Business Owners Speak Out

The 8th Edition

A collection of short interviews and education from local business owners with amazing insights to today's challenges.

We virtually interviewed some of the top small businesses to take a look at what's really happening during the COVID-19 Crisis. Everyone has some important tips to share with other business owners and a few even have a special offer to share. Check out their interviews and MOST IMPORTANTLY visit their websites and check out their services.  Every small business needs us now (and probably yours too!)


OH, And, learn from their mistakes.... hear what they've done wrong so you can do it right! 

Guy Houston, Supermaids Inc.  
We offer one-time cleaning, weekly cleaning and monthly cleaning services. Cleaning supplies are included for any residential house cleaning or office cleaning job.

Who do you consider your best customer or Target audience? Middle income residential households. Both heads of the household working without time to clean the house.

What's been the greatest impact of COVID-19 on your 
business? People are afraid to let us into their homes, we never shut down. We started advertising early that we follow all guidelines wear masks, gloves and practicing social distancing. We are about at 75% and we are having our older customers come back.
  
What are some actions you have taken to make a difference? In all of our advertising we have pictures of our girls with masks and disinfectant things in their hand. 
Business is picking up a little bit, when people saw the advertising they knew that’s what would show up at their door.  

It's been said that smart people learn from their mistakes, but the wise learn from the mistakes of others. What are some mistakes that you’ve made that could help others? I found that it is very necessary to do quality control, in other words contacting the customers after they have had the service and that they are satisfied.

What is most inspiring to you today? Customer reviews about how they like our girls and appreciate me. Its not just about the money its about doing something that has value and enhancement to someone's life. The feedback is what is inspiring.

Offer: Discounts available for ongoing service, Regular house cleaning, move in and move 
out. We also offer carpet cleaning as an add on service. 

Contact
supermaidscom@gmail.com / 972-644-6469 / www.supermaidsinc.com 

Frank Millsap, Sachse Rod Shop Inc:  We started in 1982 we build restore and repair custom and special interest automobiles.  

Who do you consider your best customer or Target audience? Corporate CEO cars, all kind of government officials and general everyday people. We help people build their dream. 

What's been the greatest impact of COVID-19 on your 
business? It has increased our business. We are as busy now as we have ever been.  

What are some actions you have taken to make a difference? Since we do virtually no paid advertising it's just satisfied customers.  

It's been said that smart people learn from their mistakes, but the wise learn from the mistakes of others. What are some mistakes that you’ve made that could help others? One of the hard things we learned is as a hobby it wasn’t a profit-oriented 
business and as you get paid employees you have to change it to a business model to make profit. Changing the business model with the same customer base is very difficult.  

What is most inspiring to you today?  To see the growth of the 
business in the economic times that we are in.

Contact: (972) 495-1557 / www.sachserodshop.com 

Simon Bulut, Coolsis Technologies, Inc. We do school information solutions from K-12 private and charter schools. They can track behavioral issues we focus on education.  


Who do you consider your best customer or Target audience? 
Smaller size private schools. Smaller private schools have limited decision makers. Up to 3 campuses up to 500 at each campus  


What's been the greatest impact of COVID-19 on your business? 
It has a huge impact on some schools. We have schools in different states and their needs are not the same. We had a lot of new requirements to adapt to like attendance and assignments are different.


What are some actions you have taken to make a difference? We had to enhance our solution for attendance and it was the first action we took. We started to develop and advanced feature to share assignments.


What is most inspiring to you today? That I was able to move to the US and create a company to make money and provide for my family. 


Contact:(214) 774-9344 / sbulut@coolsis.com / www.coolsis.com  

Jeff Ross, Voice Stamps We design phone applications and IDR application.  Some of our popular packages are call recording or population hotlines. Some of our advanced would be touchstone payment processing like paying a utility bill. We also do advice hotlines. Build, design and host.  

Who do you consider your best customer or Target audience? We have a bunch of different products and each has a top 2 or 3 targets so it’s a lot. Utility companies with large customer bases. We serve many industries such as doctors and lawyers.  

What's been the greatest impact of COVID-19 on your business? It has changed, in the beginning we were super busy setting up information hotlines for large companies and schools and that has died off and now lately we have had to shift gears to smaller companies and startups who are starting side gigs and stuff. The demand has shifted from larger to smaller companies.  

What are some actions you have taken to make a difference? I set up a webpage to list the things we can do to help people during COVID. All our remote services for example – helping businesses with call recording.  

It's been said that smart people learn from their mistakes, but the wise learn from the mistakes of others. What are some mistakes that you’ve made that could help others? I would say that if I had to do it all over again, I would make sure that the second person I hired was the most important person in the business I would make them a clone/buffer between me and contract employees. I would have a buffer between me and my other employees and they would be contract employees instead of salary.  

What is most inspiring to you today? I’m inspired that I live in Texas and not everything is shut down. Being a Texan. 

Contact: jeff@voicestamps.com / (469) 272 4688 / www.voicestamps.com 

Scott Hengemuhle, Retire PC, We are a certified RT recycler. We belong to an governing body that we are audited by. We take care of data destruction. We work with corporate American mid to large size business. Laptops, servers, printers, basically anything with a plug (but no appliances).

Who do you consider your best customer or Target audience? We are looking for people who have a high employee size, we deal with the FBI & CIA and all kinds of government agencies, school districts.  

What's been the greatest impact of COVID-19 on your business? It has hurt us, when they aren’t there in office there isn’t anything we can do. There is no one to talk to on the phone.  

What are some actions you have taken to make a difference? We ran a skeleton crew, and we worked together. Until we have more opportunities come in to offices. 

It's been said that smart people learn from their mistakes, but the wise learn from the mistakes of others. What are some mistakes that you’ve made that could help others? You have the be flexible when obstacles come because they are coming. Big or small they will come and you should be able to adapt and it helps to have good employees. We have hired too quickly and fired too slowly. Company is as good as employees.  

What is most inspiring to you today? To come through this time 2020 and to come back stronger and to come back a better company. What has transpired is not a reflection of us. 

Contact: scott@retirepc.com / (972) 231 6600 / www.retirepc.com 

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