Hard Work, Long Hours and Help from Score
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Can success be coached?
A small contingent of retired successful businessmen and women would bet the titles to their houses it can.
At the Youngstown chapter of Score’s “Annual Salute to Small-Business Success!” luncheon Wednesday, they honored seven of the successes for which they acted as midwives over the last two years.
Score, formerly the Service Corps of Retired Executives, was founded in 1965, one year after the national organization was formed. Terry Deiderick, then a professor of marketing at Youngstown State University helped to form the local chapter and remains active as a member of its Friday Team.
Honored yesterday at the Youngstown Country Club were Stephanie Miller, founder and owner of Wonderstruck Artisan Market & Classes, Canfield; Ron and Marianne Cohen of The Valley Market Place, Boardman; Summer J. Wise, owner of Trendy Trousseau, Hermitage, Pa.; Darlene Donatiello, owner of Dar’s Dirty Dogs, Youngstown; James Graening, owner of Grow HVAC; Dwaynika Lewis, co-owner of Just a Little Taste of Home, Niles; and Katie Costello and Jenny Falvey, owners of The Learning Dog LLC, Hubbard.
Also recognized was Betty Jo Licata, dean of the William College of Business Administration at YSU for her support of Score and the Williamson College providing space for Score mentors to advise startups and nurture young businesses. Score provides scholarships for majors in business administration at YSU.
The chairman of the Youngstown chapter, Steve Spencer, a retired banker, cited a poll of entrepreneurs that surveyed the traits successful small-business owners share -- and by extension, the honorees. Almost all like being in charge of their lives, which translates into wanting to run their own enterprises. Two-thirds think the best part of owning their own business is talking to their clients or customers. Two in five said they work 40 to 60 hours a week and most work more, especially starting out. Few can turn a profit by working fewer than 40 hours a week, they said.
Only 15% like the bookkeeping part best. The remainder said this was the aspect they disliked the most.
In her remarks, Miller told of the progress Wonderstruck has made in last year and a half. “I was a young woman with no business experience,” she began. She graduated in 2006 from YSU with a bachelor of fine arts degree.
With counsel from the Monday Team, chaired by John Zuppo, Wonderstruck has grown from one employee, Miller, to 13, expanded from a gift shop to a storefront three times its original size that also offers art classes that include lessons in painting and pottery.
From her association with Score, she learned, “The dream is free but the hustle is sold separately.”
Wise, owner of Trendy, had been in business five years before she approached Score. While she earned her baccalaureate in biology, “I always loved fashion,” Wise related, and she opened her fashion business -- part time and at home -- with three shirts. She knew merchandise, Wise said. What she needed to learn was buying merchandise.
And she soon realized as well that success was contingent upon quitting her day job and obtaining advice on the business side of fashion. Score did that.
With help of the Tuesday Team, led by Frank Bordinaro, a retired fashion executive for what today is Macy’s at the Eastwood Mall, Wise opened her first store in Hermitage last September and has opened a smaller outlet in Canfield. She also created a mobile unit that consists of four “stylists” who travel between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. They hold “house parties” for women but have been urged to hold them for men as well.
“We had 100% growth in Year One,” Wise related, “and another 100% in Year Two.
The chairman of the Thursday Team, Steve Ostrolenk, presented his three honorees by noting that success in business is based on understanding customers’ needs and solving their problems. Darlene Donatiello, whose Dar's Dirty Dogs has been open less than two months, is booked through August grooming dogs at her shop. Lewis and her co-owner, Keith Johnson, opened their restaurant, Just a Little Taste of Home, that specializes in Southern cuisine and have turned a profit in less than three months, they report, by encouraging their customers to leave their worries and concerns outside. “We say, ‘Take your shoes off,’” he said, after customers are seated.
Graening has taken a different approach to HVAC -- heating, ventilation and air conditioning. He offers seminars to owners of HVAC shops throughout the United States on how to sell their services and also acts as a consultant on how they can increase their businesses.
Costello and Falvey took Ostrolenk’s admonition to heart, Falvey said, and saw their dog-training business grow 78% in a year. It’s on track to grow another 42% by the end of this year.
Growth is so strong that Learning Dog is outgrowing its headquarters in Hubbard.
What took them to Score at the outset, Falvey said, was “Businesses took off more than we anticipated. “I was like a deer in headlights.” To get the business side of dog training under control, she needed Score.
Today Learning Dog has satellite offices in Hermitage, Pa., and Salem and the company works closely with veterinarians and dog shelters.
Afterward, Deiderick shared that Score counselors realize it’s just as important to dampen enthusiasm as to encourage it. He told of a woman who approached Score counselors with the idea of opening a second franchise in the Valley of an ice cream chain based in Texas. She was impressed by her visit to that chain’s first shop here.
The counselors advised her to fly to Texas to see firsthand how the company operated there. She returned, leaving her enthusiasm behind in Texas.
“We say, ‘Don’t mortgage your house,’ “ Deiderick said, to start a business. The woman still has title to her house.
Pictured: Score mentors and clients. From left, mentor Frank Bordonaro and Summer Wise; Darlene Donatiello, mentor Steve Ostrolenk, Dwaynika Lewis and Keith Johnson; Stephanie Miller and mentor John Zuppo; and Jenny Falvey and mentor Terry Deiderick.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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