From Corporate Executive to Entrepreneur : For richer and poorer, a former human resources manager is learning what owning a consulting firm means.
Human resources consultant D. Mark Carneal often makes his clients climb 15-foot walls and jump off a 12-foot perch to foster team spirit.
Running the obstacle course, Carneal says, teaches team building and engenders trust among managers.
Carneal knows a bit about climbing and jumping. Last year, Carneal, a human resources executive with Restaurant Enterprises Group, left after a 22-year career there and started his own consulting service, Innovative Resources, in Irvine. The six-person company offers human resources knowledge to businesses wanting to adapt their strategic plans to a fast-changing economy.
Moving from a large corporation into a small firm has been “scarier than hell at times,” Carneal, 43, said. “Times are not good right now . . . and every month is like a roller coaster. One month you have $30,000 to $40,000 in billings, and the next month you have only $6,000.”
Carneal acknowledges having made mistakes. He drew a reprimand from his accountant after paying cash for office furniture when he could have arranged for credit and not drained the company’s limited cash supply. One of his biggest regrets, he says, is having waited until after starting up before hiring a publicist.
“You’ve got to start marketing yourself before you open the doors,” Carneal said. “We had $200,000 in (contracts) lined up when we opened, but now we’re scrambling because many of those things are finishing up.”
Carneal says he is confident that Innovative Resources will survive, though, because he and his partners followed advice that they regularly give to corporate clients: Look before you leap.
“There’s a key difference between me and other consultants,” Carneal said. “And that’s the fact that I didn’t lose a job. I planned for 24 months in advance, in great detail, prior to opening the firm.”
Carneal, who left Irvine-based REG in 1992, also made changes in his personal life before completing the career switch. “I began paying things down and reducing our standard of living,” Carneal said. “And, as a single parent, I sat down with my son and had several discussions on why I was entering into this.”
He also contacted people already doing consulting work full-time to ask about pitfalls. “Everything (bad) they said would happen is coming true,” Carneal said, “but because of the planning, everything they said would happen at the six-month point was behind us before we started the business.”
Southern California’s struggling economy has been a hindrance because contracts are coming in slowly, Carneal said, but it has also helped Innovative Resources to cut costs.
“Leases are easier to secure, and it’s easier to get a small line of credit” with suppliers, Carneal said. His company is also hoping to benefit by appealing to companies that need management-level advice but can’t afford to hire professionals full-time.
Carneal isn’t waiting for business to come to him. “I get flashbacks of all the times that I hung up on people” when he was with REG, he said. “Now they’re hanging up on me. (Consultants) tell you it’s one in 10 calls that are productive, but I’d say it’s more like one in 40 or 50.”
Rather than confine itself to Southern California, Innovative Resources is marketing itself in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas and San Francisco.
Innovative Resources’ professional staff includes some people who worked with Carneal during his corporate years. Jim Moore is another former REG executive, and Nellie Attwater did consulting work for REG. Another staffer, Mike Howard, has owned several small businesses.
“Everybody is on a long-term profit-sharing plan,” Carneal said. “Basically, we practice what we preach . . . which is long-term quality service that’s designed for long-term success.”
If your Orange County company has annual sales of less than $10 million, we would like to consider it for a future column. Call O.C. Enterprise at (714) 966-7871.
