The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma: Now What?

Suzanne Billings started her business accidentally, with $30 and the bright idea to make herself a necklace.

That first piece, three circular shapes hand-stamped with the words “faith,” “hope,” and “love” – then strung together on a silver chain – turned out better than Billings imagined.

“I thought, ‘People might really go for this. This is pretty cool,'” she said.

Less than three years later, people have gone for it in a big way. After doing about $20,000 in sales in 2008, Billings said she more than tripled that in 2009, and 2010 promises to be even bigger.

In addition to the personalized pieces Billings makes in her garage studio, she’s also upping production of prepackaged – but still handmade – items. Billings also is launching a children’s line of jewelry, 100 percent compliant with the Consumer Product Safety Information Act, in June.

All the items are sold under the company name Hip To Be Me.

“I still can’t believe I spent 30 bucks and now I’m dealing with retailers all over the country,” Billings said.

Billings’ success, in fact, has led her to a point not unfamiliar to blooming entrepreneurs, particularly those immersed in home-based businesses.

“I’m not exactly sure what to do next,” she said. “We want to keep growing … but I don’t want to grow faster than I can handle.”

Kim Hodous doesn’t know Billings, though they both make Fayetteville their home. Still, Hodous smiled when she heard the story of Billings, presented as an unnamed business-owner suddenly grappling with the results of unexpected success.

Hodous can identify. She used to make jewelry, too, sitting at her kitchen table with her two daughters serving as helpers.

Hodous also endured humble beginnings, posting sales of barely more than $1,500 in 2003. Armed with uncanny focus and a serious dose of determination, Hodous increased sales to more than $20,000 in 2004 and more than $88,000 in 2005.

By the end of 2006, Hodous had given up production of her jewelry items, the bulk of which are sold via group fundraising projects. While she still designed the pieces, she had begun outsourcing production due to increased demand.

The result, in 2006, was sales of more than $625,000. These days, Hodous said her company, Rockwood Jewelry, moves more than 500,000 units per year.

“I truly, truly, from the day I started, knew where I wanted to go,” Hodous said.

By the time she had added four employees, Hodous said, she knew she’d outgrown her home office-type enterprise.

“We couldn’t get out of our driveway in the mornings,” she said with a laugh.

Part of Hodous’ expansion included finding outside office space. It also meant learning to give up control of parts of her operation.

That was a necessity Hodous said she recognized even when she was still working at home. After quickly growing tired of packing boxes, she hired a college student to do so for a couple of hours every afternoon.

Despite her business acumen, Hodous also has a distaste for “dealing with numbers.” Even now Hodous rarely looks at a spreadsheet without a fistful of M&M’s for comfort, and prefers to defer to a bookkeeper.

“Replace the jobs that you like the least,” Hodous said. “The things that you love, that fill you up – keep those.”

Hodous said there were additional rules she followed when her business began to grow.

“When it comes time to expand, whether that means adding employees, buying your materials in bulk, or whatever it might be, know your numbers,” she said. “If your cash flow doesn’t work, you’re out of business.”

Hodous said she also is constantly on the lookout for diversification opportunities. That’s exemplified by her private label division – jewelry items that include a company’s logo, motto, etc. – a line of licensed Arkansas Razorbacks jewelry, and a new high-end line of handmade items featuring all-natural gemstones.

Now Hodous is eyeing another move. Professional speaking was her first love, but put on hold while raising small children, Hodous said.

A March gig speaking to Northwest Arkansas’ Metro Area Board of Realtors is first up for Hodous, but her sights are set on the kinds of audiences that bring $10,000 fees. It’s a lofty goal, to be sure, but part of Hodous’ philosophy – and her message at such speaking engagements – is that sustained success doesn’t happen without a plan.

“I have a system that’s worked, in that how we show up in the beginning is how we get the results we’re looking for in the end,” she said. “I think you always start with the end in mind.”

And while she hopes to parlay her success into profitable speaking engagements, Hodous said she’s also willing to share tips free of charge given the right circumstance.

“I’d give away any secret I have … because I don’t believe there are any secrets,” she said with a laugh.

 

From Broke to Booming

Perhaps no one has made more out of sharing secrets to success with a smile than Ali Brown.

The CEO of Ali International LLC, Brown has become a sought-after expert in online marketing and oversees the publication of a magazine aimed at women entrepreneurs. Brown also runs a wildly successful coaching and seminar enterprise known as the Millionaire Protégé Club, as well as an online boutique that bears her name.

Recently featured among Inc. magazine’s list of 500 fast-growing companies, Ali International enjoyed a revenue jump of more than 800 percent ($397,262 to $3.8 million) from 2005 to 2008. Like Billings and Hodous, though, Brown started her business at home.

In a story she says has become the favorite of interviewers everywhere, Brown had quit her job with a New York ad agency and was trying to launch an online marketing career from her apartment. While on her way to have drinks with friends one night, Brown stopped at an ATM only to find she couldn’t withdraw a $20 bill because her balance was too low.

Brown said she canceled her plans with friends, but was determined to make it on her own rather than go back to work for someone else.

“My big goal in 1999 was to quit my job and still be able to pay my own rent,” she said in a recent telephone interview from Miami.

Brown eventually gained some measure of success by attracting clients via e-mail newsletters. She later wrote an e-book about online marketing, and said her own “Aha” moment came when she held her first workshop.

The workshop was designed to teach other business-owners how to use the Internet to market. The audience consisted of 28 people, far from the 1,000 expected to attend her Las Vegas event this fall.

Still, Brown said she knew by her audience’s reaction she was onto something. Her next thought was “What next?”

Like Hodous, Brown said she realized she needed to focus on the things she did best, the things that made her business successful. So, while expanding, she followed the “80-20 Rule,” the idea that 80 percent of her results would come from 20 percent of her activities.

That’s one of three basic rules Brown said she stresses when talking to business-owners like Billings.

“What are the most important things that only you can do?” Brown said.

Brown also recommended finding a mentor or coach for sharing ideas, and realizing that assuming debt often is necessary.

“Debt isn’t always a bad thing,” Brown said, adding that small investments made to purchase equipment or beef up a marketing budget can produce big revenue gains.

“You have to be willing to take that leap of faith.”

 

Pleasantly Puzzling

Billings has taken a couple of baby-sized jumps, relatively speaking. The first was asking Paige Thompson, owner of Bella Jack’s Children’s Boutique, if she would be interested in ordering some of Billings’ work.

That conversation led to a display, and within a few weeks, Billings’ had received requests from a handful of other retailers. Thompson eventually introduced Billings to her market sales representative, and that led to seven more clients.

“I didn’t even go to market the whole first year I used her,” Billings said of the sales rep. “I was just sending her commission checks going, ‘This is great.'”

Billings’ jewelry now can be found in about 60 stores nationwide, and the growth doesn’t show any signs of slowing. Billings even has considered hiring a family member to help on a full-time basis with administrative and some art-related duties.

Still, she cringes at the thought of giving up much control of the personalized, handmade pieces.

“I think it kind of loses of its value,” she said when asked why another worker couldn’t help produce the jewelry.           

So, for now, Billings is expanding in the ways she deems feasible, though she admits to often coming back to one nagging question: What next