A Doggie-Dog Business

Using a home equity loan to fund her business, Liz Blondy is willing to do whatever it takes to make her business successful. Opening early 2005 with no employees and 14 competitors, Liz Blondy has still managed to make her business, Canine to Five, profitable. Liz Blondy is a great example of an entrepreneur doing whatever it takes to help her business work. Canine to Five is a daycare for dogs that also does training, grooming, and boarding. Liz Blondy says the most important asset to her business and to almost any business, in her opinion is the customer relationships, because the customer is the only reason any business is running. Canine to Five gives each of their customers a newsletter and pictures of their dog on a regular basis. Liz Blondy has quoted her customers saying that the main reason they like Canine to five is because they are very flexible, and will do an endless number of things to keep their customers happy. In addition to being very generous to their customers, Liz and Canine to Five are also very employee friendly. Liz makes it a point to give her employees a lot of freedom, especially in the area of the dress code. Canine to Five’s employees are allow to wear whatever they would like as long as it is not offensive to customers, or too revealing.

            Ms. Blondy left us with a few recommendations to help increase the chance of success in our journey to business ownership. Liz recommends us, in regards to leasing a building, to try and keep a good relationship with your landlord. She also recommends us to get very familar with employment laws. When it comes to marketing, Ms. Blondy recommends to market by relationship with current customers; according to her, we should start doing this even before our business even starts. Ms. Blondy left us with this final statement, which in my opinion is priceless: “You can never know too much about your industry.”

The Purrfect Relation

November 6, 2007, yet another Business Wisdom; the Bizdom U entrepreneurs were informed that Robert Mazur, inventor of the Purrfect Opener will be coming to speak to us. I think to myself, “Great, another extraordinary, conquering entrepreneur who is in a position that I want to be in some day.” I’m glad I found out that I was wrong. Dave Bing, John Ferchill, and Michael Melfi are all great men and wonderful entrepreneurs, but in my opinion, Robert Mazur is the ideal Business Wisdom speaker. Unlike Dave Bing, Robert Mazur is in the transitional phase to becoming a great entrepreneur. Everything is in place: he has a product on the market, his product is starting to get some recognition, and people are starting to speak his name. This transitional phase is the phase that most (if not all) of the entrepreneurs in Bizdom are working to get to. Mr. Mazur is the perfect speaker for us, because he was one of us a couple of years ago. Sure Mssrs. Bing, Ferchill, Melfi were once an inspiring entrepreneur still at the “starting blocks” of their career, but Mr. Mazur is so much closer to that phase than them, making him much more relatable to us, the “staring block” entrepreneur.

            I learned a lot from Mr. Mazur, including things that weren’t spoken like persistence and being constantly enthused about your product. Mr. Mazur did go on to say that we, as entry level entrepreneurs, should try to get as many referrals and recommendations as possible because of how useful they can be. Mr. Mazur also recommends talking to people in the industry we are entering in, and when making a product, a patent is one of the most important things you can have. Lastly, there were three main statements that Mr. Mazur said that really stuck out in my mind; and they were:

            “Before you spend the dime, spend the time.”

            “Try to be the LEADER of whatever you do!”

            “Keep moving, keep making decisions”

            While these three quotes are not the “be all, end all” solution to creating a successful business, I believe making perpetual effort to try and follow these quotes can make a huge impact on the success your business.