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    This Is It: If You're Waiting for a Sign to Start Your Business
    This Is It: If You're Waiting for a Sign to Start Your Business
    This Is It: If You're Waiting for a Sign to Start Your Business
    Ebook158 pages3 hours

    This Is It: If You're Waiting for a Sign to Start Your Business

    By Glenn Edwards and Jordan Edwards

    ()

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    About this ebook

    You have grand entrepreneurial dreams, but uncertainty and fear of failure are holding you back. The fact is, there's no better time to start a new business or expand an old one than right now. And you can make it all happen by embracing the core principles of one remarkable family.

    Over the past decade, Glenn and Jordan Edwards, a father and son team of visionaries, have built numerous profitable companies from the ground up. In This is It!, they show you why some small businesses thrive while others crumble, and share the know-how and best practices that enabled them to succeed spectacularly. They also provide actionable tools to help you begin creating a strong, viable, and enduring commercial enterprise today.

    It's time to stop procrastinating and take the leap. If you're looking for the motivation, inspiration, and expert guidance you need to get your journey started, This is It!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateMay 28, 2019
    ISBN9781544512914
    This Is It: If You're Waiting for a Sign to Start Your Business

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      Book preview

      This Is It - Glenn Edwards

      ]>

      ]>

      Copyright © 2019 Glenn Edwards & Jordan Edwards

      All rights reserved.

      ISBN: 978-1-5445-1291-4

      ]>

      Dedicated to our family: Lisa, Gabby, Tyler, Jess, Danielle, and Axel. And to all our extended family, including the incredible people at Mixology Clothing Company and Chart Organization.

      ]>

      Contents

      Introduction

      1. Just Start

      2. Build It and Sell It

      3. Prioritize People

      4. Focus on Your Foundation

      5. Build a Strong Culture

      6. Never Stop Learning

      7. Master the Mental Part of the Game

      Conclusion

      Acknowledgments

      Appendix

      Resources from Chapter 1: Just Start

      Resources from Chapter 2: Build It and Sell It

      Resources from Chapter 3: Prioritize People

      Resources from Chapter 4: Focus on Your Foundation

      Resources from Chapter 5: Build a Strong Culture

      Resources from Chapter 6: Never Stop Learning

      Resources from Chapter 7: Master the Mental Part of the Game

      ]>

      Introduction

      Have you been waiting for a sign to branch out as an entrepreneur? Are you sitting on a small business idea, but aren’t sure if it’s time to make an initial move or expand your current operation?

      This is your sign. And now is the time.

      You may still feel hesitant—and for good reason. In the decade since the Great Recession, many people without access to a large amount of capital have felt held down by increased banking regulations and stricter access to credit. We are Glenn and Jordan Edwards, a father and son business team, and we understand this frustration. We were only able to open Mixology Clothing Company—a New York City-based women’s clothing store—ten years ago because we did have access to capital outside of the banking system. Today, Mixology has surpassed $10 million in annual sales, and Jordan was recently able to secure our first business loan to open the tenth store. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made during the last decade, and we’re confident in the economy. We’ve recently invested in various other business ventures in security, consumer electronics, water consumption, technology, and hospitality—all of which are outside of our two primary disciplines, commercial real estate investment and management, and omnichannel fashion retail. In addition, we are continuing our efforts to open more Mixology stores.

      This book, however, is not about us. It is about you.

      As the economy improves, banks are loosening the restrictions that may have once prevented you from moving forward.1 Funding for your version of Mixology—any small business you want to start—may not have been possible five years ago, but it is today (like it was for Jordan). We want to help by sharing best practices, key lessons, stories of successes and failures, and tools and resources you can use along your journey. We will also include the voices of other entrepreneurs who have been in your shoes so you can read, in their words, how they’ve applied these principles along their respective journeys. You’ll get a taste of their challenges and their triumphs—because, as we all know, business comes with a hefty side of both.

      As we explore in detail throughout the following pages, opening a business is about much more than finances: it’s also about grit, resilience, and the commitment to learn and grow along the way. It is a phenomenal time to be an entrepreneur because access to the information you need to get started is more readily available than ever. As technology has grown, so has the democratization of information—a wealth of which is quite literally at your fingertips. You can learn anything, anywhere, at any time.

      Thanks to the internet, it’s also easier to expand your business than ever before. Most of us are walking around with a supercomputer in our pockets. An iPhone has millions of times the computing power they used in the 1960s to get to the moon! When we originally started building our first web business, though, it felt like building a home from scratch—and we build businesses, not only houses. If you wanted to create a website back then, the only way to do it was to hire contractors and subcontractors, like what you’d need to do if you wanted to pour a foundation or rough in electrical wires.

      Today, that foundation is poured for you, and those walls are already there. With resources like Square, Shopify, YouTube, and a host of others we’ll explore in this book, all you need to do is move in and make yourself—and your business—at home and start selling. Plus, there’s the availability of step-by-step instruction if you want to dive deeper!

      If you’re worried about competing with Walmart, Amazon, and the like, don’t. Even if you sell through them or a similar large-scale distribution means, there’s a huge opportunity to not be them. Why? It’s simple: you can build better relationships. Even Sam Walton, the father of Walmart, discussed this concept in his book, Made in America. He mentioned one thing Walmart could never replace is those small business owners who can look into the eyes of their customers, connect with them, and know them.

      That small business owner is you. Who, then, are we? Let us introduce ourselves.

      Glenn’s Story

      Ever since my parents started a housekeeping delivery service out of their one-bedroom apartment in 1955—with three children, mind you—I’ve been surrounded by the spirit of entrepreneurship. When I was old enough, my father bought me a suit, gave me the keys to a vehicle, and sent me off to start selling. Our family worked hard and often. That hasn’t changed. During my career, I helped turn that tiny business with four employees into a home healthcare conglomerate with multiple business lines, locations across ten states, and over 6,000 employees. When we reached $80 million in revenue, I decided to sell the company.

      Then in 2003, I founded Chart Organization—a real estate business named after my mother, Norma Edwards, whose maiden name was Chart. She was the last Chart, so I wanted her name to live on through my business. It has. We have owned and operated more than thirty commercial properties in ten states and continue to grow as a family business today.

      The seeds of entrepreneurship that were planted by my parents continue to grow as I lead Chart and help run Mixology. Mixology is yet another seed I get to water, only this time, I get to do it with my son, Jordan, and daughter, Gabrielle. I’ll let Jordan tell you that story.

      Jordan’s Story

      After graduating from Northeastern University in 2008, I began working for a small real estate firm in New York City when—bam!—the Great Recession hit. The stock market dropped by 1,000 points in one day, and I found myself out of a job.

      My ambition was always to work in the family business with Dad, but I found myself there quicker than I’d expected. It was a difficult time to be in business; the entire world seemed paralyzed by fear. Then, my dad invested in Mixology—the full story of which we’ll share later in this book—and everything changed. Today, our business has 130 employees, a robust online presence, ten brick-and-mortar locations, and a first-in-class web business. I never set out to be in the retail business, but sometimes you are presented with an opportunity and you have to jump on it! As we continue to grow, I continue to learn—and I’m ready to give some of that back. The same principles I use in business mirror my martial arts practice. I’ve been practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu since 2009, and as of writing this book I am a purple belt. I am a student and, in 2017, I became a teacher.

      One of my favorite books is Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. In the book, he tells a story of legendary MMA fighter Frank Shamrock, who has a system he calls Plus, Minus, Equal. He writes, Each fighter, to become great…needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser whom they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against. As one reviewer wrote,

      "By training against someone who is better than us, it purges the ego from thinking we are the best. By training against someone lesser than us, it humbles the ego to think of ourselves as teachers. And by training against someone of equal skill, it reminds us to stay competitive and not become complacent.

      The plus, minus, and equal principle can be applied to any field. If you’re a manager, seek out a mentor, train an intern, and collaborate with coworkers. If you play varsity soccer, learn from the best player on the team, help train the worst player, and compete with all other teammates during practice.2

      I believe in this wholeheartedly. I was blessed to learn about and experience the business world firsthand, as was my father. However, both of us understand that maybe you didn’t grow up that way. Maybe this feels like new and uncharted territory to you. If so, we wrote this book because we want to invite you into those dinner table conversations that have long been our norm. These are our stories, our challenges, our triumphs, and our takeaways—and now they’re yours, too. If you’re stuck between being in and out of business, of failing or making it, you may feel like you’re on a narrow ledge; you can think of a thousand reasons you could fall. Our goal is to make that ledge wider and safer for you, and we’ll share the ways to make that happen in this book.

      Are You Ready?

      There is not a get-rich-quick way to start a company, but there are tried and tested methods, strategies, best practices, and mindsets that can help you launch and grow a profitable business. This book is the culmination of decades of experience, delivered from two very different perspectives, both of which are rooted in integrity and hard work. Together, we’ll cover it all: from starting to selling to treating people well to taking care of yourself throughout the process, and everything in between. Then, in a robust appendix, you’ll find practical guides and

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