Profiting from learning

Jennifer Romero knows what it takes to be an effective counselor. She has a master’s degree and has worked in counseling the past 13 years.

What she is learning, she said, is how to run a small business.

So this counselor who helps people with problems such as substance abuse has turned to another type of counseling for herself.

She enrolled at the North Idaho College Small Business Development Center to learn the intricacies of successful business management for her Restored Paths counseling service, which she opened in Coeur d’Alene two years ago. The center offers workshops and peer coaching from veterans of the business world.

“I knew a lot about my particular job in my field,” Romero said. “I thought I could deliver a better product than what was available in the community.”

But the counselor quickly learned that she needed a business plan.

“They were really good at making me think outside the box,” she said.

In particular, the center encouraged Romero to draw up her goals for the next one, three and five years, and consider how she could distinguish her business from others like it. She said she is trying to create a comfortable environment and allow faith to be among the tools her clients might use to change destructive habits.

Romero was among the owners of 230 businesses last year who sought help from the SBDC, an arm of North Idaho College serving Kootenai, Bonner, Benewah, Shoshone and Boundary counties.

William Jhung, the center’s director, calls himself an “entrepreneur’s coach,” who works with business owners to help them define and refine skills such as marketing, cash control and cost containment.

“Our unique role is to help businesses thrive and grow,” Jhung said.

He explained that small-business owners are motivated and normally well skilled in their area of expertise, whether it’s manufacturing, sales or service. But the challenge they typically face is putting to work a broader set of business skills. “They are trying to figure this out as they are going along,” he said.

That’s where the center comes in; they encourage owners to acquire those skills and help them figure out ways to get them.

“Generating sales is not difficult,” Jhung said. “Generating profit, now that’s a different story.”

Jhung and a staff of three volunteer coaches work with the owners to tighten their operations by honing their missions, setting goals, reducing overhead, improving efficiency, collecting overdue accounts, rethinking their financing and boosting profit margins.

They emphasize effective marketing as the best way to increase sales and customers. Owners learn that marketing is a broad process that involves everything from advertising to customer service. “You are selling the company as a whole experience,” Jhung explains.

The economic slowdown has been apparent at the center since 2007, when the U.S. economy began to stall. Now the business development center is seeing an increasing number of owners in trouble.

One of the biggest mistakes made by distressed owners is the use of credit cards to raise cash for long-term needs.

“They come to us too late,” Jhung said.

Supporting small businesses is critical because they are one of the main ways new jobs are created in the economy, he said.

Kimber Gates, co-owner and general manager of Coeur d’Alene Cellars, said she learned about the small business center while attending a chamber of commerce meeting in Post Falls. She realized she could use the help.

“I think, honestly, Bill’s program is outstanding,” Gates said.

Her business has expanded over its seven-year life and now produces 3,400 cases of wine each year. The winery has nine current releases, some of which have earned top awards in wine competitions, including gold medals for the 2006 Opulence, the name for the top syrah, and the 2007 viognier.

As the business has grown, Gates said, “You lose control to a certain extent.” So she is trying to step back and take a broad view of her future that she thinks will continue to emphasize quality and direct sales.

The small business center has helped Gates balance production with sales expectations, particularly with an unstable economy, she said. Its coaches also encouraged her to put additional effort into her wine club, which has 450 members, as a base for marketing.

“Every business owner I know feels the weight of the world periodically,” she said. “It’s been a learning experience for me.”