Outside view key to success today

A LIVE ONE: Snappa Charter Boat Captain Charlie Donilon in Narragansett was advised by a Mastermind group to launch a dedicated ash-burial website. Since then, his business has grown from three customers a year to 20, he said. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
A LIVE ONE: Snappa Charter Boat Captain Charlie Donilon in Narragansett was advised by a Mastermind group to launch a dedicated ash-burial website. Since then, his business has grown from three customers a year to 20, he said. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

Josh Hatfield, a registered nurse who owns a 5-year-old, Web-based, medical-supply company in East Greenwich, had never heard of “nurture marketing” until he met David Nash at a TeamWorks Mastermind meeting in Coventry.
With some help from Nash, who with other business experts helps facilitate group meetings in five other towns as part of the Rhode Island Small Business Recovery Program, Hatfield launched a targeted letter-writing campaign to 300 potential clients for Direct Buy Medical, which supplies incontinence products, wound-care dressings and ostomy supplies.
Within two months, he had heard back from 10 and added three new accounts. “That doesn’t sound like much of a response,” Hatfield conceded, “but from a business-to-business standpoint, that’s not bad early on.”
Whether through Mastermind-like programs, the collective wisdom afforded by “collaboration circles” or incubator accelerator programs for startups, small-business owners are leaving the cocoon of inward analysis and self-protection in order to share strategies confidentially, mentor one another, build partnerships and lasting relationships, and trust in the promise of future growth, experts say.
“There are a lot of fabulous things happening in Rhode Island,” said Lauren E.I. Slocum, president of the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, which is one of the Small Business Recovery Program resource providers. “We need to make that contagious. That [business] relationship needs to be built before you’re in a fire sale. Find your network. Find your support system today, because they are going to help you grow through the positive times and deal with the negative times.”
Held in Coventry, Lincoln, East Greenwich, South Kingstown and in two locations in Warwick, the 10-member Mastermind meetings have helped a gift-shop retailer build a mutually beneficial relationship with a travel agent, a home-tutoring business owner remake her image, and a sea captain more effectively advertise ash burials online. “The thing I got most out of it is the concept, ‘I’m not going through this alone,’ ” said David Sardinha, owner of Pineapple Studios in Middletown and a participant in the Warwick group. “I like the idea everything is confidential. It’s nice to have people to bounce ideas off of, or who say, ‘Try this.’ It’s great to have that roundtable of people who are willing to discuss issues you need to talk about.”
For $11 a session, Mastermind groups meet periodically so entrepreneurs can share business strategies and concerns. The concept was inspired by a motivational book published in 1937 called “Think and Grow Rich,” Nash said. He started his first group in 2001 in Warwick. When they branched out into different communities, he named the program TeamWorks Mastermind.
“The days of rugged individual entrepreneurs are over,” said Nash. “No longer can you merely be a star. You need to be part of a galaxy. You need other people helping you with other perspectives.”
Reaching out has its advantages, added Ken Cook, the Massachusetts-based founder and managing director of Peer to Peer Advisors, who is guiding the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association’s effort to establish what he calls a “collaboration circle.”
“There was a lot of inward focus for the last three years, weathering the storm of the recession,” Cook said. “When revenue dropped 20 percent, or even 70-80 percent, [entrepreneurs] had to pay attention internally, maintain payroll, and cut costs. There was a lot of hard work and anguish to keep the business up and running.
“Now, there’s a little more ease with regard to cash flow. They can start to bring people back and focus on new opportunities.”
Exclusively for manufacturers, the collaboration circle will be organized this summer and is expected to cost participants about $3,500 to join, said Cook. The circle will provide help that is similar to executive coaching services costing three times as much and offered by private firms such as Vistage, a Los Angeles-based organization that matches groups of business owners who share expertise and business strategies, Cook said. “One of the inherent benefits is, this creates a group of people you can establish a working relationship and a level of trust with,” said Bill McCourt, executive director of RIMA. “It’s like having another board of directors and giving these folks a sounding board.”
Startups participating in accelerator incubators like Betaspring in Providence experience a similar type of mutual support for no cost. One client, Jon Bittner, founder and CEO of SplitWise, a free app and website calculator for sharing expenses with friends fairly, has seen the number of registered users for his product jump from less than 20,000 to more than 200,000 after participating in Betaspring and relocating to 95 Chestnut St. from Cambridge, Mass.
“For a startup especially, having a community of entrepreneurs around you is really important, because when you’re so small, we’re all guessing,” Bittner said, describing the help he’s received and also given.
While networking has its advantages, many entrepreneurs choose to pay substantial fees to private consultants specializing in how to grow a business.
William Myette of North Kingstown, owner and CEO of JazzEdge online music instruction, hired business advisory firm Owner’s Edge principal R. Thomas Stocker Jr. in East Greenwich to help him develop a strategic plan. He’s invested $4,000 a month over 10 months, and says he values the professional relationship, which has yielded a more disciplined, long-term approach to running his business, even though he hasn’t yet seen a full return on his investment.
“The best thing about working with [Stocker] is that I can have executive-level conversations with someone,” Myette said. “I can’t do it with staff in the same way. He’s a fantastic sounding board for me. It’s good to have so I can vet and tease out decisions.” Over the years, several hundred small-business owners have gravitated to Mastermind groups, which stay relatively stable but have some turnover, said Nash, who is also the owner of Engage Marketing Inc. The ones that have “the right balance” of experienced participants and novices have proven to be valuable vehicles for exchanging information “so everybody has an opportunity to learn,” said Slocum, the Chamber executive.
Two years ago, Snappa Charter Boat Captain Charlie Donilon in Narragansett got feedback from a South Kingstown Mastermind group, in which 10 like-minded entrepreneurs advised him to launch a dedicated ash-burial website instead of relying on a link on his home page. Since then, his business has grown from three customers a year to 20, he said.
In a Lincoln group, Patti Avin, owner of the franchise Tutor Doctor, which brings tutoring to the home, connected with Ed Drozda, also known as the “small-business doctor,” who facilitates the group. Drozda is a business coach with E&D Associates, based in North Attleboro.
Having started a new company and moved to a new state, Avin found the isolation daunting.
“Nobody heard of me,” she said. “I was really being challenged by that. And [Drozda] looked me in the eye and said, ‘Stop selling Tutor Doctor and start selling Patti Avin.’ And he was so right, because when I thought about my days [as a corporate executive] at UnitedHealthcare, it was all about relationship building.”
Carol Pratt, who owns Carol’s Country Store, formed a lasting professional relationship with a travel agent she met at a Warwick meeting, putting the agent’s tours in her newsletter.
“You cannot be by yourself nowadays and exist successfully,” Pratt said. “You have to help each other out.” •

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