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Retired Rogue Valley executives help new entrepreneurs learn ... The SCORE about startups By JOHN DARLING With a lifetime of accumulated savvy, it�s a shame for business executives to spend their retirement hunting, fishing or watching television. They could be volunteers for SCORE, mentoring younger business owners by helping them write up business plans, going over their books and pointing out weaknesses and passing on a sense of discipline necessary to survive in business, said John Rowan, 79, retired electronics executive and director of Southern Oregon�s Senior Corps of Retired Executives. "We�ve been there and done all that. We sit with them and ask questions and talk them through a business plan. Most need help. If you want to know the truth, most need help with discipline," he said. SCORE operates as an arm of the Small Business Administration, paying the expenses of 25 retired volunteers in the region from Roseburg to Dunsmuir and Klamath Falls to the coast. Its headquarters is in the old Woolworth building, 33 N. Central, Medford (776-4220). At www.sba.gov, business people can find further help and sample business plans they can fill out. There�s always someone among the SCORE counseling staff who�s met and surmounted the problems of just about any business, Rowan said. "We just had a guy in Klamath who needed help as he retrained in the appraising field," Rowan said. "We found the counselor in Coos Bay who had done that, so we got them together by phone, with an occasional visit by car." Young business people today have much better educations than SCORE executives, but, said Rowan, they face bigger obstacles: They graduate with huge debt and they haven�t learned the discipline to manage abundant credit cards or stick with a business plan. "Many have started dot.com corporations, but lacked the skills to sustain them. They failed to make, let alone follow, a business plan. They got excited and moved impulsively, giving themselves perks because they had a lot of venture capital," he said. "They found a product, brought it to market and sold it, with no plan for what to do with returns. It�s a lot like a kid who is given money from parents, instead of working for an allowance." The advice of SCORE volunteers centers around time-tested values of successful people: saving up the capital to start a business, starting small and growing gradually, paying the bills, dressing well, hiring dependable help and � "the one that throws everybody," Rowan said � projecting income. Engineer Charlie Meek found retirement "not very satisfying having nothing to do," so he�s been volunteering for SCORE for five years. Most clients have a vision and think there�s lots of money to be made, but, said Meek, their big problem is lack of money to start the business. "The truth we have to sell them is it takes a lot of personal commitment and 16-hour days. Most aren�t far enough along to get the loans. We tell them banks require a 20 percent investment from you into your own business, so go work for someone and save the money up. After that, a lot of people back away from the idea," he said. In building a business plan, SCORE volunteers have clients research the field, make projections, find capital, study the competition, find location, cultivate image, keep records, learn purchasing and calculate profits. "Doing a business plan was a real eye-opener," said Diane DeCarlo, owner of Nook and Crannie Gift Shop in Medford. "I�d never done one. John (Rowan) put it all in lay terms, stayed positive and let me know he�d be there for me at each step." That was almost four years ago. "It was scary. It�s still pretty scary, but they told me, as long as you�re scared, you�re going to be on your toes. They were right that it�s more than opening your doors and standing behind the cash register. It�s a tremendous amount of work, far more than people realize." A few years after their consultations, Rowan came into the store and was greeted within 30 seconds, as he�d recommended to DeCarlo. "He told me I�d done the right things and that it was working. It�s taken three to five years to get the business established, just as he said. He wanted me to succeed and knowing that helped a lot." John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.