Self Employment Appeals To Boomers Nearing Retirement

Bob Irwin is among the millions of older baby boomers who this year will start turning 50.

He also was among about 3,000 persons - a great many approaching middle age and an uncertain retirement - who attended a Self Employment Expo in the Spokane Convention Center last weekend.

Irwin was there looking to buy a business.

Ellen Dale was there looking to sell a business.

Whether they connected, I don’t know. Irwin came in just just as I was leaving. The weather outside was nasty. Freezing sleet, slush and fog had stalled deliveries. A large banner over an empty Walt Disney-licensed exhibit booth apologized for being unable to show prospective buyers the delightful collection of big-name animal toys to be had for the price of a franchise.

So what would bring thousands of Inland Northwesterners out on such an awful weekend?

“People come to shows like this because there is no job security anymore,” said show manager Glen Johnson. “If you want security, you have to provide it yourself.”

Other explanations by the expo’s producers, vendors and shoppers revolved around:

The continuing onslaught of corporate downsizing.

The economic and financial rewards that accrue to executives and shareholders for lopping off heads.

The systematic decimation of older employees.

The ever-diminishing supply of livable-wage jobs.

And - most of all - a tidal wave of baby boomers entering middle age at the horrific rate of one every 7 and a half seconds.

Alas, what can be done?

Well, many things are possible. And succeeding installments of this column will take up all of them. Things like saving and investing for retirement, lifelong education, retirement housing, where to retire, how to turn an avocation into a retirement vocation, how to get the most out of retirement, how to get a job after 50.

And, of course, what these folks were looking into at the Self Employment Expo - how to buy a business, become your own boss.

Bob Irwin is production manager of a Spokane manufacturing firm. He is successful. But knocking on 50. And like millions of other boomers, seniors, and younger workers he’s still searching for “financial security.”

Indeed, at an expo like this one he recently bought a merchandise distributorship which a friend is running. Irwin came to this show looking for a companion business.

Ellen Dale operates a Coeur d’Alene-based “franchise mobile flooring store.” Her husband travels in his work. She wants to join him on the road. The $35,000 asking price for her franchise includes a 1992 Ford Aerostar van and floor covering samples.

The show’s promoter, exhibitors with whom I talked, and my own eyes told me the biggest bulge of prospective buyers was 45 to 55. They are hardest hit by downsizing and weeding out. They are the ones taking early retirement and looking for work on the side.

Denver-based S.C. Promotions Inc. puts on 72 such expos a year throughout the country. Opportunities fall into three broad categories - start-up franchises, existing established businesses, and multilevel marketing distributorships. They cost a few hundred bucks to hundreds of thousands.

Multilevel marketers were much in evidence here. These distributorships, which many associate with pyramid sales schemes, enable those who get in early to capitalize on the legwork of latecomers. It works for some.

Also well represented were vendors of candy vending machines costing $180 and up that dispense a few cents worth of candy for a quarter, and other exhibitors of that ilk - basically product and equipment peddlers. This is not to imply that their equipment and ideas won’t work.

But how to buy?

There are no pat answers. No formula exists to make it as easy as one, two, three.

There are some do’s and don’ts. And there is help. But that’s another column.

, DataTimes MEMO: Beginning today, Associate Editor Frank Bartel will write on retirement issues each Sunday. If you have questions or ideas for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review