CAREERS : SHIFTING GEARS : Forethought Is Key When Starting Your Own Business

Carlene Gibson believed that if anyone could start her own business, it was she.

After all, Gibson had headed Cypress College’s Training and Economic Development office, which educated would-be entrepreneurs. When the college eliminated the program in 1991, Gibson decided to provide the services herself.

“I had the contacts and had done the groundwork,” she recalls.

But it soon became clear that she didn’t have everything it takes to be an entrepreneur. It wasn’t a lack of cash or a poor plan, the leading causes of failed start-ups. Rather, Gibson’s problem was her need to be around people.

“I realized my energy comes from being with people, people who are generating ideas all the time,” she said. “As I sat in the office in my home, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I was not of that temperament. I need people.”

Now the dean of admissions at Cypress College, Gibson’s on-and-off struggle with self-employment is a poignant illustration of the dimensions of the problems facing would-be entrepreneurs. Money, products, vision and energy are all important. But one of the most significant, and perhaps most overlooked, ingredients is personality.

Having the proper attitude and being ready to accept a dramatic change in lifestyle are among the factors in successfully launching a business, even if it means just hanging out a shingle as a consultant to the industry that once employed you.

Massive layoffs in aerospace, construction, real estate, banking and other industries in recession-plagued California have produced a bumper crop of bright, motivated people who are thinking about becoming self-employed. Certainly there are ample attractions to being your own boss.

You have control over your duties, hours and income. You’re able to hire the talent you want to work with, and there’s the overall satisfaction of succeeding or failing on your own and, perhaps, of eventually providing work for others. Women, in particular, often see self-employment as an alternative to the glass ceiling that holds many back in corporate America.

Becoming self-employed also allows some people “to go back to what they really wanted to do when they were 20 years old,” said Greg Kishel, director of the Orange County Small Business Development Center in Santa Ana. “Maybe they wanted to be a photographer or an architect, and now they’ve been given a second chance.”

But the challenges are just as numerous. There’s the lack of a routine paycheck, and no employer to pay for your health insurance, sick leave, vacation time, unemployment benefits and workers’ compensation.

You might hire the people you want, but you also have to deal with their problems. There are the threats to your own well-being caused by sleepless nights and other stress. The uncertainty of your new venture also can unsettle family members.

Roy Robbins knows both the good and bad. After working as a Hughes Aircraft Co. engineer for 11 years, he took a voluntary retirement offer in 1992 and started Bad Moon Books, a mail-order provider of science-fiction, horror and mystery books.

Robbins, 38, had been collecting such books for 15 years, and he jumped at the chance to turn his passion into commerce. But because he runs the fledgling firm from his Anaheim home, he learned it can cause lifestyle problems.

“I had envisioned that when I went into business for myself, that it would be pretty low-key with minor stress,” he said. Instead, “I tend to be pretty driven,” and it’s a struggle “knowing when to turn off the business and get on with my life and not neglect my family,” Robbins said.

Even if you have the right disposition, what tools do you need to be successful?

“The single most critical thing is you must have a good plan,” said Susan Fox, director of the Business Ownership Service System (BOSS), a program to train laid-off aerospace and defense workers run from Kishel’s center in Orange County.

Success also means “being willing to gain knowledge and experience in the business you wish to go into,” said Bert Dragin, a Los Angeles counselor for the Service Corp. of Retired Executives , an arm of the U.S. Small Business Administration that provides free help to would-be entrepreneurs.

That suggestion might sound simplistic. But Dragin said a surprising number of people say they want to open a restaurant, for instance, without ever having worked in one.

“We advise them to take a job in a restaurant and learn the business before they mortgage their house or sell the farm to open the restaurant of their dreams,” Dragin said.

Robbins, the book seller, agreed. “Make sure that whatever you’re going into, that you have an incredibly deep knowledge” of the business, he said.

Self-employment is no place for the shy, Dragin said. Even with a solid business plan, “you’ve still got to sell someone” on your product or service, he said. “That’s what a lot of people are afraid to do.”

And don’t forget the familiar bane of most people launching their own firms: insufficient cash.

There are lenders that provide start-up capital, but too often the entrepreneur mistakenly thinks he doesn’t need much of his own money to get started.

“The majority of those that come through (the door) are people looking for 100% financing,” said James Whitney, head of the Small Business Administration loan division of American Pacific State Bank, a Sherman Oaks-based bank that specializes in that type of lending.

But at American Pacific, the entrepreneur is expected to kick in 20% to 50% of the new firm’s total “project costs”--the initial cash needed for working capital, inventory, equipment and other operating costs, he said.

Starting Your Own Business

Want to launch your own business? Here are organizations that provide courses, counseling, booklets and other services to help you, often at no charge.

* Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs). There are about 25 such centers in California. To find the center nearest you, call the state SBDC office at (916) 324-5068 or contact your local office of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

* Service Corp. of Retired Executives (SCORE), another division of the Small Business Administration. In Los Angeles County, (213) 894-3016; in Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, (714) 836-1866; in San Diego County, (619) 557-7272.

* Business Ownership Service System (BOSS), a 10-week self-employment course for laid-off aerospace and defense workers that is affiliated with the Orange County SBDC: (714) 647-1172 or (310) 947-0427.