Counselor follows three new distributors through the ups and downs of their first year in business. From the formation of business plans to deciding whether to take on employees, we’ll be along for the ride.

Distributor No. 1: Michaela Raner
Distributor No. 2: Scott Mollahan
Distributor No. 3: Christine Cersosimo

Part I: Bringing Up Baby

Michaela Raner started her distributorship last year while five month’s pregnant. Now, as a mother of two, she’s overseeing a growing business.

Imagine being in labor, about to give birth, and calling up a business contact for advice. Not the ideal time to make networking calls, you say? Don’t tell Michaela Raner.
This was the situation on a sweltering day in Tempe, AZ, last August when Raner, the founder of Mack & Jack’s Marketing Solutions (asi/258682), found herself having contractions just a few months after she’d launched her business. Not expecting that the baby was really coming—she wasn’t due for another four and a half weeks—Raner grabbed her BlackBerry and laptop and headed to the hospital just to be on the safe side.

For the next few hours, she patiently fielded client calls, while experiencing progressively stronger contractions. But that didn’t deter Raner from answering the phone. “I had a laundry list of unfinished business, and I wasn’t feeling that bad,” Raner says. So with her nervous husband by her side, she took call after call from clients from her hospital bed. She provided advice. She answered their questions. She even took an order. And then, ever so patiently, she told each of them that she was about to have a baby and ended the call.

Jackson Robert Raner was born at 6:04 p.m. that evening and by that time, Raner not only had a second child—she had a substantial piece of new business as well. “One hot prospect told me that they were so impressed with the customer service that I provided while I was in labor that they were going to move all of their marketing and advertising business to Mack & Jack’s,” Raner says. “Needless to say, I was thrilled.”

This situation might sound slightly over-the-top to some. To Raner, it’s simply the way she prefers to conduct business: She is determined to give clients personalized, 24/7 attention, and nothing, not even the small matter of childbirth, is going to get in the way.

Certainly, Raner’s determination was evident that day she opened Mack & Jack’s (named after her two children), a full-service advertising agency, out of a home office last May. Most women wouldn’t think of starting a business when five months pregnant, but for Raner, the timing was right. After seven years in sales and marketing—including a five-year-long stint in direct mail advertising—Raner decided to strike it out on her own in order to gain the flexibility to spend more time with her growing family. She worked out a deal with her last employer, the owner of a local print shop, who agreed that she could take some of her clients with her provided she use the employer as her quick-copy print vendor. “My go-to market strategy in the beginning was on the print brokering side,” Raner says. “I never really even thought about selling ad specialties.”

But after just a few weeks in business, a client she’d brought over from her old job, Interstate Mechanical, called Raner and asked if she could procure some logoed hats for him. “I told him I wasn’t a hat dealer, but I’d do some investigating,” she said. She stumbled on to ASI and subsequently, to hundreds of suppliers who could provide her with the hats she needed. She ordered the hats from Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125) and soon after, spread the word to clients that she could provide promotional products as well as other advertising and marketing services.

A Personal Touch
As difficult as it might have been to launch a brand new business while pregnant, plodding through the first few months with a new baby proved to be an even bigger challenge, Raner says. Since she was still heavily into the client acquisition phase of her business, Raner couldn’t afford to take off any time after Jack was born. The day after she got out of the hospital, she hit the pavement, making cold calls and servicing the clients that she already had. Since she was nursing full-time, Raner had her mom drive around with her on sales calls, and stay in the car with the baby—air conditioning blasting to combat the 110-degree desert heat—while Michaela gave her pitch to prospects. “I’m really big on pitching people face to face rather than over the phone,” Raner says. “I find it’s easier to build a rapport with someone that way.”

Raner’s spiel is short and to the point. “I’m honest, I’m extremely well organized, and I can serve all of your advertising and marketing needs,” she tells potential clients. And she leaves them with an informational brochure about her company, and sometimes, product samples, if they are in the market for advertising specialties.

In August and throughout the fall, Raner logged hundreds of miles on her Toyota Sequoia driving all over the Valley of the Sun—and spent more time than she might have liked nursing while in the driver’s seat. In retrospect, those first few months were tough, Raner says. “My mental state was not what it normally is,” she says. “A new baby and a new business at the same time—that causes a lot of anxiety.”

But Raner was determined to make personal visits to as many local businesses as she could. And slowly, that effort began to pay off. One of Raner’s biggest clients to date is Splashadello, a retail store that’s opening up in Tempe this month, and sells essential oils and skincare products. The owner, Rita Lewis, needed help with her marketing efforts, and heard about Michaela through a babysitter. “As soon as I met her I thought, ‘this woman is an organizational freak.’”

Raner arrived with a binder in hand, offering a suggested timeline for what Lewis should do on the marketing side in the 60 days leading up to her store’s grand opening. “She told me when I would have to order my bags, tissue paper and stickers; when I’d need to get my signage, when I’d have to book advertising and when I should talk to the media to generate excitement for the store,” Lewis says. “I was impressed. I remember turning to my husband and saying, ‘She’s a turnkey marketing solution. We just press a button and, boom! We have a marketing plan in place.’”

Indeed, Raner prides herself on her organizational abilities. She has a large whiteboard in her office which she uses as a project board. She breaks it down into sections: estimates, projects in progress and completed projects ready for invoicing. She also takes copious notes when meeting with clients, and always follows up after a meeting to reiterate a timeline that’s been agreed upon. “It helps my clients stick to their deadlines, too,” she says. “They are always very receptive.”

Another way Raner makes sure that she’s dotted every “i” and crossed every “t” is to deliver items to clients, such as artwork or promotional products, in person. Obviously, she could hire a courier to do these tasks, but Raner isn’t willing to do that just yet. “It would really be nice for me to hire someone to pick up things and make deliveries, but I’m one of those people who can’t quite let go,” she says. “I look at each delivery as an opportunity to talk to the client and see what else they might need. So there I am, every day, driving like a maniac all over the valley.”

Challenges Ahead
Raner didn’t set any hard and fast revenue goals for her first few months in the business. With a new baby, she figured she’d just work as hard as she could and see what happened. But she’s set ambitious goals for 2008, and so far the outlook is promising. Raner hoped to reel in revenues of $30,000 per month every month of this year, and she achieved that goal in January, and blew it away in February, with $50,000 in sales.

If she wants to keep up that pace, though, Raner realizes she’ll have to make some changes in the next few months. For instance, she frets that she soon won’t be able to do everything herself—even though she prefers it that way. “I’m getting to the point where I’m going to need a project manager—preferably someone with design experience as well—who can help me handle some of the day-to-day activities.

“I’m good at multi-tasking,” she says, “but it’s difficult to decide where I spend most of my time. Right now, I’m doing all the invoicing, all of my own accounting, all of my order placements ... at some point, this is going to be too much.”

Raner also wants an office—quickly. At presstime, she was looking at a site that would give her more space than the makeshift office she’s fashioned at home. And, Raner hopes to find the time to be even more creative in her prospecting. Currently, she’s experimenting with a kit she could leave behind with prospects who have just opened their own new businesses. “I call it a ‘Start-up kit,’” Raner says. Inside, the kit has samples of everything a new business might need, from letterhead stationery to business cards to logoed pens and magnets. “I want to drop this off to every new business and say, ‘These are some of the things I can help you with.’”

Finally, Raner would at some point like to figure out a specific niche she’s good at, and penetrate it. “Right now my clients are all over the map,” she says. She recently scored a deal with a local Carl’s Jr. franchise to do their interior signage. And, she sells promotional products to Baja Motorsports, a large company that sells off-road vehicles to companies like Pep Boys. A diverse client base for sure.

But, Raner acknowledges, until her business is more established, she’ll likely continue her travels throughout the Arizona desert, calling on any and all businesses that might use her services. “Right now,” she says, “I’m just going to take whatever I can get.”

Although Raner said she hasn’t lost any of her customers, some of her clients, including a retailer selling high-end bath products, have pulled back on routine spending for promotional products. “A few are skipping trade shows, or ordering items quarterly when they used to do it monthly,” Raner says.

As a result, sales have been up and down for the last few months. In April, Mack & Jack’s brought in only $17,000 “and May was in the toilet,” says Raner, with sales of $12,000. But the news isn’t all bad. June and July picked up for Mack & Jack’s, and at presstime, Raner was confident she’d be back at her $30,000 monthly revenue goal for July.

To keep sales up, Raner is doing what many smart distributors are doing in an uncertain economy: Right from the start, she’s positioned herself as a marketing consultancy – and she said most new business is coming from clients who want more out of her than just a few products.

She recently scored a major coup when one of her clients, LeVecke & Co., a franchise organization that includes 170 fast food and quick stops including a number of Carl’s Jr. and Hardees restaurants, sent out a call for RFPs. Raner had been fulfilling the company’s business card orders for several months, and competed against several other business owners to win the business. Now, she’s handling the company’s promotional products, signage, brochures, and other printed materials, to the tune of more than $10,000 per month, and expects that amount to grow significantly.

Help Wanted
Of course, with big deals come big challenges. Ever since she opened her doors, Raner has been struggling with how to best manage her time. “I’m only one person,” she says, “and I can only do so much. It’s just me doing everything – finding new clients, finding vendors, picking projectsup, making deliveries. It’s too much.”

That pressure has only increased as Raner’s business picks up. And certain things she’s got on her to-do list – such as attending networking functions hosted by the Tempe Chamber of Commerce – have been impossible to complete.

Raner recently hired a freelance creative director to alleviate some of the pressure, but finding sales help has proven to be more difficult. At the beginning of the year, she hired a childhood pal who lives in Oregon as an independent sales rep. The friend had no previous sales experience but was excited about the prospect of a flexible job with 100% commission. Unfortunately, the partnership has flopped. “She was gung ho in January and sold two projects right away,” Raner says. “Since then, nothing. She thought it would be a good opportunity but maybe she doesn’t think so anymore.”

Indeed, finding experienced reps who are willing to work on 100% commission can be a challenge. But in late June, Raner snagged another rep who seemed promising. Through a family friend, Raner learned of a woman who had just quit her job after 13 years as global marketing manager for Intel. “She kind of wanted to lay low for a while before starting her new gig,” Raner says.

But Raner enticed the woman to shadow her for a day, and took the woman on an action-packed day-trip that included a publicity photo shoot at one of her retailer client’s stores. At the end of the day, the woman signed on as an independent rep. At presstime, she’d already brought in four new clients to Mack & Jack’s. “We still haven’t worked out our roles fully yet, but I hope she’ll focus more on sales and I’ll be able to attend more networking events and focus on business strategy,” Raner says.

Pricing Squabbles
Another time-gobbler is putting together accurate bids for clients. Raner has recently taken pains to make sure she’s allocating all of her costs, and has had some push back from clients on items like delivery charges. “People have asked me why I am charging them a surcharge for delivery and I’m like, ‘Gas is four bucks a gallon now, people,’” she says.

Clients sometimes balk at design charges, Raner says, which is frustrating to her. “Sometimes, customers will say, ‘Can’t you just do this extra thing for free, it’s not going to take you that long,’” Raner says. “But I’m in this business to make money.”

Another challenge for Raner has been maintaining positive cash flow while dealing with slow-paying clients, including LeVecke, which typically pays 90 days out. Raner quickly developed a solution by requiring all of her clients to pay 50% up front. Although she has met little resistance to the new procedure, Raner said it was difficult for her to implement. “I’m a salesperson by nature,” she says, “so it’s hard for me to also be the person who lays down the law.”

  
Counselor follows three new distributors through the ups and downs of their first year in business. From the formation of business plans to deciding whether to take on employees, we’ll be along for the ride.

Distributor No. 2: Scott Mollahan

Part I: Great Vintage 

Scott Mollahan started his business in the middle of 2007 and quickly racked up more than $2 million in revenues. Here’s how he did it – and how he intends to keep it up.

Now, this is the way to start a business. Leave your old job one day and immediately open up shop with clients ready and willing to sign deals.

Meet Scott Mollahan, the founder of Insight Resource Group (asi/231569), based in Orinda, CA, just outside of Oakland. “I talked to some of my clients to see if they’d stick with me if I started my own company. Many were very supportive,” Mollahan says, as he sips a glass of zinfandel during lunch at a golf course in the heart of Napa wine country. “It helped my conscience to know that there was some built-in revenue there when I first started out.”

Like the first deal he signed when he was on his own. Just about the day after opening Insight Resource Group, Mollahan was on the phone with Chalone Vineyards, a wine producer in the Napa region, that was looking to put together a program for its sponsorship of professional golf tournaments throughout the year. He had managed the promotional program for one tournament for Chalone at his previous company, but now they wanted him to oversee the production of their promotional items at eight different tournaments over a six-month period.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “Here I am, I just opened up shop, I’m barely operational, and somebody is already throwing a huge deal at me. I was psyched. At the same time, I was also quite nervous.”

It was a big deal, indeed. Mollahan says the Chalone golf tournament contract is a $100,000 project. Not bad for your first day in business. Mollahan was tasked with putting the Chalone logo on golf balls, bags, hats, shirts, umbrellas, golf tees, ball markers, and flag sticks. And all of the items had to be finished at the same time, delivered to the appropriate tournament sites and packaged like the client needed.

“It was quite a task, but it was so worth it,” Mollahan says. “I mean, that was a huge kick start to my business. The program has had a great response, and the client is looking to expand it even further. It was perfect timing.”

A Banner Beginning
Who owns a client: a company or a salesperson? It’s an age-old question, but in this case the answer is quite clear. Mollahan left his previous job and says he took about 80% of his clients with him. He had been a sales rep for Applied Graphics for more than 11 years, helping the print and promotional products company grow from a $5 million operation to more than $35 million. He alone was responsible for more than $3 million annually in revenue. He built a good client base in the wine and spirits industry – his backyard is chock-full of wineries and liquor companies – and had a solid mix of business between printing and promotional programs.

But when Applied Graphics was acquired by Innerworkings (asi/231438) in October 2006, Mollahan knew his time at the company was short. He stuck it out until the middle of last year, but the new management structure led him to think of other options. His first thought: Strike out on his own. “I felt confident enough and knew enough clients that I felt were loyal to me to take the leap,” he says.

Of course, starting a business at 38 with four kids at home under the age of 8 can be quite the scary proposition. “Yeah, I was freaked out initially,” he says, while driving to see a client and also reading e-mails on his Blackberry. “It’s scary times when you decide to leave the comfort of a job you’ve had for many years and start out on your own. You worry about a lot of things that you didn’t have to think about before – like paying bills and hiring employees and having enough money to cover your costs.”

Yes, that’s an area that gets most new businesses into trouble. Cash flow is often the issue that entrepreneurs underestimate – and Mollahan was no different. Insight Resource Group had such a successful beginning that Mollahan soon found himself in a cash crunch in the fall last year. The company reeled in revenues of about $2 million between June 2007 and January 2008, and the need to front money on many of those deals to pay vendors before clients paid their bills put Mollahan’s company into a cash crunch that successful new businesses often find themselves in.

“It was tough for about a month there,” says Mollahan, who started his business with his own savings and no other funding behind him. “The payables and receivables just weren’t lining up, and I was paying out a lot more than I was getting in within any kind of timely fashion.”

The solution? Mollahan had to spend a lot of his time talking to clients about bills and convincing them to pay. “It’s not something I like to spend time on because it means I’m not out selling,” he says. “But it was necessary at that time. I think clients had to personally hear about the situation from me to really react. They receive bills and confirmations that clearly lay out payment terms, but it seemed to really work when I picked up the phone to talk to them about it.”

Small Company; Unique Approach
As the lone salesperson for his company, Mollahan knew he’d need personnel help to get his company where he wanted. He readily admits one of his weaknesses: “I’m not a good administrator,” he says. “I’m a salesperson. I like building relationships and coming up with projects for clients.”

So, thankfully, he has somebody in his own home who can take on some of the administrative aspects of Insight Resource Group. Mollahan’s wife, Valerie, was instrumental in getting the company set up initially. She purchased and set up the computer system (six computers and one backup), scouted out office space, helped to hire employees, determined human resource programs and developed some marketing plans. “I love the various aspects of the business,” says Valerie, who is in the office on this late-February day to take the company’s employees out to lunch and get a pulse of how things are going in the office. “We have so many different programs and interesting projects going on at any one time,” she says. “I’m happy to help out in any way I can.”

In envisioning his company, Mollahan knew he wanted to have a family-friendly atmosphere. Really, how could he have it any other way? With three boys and one girl at home (ages 2, 4, 6 and 8), the Mollahans have their hands full without a business to run. So, in hiring employees, Mollahan is using job-sharing situations as an enticement to strong workers who are looking for a flexible schedule. He has hired four women who share two full-time jobs. Two of them, Michele Houston and Mary Jaccodine, share the job on the promotional side of the company. And the other two, Robin Bateman and Dana Roberts, share a job on the print production side of the business (Mollahan says that the two sides of the business are about evenly split as far as the company’s revenue is concerned).

“It really started as a job share, and it is ostensibly a job share, but they’re all so dedicated that they’re always reachable by e-mail and phone even if they’re not in the office,” says Mollahan, who motivates his staff with a 401(k) program and bonus incentive plan that’s based on sales. “It has worked out great,” he says. “They update each other every step of the way on projects so that they each know what’s going on. We never miss a beat when one leaves the office and another comes in.”

Which is vital, because the Insight office is a busy little place. It’s only a three-room, relatively nondescript office, but the company fulfills projects for 25 to 35 clients, Mollahan says. Like the one he’s talking to on this pristine February day in Northern California. About a half-hour drive from Mollahan’s office is one of his biggest clients, Foster’s Group, the makers of various brands of beer, wine, spirits and non-alcoholic beverages. He’s meeting on this day with Lisa Cervone, a Foster’s brand marketing associate to discuss some point-of-purchase displays that Mollahan is building and printing for Foster’s.

Cervone and Mollahan have worked with each other for years, and she is one of the clients that supported his move when he struck out on his own. They have a client-vendor rapport that makes them practically buddies. “Scott usually knows what I’m looking for from our promotions,” Cervone says about Mollahan, who has serviced the Foster’s account for more than 10 years. “I wanted to still work with him when he started his own business because it helps to have a vendor who has experience with our brand. That consistency is important.”

On Tap For ’08
While many entrepreneurs lay out a clear business plan for where they want their companies to be in one, three and five years, don’t count Scott Mollahan among that group – for now, at least. He wants to gauge his success after a year in business before he creates a concrete plan for the company. “I think it’s hard to do a five-year plan before you’ve had a year under your belt,” he says, as he drives away from Cervone’s office. “I want to see what we accomplish in our first year before I decide what our next steps are.”

For now, though, he knows one thing: He’s not hiring any additional salespeople. He’s got it covered himself. While the company has passed the $2 million in revenue mark within its first year, Mollahan doesn’t at this point want to take on the task of attracting, interviewing, training, and paying new salespeople. “I don’t think we’re at the stage where we’re ready to put sales on the payroll,” he says. “Really, I only trust myself to do the sales for now.”

Mollahan does, however, have big goals that he knows he wants to accomplish over the next year. For one, he needs to diversify his client base. While the wine and spirits market has been very lucrative for him, and has helped him to launch his business in a way that brings in a lot of quick revenue, he knows that he has to spread his wings a bit. Consolidation has hit this market, and so he’s starting to lose clients as companies merge. Separately, he knows the foundation of his business will be much better if he is to diversify where his revenues are coming from.

“In the beginning, you go to where your clients are and wherever you can get business from,” he says. “So, I’m ok with how we’ve started, but we need more widespread clients. No one account is like 50% of our business, but Foster’s for example is big for me. If I lost them to a merger or budget cut or something, I’d be hurting.”

That’s precisely why he’s spending the next six months focused on diversifying his client base and trying to make deeper inroads into current clients. To do that, InsightResource Group recently launched what it is calling “The Green Roadshow,” which is a sales presentation to new and current clients focused on eco-friendly promotional products and print options. Throughout the months of March and April, Mollahan is visiting clients with eco-friendly products in tow, and is pitching them on the benefits of promotions that have a “green” flavor. To introduce the program, Mollahan sent a targeted e-mail promotion to seven of his top clients. He immediately got three appointments to present his ideas to an especially receptive client base in environmentally-conscious Northern California.

“Our clients are beginning to say that their consumers are asking for these kinds of things,” he says. “We want to be at the forefront of this. Our goal with the roadshow is to introduce clients to this stuff and let them know all the capabilities. We want them to think of us when they think eco-friendly promotions.”

  
Counselor follows three new distributors through the ups and downs of their first year in business. From the formation of business plans to deciding whether to take on employees, we’ll be along for the ride.

Distributor No. 3: Christine Cersosimo

Part I: Steel City Drive

Christine Cersosimo is an extremely detail oriented entrepreneur. It took her nearly half a year to draw up a business plan and find financing – all before making sales calls.

The bottom floor of Christine Cersosimo’s home has turned into a functioning ad specialty distributorship. It most definitely wasn’t always this way.

The basement of her Pittsburgh-area home had served as an entertainment center for her husband, Les, to watch his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, Penguins and Pirates on a large screen TV. Now? The area is sectioned in two. Half is still his and half is the proud office of Flow Business Solutions LLC (asi/195711), the distributorship Cersosimo just began in December. Ad specialty catalogs and product samples now dot the garage and the laundry room, and Cersosimo operates the larger half of the basement with her new business.

Being downsized wasn’t heartbreaking to Les. “That doesn’t matter; the business matters,” he says. “It’s no big deal. When love’s involved, it doesn’t really matter.”

This home office is well appointed. Currently, there’s one large work space with another soon to be prepared for the company’s first hire. Les isn’t being squeezed out, as there’s plenty of room on the business end of the basement. While a PC and a MAC occupy the desk top, it’s not crammed at all. In fact, it’s neat and orderly and full of inspirational messages – constant reminders of the goals ahead. Cersosimo has handwritten them all including her favorite, from her dad, “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

And as she plods along, Cersosimo has to contend with her three dogs – Boris, a Jack Russell terrier; Katie, a beagle; and Cleo, a German shepherd. While she toils away downstairs, her pets keep vigil upstairs with an occasional bark from Boris, the most vocal of the trio.

Her first dollar and business card have been matted and framed, a Christmas gift from her husband. Which is typical of him, she says, as he backs her 100%. And, he’s not only supportive, he’s totally into it, she says. Currently Les is out on medical leave. A broken leg is keeping him from driving a 65-foot gas truck. “A rolling bomb ,is what my husband calls it,” she says. So, with free time on his hands (and he admits to being a bit antsy right now), he chips in and peruses catalogs. Cersosimo recently asked him to locate some pens, which he found to be a daunting task. “That’s crazy,” he says in disbelief. “It’s unbelievable how many pens there are.”

And while there are no traffic jams making her late for work, Cersosimo does admit to challenges in regards to working from home. There are so many distractions, especially household chores that need to be done. But, she handles it like she would if she was going into an office everyday. It is her job, after all, she says. And she’ll be home for a while, as she’s opted out of an office space in downtown Pittsburgh that she was planning on renting.

Cersosimo, who relies on her instinct as much as her brains, was getting an uneasy feeling from the landlord. He was unresponsive to her questions and she felt something was wrong. So, she decided to back out of the deal. Of course, there is a silver lining to making that executive decision. Staying home is a better bet because all her stationary has her home address and phone number as her business address. So she saves money twice – once on rent and once by not ordering new letterhead and business cards.

Plan On It
Cersosimo didn’t start blindly in this market. For four years she sold promotional products for another distributor. She was a customer service supervisor with a staff of four, did back-office sales work, communicated with vendors, followed up on orders, and handled inside sales as well as a smattering of outside sales. “It was a small family-owned company,” Cersosimo says, “so you tended to do a little bit of everything.”

But, she wanted more from sales. She actually wanted to help solve her clients’ problems, not just fulfill orders. “I felt limited and wanted to do more for my customers,” she says. “I got tired of being an order taker and needed more of a challenge. I refuse to be an order taker. I’m a solutions manager.” So she left and got started on forming her own company.

Cersosimo has a detailed business plan which she developed from research she did on the market as well as her own knowledge and experience. The five-year plan is extremely detailed. It includes all the pertinent information as well as her strengths and weaknesses. But the meat and potatoes details the anticipated sales growth as well as growth in the targeted client markets that she intends on penetrating.

Cersosimo has identified 600,000 potential users of her services. That includes companies and organizations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Eastern Ohio. Her business plan states that she will focus on less than 1% ‑ or 375 prospects – and strive to convert 75% of those into clients. Then she will add an additional percentage point worth of prospects each year. So, she has not only planned on sales growth, but specifically sales growth as it pertains to market growth. She will grow the industries she sells to in addition to growing the sales from those industries. And, sales are broken down in her business plan by product category as well.

With her business plan and strategy for growth in place, Cersosimo tried to raise capital toward the end of last year – no easy task in a time of tight credit markets for a new business with almost no revenue to show for it. Cersosimo quickly realized that no bank was going to back her before she actually invested her own money into the business. “If you’re not willing to invest in it, than neither am I,” she says is what banks and other lending institutions told her.

So, Cersosimo maxed out all her credit cards, and has tapped into her savings and retirement plan to show that she was financially invested in her new company. Even with that, it took her two months to get her financing. And, despite her hard work, she was only able to secure a third – $46,000 – of what she felt was necessary to begin her business. The monies came from the CL Fund, which is an organization that helps businesses in Western, PA. “They did not want to over-capitalize me is what they said,” she says, about the decision to give her much less than what she wanted.

But, not getting all the capital isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Cersosimo says that the lender didn’t want to give her too much at one time because she could come to rely on the money too much. This way, she builds credit and can come back for more money when she needs it. And, she says, the loan is only for six years, so she’s not over extended. “There’s no long-term investment involved with it,” she says.

Growing Pains
As a brand new ad specialty distributor, Cersosimo has faced some common challenges. One has been getting samples in on time to make sales calls. Cersosimo recently had to postpone a scheduled appointment because the samples she ordered for a proposal hadn’t all arrived. And, it’s not for lack of trying.

This client, Seton Hill University’s E-Magnify center for women entrepreneurs, a women’s business center that provides innovative programming and essential resources to help women start and grow their businesses, has an April conference it wants to secure logoed products for. As a client and a vendor of the organization, Cersosimo was on the job. In fact, she has been working the project for some time; she initially proposed logoed shirts the organization could sell for a profit.
For Cersosimo, the idea was a no-brainer. For an initial outlay of $200, E-Magnify could outfit its staff members for the conference in logoed shirts – and go the extra revenue-generating step of selling the items too. And although it’s not thousands of dollars, that money was the sticking point for E-Magnify, as it’s a federally-funded non-profit that has to work within a budget. And, as Cersosimo knows, they want the best quality for the lowest price.

So Cersosimo moved forward on getting the client exactly what it was looking for – eight samples each of a power clip, totebag and pen. And even though the contact is a product purchaser and does not care about much beyond having the logo on a product, Cersosimo makes sure that she shows good samples.

After searching through catalogs (Thanks Les!) and ESP Online, she contacted the suppliers, paid for samples (random, not spec), and even provided her UPS number for shipping. Unfortunately, the day before the meeting, she only had two of each sample. She had no choice but to postpone the meeting. “It makes me look bad as a company and as a client of hers,” she says.

The frustration (a catch-22 if there ever was one) is that with little sales history with suppliers, some are uneasy working with her. But, how does she build up history with them if they won’t work with her? And, although you can hear the frustration in her voice, it never gets her down even though there’s risk in losing the client because of the cancelled presentation.

Canceling the appointment was probably the smartest thing Cersosimo could have done. A week later, with all of the appropriate samples in hand, she gave a presentation on the value and importance of promotional products that wowed her client. E-Magnify execs were so impressed that they ended up ordering even more items than they had originally planned for their conference.

It has been one success in what is just the beginning for Cersosimo. She only started prospecting in late November and expects to start realizing some revenue from her efforts. “I am brand spanking new,” she says. “The company is in its infancy. I’m an organization of one. I do more prospecting than anything.”

That prospecting has uncovered some gold, though. Currently, Cersosimo is serving the needs of six clients, but she’s pursuing more. One is her former employer of 22 years. And although they know each other, the prospect – a husband/wife-owned printing company – knows little about marketing. “They have the worst branding I’ve ever seen in my life for a printer,” Cersosimo says. “To get these two to understand what I’m trying to do is incredible.”

But she’s working on it, even though she says she’s finding it difficult to put a tangible price on how promotional products can financially help an organization. “Everyone wants ROI,” she says. “Hell, I want ROI and I’m a one-person operation.”

Part II: Financial Fitness