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Making bad times work for small biz

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By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: May 29, 2009

LAND O' LAKES - To appreciate the possibilities suggested by Wednesday's small business summit, "Business Success in Difficult Economic Times," you didn't have to be employed in an industry struggling in the ferocious grip of creative destruction.

To be lured inside the church fellowship hall where Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite had assembled a collection of experts on the topics of starting, maintaining and growing an enterprise where you greet the boss in the mirror each morning, it wasn't necessary to have learned just that morning another wave of your colleagues had been sacrificed to the new reality.

And you certainly didn't have to have some wacky combination Hallmark-Christmas-store-hobby-shop-coffee-house-bakery-brew-pub fantasy kicking around in your head for who knows how long to have paused at every one of seven table displays to collect literature on each panelist's area of expertise.

The U.S. Department of Commerce will hook you up with business partners around the globe, and will insure your exports against loss? Who knew? The Small Business Administration is guaranteeing some private loans issued to entrepreneurs up to 90 percent? It's the federal spendapalooza for dreamers and schemers! Where did I put that last draft of my pie-in-the-sky business plan?

Technical stuff ahead

No, attendees were not required to sign an affidavit swearing they stay awake nights worrying about the future of the enterprise to which they have devoted a lifetime of professional energy. But those who could have put their names to such a document were rewarded with a blend of information and wisdom as calming as any sleep aid.

That much of the reassurance came from a single source - Jim Parrish, of the University of South Florida's Small Business Development Center - is no knock on the others. A certified business planner with a Tennessee drawl, Parrish was simply the right man at the right moment.

Parrish's experience and expertise are in identifying and overcoming precisely the sorts of problems that weave failure into even longtime successes. Without going too deeply into a discussion better held on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, these were the Parrish highlights: Cash rules. Market always, but wisely. Get customers to pay. Price correctly. Confront trouble early.

"Business is not about benevolence," Parrish says. Consider, he says, the 50-year-old enterprise that collapsed with 110 employees on the rolls six months after a hired consultant showed the owner how she could thrive if she pared her personnel by 40 percent. She resisted, and instead of 45 people out looking for work, all 110 were.

Not that it would have been any fun to have been one of the 45. Still.

Recessionary upsides

If, traditionally, there has been an upside to recessions, it is that they squeeze out inefficiencies. Or, to quote Brown-Waite quoting uber-investor Warren Buffett, "When the tide goes out, you learn who's been swimming naked."

Those caught with their pants down, Parrish suggests, are lapsed stewards, especially where operating costs are concerned. One of his clients operates a service business out of his Thonotosassa home, employing 20. He's making money and adding business. But just before the downturn hit, he was talking about buying a building, and adding abundantly to his overhead.

"The recession was the best thing that could have happened to him," Parrish says.

Roughly 40 local business operators attended the seminar, and at least half their number added Parrish's business card to their collection. In these difficult days, a fresh set of learned, detached eyes might be as useful as three new clients. With cash.

If you're a business owner and this sounds like you, check him out here: www.sbdc.usf

.edu. If you're a business owner and this doesn't sound like you, you may need Parrish more than you realize.

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