asset is your team. First it starts with you as the leader. Then there are the people you hired and trained who work hard alongside you to make the business a success. Most business owners can’t do it all themselves. Even if your business is too small for employees, there are professional support people, vendors, investors, clients and customers that all have a role to play. They are all stakeholders in the business.

It requires fans
Nothing feels worse than going to a baseball game with lackluster support in the stands. The fans are the 10th “player” on the field. Their enthusiasm and encouragement (and sometimes discouragement) can make a huge difference in the course of the game.

Businesses don’t just need customers and clients, they need enthusiastic and loyal customers and clients. They need fans who will “cheer loud” and spread the word—write positive testimonials, refer the business’ products or services to friends and family, and get others excited, too. Consistent contact and positive messaging to your fan-base is needed in both baseball and in small business.

You need a great coach or advisor
Bruce Bochy is an amazing manager—coaching the Giants to three World Series in five years! As a coach, he decides who plays each position, the batting order and when the pitcher will change. His attention to detail throughout the game can affect the outcome. Players on the team also take on the role of “coach”—helping to keep their team members motivated and working together. Hunter Pence or Buster Posey play this role with their constant encouragement to their teammates.

In business, the owner is often the “coach”—training new employees, guiding staff and creating at atmosphere of trust so employees feel welcomed, supported and motivated to take risks to grow the business. But small business owners need their own coach, too. This could be a trusted business advisor or mentor or it might be peers who are grappling with similar business challenges and opportunities. (PTA plays this role for many of our clients.)

You must take a position and play to your strengths
Some baseball players have an outstanding pitching arm, others seem to always connect the bat with the ball, while others are super fast on their feet. Players must play positions best-suited to their skill-sets.

Small business owners must play to their strengths, too. First, it’s important to understand what skills are needed to run your business well. Then, to be honest with yourself about what you do well and what you don’t (and what you would rather not do). Others should be hired to fill any gaps.

There are the stars
The Giants had some real stars this season, like Madison Bumgarner and Hunter Pence. They performed well under pressure and made the magic happen.

Small business owners and managers need to be stars, too, by “performing” well in every customer and client interaction. You must know your products or services inside and out and consistently rise to every challenge, be they complaints, delivery issues, employees who quit, or other unexpected emergencies.

Support people make everything work
A baseball team can’t be made up of “starters” only, though. There must be a solid crew of players who can be counted on to play well and become utility players at times, pinch-hitting when there is a need. And we cannot forget about all the behind-the-scenes people who make each ball club function.

Successful small businesses also need support people to make everything tick. Even a one-person small business needs a bookkeeper, administrative services, legal and insurance help, and access to the banking community.

You must take breaks and time off to rest and recharge
For eight months of the year, baseball players practice, stay in shape and play hard. But it isn’t non-stop. They take breaks to recuperate and for intense positions, like pitcher, players won’t even play the entire game.

Small business owners are always go-go-go and do not usually get to work just eight months of the year—at least not right away. A fast and constant pace is often required to get and keep customers or clients and manage cash flow. But it is key to manage your time well, too, both on and off the job. Taking a break to rest and have creative time is essential.

When you close a deal and win, it is oh so rewarding!
Every year baseball players go through arbitration or salary disputes. Sometimes they have long-term deals for two or three years but they still have to close the deal, perform at a higher rate and sometimes move to a different team. (We will see how Pablo Sandoval does in Boston. Sometimes your competition convinces your best people to leave.)

As a small business owner, you also have to close the deal. You have to make the sale, hire or fire the employee, open a new store, bring in a new manager, and continue to meet the complexities of the business by increasing your management, marketing and financial acumen (or finding others to help). And every time you make a sale, hire a new employee, find a new location and grow, it is incredibly rewarding.

It is a lot of fun and it is hard work
Baseball players play hard and they get to revel in a great hit, catching the ball for an out, or scoring a run. After all, it is just a game!

As a small business owner, owning a business is the hardest work you will ever do. But it is also a lot of fun—you get to follow your passion, blaze your own trail, create jobs, contribute to your community, and make a difference.

Now, if only the pay rate for small business owners was in the baseball player “ballpark”, we small business entrepreneurs would have it made!

Sharing Small Business Wisdom

As part of the lead-up to the eighth annual San Francisco Small Business Week (May 13-18, 2013), I was interviewed for the San Francisco Small Business Week blog.

The week is designed to offer a series of educational and networking events to educate, connect and celebrate the small business community in San Francisco. This year’s festivities will include a conference with 50 free workshops and seminars for small business owners (I’ll be speaking about business planning), a gala called Flavors of San Francisco, and an awards ceremony hosted by the Small Business Commission, the Mayor’s Office and the Board of Supervisors to recognize exceptional small businesses from each district and city-wide.

Here’s my interview with Small Business Week…

SMALL BUSINESS WISDOM FROM PAUL TERRY

Small businesses in San Francisco have a wealth of opportunities to access wisdom and technical assistance from a variety of small business experts who provide one-on-one counseling, technical assistance, and instruction through neighborhood and community-based nonprofit agencies. The San Francisco Small Business Week Committee is pleased to share wisdom from these experts who help the small businesses that shape our communities to succeed.

Today we hear from Paul Terry, business planning coordinator at Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, who believes that one of the keys to success is making a life-long commitment to education.

What role do you play in supporting San Francisco’s small businesses?

I’ve supported small businesses for more than 25 years as an independent business consultant and owner of Paul Terry & Associates with skills that I developed from launching my own food, distribution and training businesses in San Francisco. I am also the business planning coordinator and primary instructor at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. I was one of the initial developers of Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center’s entrepreneurship program, business incubator, and business support program.

The role I play in supporting small businesses involves teaching, empowering, and encouraging entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses. The training and consulting helps people build their confidence and access the resources they need to be successful in business.

As a small business consultant in private practice, I work with 25-30 businesses each year to facilitate growth and transition, to build effective partnerships, and to implement strategic planning solutions. Over the years, I’ve taught 7,500 entrepreneurs, and I’ve supported over 600 small businesses.

In your years of working with entrepreneurs, what has emerged as the greatest challenge to a small businesses success?

One of the biggest challenges relates to maintaining balance. New business owners need to recognize that their entrepreneurial skills – their ability to get the business up and running – need to be in line with the complexity of the business model. They need to hone their skills, tap into their confidence and develop the scale of business that makes sense for who they are at a particular time. New skills are then required on an ongoing basis as the business grows in size and complexity.

Another challenge facing new businesses involves joint ventures and business partnerships. If the business partners fail to clearly define the relationship at the early stages, problems quickly emerge and often create disruptive conditions as the business grows.

A third challenge for a new business occurs when the entrepreneur attempts to transition from a full-time job — working for someone else — to working in a business that is not immediately profitable. People need to be realistic about the appropriate amount of capital they need launch and grow to profitability.

The common thread – and the reason people come to me – is that they are stuck. They need a better framework for making educated decisions and they need access to the appropriate mentors, advisors and associates for advice and direction.

In your experience, what is the biggest key to long-term success for a small business?

Businesses that have been around for a long time survive and thrive because they provide very good services to established clientele with fair terms and conditions. Long-term success also requires being nimble enough to adapt to new markets, emerging trends, and new technologies.

There are macro and micro competitive forces that can undo a successful business. It is key to make a life-long commitment to education, strategic thinking, and new skills development.

What are some of the most important ways in which small businesses shape communities in San Francisco?

Small businesses define the character of our neighborhoods in San Francisco. The appropriate mix of small businesses enriches and energizes a particular area, which attracts tourism and inspires residents to shop locally. Small businesses invest in their communities by hiring locally, engaging in local politics, donating to nonprofits, building parklets and other community spaces, and doing all the critical things that make our neighborhoods more enjoyable. Small businesses are the advocates of local development and define the flavor and culture of this city – with “pop-ups”, food trucks, trunk shows and an involvement in the local areas where they live, work and play.