Small Business Is the Job Creating Engine of the Economy.
(click on the pictures to the transcript)
In Order of Appearance: Starting with Blue Dome Gallery, Zia Publishing, TMC Design, McGinley Construction, and ending with Joseph's Lite Cookies
Creating work for oneself: The sole proprietorship
Most artists are sole proprietorships. Yet, most sole proprietors are not
artists, but we believe increasingly they will be. Not visual or performing
artists, but people who understand the aesthetics within their discipline and
they begin tailoring their products and services for virtually one-to-one
marketing. This domain is uniquely for small businesses and creative people.
And, it is becoming a movement that is just now gathering momentum.
The cost-of-entry to start a business continues to decrease. Success stories like we see here on Small Business School abound -- everybody knows somebody who left "a job" and has successfully started a business.
As the new technologies continue unleashing our creativity, small business start-ups will continue to grow and will eventually outpace the late 1990s.
Creating a job for oneself is the beginning of every business. And, it is a special sacred trust; we wrestle with our own identity to the point where we finally acknowledge our unique gifts, and we realize that once focused, nurtured, and crafted to deliver a product or service, we can say, "I can sustain myself."
Hattie continues, "Here you meet men and women who profoundly believe in their dreams, work hard, persevere against great odds, and create work and real value in their communities and in the economy."
From the first employee to many. Small businesses create 75% of all the new jobs.
Hattie says, "... we do it because in Thoreau's words, we are 'living the life that we've imagined.'"
Blue Dome Gallery, Silver City. The show opens in Silver City at the Blue Dome Gallery, a place 25 artists call their second home. It is where they sell their creations. And, founders, Linda Brewer and John Rohovec couldn't be any more passionate about these people and their work. In the hands of a buyer, it becomes a gift or a reflection of one's own inspiration to shape beauty into our lives.
Wouldn't every job, all work, become very special if we could see it as part of our striving for a higher perfection, a better way, or a more beautiful present? Perhaps this should become the starting point for every job, for all of our work.
Zia Publishing, Silver City. The show moves on
to meet Terri Menges and Joe Burgess who own Zia Publishing, the creators of a
hardcover periodical called, New Mexico Traveler. New Mexico shows off!
Here, in the hands of under 20 employees -- Joe's photography, Terri's design
and the staff's writing, composing, and editing -- New Mexico becomes pure
enchantment.
Terri and Joe are cultivating local talent and people are discovering gifts that they never realized they had.
But, as artistically empowering as this part of the country can be, it has another face as well.
TMC
Design, Las Cruces.
We travel to Las Cruces to meet the
scientists and mathematicians, where electronics and engineering meet, in the
left side of our brains pursing logic, details, and nanosecond technologies.
TMC Design welcomes us.
Leroy Gomez, Chris Ham and Troy Scoughton started this fast-growing company. And today, we are all counting on their military guidance systems, to save lives and combat evil.
These people are heavily involved with our military infrastructure, but their technologies also have a very practical side; their technologies will be used to improve the way each of us communicate, i.e. as they attenuate signals, things like dropped cell phone calls will become a thing of the past.
McGinley Construction, Las
Cruces.
We go right up into a construction site to meet Kevin McGinley
(as we take a chapter out of This Old House). Kevin, the founder, serves
on the Board of Directors of the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce; and, he
explains from his years of creating employement how good jobs, good work, and
good people, must be held in a delicate balance.
Las Cruces shows off a little here; the views are sensational.
Joseph's Lite
Cookies, Deming
Joseph Semprevivo says, "You can work with me
the rest of your life until you retire."
In the final segment of the
show we go over to Deming but back in time. What you hear is reminiscent of the
best of the employer-employee attitudes of the 1950's when trust was part of
the equation. It was a time when big business was not driven by the price of
their stock, but driven by a vision of what their company of people could do to
make the world a better place.
Here we rediscover that attitude, where the trust between the job creator and the person who accepts the responsibilities of that job, has been fundamentally re-established.
Meet the founder of Joseph's Lite Cookies, Joseph Semprevivo. He started his business in 1986 when he was 15 years old.
Today his cookies are sold in evry state by over 1000 independent food brokers. His team -- there are no employees here -- numbers less than 30, but they produce over two million cookies a day!
At 9 years old Joeseph was diagnosed with diabetes; he couldn't have any sugar. His parents had a gourmet ice cream shop -- what torture -- so he began making his own sugarless wonders. What follows is pure magic and it now happens every day in Deming.
Summary: These business owners are proof that with an idea that works, we can create good jobs for many. These are the miracles of New Mexico and the entire world could learn many lessons from these very special people.
Hattie adds, "While economic development directors in every city in the US are busy targeting the Fortune 1000, we believe communities are better served when they truly adopt Harvard Professor Michael Porter's ideas of community-based capitalism. Porter says that community-based capitalism happens when for-profit, business-driven expansion creates jobs and economic opportunities in distressed communities.
This is the case in New Mexico because of the strong partnership that exists between the business community, the economic development offices, non-profits such as the Chamber of Commerce and local governments."
We invite your comments and questions. Was this episode of the show inspirational and/or educational? We hope it was both!