The Serial Entrepreneur

I admit it. I’m a serial entrepreneur. Most of my ventures have not been successful.

The first time I went into business for myself was when I was about 9 years old. I was reading Boys Life Magazine and I saw in the back that you could sell Christmas cards to earn points with which you could buy toys and other merchandise. I signed up and couldn't wait for my first business kit to arrive. When it arrived, I was so anxious to get out going door-to-door, that I left immediately (with my Grandma’s permission). Before I knew it, I had canvassed my Grandma’s neighborhood and had a bunch of orders. On Saturday I hit our home neighborhood . Again, after a few hours work, more orders. People need Christmas cards, and I was there to deliver. I did this for at least three years and loved the goods I earned.

I worked more traditional jobs from the ages 14-17, but when I was 18 I had a friend that mowed lawns and told me he had too many customers. I said, I’ll take them! The next thing I know, JB’s Landscaping was keeping me busy. I had an apartment complex that was my main customer. I did work, and they gave me checks. I really liked this.

My next venture would be many years later. I had started taking Metabolife (herbal speed) and had great results. I lost a bunch of weight. So I thought that I’d become a distributor. I bought stock, etc. and started selling it as a side business. Eventually it ran its course. I think I used most of the product myself.

I then had a run of several business ideas. Cable Broker was a full fledged LLC. I started it as a side business, and to my knowledge only got one order. It’s hard to run businesses on the side when you don’t put any time into them. While running this I also thought that an online company selling network products would be a hit. So I started Network-Stuff.com It actually got some traction and I sold a few thousand dollars worth of goods. But it was a side thing that was inconvenient because I was working a full-time job and going to the University at night. But, I thought what I really needed, was a couple more businesses on the side. I started WebPageBroker.com, a company that would list domain names for sale, and then take a commission when they sold. I also purchased a bunch of domains hoping to sell them. I actually sold one for $2500 (americanluxury.com) While running this I got another great idea. I would sell promotional items to Universities. Specifically Football shaped cups and mugs. JB Trading was born. When all of the local universities turned me down, I went ahead with the idea anyway. I got licensed with the CLC and started selling really cool football shaped cups and mugs at the BYU football games. I ended up with several hundred of these left over, and after keeping them in my garage for years, finally gave them to charity just this year.

So, with a string of unsuccessful side-businesses, I thought that I should try this out full-time. This is when Offspring Technologies was born. Call it a blessing, dumb-luck, or pure providence, this one took off. I can’t say that I was prepared for this, but I knew the industry, I knew the would-be customers, and I had committed to do this full-time. I also had the full support of my wife and family. Sink or swim. Me and my business partner were going to do this or go down in flames burning. But we worked like mad-men, and made it work. The company grew quickly. During this time we started two other companies. Crucialcables.com and IT Distributing. Neither one of those ever really took off. Crucialcable.com maybe did a couple thousand dollars a year and IT Distributing, while a great name, never even got much past the conference room brain storming session. Our focus was on the main company, Offspring, where it should have been. Now I’ve already blogged about the downfall of Offspring, (after we sold it), so I won’t go into the details of how it all ended, but it was a success. We grew it from nothing to a recognized national brand actually becoming the leading brand in some industries.

After I left Offspring, I started Bringhurst Consulting, and did real estate full time (similar to Webpagebroker.com, but with REAL estate, not web estate.) I had some success with this, but not enough to pay the bills. Bringhurst Consulting also did web design, marketing, and consulting. So I was doing all of this, but it still wasn’t enough. I worked a couple other jobs in sales and then the entrepreneur bug started calling again. So, with the blessing of the company that purchased Offspring from the company we sold Offspring to (it’s been sold twice), I started Professional Cable and WhataCable.com. Professional Cable is a manufacturer and wholesaler of computer cables, network cables & wire, and home theater cables. WhataCable! sells all of Professional Cable’s products online, and in addition to those products, sells other third party-products. Both companies are doing well. The reason for the success? It’s similar to Offspring. I’m working full-time at Professional Cable, it’s not a side-business. I know the industry. I have full support of my wife and family. I know the customers. I’m working like a mad-man. I carry a large inventory. I have a great location. I have good vendor partners. I have established a good customer base in a lot of different industries. I’ve exhibited at the InfoComm trade show in Las Vegas, and will be exhibiting at the CEDIA trade show in Denver in two weeks. I’m getting the name out there (and it’s a good name if I do say so myself).

So will Professional Cable become a national brand like Offspring? I’m not sure. I’m not worried about that. I’m glad the company is where it is today. I’m confident that it will keep growing and will be successful.

If you've always thought about starting your own business, what is stopping you? Make a plan. What are you going to sell? Who would be your customers? How would you get your name out there? My suggestion is to do it full time. Focus 100% of your efforts on this an make it fly. It's very rewarding.

Until next time
The Cable Guy
http://www.professionalcable.com/

The Cable Guy Rants - "I'm not your secretary! "

I'm not your secretary! I'm not! Why do I feel like I'm an outsourced secretary for other companies? Today I get an automated phone call from Wells Fargo at my office. (this has happened with at least 5 other companies in the past two months) "We are looking for (insert name). Please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx." So, I hang up. The next day, same phone call. and so on, and so on, until it drives me crazy enough to waste MY time to call the stupid 800 number to inform them that they have the wrong number. I have to wait on hold. Then I have to answer a bunch of questions because if I don't they will just keep calling incessantly. Can anyone tell me why I should have to do this for them? They can set up these stupid automatic calls to annoy me and waste my time at work, saying how important this call is, but they cannot pay a live person to call and find out if it's actually the right number! It drives me absolutely crazy. So in essence, I am their outsourced secretary or collection agent, informing them that they've got a bad number for Mr. So and So. It just infuriates me.

Do I have the only decent company left on the planet? Guess what happens when you call our office? Try it out! Tel. 801-765-4617. Monday through Friday 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM mountain standard time, you get a live person answering the phone. Yep. An actual person says "Hello, Professional Cable, how can I help you?" How about that? Novel idea eh? It's called good customer service. I don't have an automatic message dialing out to my customers saying "Your payment is past due". I don't have an automatic phone system saying, "For Customer Service please press 1." I just have people helping people. I know, it's crazy. If you don't get a live person, guess what you get? A real voice mail. And then guess what? Someone calls you back! What if you click on the "contact us" form on the website? Someone responds QUICKLY! Yeah, I said it. We respond quickly. Unheard of I know.

I recently had a customer in Texas email me and said, "I screwed up. I bought 50 SVGA cables that were Male to Female, but I actually need Male to Male. So I need to order the right ones and I need to know how much are you going to charge me to return them?" I responded by saying, "No charge. Just return them and I'll credit your account." He couldn't believe it. I know I hate restocking fees, so I don't charge them unless I have to. Now sometimes you have to. If it were a small order, and they didn't buy from my very often, I would lose money by not charging a restocking fee because originally I paid for a box, labor, etc. to process the order. But when they are placing another order, and it is a decent order, why penalize them and create ill-will, even though he was expecting to pay? I really like being my customers' favorite vendor. And you know what? They repay me with loyalty, and referrals. Take today for example, one of my regular customers referred another business to me. They told this business "You need to buy your cables from Professional Cable. They're the best." And so this new company is on board. By creating a fan from one customer, I now have two. Multi-level marketing companies know the power in this. Then they tell two friends, then they tell two friends, until it snowballs into a powerful force. I get a lot of referrals. I wonder how many referrals Wells Fargo is getting. "Hey Bob, I just got this real great automated phone call from Wells Fargo asking for some name I've never heard of. They've been calling me for like three months now every single day. So I was thinking, maybe you'd like to go deposit all your millions from the power ball lottery in their bank, because they really seem like great folks... you know... from what I can tell from that lady's voice on the other end of the automated phone call. I can't wait for her to call again tomorrow.

I guess I've ranted on enough. Wells Fargo, LEAVE ME ALONE!

Until next time
The Cable Guy

New Blog for non-work related blogs

I'm starting another blog for blogs that have a more religious focus. The Cable Guy Opines blog will also continue.

http://www.nowthatsgoodjello.blogspot.com/

Ciao
The Cable Guy