Entrepreneurs Are Showing Their Resolve
‘Tis the season to work on your New Year’s resolutions for 1997.
Here’s a surprising batch of personal and professional goals being set by entrepreneurs across America.
If you have a tough time reaching Roger Telschow, president of Ecoprint in Silver Spring, Md., it might be because he’s resolved to take a six-week vacation.
“This means turning over more responsibility for the day-to-day operations to the employees,” he said, “including check signing. I’ve never done that before, and it’s a big step.”
Ecoprint, with sales of $1.2 million this year, is a pioneer in environmentally friendly printing techniques, including the use of nontoxic inks and recycled paper. The company has seven full-time and three part-time employees.
“Since I started this business 13 years ago, I’ve worked an average of 60 hours a week,” Telschow said. “My resolution last year was to work less, and I kept that. I trimmed my workweek back to 30 hours. And without destroying the company.”
Pauline Gitelson, owner of Nature’s Touch in Lewes, Del., says she’s resolved to “throw rocks through the windows of outlet stores,” but she probably won’t. Next on her list is to get out of her store at least an hour a day. She rarely leaves the building because she lives above her specialty clothing and crafts boutique.
“How am I going to get out?” she asks. “I’m going to get a dog and walk him twice a day.”
Therese Thilgen, co-founder of Franchise Update Publications in San Jose, has resolved to win the lottery.
“In 1997, I’m turning 40…, so I want to win the lottery, sit on the beach for 10 years and spend more time with my children,” she said. Thilgen runs the newsletter publishing business with her husband, Gary Gardner.
As have many business owners, she’s resolving to work less and spend more time parenting in 1997.
“I don’t want to look back on these years and say, ‘My kids never knew their mother because she was always working,’ ” she said.
Eric Shaw, president of New York Credit in Marina del Rey, also is resolving to spend more time with his kids in 1997, and to be more charitable. New York Credit manages accounts receivable for big and small companies.
“I figure if you give something back to the community, you get dividends back later in life,” Shaw said. He’s trying to work 50 percent of the time and spend the rest with his family and friends.
Across the country, Kay Retzlaff, president of Writers at Large in Belfast, Maine, is counting the days until Jan. 1.
“This has been the year of the client from hell,” she said. “My goal for last year was to get two new clients. Well, I got them and now I would like to eliminate them.”
Retzlaff’s 3-year-old business offers writing, editing and media relations services. She has one full-time employee, and shares office space with another sole proprietor. One healthful resolution she kept from last year was to buy office chairs that “didn’t kill my back.”
Another Maine entrepreneur, Maralyce Ferree, has resolved not to buy any more bum software for her women’s outerwear company.
“We bought the wrong software and spent months trying to get it to work,” Ferree said. “I’m computer illiterate. My staff was pulling their hair out. All I could do was feed them more chocolate.”
Her 12-year-old business has posted sales of $1.7 million this year by selling coats and jackets to mail-order companies and department stores, among them Nordstrom and Jacobson’s. Twenty fulltime employees are supported by about 20 “home stitchers.”
She has two other resolutions for 1997: Find a bigger space in Portland and “have more pizza parties.”
Sara Eckart, president of Pinnacle Personnel Services in Louisville, Ky., resolved for 1995 to make money during her first year in business.
“I’d hoped for about $500,000 in sales and came in with over double that,” Eckart said. “My other resolution was to stay focused on quality of service, customer satisfaction and zero defects.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jane Applegate Los Angeles Times