For seven years, Donna Personeous has made her living promoting other people’s businesses. Along the way, she forgot to apply the same principals of advertising and public relations to her own, Red Door Productions of Barrington. In stepped Mark Roberts, a volunteer with the local Small Business Administration, and Personeous is heading for her eighth year with renewed confidence- not to mention letter head, business cards, and mission statement.
“I’m very directed.but I had little time to think about my own marketing and advertising,” Personeous said. “Working with Mark gave me someone to throw ideas off of. He helped me restructure my image.”
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Roberts is one of about 30 local business people participating in a pilot service for young executives who stand to benefit from the experience and advice of the seasoned. Rhode Island was one of nine states chosen last October to test the “Business Coaches” program on behalf of the national SBA
Patricia O’Rourke, manager of the local SBA’s small business information center, said the philosophy behind the program is simple. “Basically, we’re asking business owners to give back – which is easier to ask than to do.”
Those who take the time to volunteer “usually say they want to give something back because business has been good to them,” O’Rourke said.
To kick-start the year-long program, the SBA drew from its pool of “Power Up” graduates – a group of 28 women enrolled in a 13-week entrepreneurial development program. However, O’Rourke said business coaches are available to any start-up company in need of someone who can “clarify business goals and objectives, and basically provide a real helping hand.”
As for the coaches, they were mostly “pulled from the SBA advisory council,” O’Rourke said. However, anyone “with the over-all business savvy to guide in many directions based on their experience” and who is willing to part with a minimum of four hours a month can participate, she said.
On May 19, another 20 women graduate from Power Up and they, too, will become entitled to a year’s worth of coaching.
Roberts, who has an Internet consulting business called 1st Ventures Partners Inc., said his reason for helping people like Personeous is likewise simple.
“I like what I do and it makes me feel good to help people,” he said.
At the same time, Roberts is not a typical SBA volunteer. In addition to coaching, he works with the small business information center and is a member of the Service Corps of Retired Executives – despite being only 50 and fully employed. In all, he logs in about 30 unpaid hours a week.
“I’m told I’m one of the highest producing ones (volunteers) in the country,” Roberts said. “But I like doing it.”
Roberts said his first step is to look at a company’s financial statements and “talk to them about how they get customers.”
If there’s a problem, “usually from a financial statement you can tell what’s broke,” he said.
When it came to Personeous, Roberts said the bigger challenge was getting the company name out there.
“A lot of times people have theories about how to do that and they’re just shooting around in the dark,” Roberts said. That’s because “there’s so many choices and they can’t decide.”
Personeous agreed.
“Sometimes you get tunnel vision” when it comes to your own company, she said. She compared her sessions with Roberts to a “think tank”
The added pressure of having someone monitor what you know you should be doing can also help.
For Personeous, that meant putting on paper a business plan that had been largely in her head.
“I told Mark ‘you have to force me to do it,'” she recalled. “What I need most is the true marketing tied into the financial tied into the business plan.”
Both Roberts and Personeous said the mentor-mentee relationship is actually more of a two-way street.
“You learn from the clients. Donna’s very very good at advertising,” Roberts said, adding that she has helped him with his own business.”Every coaching setting is unique,” he said. “But it’s rare to walk into one and not come out having learned something.”
