Shoestring Startup dot Net

This is the second post in the series chronicling my Entrepreneurial Life.
The first post is, A Serial Entrepreneur is Born

A For Real Business #3 - In My Twenties
My twenties saw a series of sales jobs, and I was highly trained in the sales funnel, (I’ll write my own funnel post soon that will teach you how to starting a funnel with no leads, not prospects and no cash), prospecting, overcoming objections, and closing.

The industry I was in was on the cutting edge - I was selling disk packs for mainframes via mail order! This was before the personal computer era.

The training served me well, I knew what I was doing and soon became a sales manager, but during this time I also met my soon to be husband, and life took a turn for the best. - I’m still married twenty-six years later.
Bob and I moved to Colorado where I quickly found work selling office supplies.

By the time I was twenty six, they made me sales manager. I told my boss that I didn’t know how to type as I didn’t want to be relegated to ’secretarial duties’. This was the mid-eighties. (BTW, When I was fifteen I taught myself to touch type at about 80 words a minute)

There were seven sales associates under me at this local office machine and supply company. I knew that if I could manage the department for my boss, I could go off on my own. And so after a year or so of managing, a co-worker and I established our own business based upon the newly emerging laser printer industry, and from that moment on, (over twenty years!) I’ve always owned a company or have been self-employed.

So, we built our business and patented laser recharging technology (are you still with me?) and sold other entrepreneurs on this new technology. The dealers came to training, signed an agreement, and purchased supplies from us.

We had over 300 dealerships worldwide before someone presented us with an offer to buy us both out.
We started again, as we could, within our non-compete, and then not too long later, I bought out my business partner and then a competitor. The following years saw fast growth for my company as I added a federal sales division, a retail store, and a military purchasing hot line. I was about thirty years old, had twenty part-time employees.

We were selling 5 1/4″ floppy disks and pin fed computer paper.

One late Friday night I managed to convince a purchasing agent to place an order for a years worth of computer paper. First thing Monday morning I took the purchase order down to the bank as collateral for a loan.. Payroll was due the same day.
I’m still grateful to the purchasing manager, but I’m sure she never guessed how her order saved the company that weekend.

Have you ever been faced with a zero bank account and payroll due? It is very disheartening.
That is only one of several close calls I’ve had. Many times I’ve wondered if I should stay in business, when I was out of cash. Somehow I’ve always pulled through, but it hasn’t always looked pretty.

Stay tuned tomorrow to find out what happens next!