Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public Media.

Doni: You've always wanted your own business.

You love the idea of being the boss and of working for yourself.

You've saved, you planned, you've dreamed.

But is that enough?

Almost half of all New Ohio businesses fail within five years.

How do you ensure that your new venture is not one of them?

Our guest, Olivia Holden, executive director of SS Toledo, makes her life's work teaching the skills necessary to build and grow sustainable businesses.

My name is Doni Miller and this is to the point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

You may email me at doni _miller@wgte.org for this episode and any other additional extras, please go to wgte.org/to the point, it is my honor and my pleasure to have with us today Olivia Holden.

Ms.. Holden has both a national and statewide reputation, as well as a local reputation for being the consummate trainer of those folks who are interested in being entrepreneurs.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

So glad to have you here.

Olivia: Thank you for having me, Doni.

I'm excited to be here.

Doni: One of the things that has happened, especially in the past several years, the post-COVID influence, is that there seems to be a surge in people who want to start their own businesses.

They have sort of gotten away from wanting to work for someone else.

They want to pursue that dream.

But more than almost in Ohio, almost 50% of businesses fail in the first five years.

What would you say to someone who's thinking about hopping into this?

What should the very first thing do?

Olivia: Well, first of all, you have to have a good idea.

Doni: Now.

Olivia: And then is there a need.

And then what I call and I'll elaborate.

The fire in the belly.

If you've got the fire in the belly, you've got an idea and you say, I can cook the best macaroni and cheese better than your mother or your grandmother or whomever did your research.

That's number one, because you can have an idea and it's just like everybody else's.

But what's going to make yours stick out?

What's going to make your idea go to the market and be fruitful?

So those are the things and if I can elaborate.

Doni: Please.

Olivia: post-COVID.

People get a chance to or during COVID, they got a chance to sit at home, figure out.

My boss has me doing this, that and the other.

I can do it better.

And that's where the spark began.

People were flocking out of the bathroom, out of the front door, out of the side door and everywhere else.

But they were saying, I can do it.

The first thing to do is put it on paper.

If you put.

Doni: It that, is that just the idea or is that the beginning of a market of a plan.

Olivia: That's consistent on and that's part of putting it in the business plan, but you put it on paper because you can have it up here and people are not right mind readers.

So you put it on paper, then you take that paper and make that leap off the page and it leads so that you know, this is what I want to do and how I want to present it, because the end result is going to be that business plan.

So then you go to your family and your friends and that can be a detriment.

But it's also to get a gauge about whether people see your macaroni and cheese.

And so what makes did you taste mine?

Did you taste it and what did you get out of it?

Doni: And what makes it better than somebody else's macaroni?

Olivia: So.

Right.

And that's what you have to look at.

In order to have a business, you have to there has to be a need first.

Is it going to solve a problem?

My macaroni and cheese is going to be such that it makes your mouth water as I speak about it, that cheese is just flowing and you're going to put that on paper.

Then who's going to help you?

Whether you think you're in Ireland all by yourself or you're not.

You have to have family and friends, particularly if it affects them because they're the ones who are going to be putting in pouring into you.

They're the ones who, if their two family and friends are going to say to you, it's no good, this is or is this.

Doni: So you need them for the support and the honesty and the just the the the loving and the all of those things that come along with.

Olivia: Very much so.

Very much so.

Because if you don't, you're an island to yourself and there's nobody that's an island unto themselves.

Doni: This must be a process too, that requires a lot of that kind of support.

I mean, some of the articles that I read about starting your own new business underscored how lonely it can be to to just to be out there trying to make this work.

Have you found that.

Olivia: A lot of people who come to me, their families say, where you working at Jeep?

Why do you want to quit there and go in where you don't know if you're going to make it?

That comes ahead game and it comes to you to say, I'm determined.

I've got that fire in the belly.

And the more you say no, and maybe the more I say yes.

And I am, and you have to have that.

Oh, listen, they're up days, down days, but you have to go through those days and you have to have a surrounding of people who will help you go through that.

That's a big factor.

There are others can have money.

You don't have to have a lot of money, but you have to have an investment in yourself and be willing to do it.

I have people come to me and say, Well, I want you to invest in me and I want the bank to invest in me.

Let's give me all this money.

But people don't invest in you if you don't want to invest in yourself.

Doni: How do you know how much money you need to get started?

Olivia: You sit down in and there's that piece of paper.

Look at 3:00 in the morning when you wake up, and that's when true entrepreneurs wake up.

Have the dream, Write it down, and they'll say, I need $500 to do this.

Is it realistic?

Start researching that tells you for your macaroni and cheese.

And I don't know why I'm on that today, but maybe I'll eat some later.

But for your macaroni and cheese, how much does it cost to make a good serving of macaroni and cheese?

You have to know what it is.

Are you going to have a brick and mortar?

How much does it cost?

What's the going rate for everybody else?

Selling macaroni and cheese or whatever it is your product is.

But you gotta know.

Then you look at that and say, I need X amount of dollars to get the best that I'm going to get from marketing.

That's costly.

It can be, but there's some ways you get around it.

You need to look at staff if you're going that way.

And I caution anybody, staff is something that you recruit people to volunteer.

That's a savings.

They're all kinds of things.

But you put down how much is the rent, how much is the lights, how much are you going to have to invest in yourself?

Doni: And all of this becomes the business plan.

Oh, is that right?

Oh, yeah.

And that business plan gets to be what guides you through the process of developing your business.

Olivia: A business plan is your Bible to speak.

It takes you from A to Z.

How are you going to get there?

Who's going to help you?

It answers several questions Who, what, when, where, and how.

And then you look at that.

It's not only for a lender, it's for yourself.

So six months down the road, you start looking at, Did I do it or didn't I?

If I did, what did I do and how can I improve and do better?

If you didn't, the same questions apply.

How am I going to do it?

How am I going to do something different to get to the goal?

And then for a lender, they want a business plan and they don't need and this is a technical institute of business that they keep going and going and going.

They don't need a 92 page, nothing.

They need a simplistic document that says, this is what I do, this is what I'm going to do.

This is what my goals are in three, five or ten years.

Doni: Do you need to be financially solvent when you take your plan to your lender.

Olivia: You have to have the lenders want at least 20%.

That could be an equity in your house.

You don't have to have 20% match, right?

You can have a house, You can have partners who will invest in you.

There are all types of things and people want this almighty grant that they are grants out there, but they are limited and their specific what are you investing?

That's what the lender will say.

But you need that business plan and you need something.

Say I'm serious and I'll invest in myself.

Doni: So you get up in the morning and 3:00 in the morning and you write down this idea and you've got this fire in the belly and you just know that your macaroni and cheese is the best in the land.

You know that, right?

And then you say, I don't know what to do, what resources, what what do I do now?

My mother is supporting me, my husband is supporting me.

My friends are supporting me.

But what resources are there out there to help me get this done?

And I think that's where assets Toledo comes in.

So I want you to hold that thought.

We're going to talk a little bit about your organization when we come back.

Okay.

All righty.

Thanks so much.

We will be right back.

Please stay with us.

Jaden: Unlocking entrepreneurial spirits in this week's edition of one point.

If you could start a small business, what would it do?

Diana: First, I'm so interested in real estate.

I don't know if that is small business, but I want to, like, get houses and flip them and then rent them out to travel nurses, because I'm an Erin and, you know, it's fine.

Erin's looking for places to stay, so do that.

Rusty: I think being a professional dog walker sounds pretty interesting.

I like dogs and cats.

I don't have any myself, but I always like to pet dogs when I see them here at the park and just looks like an interesting gig.

Jaden: So if you could start a small business, what would it be?

Kelsy: I would probably start a moms group that gets a bunch of moms together.

You can come participate with your kids.

We do a bunch of different activities, and then if you want to drop your child off for childcare, you could.

Jaden: At one point this week.

I'm Jaden Jefferson.

Doni: Connect with us on our social media pages and you may email me at doni _miller@wgte.org.

And as always for this episode and other additional extras, please don't hesitate to go to egte.org/to the point if you've been with us this through this show, you know that we have Olivia Holden with us.

Ms.. Holden is the executive director of Asset Toledo, talking to us this morning.

Many of us who have had or currently have the notion of starting a small business or a business.

The idea of starting a business, though, is in fact not a notion, is it?

It takes lots of commitment.

It takes it takes a real understanding of what you're doing.

It's not something that you can wake up one morning and do.

This is a process that you have to plan for.

And one of the things that people often forget to do is to use the resources that are available to them in the community to help them start businesses.

And that's where Assets Toledo comes in.

Olivia: As.

Doni: One of the long term know, one of the long term organ organizations in this town.

And you guys do what exactly?

Olivia: We're an entrepreneurial training program.

We have a 13 week training program where you learn A to Z.

And then with the business plan, we teach you about the right type of insurance because there's certain kinds that you need for certain entities about marketing.

How do you market your product?

About the financials, We help you with your credit where you don't go pay people to help you with your credit, how you do it yourself.

So we help you find a whatever it is to go into business, more importantly, to stay in business, even though in business, our day and night.

Next, they go out well, you need to be able to sustain yourself, right?

So that's what we do.

And then we become that big, overgrown family of 4900 people that I'm a mother of and.

Doni: Graduated your.

Olivia: Program.

Yes, we there's a huge graduation and we just had our 69th graduation and going to our 70th class.

Thank you.

And so what we do is give you a foundation, help you to get to the lender, make sure that when you go to the lender, you know what you're doing and what you talking about.

We open up doors so that if it's a contra fact, we know about it and we open up the doors so that you can apply certification, we do that help you to become certified.

So we do all those things, but we give you that support when nobody else will.

The family will.

Doni: Assess.

We'll do just that.

What do you find is the biggest mistake inception that your students bring to the table about starting a business?

Olivia: I have an idea and I'm going to tomorrow morning, I'm going to open up and I'm going to be a millionaire.

On day three.

I was like that.

I opened up a business of a friend and I a portside a long time ago and I knew we were going to be millionaires by the second week.

And the only thing we got were a lot of bills.

And people don't have the stick to itiveness to say, okay, I'm going through this.

What did I do to resolve it?

And they give up.

But business isn't about giving up.

It's about doing better.

Every time that something falls over, you put it back up and say, Aha, this is what I need to do to get it to stand up and do it.

You think?

Yeah.

The misconception is that you're going to be rich overnight and that just isn't happening.

Doni: When you think back to your experience starting a small business at Portside, what would you have done differently?

Olivia: Oh, research.

That's essential research.

I didn't have a clue about business.

I didn't know about paying those taxes.

And I tell you, you better know costs.

The tax man cometh.

And so you taxes And about now that we got into any tax problems, but we had to think about paying help, getting help where to go to get advice.

I tell anybody the library is a source.

I've been around the world five times through the library downtown.

Through those books, they will give you that resource.

There are other entities that you can go to talk to other people who are in the business.

They'll tell you you don't have to tell them that you're going into business because people sometimes get sheltered.

You go, Take my macaroni and cheese.

No, there's enough of the pie for everybody, but go talk to people.

Yeah.

And find out.

That's the big conception that we've got to be sheltered.

We don't want to give our secret away.

Doni: Right.

So what.

What do you think is the average length of time?

And I know some of this is business dependent, but what do you think is the average length of time from the germination of that idea to actually opening the doors?

What what do what should most small business owners expect?

Olivia: It depends upon the business because if you have to get a license for a certain business, then that takes time.

Say if you are going to do a daycare, there's a licensing process and having everything put in place by the city or whoever has to do the inspection.

So it depends upon the business.

But if you've got the business in mind and you've already dreamed about what color you're going to have and all that stuff, you can do stuff in a year, I and that's I don't usually predict what that is, but a year is a good enough average.

It might be longer.

I have a young lady now who invented something.

She went to everybody that she could and they kept laughing that this lady is getting ready to go nationally.

She has a prototype and it's been three years.

So it depends.

And she's she just told me I'm sticking to it because she told me to stick with it.

Doni: So she's sticking with.

Olivia: Oh, my gosh, wait.

I'll make sure I'll send you a note saying she made it.

She's arrived.

She's on NBC.

Now.

Doni: Please do that.

The the it's so many people think that they have to quit their day jobs.

You're shaking your head before I finish the sentence.

So No.

Olivia: No, listen, I've been just want to make sure you eat to pay them back.

They don't want you to be on a self-imposed diet.

Right.

So what you do is maintain that job until you can gradually go full time, unless you're the place that you're going to open up the doors.

And then you can quit the job.

But you need some type of income.

You have a family, you need to look at them and know what they're doing and how you're going to support them.

Even if you go part time and you can still devoted, you can.

As young lady came to me and said, I want to open up a business because I'm going to work 9 to 5, I say, keep your day job because owning a business is a 24 hour operation and you've got to pray for another ten and they aren't there another ten?

Doni: Yeah.

One of the things too, that I read when I was preparing for this, this talk with you is that people underestimate the importance of marketing and paying for putting aside that money for marketing.

I think I read in one article it said that you can have the best idea in the world, but it can also be the best kept secret in the world.

Got a market.

It's very expensive.

Olivia: That's true, and it is expensive.

One of the things that you people say, well, I'm going to have word of mouth or the big thing is I'm going to do this is I'm going to be on TV.

Mm.

Look at the rates that you have to pay for anything.

If you have to pay for paper, that's you have to pay for it, that's expense.

So you have to build in and you want to be sure that you get your name out there.

You're right, You can have the best kept secret in the world.

The best macaroni and cheese is in the world.

And if nobody knows about it, all you've got is your cheese, your macaroni in your house.

That's right.

Doni: That's their recipe.

Olivia: Yes.

So you have to build those things in every chance you get.

You have to capitalize on telling people about the macaroni and cheese.

My husband used to get upset with me when I go to the grocery store.

I never met a stranger.

We'd be in the checkout line.

Oh, you like that?

Have you thought about this?

Have you thought about a business?

Let me help you.

And he's that you?

Your best advertisement.

And so.

But you need to have a written plan.

I plan to be this and do that and come on this show or that show.

And one of the great things that you you served me that I would come out of an establishment and right on my windshield wiper would be this piece of paper.

First, I didn't read it, but then I said, That's a free thing that they put all my newspaper out of my car.

That's one way.

There are a number of ways, but you've got to be succinct in how you're doing it.

You need to be around people who will take the message about your macaroni and cheese.

So that's a real, real important thing.

Also, looking at the future, what do you plan to do for your future?

Are you going to stay in your house, you know, in your corner or in two years you plan to be in a brick and mortar?

You know, Shark Tank isn't there for nothing.

It tells you if you look at that, what they're looking for, same thing they're looking for.

A small business needs to be looking at it and surround yourself with good folks.

Doni: Good folks.

And there must I think that there continues to be this idea that I'm going to open up my business and begin to pay myself right away.

Olivia: Well, you can pay yourself, but you might be paying yourself out of business.

Do lenders want to see that you pay yourself again?

Remember I said they want to make sure that you eat so that you can pay them, right?

So you can if what you do is become an employee of the business and you pay, you're not in the norm.

I had somebody who said, Well, I want to pay my seven.

Mind you, they were doing like lawn care, but they told me they were going to make $1,000,000 in one year.

I could that concept socialized said neither could they really.

But what they said was I said, Well, what about in the winter?

They said, Well, I hadn't thought that far.

Doni: So you got to think ahead.

You got to take care of yourself.

Remember that this can't be for most people.

This can't be where they're going to make their salary from that first year or allow themselves to use this business to they have to invest in themselves.

Olivia: Right?

Doni: You have to invest in themselves.

Thank you so much for being here.

There's so much more we could talk about, but we never have enough time for these really important subjects.

You will come back, though, right?

Yes, I will.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for joining us until the point.

I'll see you next time.

Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

This program was made possible in part by viewers like you.