Hers was a family owned business. But not LL Bean, Cianbro or Renys.
No, the woman who sat beside me during lunch at July’s Sustain ME conference on Chebeague Island helps run her family’s small earthworks business. She schedules the work, does the billing, timesheets, payroll, workers comp, taxes. You know, all those little details that can fill up a 40-hour week, and then some.
Lunch at the conference doubled as the break-out session, so those sitting around the table had been chosen carefully. There were a couple of representatives of nonprofits whose mission is to assist small businesses. And there were a couple of other small business owners, including another woman who wanted to grow her prepared-food delivery business on the island.
But the conversation around the table kept coming back to the woman whose stepfather, if I heard right, had established the earthworks business—gravel delivery, excavation, bull dozing, that sort of thing. The woman’s husband also worked for the enterprise, and her young son would sometimes move a backhoe into place (Shhh! don’t tell OSHA), and she, too, knew how to work the equipment.
You could tell she wasn’t given to pouring out her soul to strangers, and she apologized a couple of times for what she perceived as dominating the conversation. But there was nothing to apologize for—her story was exactly what the conference aimed to address.
The business advisors at the table were quick to respond to the worry we all heard in her voice. Yes, she had begun the process of computerizing billing. Yes, she had figured out how to set aside funds for taxes and other expenses.
But the old Maine way of doing business remained, she said. The stepfather would agree to do a job after running into someone at the post office. Kind of hard to keep the schedule and employees organized when jobs were booked with an offhand, “Sure, we can get over to your place in the next few days.”
She was making some headway, but you could hear her fear that there never would be enough time to do things right.
I spent 25 years working at for-profit newspapers, and though I was on the reporting and editing side, I certainly was not insulated from the business challenges. But none of that experience compares with running a small business.
I have tried to educate myself about how business works, what drives entrepreneurs and what trips them up. Most of what I’ve learned came by talking to and writing about business owners.
Though I’m an unlikely source for business advice, I’ve drawn some conclusions. One is that running a business demands a business-like approach. And that means getting data.
A young man, trained as an engineer, decided several years ago to open a coffee shop in Searsport. He told me that before committing to the rent on Route 1, he sat in his car between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. on a weekday in December and counted the cars. Yes, he concluded, there were enough to give him a shot.
Another plus, he said, was that the business was on the south side of the road, meaning that tourists bound for Mount Desert Island would be able to pull over on the right and stop easily. (Apparently, tourists leaving the state make far fewer stops.)
Another example: Mike Hurley, who runs several businesses in Belfast including the Colonial Theater, a movie house, once told me he’d seriously considered opening a multiplex at a shopping center just outside town. Before getting too far, he looked at a map, drew a ten-mile circle around the shopping center, and added up the population within it. Not nearly enough people, so he dropped the idea.
One more story unfolded several years ago at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum. The Department of Marine Resources was proposing an increase in the size of the trap vent through which undersized lobsters could escape. At the session devoted to the proposal, the expected gripes were made—you’re taking money out of my pocket, you have no idea how the fishery works, etc.
Then Dave Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and a long-time fisherman from South Thomaston, rose from the back of the room. He said he’d changed out the vents in a third of his traps to the larger size, kept track of the catch, and found that the traps with the larger vents actually fished better, catching more keepers. As only Cousens could do and get away with, he turned to his fellow fishermen and chastised them, saying they should have done the same. Several heads were lowered, and sheepish looks prevailed.
The last bit of business wisdom is to get help. Which is exactly what the island woman was doing at that lunch. Join the Chamber, sign-up for webinars, talk to those in the know, find a mentor, avail yourself of the assistance nonprofits offer. There are no shortcuts, of course, but relying on math rather than your gut and accepting help are two steps forward.
Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront and Island Journal.