Two Generations of Entrepreneurs

By Bob McCarthy The headline is economic development. Behind the headlines are the entrepreneurs starting, managing and growing the companies that contribute, directly and indirectly to the region's economic development. Deborah King, Director of the Small Business Incubator located in the Scibelli Enterprise Center, notes that in 2005, the then 10 incubating tenants generated more than $5 million in revenue and the combined revenue of past and present tenants is estimated to be more than $12 million. Of equal note is that 94 percent of the businesses that start at the incubator are still in business six-years later, versus SBA stats showing a national average of 40 percent. Two Entrepreneurs Two companies contributing to the area's economic development are Fiscal Training Solutions and JX2 Productions. Both are run by entrepreneurs, each with a different services and target markets, but both have high praise for going it alone and their success speaks well of those who by chance or by choice take the business road less traveled. Amy Grabowski owns and operates Fiscal Training Solutions. She is a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor and a Springfield native who has worked in a variety of education and education-relayed positions before starting FTS in 1999. Grabowski was an elementary school teacher in Springfield until Proposition 2 1/2 resulted in the lay off of her along with hundreds of other teachers. "I enrolled in a federally-funded program just for teachers at Holyoke Community College. There were only two course offerings accounting or computers. [At the time] computers were very large and you needed to "speak the [programming] language, so I enrolled in the accounting program." She was one of three to complete the 27-week program. She sought a position as a bookkeeper and was hired keep the books for a federally funded summer youth project. "I was hired more because of my experience as a teacher than as a bookkeeper because I could talk to the teachers." In the fall, the project ended and she I took over for a new program and within two years was promoted to the position of finance director and the head of a department with a staff of five responsible for handling about $7 million a year. Grabowski's reputation as a finance director was noticed, and the Commonwealth hired her to train the other finance directors state-wide, until the winds of political change shifted and she helped with transitioning services from the Division of Employment Security into the private sector, i.e., Future Works. When that position ended, Grabowski took her retirement funds, first worked as a consultant for non-profits organizations, eventually taking a crash course in QuickBooks and, she says, "In nine weeks, I was a QuickBooks Pro Consultant." From 2000 until 2006, Amy ran FTS out of a home office before being invited to relocate to the Enterprise Center in mid-2006, an invitation backed in part by a belief that FTS could contribute to the area's economic development. In less than a year, not only has her consulting business grown but FTS has also hired two employees and two sub-contractors The FTS Approach At this point, Grabowski spends about 60 percent of her week on-site with clients and the remaining 40 percent in her office taking care of business and offering Web seminars for users of QuickBooks. Her objective with all her clients is to instruct them on how to use the software efficiently. "Once they learn to use it, they spend less time keeping their books. They can devote more time to working on their business versus working in it. I also try to teach them what [financial information] they want to look at and when," said Grabowski. "Many small-business owners think they only need to look at such information come April when their taxes are due. At that point they are concerned about minimizing the amount of money they made, instead of making their money throughout the year and using tax advantages." "Recently, I had a client whose sales doubled but he was losing more money than last year because his expenses had increased. He never kept his books and waited until April to put it all together and give it to his accountant. Mentally, he had a running total of his sales, but that is all he had. He had hired eight employees to cope with the new business, but his pay structure was too high to support his sales. And he didn't know it." People usually come to FTS because they have installed the software but are not using it correctly. Grabowski notes, for example, estimates are being entered but they are being counted as sales. The result is a false reading of total sales which counts towards taxes. Or, a similar scenario finds clients entering expenses as income. "It's not just the mechanics of using the software, but understanding the rationale of why you are using it," says Grabowski. "It must be an integral part of a company's daily, weekly and monthly routines, and I have developed prompts to help companies do those, and it only takes them 10 minutes a day." Grabowski sings loudly the praises of the Enterprise Center and the advisory board with whom she meets quarterly. They have provided feedback on all aspects of her business, from her financial statements to her Web site. They encouraged her to add a bookkeeping service because her time was better spent on QuickBooks, and she has started offering Web seminars. The client sits at their computer, and over the phone Grabowski walks them through the steps they need to become more efficient and their business more profitable . Andy Jensen If FTS started when Grabowski left teaching, JX2 Productions started while the Jensen brothers were still in high school. Andy and Eric Jensen are from Agawam. JX2's inauspicious start was in August 2001 at their parents' 25th wedding anniversary. "We and our sister decided to throw them a surprise party. We looked for entertainment but couldn't really put our finger on anything we thought appropriate." said Andy. "We bought speakers, an amplifier and mixing board and a CD player and plugged everything into a cousin's computer and we were ready to rock 'n' roll. Then one person asked us to do something and then another and over the four years we were in high school, we researched equipment and upgraded what we had." The brothers both were active in the high school band Andy played sax and Eric played trumpet. In 2005, we participated in a business plan competition at STCC and that's when we learned about the business incubator at the Enterprise Center. Currently, Andy is a fulltime student at STCC and owns and operates JX2 Productions. Eric works fulltime in sales and djs at events. Andy notes that their home grown venture became a serious business when they moved to the Incubator Center, formed an LLC with a federal ID and had to pay taxes. Andy and Eric agree that their company works because they enjoy what they do and they have identified a viable market, primarily catering to a younger demographic offering disc jockey and karaoke services for graduation and sweet sixteen parties. Their clients come primarily by word of mouth. "When we are out, we drop off a business card, talk to people at events, drive around in our truck with the name and contact information our rolling billboard. And we are all over the Internet with links to other DJ Web sites. We buy ads on a few entertainment Web sites, join online networks and even share business with a competitor." The JX2 Advantage Andy believes that because JX2 is a fulltime business they have an advantage that benefits their customers. "Customers don't see all the behind-the-scenes work you do just running and promoting the business," says Andy. "Because we are fulltime, we are accessible and that means a higher quality of service. We help clients link up with other vendors and we coordinate with those vendors ahead of time and make for a trouble free event." For their part, a typical event requires two hours of music with 40-60 songs. Pre-event planning includes identifying the customer's musical tastes ("Which radio stations they listen to.") and arranging selections from their library to match the client's tastes and the party's theme. Although sometimes on-site requests go against a prearranged theme such as the adult guest at the sweet sixteen party who wants to hear "Stairway to Heaven." For that guest and others, JX2 has 12,000 karaoke songs on a specially configured computer which incorporates a visual display of a song's lyrics. JX2 has moved beyond their parents' backyard with booking out until 2009, but they are not resting on their laurels. Within the past year Andy started an event-planning and management company. There are no events planned for his parents' backyard.