Hession wants the affiliates to succeed, but he does not want to be the reason for their success. When Borne completed his first payroll -- he insisted on doing it himself -- Hession ripped up all the checks, pasting them to a giant piece of paper. With the title "Bill's First Payroll" scrawled on top, Hession used arrows to annotate the mistakes. "After 16 hours trying to work it all out, I was real overwhelmed to get that," says Borne dryly.
It served a purpose, though. "I challenged him," says Hession. "I knew he'd do it better because he wanted to do it better than me."
* COMMITTING TO THEM
Never Give Up First
Each time he trains an affiliate manager, Hession makes a promise. "I won't give up on you," he says, "unless you give up on yourself."
Hession believes that, for the most part, anyone who makes it through all the stages -- the training, scrutiny, grueling work of attracting hospitals and nurses -- probably has what it takes. To a greater or lesser extent, of course. Hession can't produce a William Borne or a Sandy Gilbert every time. But not every organically grown entrepreneur is H. Ross Perot, either.
Since Hession's willingness to help them is unwavering, the burden is on the fledgling entrepreneurs to call it quits when they feel they can't reciprocate his commitment. It usually happens early. The woman who ran Key Health Professionals Inc., the New Orleans affiliate he launched in 1988, suggested they dissolve it after a year, during which she tallied sales of $50,000. When they counted up receipts, the company was about $5,000 in debt, so she owed him about $2,400. At Key of Mississippi Inc., it took only nine months for the would-be entrepreneur to decide she wanted out. Her bill: $3,000. Recalls Hession, "She was like a kid who comes running back from the school bus on the first day of school."
But if the prospective entrepreneur can keep motivated and stay profitable, Hession will stand steadfast. Jack Frost, who started Hession's second affiliate, "didn't kick up a lot of dust," Hession admits. Nonetheless, Frost, who managed Key Nursing of Texas Inc., built a business that had a respectable $300,000 in sales in each of its three years before he opted to quit in August 1988. "I didn't know if I was suited to run a business by myself," says Frost. "It wasn't as much fun as I'd thought it would be. In the end, I guess I found out some things about myself -- and I'm about $25,000 richer." For now, Hession is managing Frost's nurses from his office.
It was Frost's idea to quit; he tired of living amid the jackrabbits and scrub weed of south Texas, and decided he missed his Baton Rouge home. Had he chosen to go on, Hession would not have pressed him to grow any bigger any faster. "He was profitable from the second month on," says Hession. "So I had no problems with it."
Given his trusting bedside manner, it's not surprising that Hession could sense commitment where the opposite existed. It happened at Key Health & Management Services Inc., his most painful -- and costly -- affiliate experience to date. "I was saying things like, 'Hey, you are not meeting the game plan here,' " recalls Hession. "They didn't make any corrections, and I should have recognized that. They didn't show they cared. In the future, I will not accept an attitude like that."
There were two partners, one of whom Hession had known as far back as high school. Launched in June 1988, they were going to start in Lafayette, then spread out into Birmingham, Ala. The affiliate lasted barely a year, generating sales of about $250,000. But the pair was losing roughly $3,000 a month on operations, plus helping themselves to advances of as much as $6,000 a month.
Dissatisfied, Hession was on the phone with them all the time, trying to "teach them work habits": this is how many hours each of you should work this week, and here are the number of hospitals you should visit and nurses you should see. He had faith in them, right up until the morning of June 23, 1989, when their resignations arrived via certified mail. "I felt this couldn't happen with owners," he says glumly. But off they went -- very entrepreneurially, one might add -- to set up their own staffing business in Birmingham, which has since gone bankrupt, according to Hession. He claims they owe him about $50,000. "It's crushing," he says. "You place so much trust in these individuals."
Since then, Hession has decided to tighten up the system. He has stopped the salary advancements -- the two had borrowed $25,000 -- and plans to have future affiliates sign more formal contracts when they go into business. Before, he was satisfied with signed promissory notes and meeting minutes that broadly outlined their agreement. But that doesn't mean Hession will start assuming the worst of his entrepreneurial brood. "None of this is crumbling down because of what happened with the renegades," he says. "Frankly, it could happen again, and I don't know what I could do about it. But I always knew this was risky, and it always will be."
* LETTING THEM GO
Snip the Strings, and Stand Back
"What I didn't anticipate about Bill," says Hession, driving toward Borne's office, "is what an entrepreneurial maniac he would become." Of all the affiliates, Borne is the only one to have begun buying Hession out, though Gilbert says she is mulling it over.
If Borne is any indication, affiliate entrepreneurs may start using their newfound freedom to pass on what they have learned -- launching third-generation affiliates. "They see what I am doing and they say to themselves, 'Hey, what is this guy really risking?' " says Hession. "I hadn't foreseen that."
