Business Savants

I've never been one to really hide the fact that I don't know something. It's never appealed to me to "fake it," at least not in my adult life. I like learning new things, so I'd ask questions whenever I didn't know something. Even to the point of irritating others at times. Since starting my wannabe venture, I've ran into an odd type of entrepreneur, the business savant. All of them are making more money than we are, but they're still somewhat ignorant of all the specifics and details of what they do.

One guy, a sign maker, produces his product mostly by silkscreening, was just absolutely amazing. We've affectionately refered to him in private as "Uncle Jesse" because he looks like the hispanic version of Uncle Jesse from The Dukes Of Hazzard. I stop and get coffee at this little Mexican restaurant by my house, each morning, and there he is. He has breakfast with his wife and adult kids, each and every day. And he pays for the whole shebang. It's a nice reminder of one of those freedoms of being an entrepreneur. While most people are chatting around the office coffee pot, and trying to get it together to start the work day, he's just got up about 30 minutes ago, and is now sitting down to a long family breakfast at his favorite restaurant. Way cool.

The guy is an artisan, when it comes to silkscreening. Silk screening is something we're trying to do in house, and actually make a decent profit margin from products for a change. I've been to "Uncle Jesse's" place. It's a converted house with a sign. Every piece of furniture in it is homemade. The desk, his work areas, all made out of untreated, unpainted 2x4's and plywood. He is a fricken genius at using his graphics software, yet he can't use one single technology term correctly. And he doesn't care to. He does "just fine thank you." Mention the term entrepreneur and he'll fan his hand at you. Just try talking business with him. He blows every bit of it off. "My wife/son/daughter/accountant handles that, I don't know." Yet he started by himself and did every bit of the work himself for quite a few years. He just eventually hired his family. He did it all himself without knowing ... anything!

He showed us these enormous signs, that he silk screened. I asked him how the heck he did that, and the guy happily and excitedly took us out back to one of his ... umm .. silk screening stations. It sat under a deck-like covering, yet there was no deck to stand on, only the dirt. Sitting under the homemade awning/covering was an old pool table, with this humongous screen sitting on top of it. The screen frame looked like it was made out of old landscaping timbers or something. Tied to each front corner was a piece of rope, which went up to the beam in the "ceiling", through a pulley and down to a cinder block. That was his counter weight. There was no environmental controls, no dust protection, no rain protection, nothing. He had a squeegee that went across the short width of the pool table, that he and his assistant both use at the same time to run the ink through the screen. He had drying racks that he made out of any piece of spare lumber he could find, just sitting out there under the elements. And his signs were beautiful! John is a newbie at silkscreening said that this man violated every rule he was told about proper silkscreening. Yet the guy went on and on about this three thousand dollar order, that four thousand dollar order, etc. He walked outside and pointed to business after business of the signs he made.

He showed us an amazing photo album of the work he'd done for small and absolutely huge businesses. We even told him, we wanted to do signs, and he just didn't care. He's got a reputation in the business, so we're just not going to get his customers. He told us everything we wanted to know and then some. Of course we'll pass along any high end quantity of business that we can't handle, over to him, but he doesn't really know that either. He was just as happy as you please to tell us anything we wanted to know, and then some.

He also said that he doesn't advertise one bit. One hundred percent word of mouth. And here I am pounding the pavement to drum up business. Working it online and off, cold calling at every opportunity. Sure, there's some money coming in, but not like this guy. Now "Uncle Jesse" is the most extreme example of what I'm talking about, but I'm meeting people just like him all over town. You couldn't get them to "talk shop" about business, they have no idea. And they're too busy helping customers and making sales to go find out.

Quite a humbling experience, let me tell ya. I thought I was learning so much by just doing and reading. Now I find out that maybe I'm a bit too anal about things and I should just shut the hell up, and sell.