Archive for category: Success Stories

Cheval Golf & Athletic Club of Hillsborough County

Cheval Golf and Athletic Club is a country club that offers a vast amount of fitness clubs and classes for children and adults. The owner of the club, Larry King Jr., has always wanted to own his own business and decided to take over Cheval after seeing that getting kids and young families involved in athletics was becoming more important.

“Kind of funny how I got into this industry,” he said. “I wanted to own my own small business. I lived in the Cheval community and saw that it had an athletic club that was fledgling, so I kind of looked at that industry, went around the country, researched it and saw the changing times that were happening in the athletic club business, and that was getting kids and young families involved.”

While getting Cheval Golf and Athletic Club up and running, King’s biggest challenge was the initial start.

“The biggest challenge I faced in this small business is initially getting started and making sure your business plan was right,“ King said. “It took about 18 months to make sure the business financials were right and the customer acquisition policies we put in place were going to work.”

King had a good handle on the business, but reached out to the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida in 2015 after enduring 31 inches of rain in 25 days, which caused golf revenues to plummet. King sought out Florida SBDC at USF consultant Yanina Rosario for assistance achieving a no interest Emergency Bridge Loan, as a result of the 2015 West Central Florida Flooding Event, to resolve the damages.

With the help of the government and the SBDC, he was able to get an infrastructure loan to help fix the drainage issues. “It allowed me to pay it back interest free after six months,” King explained. “So I was able to hire a company, get the drainage put in place and now we have no more issues.”

After successfully working with the Florida SBDC at USF to get the loan, King is excited to work with the organization in the future to do a market research study via the Center’s Student Teams services. Students from the University of Tampa will conduct the market research study and provide insights to King, with the supervision of a Florida SBDC at USF consultant, to help grow Cheval’s restaurant business.

King is looking to get into the take out business for the country club’s restaurant as well. “With 1,500 homes in the community, adding take out is pointing to a 30 percent growth for the business,” he said.

“What they’re going to help us do is market research study in this industry to see what kind of growth we have. [They will] help us design the menus, and then we’re actually going to put an operational plan together, hire people from that, and deliver into this area.”

Since King took over, the Cheval Golf and Athletic Club community has grown drastically. Since taking over, the club has added 500 members.

Using King’s previous work experience, he created a values system in the beginning to gain the best members possible. After joining, his first few members referred their mutual friends and so on.

“I worked at two great companies prior to taking this business over,” King said. “One was American Express and one was Intuit, which is a software company out of Palo Alto, and they were real big on values – corporate run values. So when I took over here, I created my own values list and I hired within the values and that’s exactly what those two companies did. I really didn’t have to go out and recruit. People are now wanting to come here to be a part of the team.”

King has owned Cheval Golf & Athletic Club since 2011.

X-Link Medical Software Interfacing of Pasco County

Sometimes in life you have to take matters into your own hands. The Gorslines did just that in 1988 when they first started their business, Easy Business Software. The business is now called X-Link Medical Software Interfacing.

After one of their daughters was born with a bad medical condition, they discovered how medical records get lost or misplaced within hospitals and physician offices.  This prompted them to become the developers of a medical software interfacing system, which acts as the middleman between systems and exchanges data between them.

They recently discovered a great opportunity to expand internationally. “The beauty of it is many countries are behind the United States in healthcare,” Gary Gorsline said.  “They have the advantage of seeing all the mistakes the United States has made and in a lot of cases they can leapfrog much more quickly into better solutions that hopefully provide better outcomes for their populations.”

With the increasing development of healthcare systems and technologies they decided to reach out for help.

“I think our biggest challenge is for us to keep up with the international marketplace,” Gary said.

Following their work with Sandra Campbell at the U.S. Commerce Department, Max Stewart at Enterprise Florida, and Devon Barnett at the Pasco Economic Development Council, the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida was recommended to the Gorslines.

With the joint effort of all four organizations, X-Link was able to develop a successful Export Marketing Plan.

X-Link owners recently attended Discover Global Markets: Healthcare Connections in Seattle where they connected with six different buyers from five countries.  Beforehand, they were able to take advantage of the classes the Florida SBDC at USF offers.

“International Trade Master Series was an excellent class; it was an excellent way to cover the basics before we jump into international trade,” Mary Lynn Gorsline said. “We went to Seattle for the discover global markets for healthcare, which was a fantastic trip. It was just a really good education to have the class and our Export Marketing Plan before we went to that event so we were really prepared to speak with these people and really get a lot of information out of them.”

They will be travelling to Dusseldorf, Germany, this November to present at Medica, the largest healthcare event in the world with more than 130,000 attendees. They may also be attending the Arab Health Convention in Dubai next January.

“While we were at the Discover Global Markets: Healthcare Connections in Seattle, one of the buyers that we talked to from Saudi Arabia is very involved with the private health care distribution in the country and their biggest problem is they need to connect into the government’s healthcare system for the sharing of records, which again this is exactly what we do; we get the clinical data out of different systems to other systems,” Gary said.

Not only are they seeing success internationally but also on a local scale.

“We’ve got quite a few projects where we’re transferring clinical data to a statewide HIE (Health Information Exchange),” Leana Gorsline said.  “We’ve also pushed into the physical therapy space which has pulled us into almost every aspect of healthcare. We are very excited to be a part of that knowing that we have the know-how and knowledge to sort through the data to make it really work for them because it is a very complex set of data.”

X-Link continues to expand and grow their business. “The SBDC gave us a prioritized list of approximately 30 countries. They used 13 different indicators to come up with a selection list, so our position right now is to get this selection process completed and go forward with exporting,” Gary said.

“My recommendations for other companies who are considering exporting would be to get involved with all our your local economic development organizations, as they can help you sort through all the details that apply to your company specifically,” he added. “If you’re going to try exporting and you’re a small business you definitely need to get involved with these organizations for their help, without it you will not be successful, it’s too overwhelming for a small business.”

Sun Graphic Technologies of Manatee County

Living in a generation where digital technology seems to be moving faster than the eye can see, Bill Blechta and Rob Harris have always had a passion for the printing industry. Blechta and Harris first met about 15 years ago through the Florida Screen Printing Association and soon teamed up thereafter.

Sun Graphic Technologies Inc. has been in business since 1978, producing a variety of products from indoor to outdoor signage, helping to build brands for retail and manufacturing companies through quality printing.

“I decided to join this industry almost 38 to 39 years ago because I felt the need that there was a void in Sarasota for other printers who could do the type of work that we were planning on doing at that point,” Blechta, president and founder of Sun Graphic Technologies, said.

“We had a relationship with another printer who had a need to send their work out to someone so they came to us and said if we could purchase the equipment and set up an operation they could help us get in business,” Blechta added.

Being involved in an interesting and ever-changing industry it was important for them to get an outside opinion of the business as a whole.

“You have to offer more to existing customers and we turned to the SBDC to help coach us in order to do that,” Rob Harris, chief operating and marketing officer, said.

“We were looking for help in sales growth and just getting an outside opinion on the way we run the business and we learned about the SBDC through some colleagues. We contacted them and were in touch with Pat Gordon and it’s been great ever since,” Harris added.

With both Blechta and Harris having more than 25 years of experience under their belts, their biggest challenge as a business is always finding good, profitable work and markets to keep expanding and growing the company. After receiving the Growth Acceleration report from the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida, they were able to receive the guidance they needed to move forward.

“It was suggested as far as which industries we should be pursuing and we have been doing that for the last few years and there were some suggestions in there as far as other industries to pursue, and we plan on doing that,” Harris said. “And then in addition we had the website analysis done for our informational website along with our e-commerce sites and the insights we received from that has been great and we have made many changes in order to improve our SEO through Google, Yahoo, etc. ,so it’s been fantastic so far.”

The duo is also taking advantage of some additional no-cost services the Florida SBDC at USF offers, like financial analysis.

“For those businesses that use finances as an excuse not to hire somebody to get an outside perspective, that is where the SBDC has been great for Sun,” Harris said.  “The fact that the cost is nil and we get some expert advice with people that run businesses outside of our industry and can give us addition insight has been excellent.”

Since the company first started, it has now added a wide format digital printer to its corporation and is continuing its journey to grow the company further.

“Being with the program with the SBDC, the things that we have learned have helped us look at running our business in a different direction and making Sun Graphic Technologies grow and become more successful,” Blechta said.

“I think one very important thing for all small businesses to realize about the SBDC is that there’s help out there because a lot of people come in and run their business the same way they’ve done year after year, not really knowing that there might be a better way to do it or a more efficient way,” he added.

Boyd Industries, Inc. of Pinellas County

Boyd Industries, Inc., took advantage of the Export Marketing Plan, provided in partnership with Enterprise Florida and US Commercial Service, to outline a strategy for international expansion. Pictured from left are: Max Stewart, Enterprise Florida; Selma Canas, Florida SBDC at USF; Adrian LaTrace, Boyd Industries; Brent Barkway, Pinellas County EDC; and Sandra Campbell, US Commercial Service.

Adrian LaTrace has more than 25 years of varied experience in entrepreneurship. With varied work in start-ups and corporations, LaTrace has spent his career in growing sectors such as healthcare, renewable energy and aerospace.

In January 2016, as the Chief Executive Officer and relatively new owner of Boyd Industries, Inc., LaTrace was working on making the company a world-class global market leader in the dental equipment industry.

“I found that the dental industry is a very stable industry in our economy,” he said. “Aside from that, Boyd had a great track record and reputation as the premiere manufacturer of dental chairs, delivery systems and other accessories that go into dental offices.”

While Boyd Industries had ventured into international market occasionally, LaTrace knew there was potential to do more. That’s when he started reaching out for local resources.

“I was referred by our local Pinellas County Economic Development group,” he said of starting to work with the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida. “Then I began to work with the SBDC, who in turn, pulled in other resources that can help Boyd Industries with our expansion plans.”

In June 2016, a team of consultants, who are all Certified Global Business Professionals, started work on developing an Export Marketing Plan for Boyd Industries. This service, provided in partnership with Enterprise Florida, provides small businesses the opportunity to learn about potential markets that suit their industry.

“For a small business, rather than spending resources and money just to experiment in international markets, the SBDC Export Marketing Plan gives us a much more defined focus as to what countries will provide us the best benefit,” LaTrace said. “[It] has provided us a roadmap for how to manage our expansion plans internationally.”

Boyd Industries has been on a multi-year plan to prepare for expanding into international markets. Behind the scenes, representatives of the company worked to put processes in place that can manage accounting and manufacturing processes worldwide. In addition, they’ve updated their quality management system to successfully complete the certification audit for the international quality standard, ISO 13485:2016.

With the Export Marketing Plan now in-hand, Boyd Industries has a better chance of being successful in exporting to multiple international markets.

“I think working with the team has been fantastic,” LaTrace said of his Florida SBDC at USF consultants. “They’ve been able to pull in multiple resources – state, federal and local – to help make Boyd better prepared for our expansion globally.”

JW Services & Supply Inc. of Highlands County

Jill Murphy and her husband first started their business in May 2009. Now called JW Services & Supply Inc., their business focuses on building fences, cow pens, mineral feeders, horse barns, and other various agricultural work.

Although Murphy is not native to Florida, her husband’s experience in agricultural work has helped influence the two to do this for a living but when they decided to try to get HUBZone certified they were as Murphy said, “a fish out of water trying to make our way through,” in early 2009.

In 2010, they decided to reach out to the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida for some guidance.

Since then, the two have worked with consultant David Noel and have become HUBZone certified as well as have secured several other contracts throughout the years.

“He’s helped me stay accredited with what I need to do at that time. He has also helped me secure WOSB (Women Owned Small Business certification). He has worked with me very much so in the past six years,” Murphy said.

In 2011, when Murphy and her family went through many tragedies with the loss of her father and father-in-law, Noel helped keep the business on track.

“He has become very close to the family not only in a working, professional way, and has kept me on course with what needs to be done and to keep the business how it should be as far as certifications to be able to secure government contracts and all,” Murphy said.

“I could call him at just about anytime. We’ve done work through emails, texting, I’ll go the actual college to meet with him and many times it has been spur of the moment that I needed to do this just to have everything on track and to keep it running smoothly. He’s always been willing to assist me and help me,” she added.

JW Services & Supply Inc. of Highlands County has now added four employees to its payroll and continues to work with their consultant, Noel, to keep up with different requirements of certifications as they stay on track to see more growth in their business.

“There’s been many times that I don’t understand the lingo of these contracts where he does. He’s very knowledgeable. He’s very personable. I have never felt intimidated by him whatsoever. If anything he has helped me get through a lot of rough spots that I wouldn’t be able to do by myself,” Murphy said.

Murphy says she would recommend businesses at any stage work with the Florida SBDC at USF, and Noel.

“I strongly recommend the help of the SBDC in the fact of helping small businesses get started no matter what type it is, male or female, because there are a lot of pitfalls. There are a lot of hoax emails that are sent and once some of your information is in there, believe me you will get them, and you just have to be aware of them. He has been very helpful, once again, in helping me avoid that. He has just given me a lot of good advice through the years, I strongly recommend their help,” she said.