"Carpe diem" - seize the day
All three agree that the first step toward starting your own business is to seize the moment or opportunity that is presented to you. It's not enough to just recognize an opportunity, they note, but you must be willing to take advantage of it and have the resources and wherewithal to do so. A business opportunity initially may come either through your own idea or by some fortuitous chain of events in your current industry.
For Kaufman, the idea to open Chapter 11 resulted from her love of
books, her business sense and an indirect challenge from book publishers.
During a visit to another city Kaufman noticed an abundance of independent discount bookstores. When she returned to Atlanta, she noticed that the city did not have any discount bookstores and began contemplating the idea of opening one. She called several publishers in New York, who essentially told her that Atlanta was not a particularly good market for independent bookstores.
"As soon as I heard that I knew that I was going to prove them wrong," Kaufman said. Although she had started a successful girls' clothing boutique named Bubble Gum, whose annual sales she pushed to $700,000 in eight years, she saw an opportunity to exploit a niche in discount books that no one else in Atlanta was serving and decided to sell the boutique to go fulltime with the bookstore. She has not looked back. Chapter 11, now in its eighth year, is Atlanta's largest and one of the nation's largest independent bookstores. The company recently signed a lease in Roswell for its 12th store in the Atlanta area. Kaufman sees opportunities for additional stores in the growing metro area, as well as in other southeastern markets.
Robin Hensley's opportunities have much to do with her own drive, ability to network, resourcefulness, and determination to succeed. After graduating with an accounting degree from Georgia State, Hensley worked as an accountant and a consultant, owned her own audiovisual company, was director of practice development for a local law firm, and is now a marketing executive with Patton Construction.
"There hasn't been some big master plane," said Hensley, who was named one of Business Atlanta's "Top 40 Under 40" and one of the Atlanta Business Chronicle's "Top 20 Self-Made Women of Atlanta." Rather than follow a hierarchical pattern of growth in a certain field or occupation, Hensley has chosen to seize opportunities through a variety of means. "I didn't limit my perception of what my opportunities are," she said. "I feel I am in business for myself no matter what company I am working for."
The key to becoming a successful entrepreneur, she noted, is to develop yourself as a person, opening your horizons to new ways of thinking, working and living. She has her mission statement and encourages others to develop their own. "Although your company's mission and that of other organizations in which you are involved are important, you should have your own mission to ensure that your personal goals and objectives are not sacrificed."
After falling asleep at her desk off and on while working on an audit staff for a local CPA firm, Hensley decided to pursue a position in which she could have more interaction with people. She discussed her prospects with one of her mentors, who told her she might consider consulting. While working as a consultant for Ernst and Young for the next two and a half years, she got to see and learn about more types of businesses than she ever would behind the desk, which caused her to contemplate opening her own business.
Since her father had been in the repair business for audiovisual (AV) equipment for schools and churches, Hensley had some knowledge of the industry. In 1981, she used her vacation time to attend an AV convention in Anaheim, California. After meeting two of the most successful AV business owners at the convention, she flew to Chicago and Washington, D.C. to study the two companies' operations. She returned to Atlanta, did her market research, and developed a business plan for Audio Visual Services.
From 1981 to 1989, she expanded its services to adapt to clients' needs and increased annual sales by 20 percent or more each year. After running her own company successfully for eight years, she decided to sell the business and move on to the next challenge. "Everybody has a dream to do it [start your own business]," Hensley said "I just decided to do it sooner rather than later."
Carl Zwerner's opportunity to have a share in his own business also came relatively early in his life. While attending Georgia State University, or what was then the evening school of the "Atlanta Division of the University of Georgia," Zwerner worked as a plant manager for Owens Illinois, formerly the world's largest producer of bottles. In 1958, Zwerner was offered several opportunities: He could have either transferred to Toledo, Ohio, with his company, or relocated to south Florida to become a partner with Perrine industries, a glass company owned by his father and his father's partner.
"The entrepreneurial spirit was showing up then. Although I had lifetime security as a plant manager with the company I was working for at the time, I realized that I had knowledge of the business and the confidence to work on my own. It was an opportunity that doesn't come along often, so I felt I owed it to myself to give it a shot," Zwerner said.
He seized the chance to move to Florida and learn the glass business. Zwerner's father became ill, and the other partner took control of the company. Zwerner decided to take a calculated risk, and in 1963 he founded his own company, Glass Incorporated. The company, which did not compete directly with his father's company, sold glass to window manufacturers and wholesalers.
While working from home, Zwerner built the business slowly until he could afford to move to a location with low overhead two years later. For the next six years, he used his considerable networking and business skills to build the company into a sizable force in the specialty glass industry, glass for houses, schools, jails and high-rise buildings. In 1969, Zwerner took advantage of an opportunity to merge with Russell Aluminum. "I had the glass and they made the aluminum that went around the glass [for windows]. It was a natural." One year later the company went on the American Stock Exchange, and in two years the company was purchased by Anaconda, a leader in the development of copper and aluminum. Two years after Anaconda's purchase, Zwerner purchased the glass division.
He spent the next 17 years making Glass Incorporated one of the nation's top specialty glass importing companies. His office, now based in his comfortable beach town home in Hollywood, Fla., is decorated with pictures of him and his trading partners from around the world. The company grossed more than $10 million annually at its height, according to Zwerner. Last year, Glass Incorporated was purchased by Zwerner's son Joshua, who now is president of the company.
Zwerner continues to serve in an advisory capacity and is active on a number of boards in Atlanta and south Florida. He is director of the Florida Keys First State Bank. In addition, he established and actively participates in seminars and programs for the Carl R. Zwerner Chair of Family-Owned Enterprises, housed in the College of Business Administration.
The chair, held by Les Rue, professor of management, develops and provides academic courses, executive education programs, research projects, and other special programs relating to the challenges of entrepreneurship. The chair specializes in management situations unique to family-owned businesses. Zwerner also is a member of the National Committee, recently formed by Georgia State University President Carl Patton. Committee members help the administration identify and cultivate alumni in their respective regions.
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