By Renee Schofield, CEO
Last month, I mentioned the person who told me I had lost my mind in thinking I could make this business work. It was disheartening and made me second-guess myself. If you know me, that kind of feeling sets my wheels in motion to prove the naysayers wrong. So I started working… hard.
I am a staunch believer in the Small Business Development Centers. Every state has an operation and I had used them before in Iowa, where I produced a monthly farm-related newspaper. I called the Alaska SBDC and was transferred to Jason Dineen. Jason and I reviewed my business plan, tweaked some things, and started working on visibility for TSS. I will be forever grateful for the things I learned from Jason – especially in the accounting area. It was and still is my least favorite thing to do. It’s critical to understand your numbers, be able to analyze where you need to make change and why. Jason also gave me some great ideas about how to communicate the value of what I do to the rest of the world. I have had other wonderful advisors at SBDC in Kimberlee Hayward (she has since passed away – far too early) and Linda Auger. Jon Bittner, who leads the Alaska SBDC also is a good resource when I want to look at business in the big picture. What I will say is that regardless of what stage of business you are in, SBDC always has something you can use. No question is too small!! Full disclosure, I am a member of the AK SBDC Advisory Board.
In my first year, in my little room at Ketchikan Medical Clinic, I grew my client list like crazy. My neighbor in the building was Quest Diagnostics. That is where I met Cindi Byrd. She had just hired on as the phlebotomist for Quest. We became fast friends and both of us had a strong interest in what the other was doing. And that is how I became a phlebotomist and Cindi became a Specimen Collection Technician. This allowed both of us to have support if one of us had to be out of the office for a day or two. It worked well for us. Well enough that we are both at the ready to help the other at a moment’s notice, still today. I am most grateful for her friendship over all these years. Her support for TSS has been unwavering. Even though she keeps trying to retire, we keep calling her back to help us…. And she keeps showing up!
During this time, as I grew my business on Prince of Wales Island, I met Lonnie Walters. Lonnie was a counselor at the local counseling agency and also did drug screening. I called to inquire about having a contract with him to do collections for TSS. He said yes and yet another lifelong friendship was born. If you know Lonnie, you know that he is straight up with his thoughts. If he thinks it, he says it and he is so honest it can be painful. But he always had my back! He shared his best resources for products with me, some of which we still use today. He shared his best “catch the cheater” hacks, which I was clueless about in the early days. He also was a fellow board member on the Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, when I was appointed to the board by Governor Frank Murkowski. I am still a board member of that agency and have just finished my term as Board Chair. Lonnie will still drop into our Ketchikan office from time to time to check that we are behaving and doing things right!
And what did we do next? Check back in January to learn more!