Episode 11: Beyond Startups- Growing Businesses with SCORE’s Volunteer Network

Join Jeff Ricken and Richard Webb for an insightful conversation about SCORE Houston, America's largest network of volunteer business mentors. Richard, a former Ernst & Young HR executive with over 20 years of experience, shares his journey from corporate leadership to mentoring small businesses. Learn about SCORE's free mentoring services, success stories from Houston entrepreneurs, and valuable insights on what it takes to build a successful business. Whether you're considering starting a business or looking to give back through mentoring, this episode offers practical wisdom and resources to help you succeed.

Give your comments at https://scorehoustonpodcast.blogspot.com or write to pv.bala@scorevolunteer.org. Let us know what you like of this episode and suggest subjects on which you wish to know more. 

Transcript

Introduction to SCORE Houston

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston, where we bring you insights and stories from our mentors. You'll hear from senior executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals who volunteer their time to guide small businesses. SCORE is America's largest network of volunteer business mentors and is supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In Houston, we provide free, confidential mentoring and education to help entrepreneurs start, grow, and succeed. Now, let's dive into today's mentor conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Hi, this is Jeff Ricken with SCORE. I'm a certified mentor with SCORE Organization, which is a national organization. And today we're interviewing Mr. Richard Webb, who's been with SCORE longer than I have. And in fact, he helped me get involved with SCORE. So I'm very grateful to him because I've been doing it for quite a while now. And I want to hear answers to some of the questions we have that are very compelling. For those of you who are listening and are interested in learning more about SCORE or becoming a volunteer or using our services to get your businesses started or expanded, Score is here for you. And we'll begin, Richard, with the first question. I'd like to welcome you to our Score webcast. Thanks, Jeff. I've certainly read about you and heard about your background, your success in business. What were some early childhood family life experiences that helped you and exposed you to the business world and helped you to become a success?

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Well, Jeff, I grew up in a military family of six kids that gave me a solid grounding and for my parents learning things like respect, working with others, being truthful, helping, helping others, that kind of thing. I also was able to learn a lot about that working in teams because I played, I guess it'd be junior football when I was nine and ten. And then I learned how to still be a little individualistic as being part of a team. I rang across country on indoor track at high school. I also participated in uh a gym group that we had that we went around, an exhibition group that went around to local elementary schools and high schools giving presentations, that kind of thing. So that was a lot of fun. And that gave me a good grounding to get me going into academic and then subsequently professional life.

Experience at Ernst & Young and Transition to Mentoring

SPEAKER_01 2:39

All right. So you've been very successful in your adult life. In fact, uh you were an executive in human resources with one of the big five accounting firms, Ernst ⁇ Young, which is a major international accounting firm, and you did this for over 20 years. Would you say that your experience helped you become uh a popular mentor like you are? Though I appreciate mentoring is more than just teaching. You weren't just teaching, you're you're actually sharing your experiences and hopefully becoming a real role model. Tell us about your experiences at Ernest and Young that you applied to score.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah, Jeff, thanks for the question. It's a really good question. I basically spent about half of my my first part, the first part of my career, 12 years or 10 to 12 years in human resources, in various levels as a director of human resources, and then in some leadership roles the last 10 years, leading some of the U.S. back office operations. In my HR leadership role, one of the groups I managed was a group of eight to 10 uh development training instructors, where I got some firm grounding, one in leading them and coaching them, but they also helped me kind of learn how to become a professional coach because that's a lot of what they did. We did a lot of coaching and helping develop the managers that we had in each office to be better leaders of people, that sort of thing. And then actually I applied those coaching skills and expertise that I learned in my leadership role because I led a couple of groups where I was not the expert in the group that I led, which was the meeting and services and learning learning support services groups, but I I helped get kind of coach the leaders that were running those groups that were that reported to me to help them become better, better managers and leaders of people to achieve the objectives we set out each year that were aligned with the corporate strategy and still maintain efficiency and effectiveness in our head count budgets?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah. So we in SCORE, we have over 10,000 certified SCORE mentors who are trained through national SCORE in our local chapters. And while we work here in Houston mentoring those who wish to start a business or expand their business, do you find that your uh background in managing all of these folks and human resources as a team leader is something that you find still rewarding in your retirement as a score-certified mentor?

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Yes, I do. You know, it's interesting. I used to read a lot of leadership and management consulting books and everything. When I came down to it after being a leader, I found out being an effective leader, people can come back to kind of the things we learned when we're children. Lead people effectively, treat them with respect, appreciate their value, and share with them what you can and what you're unable to share. In leading a small business, you really need to apply also knowing your product and your service and your clients very well. And the biggest thing we find, it's a shortcoming for people coming into starting their business that they have to learn is learning the learning their numbers, learning the cost of their what it costs to provide their product or service, and so they can understand then what they can charge on top of that competitively with to provide a reasonable profit or margin so they can be successful and profitable business.

Types of Businesses Helped by SCORE Houston

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah, I find here in Houston, about 40% of the jobs are in the healthcare industry, but the rest of it is mostly in the business community. I'm being a doctor, I can help people in healthcare, but you're more in the business aspect. What kind of business do you find some of our clients have when they come to SCORE for help with their businesses? What are the natures of the products or services here in the Houston area that you are finding most commonly that you are helping them with?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Well, I've had success working with a team of a few other mentors with some folks who moved here from Puerto Rico to open a logistics center back about 10 years ago. And in during that, the last five years that I've helped them, they've increased their revenues from about three to four million to about eight to 10 million. They've gone from a 10,000 square foot warehouse to a 100,000 square foot warehouse. And including that was helping them learn how to market themselves better, more effectively manage their space, et cetera. Here in the Houston area, I also find that a fair number of people who've have come, given my HR background, they wanted to start staffing firms, a couple of them in the healthcare space, as you mentioned, also in construction and janitorial services. In addition, I would say with one lady that I've seen very successful with kind of has successfully found a niche in the hair care industry, she actually has 10 sites in nursing homes where she a couple of times a week with other staff that she has works in these nursing homes to cut and you know, cut and do beauties, do the beauty things that women want done there in the nursing homes, that kind of thing. And she's made quite a successful kind of business by expanding into 10 locations over the last few years, which has been a lot of fun to see. Total business that I knew nothing about. So it helps me continue to continuously learn as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

So from what I've heard, and what you're saying, is we're not talking about people just one person starting a new business. You're really working with fair fairly well-developed businesses and taking them to a new level. So this is more than just a startup. You're really mentoring people who are already in the business space, and you're using your expertise in management to help them really grow their business.

SCORE's Mentor Network and Expertise

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yes. And one of the great things about the Houston chapter in particular is it's the second largest chapter in the country. We have over 125 mentors who come, as you can hear for as people that your audience can hear talking to you and I. I come from an HR background. You're a former doctor. We have people that have come from retired from the oil patch, and they're coming from backgrounds of marketing and business planning, business development, those sorts of things. We have retired accountants, retired attorneys. So we have a whole uh variety of different expertise. And one of the things that I think is particularly good about our chapter is many of us focus on trying to make sure we we leverage that expertise and bring to bear that specific extra expertise to a client when a client has a particular need. So we we do a lot of co-mentoring with each other, which I've found personally uh I like doing, and it gives me a chance to work and learn from some of the other have as mentors here at the Score chapter in Houston.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

So if somebody is interested in score, they can go to our website, score.org, and they can find and pick a chapter, and they can pick actually the profiles of uh various mentors with certain skill sets. So if they wanted somebody with your kind of background or my kind of background, they can look at us and kind of pick some of the expertise that they find would be useful in their business. Is that true?

Discovering and Joining SCORE

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yes. The current example I have is a gentleman that selected me from my profile because he's opening the staffing firm, a temp staffing firm in the hospice space. And he also found uh looking at the profiles of some other mentors around the country, the profile of one gentleman who actually started, who's currently a score mentor in Southern California, who started as well, he's had many starters, but one of the startup firms he had and ran for about seven or eight years was a staffing firm. So, as you know, my background, I was on the corporate side, so I was at the customer side of receiving working with staffing firms for openings I had. And now he's been able to be able to talk to both myself and a gentleman who actually started and ran a staffing firm as well. So there is a lot of depth and expertise around the country, and it's very rich, and we're no charge.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, we we work for free. We're volunteers and we're uh kind of an arm of the SBA. So we're the kind of the working mentors who get people the funding they need, the guidance they need. How did you happen to find out about SCORE when you know you retire from your active business life?

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Well, it's interesting. Usually once or twice a week, back when we still were less electronic and more paper format, I would get the Wall Street Journal and read it. And when they used to have one ass, it was always a little more, but every classified section on the Tuesday Wall Street Journal that talked about reaching out to SCORE if you're interested in doing some mentoring after you retire. And that's how I heard about it. So I looked up the Houston chapter locally about six months before I retired, so I could make sure I had something to transition to because I wanted to be active in my retirement and be able to leverage something that all I'm doing, which is business and my business technology and coaching help. And hang out with some other retired business professionals because that's what the bulk of my background was. And I found both of those things to be true, and I'm happy with it today, five years later still.

Keys to Success for Small Business Owners

SPEAKER_01 11:29

So uh when in your experience with the all of the clients that you've helped in your uh with your skills, what attributes do you find our clients is helps them to become most successful? Is there some way you can profile and kind of figure out what they need, what they have already, and what you can do to help them? There is uh, I assume, a relationship you develop with your client where you can kind of mine their assets and then kind of help them along, giving them the knowledge or the experience to help save them some money and make some good decisions. What are some of the uh salient attributes of your clients do you find are really earmark them for success?

Business Planning and Funding Resources

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Well, Jeff, I'll start off with an example of what I find that that causes people to be unsuccessful or jumping into a business that they know nothing about. We usually find after we ask a few questions, we might not tend to hear back from those people again because they really don't know much about it. Meaning, if you're working, if you want to go in and open up a restaurant, you should have some expertise or knowledge of working in the food industry. Or this gentleman, like I said, who's opening up a temp staffing hospice care temp staffing firm. He's worked in as a chiropractor and in the hospice space. So he's got some expertise in that, so he kind of knows what to expect. Attributes would be people that are willing to work hard. We know that. They have to try and work smart. They really what we find out is there are people that really want to get in and just be, they think they can just start a business and make money. And that's not really the case. People have to have a commitment to it, they have to be willing to learn the basics of that business, they have to know their numbers. Term I hear a lot, especially working with other mentors, if we're working with somebody that's trying to sell a product, is you need to know that your cost of goods sold. What is the actual cost? What does it actually cost you to build something, including your time and your employees' time to put into developing of that product or service? So you can then price it accordingly and competitively in the market and allow yourself some profit to go with it. And you be you have to really be willing to go out and sell. You have to knock on doors, you have to try and create business, that type of thing. Generally, we found people that aren't strong at that. It's it takes them a little longer or they lose interest faster. If you know you're not someone like me who's not strong in sales, or you don't want to hear that no when you get a phone call, then maybe you'd identify what are your strengths and how you will work in your side of the business with your and leverage your strengths, and then try and combine that with somebody that's got skills like sales ability, things of that nature, building, developing business relationships that maybe you don't have that skill and expertise in. So look for somebody that complements what skills you have so you can round out and have a better team.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

So many people are watching Shark Tank these days over the last years, and they think, well, one, do I have to have some kind of crazy unique idea that I can patent and trademark and get a millionaire to give me money? One thing I always think about is does it have to be a very unique business or is it usually a routine business? It's just that you're going into a business that's already there. And is funding a problem? Do I have to go find a millionaire to fund my business? Well, can SCORE help me find resources, even though my credit may not be uh pristine, find the resources and the expertise through loans and grants to get our businesses kicked off. Could you address that?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Yeah, yes, Jeff, we can. We what we tell people is we're we're mentoring and we're not charging for that service. So we're not going to do the work for you, but we have connections and working with the SBA and relationships and knowledge of uh working with people in various banks and credit institutions and other funding sources that have aligned with the SBA to provide SBA backed loans. Uh, what we will help people with in doing that is they have to be able to have a business plan so they can articulate how they're going to start and run their business and a cash flow statement of a couple of years to show, hey, if you're if I'm going to lend you money and I'm the lender, you have to give me some comfort level that you know your numbers and you've got to plan as you best can. We're not geniuses, we can't predict the future, but how you're going to make that money to pay back the loan. There are not as much, but you want to places like grants.gov to find potential grants that might be able to help you. So, yes, we can help people, and we do. It's interesting right now. I'm working as part of a nominating committee for small businesses to be announced next spring for small businesses in various categories of SBA awards. And what I'm finding with a lot of people is they've engaged with us and the SBA over the years to try and get funding. Another thing we did when there's a crisis that happened, such as the pandemic, the SBA was actually able to get funding through the federal government that they uh granted out in the form of actual loans, which they don't normally do, to help people keep their business going and pay their employees when there was a downturn in business until I could get it back up and running. So they've acted as actually a backstop to help businesses to try and get through that pandemic period and then get back up and running afterwards. And so it's very interesting to talk with people in those businesses to see how they've been able to leverage some of those different sources. And we have links through our website that allows people to go out and look at these different funding sources, but also have access to templates like business plan templates and cash flow templates that they can use and leverage, and there's no charge for them from school.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

How do they get this expertise? For example, a lot of my clients, when I talk to them, they say, I don't know how to write a business plan, and I can't teach them in 10 minutes how to write a business plan. Where can they find the resources to uh get the expertise they need on like lessons on how to write a business plan and templates for a business plan?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Where do they get we have we have some webinars that they can listen to? Some are currently live, and you may pay a small fee for that. There are some that are free, but we'll also have a large database of previously recorded webinars that have been taped by at various chapters around the country. And all you have to do is type in on the subject and find that subject, and you'll find various webinars on that subject that could teach you how some of those things. The other thing, for example, the business plan template that we use that we have on the SCORE website, and will ask questions to prompt you. What's the business you're starting? What are your attributes? How are you going to apply them in the business? The biggest thing also a lot of people forget to understand is the biggest thing about starting a business is you want to find a problem that is causing someone or potential customer some sort of not, I wouldn't say grief, but it's a problem for them. And you want to find out how you can solve that problem for them. Then you build on that and show them how you are able to solve that problem for them better than somebody else. That's the value proposition. How do you differentiate your product or service from other potential competitors? And that business plan template that we have kind of asks those types of questions to help you get it finding those kinds of answers, which help you then present that story and your and and your pitch to a to a client.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

So there's a whole body or library of resources available to the public free of charge if they want to learn on how to do a business plan, how to write a 12-month cash flow projection, how to apply for uh bank loans, how to present yourself to clients.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

There's a whole wealth of these, and it's on www.score.org. So these resources and workshops are available mostly at no charge at all.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

That's right. And to expand on that, Jeff, depending on whoever may hear this and what part of the country you're in, we follow a similar format for all of our city chapters around the country. And so if you want to find the chapter and things that might be local to the geographic location you're in, for example, if you're here in Houston, you go to score.org backslash Houston. If you're in the Dallas area, you would go to score.org backslash Dallas. And you'll see a fill, you'll have a similar feel in both templates, but the content is local to that local small business community. Cleveland would be score.org backslash Cleveland. You'll find things that are applicable beyond beyond broader things that could apply to any geographic location.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

So if somebody wanted to start a ranch or a farm in agriculture or livestock, they could actually in their local chapter in the Midwest, they could find a chapter there. It's not necessarily an urban area that's going to help them. They would find a local mentor in their area. It's the same score type mentor, but someone who probably has more expertise germane to what they're trying to develop.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Oh, exactly. And we have over 10,000. You and I are part of a network of over 10,000 mentors across the United States that, again, they're like you and I. They've retired and they want to look to give back. And in our case, we want to be able to try and share what we've learned through our business life, medical occupation, et cetera, to help other people be successful. As we know, generally, small businesses are known in the United States to generate the most new positions in business and jobs for people around the country. And this is our way of giving back to help continue that trend.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

So we're job creators, is what we are. We all just can't go looking for a job. We actually have to have people who have a dream, building a business, and hiring people to help us build the dream.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Yes, very much so.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Very much so. Do you find it's many people have had jobs for many years and then later in life decide I want to start a business? Because, well, for various reasons, I can't make more money doing what I'm doing than I am because I'm already working as hard as I possibly can. I need to start a business. And I found with some of the people I've spoken to that they have a side gig, a talent, uh craft. And this is their side gig, and they'd like to make it a business. I find that's kind of rewarding. Have you found anything like that where somebody has a passion, a talent, but they want to make it into a business? Because they really don't enjoy working the job.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Exactly. I've had I had a couple of good examples. I had a client a couple of years ago who baked case cakes for friends and family and would give them to them for various occasions that that their friends and families were celebrating. And everybody loved their cakes and said you shouldn't do more, you should make a business. So in that lady's case, she's created a website and started to do that and expanded out, started going to local flea markets and farmers' markets and selling, and then got people plugged in. And now you have social media, TikTok and Instagram. You can put your product out there. And she's become very successful with that business as an example.

Personal Satisfaction of Being a SCORE Mentor

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Sure. And I I've learned in my experience, being you know an older retired person too, that I've had to get go back and get some training because so much of the marketing today is in social media. As you mentioned, when I did it, a lot of it was shake hands, smile, and give them out a business card. Well, it's changed a lot now. And a lot of the young people, the generations behind us that we talk to now in starting businesses, they know all about every kind of social media, websites, apps that are there to develop business, which is good. But I always feel my contribution is more funneling people to get to that website because now there's so many websites that you can have a website, it'll sit there forever, but nobody's looking at it unless you go back to a little bit of old school and learn how to do some networking or some personal relationships, building contacts that can help grow your business. So yeah, I found out in my experience that sometimes a little bit of the old is helps the new get the clients funneled to that website. Yeah. What kind of personal satisfaction do you get being a mentor? Should some of our listeners be interested in developing uh a skill like we have becoming a official certified score mentor.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Oh, they they can go out and fill out an intake form at score.org backslash Houston and we we interview people and then take them in and certify them through some co-mentoring sessions and online webinars that we go through. I have a high degree of satisfaction. If you're real good, then I pay people, I it's really fun, fun, and good to help people help them achieve their dreams, if you will, that kind of thing. The other thing I like is the camaraderie I've gained by just some friendships that I've developed with other people. What drove me to that was I saw both my father and father-in-law when they retired, they didn't do anything after they retired, they just ran errands and everything else. And I always tell people, I'm not good with my hands, like my brother-in-law, who builds burn houses and cabinet furniture at his shop, and then he for family and friends and sells it. But I like, but I've done more around being liking being in the business environment with my business knowledge, and that's what I can leverage. And that challenges me with my brain to keep my brain active, which we know is an important ingredient to do in retirement. And the side benefit of that, I've getting all the bacon and maintain some very good relationships.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

So it's it's so you're mentally and inspirational, you're mentally and inspirationally very handy. You're like me. I can't put a nail in a piece of wood, but boy, like I like to use my mind.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Yeah, and it continues with the trend of continuous learning that everybody hears about in the business environment today. You have to be a continuous learner. And I like it because for me, I worked on the corporate side my entire life. I've learned a whole new side of the business world through all the small business people that I've talked to. From funding to business plans to, I mean, I managed budgets of a few uh several million dollars, but I didn't know that much about cash flow. And what you find out in small businesses is cash is king. You really need to know what your cash flow is, the cost of what it may cost of what it takes, what it costs you to make your product, so you can then determine a good profit margins that you can price your product competitively and sell it. And those are all good things that I wasn't that familiar with before. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Maybe you find the same thing I do when I talk to people who've had jobs their whole lives and now suddenly want to become capitalists, entrepreneurs, etc. I find it there's a mindset to owning a business rather than getting a Friday paycheck every other week.

unknown 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Do you find that we have to do a little bit of reprogramming of ourselves and them to think like there's going to be a little risk here? I'll be going to be getting it, borrowing a little money, and it's a little scary because banks, lenders, investors, they want you to have some skin in the game. Yeah. So there is a bit of risk that people who've got a paycheck their whole life, there's risk involved in having a job because you can get laid off, like people are finding these days.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

And there's a risk in becoming a capitalist and investing some of your own money or borrowed money. So I find I have to maybe mentor or teach some of these folks. You have to change your mind a little bit to become a businessman. And that's maybe our role model job and score. We're teaching Americans to become business people again.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

We are. And and also you the biggest thing I found again is the one that people need to understand their costs, know their numbers, and they've got to be willing to, as you talked about earlier, you have to do more than what you're describing, like you had said, it's passive marketing, which is TikToks and social media, things like that. You got to be willing to knock on doors, make some phone calls, network, and and it might take you every time you get five no's to get to a yes, but that's what it takes, and you got to be comfortable with hearing no, because not every customer is going to want what you have to sell.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yeah. And so I think they kind of lean on us, and and I think it's our job to make sure they don't invest the money in the wrong place. Because you know, right, starting a business can be a minefield, and we need to have a roadmap of where the minds are. That's where the business plan comes in.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

You know, that's that's a good thing. That's a good thing you mentioned. I had a good taste of that a year ago where somebody that looked out to me and they went, they've been an HR generalist and doing some other things in the HR field for about 10 years and wanted to start their own business. But when I got really talking to them and everything, I found that that probably wasn't going to be the right thing for them. I could just tell, and I asked a lot of different questions. And so they decided after two or three sessions that they were going to go look for another job again, because not everybody's meant to be a small business person. So I went into resume review mode and networking mode and kind of got a little bit beyond score and helped that person, you know, get their resume updated and gave them some thoughts and pointers on how to go start their job search again. And they ended up landing another job a few months later. And, you know, they're they're an employee, but they they found that was for them a probably a better fit.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Sure. I think another misconception is I felt that was successful. Exactly. So I think our listeners need to know that we have a website both for people who want to become volunteers and for those who want to use us as mentors to help with free guidance to help maybe help pave the road to their dreams, to their success, save them some money, get them, help them get the funding they need so they're not undercapitalized, get them the skill, the expertise, the legal, the bookkeeping, the supply chain, knowledge about how to market them business, how to market themselves. All of this is available through our hundreds of mentors in each chapter. And we've been doing this for over 60 years. So it's not like we're beginners doing this. And we are a volunteer nonprofit. We're here to help folks, and people need to know that score.org is the beginning of maybe the rest of their lives, whether it's as a mentor or as a mentee, to become a successful business person or to help people find their path and get the rewards of helping those become successful. Well, all said, Jeff. Yeah. So Rick, I want to thank you for your time. I think we can wrap this up. And if anyone has more questions, you know, the website is www.score.org. Wherever you are in the country, we're there and we are free with experts in any field of any kind of business to make sure success is something that is in their future if they're ready to work themselves out of a job.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Thank you again. Thanks for listening to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston. If you're an entrepreneur or small business owner, we'd love to support your journey. You can reach us at 713-487-6565, or visit us at 8701-South Gestner, Suite 1200, Houston, Texas 77074. Our office is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., except for federal holidays. Walk-ins are always welcome. To learn more, to request free mentoring, or to register for workshops, visit us online at score.org slash Houston. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and remember, at Score, we're here to help you thrive.