Should you start your own business?

I've been following (and enjoying) John Poole's Constructionomics blog as he struggles with the challenges of unemployment and is now at the early stages of starting his own business. Recessions are often the best time to open a business because you simply can't afford bad habits and if you are determined and skillful, you can find opportunity.

But you need to find the opportunity, of course, and that is the challenge for anyone who is uncomfortable with the selling occupation. Starting up, unless you have some incredible good fortune, you will need to sell -- and it rarely is easy, especially when you don't have a track record.

John has wisely (but I deliberately put wisely in small type) chosen to use resources like SCORE, operated by the SBA. Experienced businesspeople, unless they live in the government space, tend to be a little wary of government assistance programs. Yes, you can access them, and if you play the system well, make good money in that space, but it can be an uphill battle as you battle bureaucracy, existing relationships, MBE rules, and the like.

I'm happy to note that quite a few readers are googling this blog through my references to the Brooks Act. Anyone hoping to sell construction design, engineering and project management services should read this stuff carefully because unless you are well connected, you won't gain access to direct government business and you will be relegated if you are "lucky" to be an underpaid sub-contractor for much government infrastructure work.

Sure, it is easy to tell a budding entrepreneur what won't work, but what will? Here things get complicated because the advice I gave myself would not necessarily resonate with others. Before I started in business in 1988, I had a secure, relatively high paying government job, which I quit to sell real estate. But I made that truly risky move at the end of a boom, where neophytes in the real estate industry could do well. (I simply don't know how well someone just starting out as a commissioned Realtor would do now.) The decision proved wise in an important way: I needed to learn how to sell to be in business, and that is just what I did.

Can you overcome lack of selling ability/experience and knowledge with great marketing? To a point, yes. Great marketing (including great blogging) often creates opportunities, and it is wonderful to receive the invitation to propose a project, or have your call returned quickly because a previous or potential client recognizes you from your marketing. But if you can't ask for an order, and actually go out and find the business, all the marketing in the world won't do you much good.

My advice to John would be to be ready to accept a commission sales job, whether it be canvassing, telemarketing, or whatever. Not as a permanent career, but as a base for learning some of the realities of selling. Spend three to six months doing this stuff and you'll at least understand the basics and receive some rudimentary sales training. Perhaps take a few different jobs -- no one is going to hold it against you -- and cross fertilize ideas and insights.

My next piece of advice is going sound like sacrilege in relation to my previous posting (and with respect to the misfortune befalling anyone who tries to canvass at my home.). I think anyone starting out in the construction industry has the best chance by seeking and winning smaller residential jobs, and the best and most inexpensive way to win these is to pound the pavement -- yes canvass! You certainly don't need to worry about the Brooks Act!

(You can assemble a crew of inexpensive subs and suppliers to do the actual work, of course.)

John and others should take this advice with a grain of salt. I am not the oracle of brilliance and one thing is clear, there are many different paths to business success. It is good to get started.

Untold (good) stories

Dr. Shahzad Khan, director at healthwithcare.ca and BECC Construction Group Ltd's Zulq Malik at Khan's new medical service facility in Markham, Ontario.

Yesterday, I soared among eagles. The exhilaration of sharing hours with bright people who know what they are doing, and conduct their business with down-to-earth integrity, is something to savor -- and repeat wherever possible. With my southern Ontario representative Chase, along with Zluq Malik, president of BECC Construction Group Ltd., Dr. Sharhzad Khan, at healthwithcare.ca (Blu Skye), and Michael Porter and Fred Thoms at Porter Airlines, I learned about the airline business, innovative and entrepreneurial medical practice (which complies with Canada's public health insurance system), integrity, and competence.

Their best stories unfortunately I cannot share publicly -- they related to the interfaces between the competent and less-than-competent, and the resulting consequences: Delays, bad will, litigation, and waste.

In spontaneous conversations, we explored the difference between entrepreneurs who build their businesses with integrity and a long range vision, against the scammers who live for the moment, and seek to screw every cent they can out of the other guys. Our conclusion, business people who 'get it' can sniff out the crooks and phonies pretty quickly; we get burned from time to time, but ultimately clients, suppliers, and peers want to keep doing business with us. Success, we realize, is not all about material trappings -- expensive cars, over sized homes, luxury vacations; 'stuff' does not make the world meaningful -- we can look at the tragedies of people with poor health, failed relationships, and poverty of spirit to see they are not the stories we wish to experience.

(It is a little frustrating that I cannot share the best stories here; the ground-rules in writing these advertising features is the clients must review and approve copy before publication, and in exchange they speak with me freely and without inhibition. And I have enough common sense to respect their confidences.)

What does this have to do with marketing? Everything -- because, as I seek to impress here -- marketing is all about the stuff behind the scenes as much as it is the businesses public presentation. Sure, BECC's Zulq Malik is unabashed in asking his subs and suppliers to help contribute to the costs of the marketing piece we are writing -- but he relates to them with respect, on an equal footing, and seeks to ensure they do well in their business (and since Zulq's business is growing, it makes real sense for the sub to support his marketing process.)

And when I told Michael Deluce about an irritating (but for most people, invisible) flaw in Porter's reservation computer system, he didn't brush the matter off -- he determined to find out and fix the problem.

In the end, you can gloss over the real situation, and try to paper over your image with a public persona -- and you might even get away with it. But if your business heart and soul is founded on innovation, integrity and intelligence, great marketing will propel you forward to higher levels -- and not cost you much money at all.