Howard ended up with 15 criteria that any new business he started would have to satisfy. He wanted to work with a national market; he wanted a chance to use his skills at organization and marketing. A few factors were personal: Howard wanted to stay in Vermont and keep his existing office, equipment, and secretary.
"Finally," he says, "I wanted to feel something I never felt in public relations -- a sense of mission."
Eventually, Howard's months of soul-searching (written out on hundreds of pages of yellow legal pads) yielded four possibilities: farm and timber brokerage, solar-heated home shells, commercial and investment real estate, and small business brokerage. "Then, I ran ads in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other major newspapers. I made offerings in each of the four fields, to see what kind of, and how many, customers I'd attract. The results were conclusive. Small business brokerage not only drew the greater response but also the kind of people I wanted to work with."
Howard had spent years telling his clients to be more oriented to the market-place; now he had a chance to ask the questions they refused to ask. "Before I started CBS," he says, "I wrote a letter to every small business broker I could find in the country. I could see from the answers what the competition was like. No one had any sense of marketing. Generally, I got responses on scrap paper, from guys who were doing it on the side in their real estate businesses. And then, I pursued the people who answered my ads. I took them out for dinner; I went for long drives with them; and I wrote 10-, 20-, 30-page essays on our relationships. I wound up knowing them better than they knew themselves."
After two years of this kind of painstaking analysis, Jim Howard had a commodity he insists is crucial to any successful business: information. He had information about himself, about his customers, and about his competitors. He'd collected a library of business howto books, product circulars, and magazine articles, and built a network of contacts he could call upon for specialized help.
The answers to Howard's exhaustive questioning quickly paid off. Country Business Services began putting together the buyers and sellers of small businesses with a degree of professionalism almost unheard of in the business brokerage industry. Howard not only offered information, he demanded it of both buyers and sellers. Sellers found they were obliged to give Howard unprecedented access to their financial status and inner workings, or he would simply refuse to handle the transaction. Only about one out of every eight prospective small company listings survived the screening process; some had revenue as little as $50,000 a year, and none were bigger than $8 million. Would-be buyers were pressed to undergo even more rigorous self-examination. Howard placed small classified "Business Opportunity" ads that invited disgruntled corporate managers to write him. The 5,000 people a year who respond to these ads are sent an exhaustive application form that probes their personal values, net worth, and seriousness The few hundred who survive this round are then invited to an interview with a CBS broker that may run anywhere from two to six hours. The cross-examination identifies strengths and weaknesses, energy levels, self-confidence, and -- above all else -- the candidate's ability to take control of his own life and of the company he may end up running.
For both buyer and seller, the sometimes painful process almost always pays off. Instead of trauma and confusion, Howard brought a high level of control to the buying process. Soon CBS was getting the referrals and exclusive listings of prize properties that spell success for any brokerage business. One buyer who went through the process recently described the experience in awed tones: "Jim's company does the homework on their listings; they've culled out the dogs in advance. They introduce you to all the people you need to make a good purchase -- lawyers, bankers, and accountants. The broker I had at CBS did my cash flow projections for me, my Small Business Administration applications. I mean, their attention to quality is bloody unheard of. You'd never find it with an average real estate broker."
What buyers discovered, moreover, was that Howard did more than shake their hands and congratulate them on purchasing a business with lots of potential. Howard and the brokers who worked for him kept coming back with advice and counsel. They would critique a new marketing plan, suggest sympathetic bankers for a larger loan, or just listen when an owner needed to blow off steam. Inevitably, the special relationship Jim Howard has with his former clients generates valuable listings and referrals, but it's also a way of building a future filled with strong, successful, take-charge people -- people who are in control of their own lives.
For Jim Howard, CBS is only a modest beginning. He is well on his way to creating a national market base tied together with computers and meticulously detailed systems. He shows visitors charts that display such goals as $5 million in revenues by 1985, a 20% pretax profit, a nonprofit information foundation, and a franchising program.
But them Jim Howard gets a faraway look in his eyes. At age 54, he's back in control of his own life, teaching others to take charge, and he has found a sense of purpose. "In my optimistic moments," he says with a little smile, "I do like to believe the small business owner can, in the coming decades, serve the function of Jefferson's self-sufficient farmer -- the creator of solid values for an entire nation."
