How to Succeed in Business in 4 Easy Steps
A detailed look at how a successful entrepreneur guided a couple through various start-up pitfalls.
Helene and Bobby Stone had a fledgling business idea, the dream of economic independence, and a work ethic at least partly fueled by desperation. What they didn't have was what every great company builder relies on -- the street-smart grasp of what separates successful businesses from unsuccessful ones. That's where Norm Brodsky came in
They were just friends going out to dinner, two couples who liked to get together over food to chat about life and children and the ways of the world. One of the couples, Bobby and Helene Stone, suggested they eat someplace cheap this time. The other couple, Norm and Elaine Brodsky, were happy to oblige. Not that money was an issue for them. Norm Brodsky had made and lost and made again more money than he could count. The founder and CEO of Perfect Courier, a three-time Inc. 500 company, he was working on his sixth start-up, which -- after three years -- looked like another strong contender for the list.
The Stones lived in a different world, augmenting Bobby's salary with income from a tiny home business that Helene ran out of their basement in North Bellmore, N.Y. That evening in January 1992, Bobby told Norm and Elaine that he'd been laid off from his job as a computer-equipment salesman, a job he'd had for more than 14 years.
"He was really distraught, as you'd expect," Norm recalls. "He was angry. He said he'd never work for someone else again. He said he was going into business with Helene, selling computer supplies out of their home. He was all gung ho because he thought he was a great salesman. Helene was more concerned with figuring out how they were going to live.
"So I said, 'Look, Bobby, if you need any help, I'd be glad to sit down with you.' I was just thinking I'd give them a little advice. Of course, it turned out they needed a lot more. They needed a whole education.
"And that proved to be the most interesting aspect of this whole thing. I mean, you get to my age, and you start to wonder how much you can teach people about business. Can you take a middle-aged couple who aren't businesspeople, who know nothing, really, about creating a successful business, and show them how to do it? Or do you have to learn from experience? I wasn't sure. It's taken me a lifetime to learn what I know about business. I didn't learn it from a mentor. I certainly didn't learn it in school -- and remember, I have degrees in both law and accounting. I had to unlearn a lot of the stuff I'd been taught in school. And how much of business is instinctive, anyway? How much do you learn as a kid before you're even aware it has anything to do with business at all?
"I didn't know, but I was curious to find out."
Bobby and Helene Stone recall the dinner somewhat differently. "Norm asked me what I was going to do," Bobby says. "I said, 'I'm going into my own business.' He said, 'Do you have a business plan?' I said, 'No. . . . "
Helene interrupts. "That's not true. That's not what happened. You said, 'What's a business plan?"
"Yeah, right, I said, 'What's a business plan?' And he said, 'A business plan is what you expect to do.' I said, 'What do I need that for?' He said, 'You need it so you'll know if you have a viable business.' I said I was pretty confident we had a viable business. I mean, the business had been going for seven years with just Helene and her assistant, Paula, working part-time out of our home, and no one doing sales. And I think I'm a pretty good salesman. How could we not have a viable business? So I'm saying one thing, and she's saying something different."
"You bet I am," says Helene. "I'm saying, 'This man is nuts.' I'm saying, 'Norman, there's no money. We can't even pay our bills. We're looking for a home-equity loan to pay off our biggest supplier.' Bobby says, 'You're being too negative.' I say, 'Bobby, you don't understand this. You look only at the sales. I'm looking at the dollars.' So Norman says, 'Look, do me a favor. Don't do anything rash. Bring all your paperwork to my house, and we'll sit down and see if you have a viable business here."
And that's how it all began.
* * *
STEP 1
Get a Grip on Your Emotions and Decide on Your Goals
Ask Norm Brodsky the single most important piece of advice he gives to people starting a business, and he'll talk about preserving capital and maintaining gross-profit margins. "But I don't begin with that. I begin by asking them their goals. I'm very big on setting a reasonable goal and trying to reach it in a reasonable amount of time.
"The truth, of course, is that the initial goal of every business is to survive long enough to see whether or not the business is viable. I don't care what business you're talking about or how much capital you have. You never know for sure if a business is viable until you do it in the real world. But viability is just a step on the way to somewhere else, and I want to know where somewhere else is. I want to hear what people have to say. What I'm listening for are goals that can't be achieved by business. Or goals that will get in the way of the business. Or goals that are totally unrealistic given the particular business they're looking at. I'm listening for what's really motivating people. Usually, it's something emotional.
"Take Bobby and Helene, for example. They told me they wanted to earn a living out of the business. Fair enough. But Bobby wanted something more. At that moment, what he wanted was revenge on his old company. Well, that's normal, but it wasn't going to get him anywhere except maybe to burn some bridges. Revenge had nothing to do with Bobby and Helene's long-term goal, which was to become financially independent and never be in this situation again. So, by identifying the goal, we were able to get those emotions out of the way.
"Of course, once you've decided on the goal, you come right back to the issue of viability. I told Bobby and Helene, 'Look, I don't know if you have a real business here, and I also don't know if you can run it like a real business. But first we have to see if it's even worth trying. We have to be sure that, on paper at least, it looks as though you have a shot at making it work.'
