He comes from a town of less than 40,000 people, a solid hour south of Des Moines. So, he is definitely a "country" man; his business supplies people who love the country lifestyle; and his customers are from all over the country, in fact from many different countries.

So, let's visit Country Supply and some of the people Scott loves to love.

First, know that Scott is a merchant. He started his business while in junior high school. The business was a business even before he graduated from high school. His list compiling story is a classic; everybody should smile. So many of us, when we first start out in business, get leads (name-address-telephone) from the Classified Ads sections of the newspaper, then newspapers throughout the state, then throughout the country. Classic stuff.

He is a bit of a Will Rogers storyteller; Scott trusts people and trusts that people are good. Everybody is family to him. And, to run a global business with five people that in turn creates jobs for literally hundreds of people he tells us:
"We can live anywhere and "do" our business. We've done back to the farm to be successful."
"We can identify and cultivate a huge community of customers and really get to know their names."

As you would imagine, Scott learned a lot on the job.

He had grown his business to about eighty people. They did everything and it was exhausting. He just about burned out when he learned about outsourcing -- "do what you do best and find somebody else to do the rest." After researching and interviewing he chose the Stark Brothers Fulfillment Services in "his backyard" about 100 miles south in Louisiana, Missouri. By having Stark's specialists focus on his orders, inventory, shipping, and first-line customer support, Scott and his people had the freedom to focus on their core competencies.

• GO FURTHER: Spend some time with the ten key points of the case study guide (just above in the green box) and each of the related transcript segments.

• Country Wisdom: Quotes from Scott

• THE LIGHTBULB. We all learned so much from Scott. Hattie takes to time reflect within this segment of the show on Scott's authenticity. It is a big word. To review that part of the transcript, click here. The Key Ideas that follow are mostly Hattie's reflections after studying all the transcripts and other source materials.

• MISSION - VISION: We call small business owners the new pioneers and quiet heroes, the innovators, the risk takers, and the job generators. And now that we've stopped to think about it, we believe that much of the legacy of small business began on the back of a horse. Here is a piece of the economy in the USA that is little studied and under-appreciated.

• Background history: The chronological story starting in 1976 about Scott Mooney and the founding of Country Supply and the evolution of the business with his wife, Marthalee, from 1983 to this day.

• CONTACT:
  Country Supply
  5833 118th Ave, Ottumwa, IA 52501 and
  PO Box 369, Louisiana, MO 63353
  Email: Click here
  Tel: 800.637.6721
  URL: http://www.countrysupply.com/
  Tack Auction Web Site: http://www.tackauction.com/
  
  
• We invite your questions or comments

We also learn that he was an early adopter of technology and his business is increasingly moving to the web.

These are all good lessons for all of us today. Yet there is something else going on here and our guess is that it all has to do with those big animals. This is a very special community of interest.

• NATIONAL TRADE ASSOCIATIONS / LOCAL CHAMBERS. There are over 100 associations and publications for horse lovers! Now that we have met Scott and all these very decent folks, we want to do another story now about another small business where we just look at this deep-seated affection. We believe it has a lot to do the role/history of the horse in settling the USA.
  
  MORE EPISODE OF THE SHOW OM THE COUNTRY
  
  HORSES: This episode of the show is really all about the horses. All these people truly love horses and they tend to gravitate and associate with people who also love horses. And, it is a huge family of families. For those of us who do not have animals, we really need to stop and look at this affection (of course some might call it an affliction).
  
  To spend so much time, energy, and money on an animal, what is that about?
  
  It is a world unto itself. Scott and his group support a number of good causes where horses are involved in therapeutic work with people with special needs. In the USA there are hundreds of associations and publications dedicated to meet the needs of horse lovers; foremost among them is the American Quarterhorse Association. Most of the horses that are owned by families are quarterhorses. This association is the largest with over 350,000 members. Other groups are generally subsets with that family -- United States Trotting Association, the Palomino Horse Breeders of America, and there seems to be a hundred more!

• RURAL AMERICA'S SPECIAL GIFT TO THE WORLD: Scott kiddingly said, "Yea'ah, we just got ourselves some electricity out he'a not long ago." We had never heard of Scott's hometown of Ottumwa. Maybe there is something magical in the water. Maybe it is the clean air. But Scott not only has electricity, he has high speed access to the web and he virtually runs his business from his laptop. With Wi-Fi / mobile he is constantly connected to his server at his fulfillment house, Stark Brothers in Louisiana, Missouri and to his server in his office.
  
  Want to move to Ottomwa?
  
  It is "the land of perserverance and rippling waters." Check them out!
  (1) The City of Ottumwa, (2) Economic Development Commission and (3) Ottumwa Area Development Corporation (4) Chamber of Commerce and Ottumwa Courier, the daily newspaper
  
  There is electricity: (1) National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Touchstone Energy Cooperative, Edison Electric Institute and MidAmerican Energy Company, the largest utility company in Iowa.
  
  Give me land, lots of land: There is plenty of rural land in America and it has magic. Read more from the USDA's Economic Research Service (link from the header goes to their wonderful description of the quality of life in rural America). There is an endearing quality to their publication, Amber Waves.

• Family business: The American farmer, the manufacturer's representatives, the artists, and so many others are family businesses. If you are part of this very special group, we encourage you to review these other episodes of the show.

• FIRST PRINCIPLES: Starting a business is the road to economic independence for most of us average people. Read a little more to see why incorporating a business keeps the passion of the American revolution alive!
  
  More First Principles: Relations are primary; space and time are derivative

• ABOUT THOSE NUMBERS. It takes a critical mass of customers to make a business. Scott got his systems down well enough, he knew he could service people outside of Ottumwa. He constantly worked on his systems; he constantly looked at certain key critical ratios, particularly gross return-on-mailed-catalogs, return-on-repeat-customers, and gross-revenue-per-employee. These ratios speak volumes about a business. It is a red-to-white blood cell count of business. There is an organization that built an industry around these numbers. It is called the RMA --The Risk Management Association.
  
  This is real insiders information on your financials so take note.
  
  This organization is your banker's banker. They know more about key critical ratios than anybody on earth. Over 3000 banks and 16000 other kinds of financial organizations contribute the essential financial data from their loan inventory to RMA's "Annual Statement Studies" to calculate key critical ratios for every major industry type (and for most subsets of business vis-a-vis the SIC and NAICS). As a group, they do over 150,000 loans per year; that is statistical relevancy.
  
  Do you know the average key ratios within your industry?
  
  Not many of us do. We do not know ours yet within the TV/Production Industry, so we all need to ask our banker. To really make a study of it, keep an eye out for the next seminar by RMA in your area. It'll be the best money you'll spend to understand the organic nature of your business, and learn what it is that your banker so quickly knows about your industry.
  
  For more, read online: RMA seminars, RMA history, and their small business scoring (i.e. used by the SBA for their Low Docs).

• CASES BY BUSINESS TYPE. Click on the heading to find all the business types and then click on your type of business to check out those case studies.

• SUPPORT PUBLIC TELEVISION:
  Become a member of your local station. If you are already, great. If not and your business is doing well, consider joining the Producers' Club ($1000).

• JOIN, JOIN, JOIN: Your professional associations in your industry are your key to continuing education, market research, collaborations, strategic partnerships, capital and so much more ... often you'll find that you enjoy like-minded people and many will become friends for life.

If you identify with your community, you can know it.
Scott knows 467,541 of the 30 million people who own 11 million horses.