Peer Consulting for Entrepreneurs
When Bill Pegnato started his roof-maintenance company in 1992, he was armed with a business degree from Rutgers University and years of experience in the trade.
But despite his academic attainments and on-site smarts, his business remained sluggish.
He thought about hiring outside consultants but was shocked at the $2,000-a-day fee he was quoted. Then he spotted a newspaper advertisement for a 10-week business course offered at the Valley Economic Development Center--for free.
Today his company, Pegnato & Pegnato, has 80 employees and is expected to top $10 million in annual sales.
His start-up blossomed into a nationwide enterprise, with clients such as Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck & Co., Kmart and Mervyn’s. And his wife, Mariella, quit her job as the director of marketing for Pacific Bell to become the company’s president.
“Our business is doubling each year,” said Pegnato. “The entrepreneur’s program really got me out of a box. I started to think about possibilities instead of the day-to-day [details].”
The program serves as a crash course in Business 101 for the uninitiated and a refresher course for those who already have business degrees.
It concentrates on the most treacherous areas of managing a business--such as obtaining credit lines, formulating business plans and developing marketing strategies--as well as offering 10 free hours of one-on-one consulting with experts.
To qualify for the program, participants must own a business located in the city of Los Angeles that is between 6 months and 5 years old and have a valid business license. More than 900 people have completed the series since its inception in 1992.
On a recent Tuesday evening at the VEDC building in Van Nuys, six small-business owners from six disparate industries huddled around a conference table to discuss common problems.
They were participating in a special peer group that is offered by the center in addition to the series’ regular classes and seminars.
Part bull session, part pep rally, the group was moderated by Paul O’Reilly, the series’ director.
Each person was allotted 10 minutes of peer feedback about a problem they had faced in operating their business during the past week.
Barbara Weg, who owns a metal-finishing company in Chatsworth, said that as her success has grown, so has the number of employees--and administrative headaches. All the paperwork required by state regulatory agencies was bogging her down, she said, and keeping her away from her area of expertise--sales and marketing.
The class then debated the pros and cons of hiring an outside human resources expert, based on their personal experiences.
“My problem is cash flow,” said Randy Witt, who runs a television production company, also in Chatsworth.
Bruce H. Morris, a North Hollywood wholesale cabinet and furniture distributor, pondered whether or not he should get into the mail-order business or offer same-day delivery.
Debbie Montrose, a Northridge interior designer, bemoaned the fact that she had to spend all her time interviewing prospective employees rather than managing her business.
Suggestions were offered, strategies debated. Sometimes the critiques turned harsh.
The last person to take his turn, Raffel Thompson, passed around samples of the magazine he designed for his business, which advertises remote control planes and cars. Printed on black-and-white bonded paper, it was crammed with small photos competing for space.
“What, this cost $4?” exclaimed one of his peers.
“No offense, but this looks like something you copied yourself at the office,” said another.
Far from being offended, Thompson was grateful for the criticism and decided to make several changes to his publication, adding articles and more white space.
“This class is about real people facing real issues,” Thompson said.
Morris, the furniture distributor, summed up the fundamental value of the course: “When you’re starting out, you don’t have anyone to validate your decisions. You get that here.”
