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Entrepreneurs share their tips for success

Entrepreneurs share their tips for success

By STEPHEN ALTHOUSE The (Easton) Express-Times

EASTON, Pa.—The economy is tanking. So is banking.

And credit isn't exactly cranking.

Starting a business can be dicey even when all the stars are aligned, but in these economic times it takes supreme planning, expertise, commitment and fortitude to become a success.

It takes one other thing: optimism.
Welcome to the world of the entrepreneur: part-realist, part-dreamer, and full-time risk taker.

Pick the brain of small business owners or entrepreneurs and you'll often find them committed to their goals with an enduring sense of pragmatism that inspires them to carry on when times are bad and soar with eagles when times are good.

Jeff Berdahl can't pay the debt he owes his grandfather.

Like many 20th-century immigrants to the United States, Berdahl's grandfather left his native Germany with little more than dreams. But it was backbreaking work that allowed him to start three successful manufacturing businesses. The transformation from hardscrabble worker to mini-tycoon left an indelible impression on his grandson.

"Everybody liked him," Berdahl, president of Lower Saucon Township accounting and consulting firm Berdahl & Co., said of his grandfather. "He was fair. He was honest that's what it's all about."

The apple didn't fall far from the tree. Berdahl is now his own boss.

"About three years ago, I got the itch and I had worked with a lot of entrepreneurial-type successful individuals,"

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Berdahl said. "I kind of wanted to be in the same shoes they're in."
Those shoes demand big feet. Berdahl's business requires strict adherence to service-focused solutions to meet his small business clients' challenges.

"The biggest issue now for them is the economy and cash flow," he said. "Second would be hiring and retaining good, key employees."

But just as an important factor for smaller family owned business is something Berdahl calls "the next generation."

"You've started this business," he said. "You've built this business up. What is your plan to get it from the generation it's in now to the next generation?"

Nepotism is rarely a blueprint for success.

"Often in family businesses the first generation creates it, the second generation kills it," Berdhal said.

For Thomas Roberts of Harbor Lights Financial Group of the Lehigh Valley, the numbers 19 and 21 changed his life.

The Allentown-based financial consultant spent 19 years working for corporate heavyweights Vicks, Pepsi and Crayola LLC before spending 21 months earning his master's in business administration at Columbia University.

The latter experience fostered the idea that something else awaited him professionally.

"The catalyst was not wanting to spend my whole career doing the same thing, meaning selling consumer products," Roberts said. "I don't want to be looking back, at some point in the future, and saying 'I should have tried this.'"

Regret was erased from his vocabulary. A few years after earning his degree, he went into financial advising, one aspect of which is counseling individuals who are considering a professional transition themselves.

"What I try to do is really get a feel for what is important to them in life." Roberts said. "I tell them that if you're going to make a change, make sure you're running to something not from something."

Roberts said introspection was key.

"Assessing your values, having a vision for your future that you can gravitate to is important," Roberts said. "I wanted to build a business for myself."

The nature of Berdahl and Roberts' businesses may render them more qualified than most when it comes to describing the anatomy of a successful small business owner.

They listed several standard traits—passion, drive, persistence, good employees, quality marketing and public relations skills—as must-have tools for small business owners.

Asked why people fail, common reasons are undercapitalization and insufficient marketing.

Berdahl outlined the basic questions that require answers: "How they're going to get the market. What they do. Who their competitors are. How they're going to price things. How they are going to deliver it. How they are going to brand it. A lot of people buy franchises just for that reason."

And don't start a business for the wrong reasons.

"If somebody thinks they're doing this as part of a get-rich-quick-scheme it's probably not going to work out," Roberts said. "I think the key is you've got to figure out how you're going to add value."

And make sure you stand out.

"You have to be able to delineate your business from other businesses," Berdahl said.

How does Roberts do that?

"I distinguish myself more as a consultant than as a broker," Roberts added. "You're managing their future."

Any small business owner or entrepreneur has to know his or her limitations, Berdahl said.

"Just because you're a good mechanic doesn't mean you can run a business," he said.