Urban Miyares - Part Three This is Urban Miyares, and this is our third of three sessions. It’s been enjoyable. I want to thank everybody who has emailed me or contacted me regarding the past two sessions about the information I’ve provided and how it helped them with their clients and consumers. In the previous two sessions, we talked about self-employment; the motives to get in there; the different types of businesses (not all businesses are for profit as an example and everyone has different expectations); what it takes to be in business in the non-disabled world of business today; and some other areas that typically are not covered by those who don’t have disabilities. As I’ve said before, the business world is an able-bodied world and those of us with disabilities, veterans with disabilities and others with disabilities, we’re nontraditional. The traditional mode is what everybody sets their rules by. So, we have to do things completely different. What I’m going to cover in this session is something you’ve probably never heard about; it’s the push or pull of business. Much like push and pull in marketing, for those who know about marketing, you can either push your product into the market or the market could pull the product towards it. The same thing goes with business. Most people that are thinking of starting a business or those in voc rehab almost always look at the push mode of business. A client or consumer comes up with the business idea or the business concept, (maybe they were in that business before or that trade), and they want to start this specific business because of some relationship, belief or expectation of it. When you push your way into business, you’re almost always talking about needing more money, not sure where you’re going to market, and you’re creating barriers already. The hardest business to start for anybody, whether or not you have a disability, is a push type business- especially if you don’t have money to start with or the experience in that industry to start with. It is really difficult. Unfortunately, that’s what it is. [For] most push businesses, the thing is you’ve got this business idea; now you have to go write a business plan; then you have to go look for money. There’s another way of starting a business. This is where we specialize in with a number of people with disabilities. That’s the pull where the business arena wants you to be in business. Just imagine, there are businesses out there right now that are looking for somebody to take them over, to manage them, and to run them. Whether or not the individual has a disability, experience is not needed; financials or credit is not needed. These businesses are galore. [There are] more than you would think. I think it goes to the basic understanding of first why do most businesses close their doors or fail? You could read all the studies and reports and they’ll say it’s money and management. Usually those are [number] one and two. The real underlying reason why most businesses either transfer ownership, they’re sold, or they close their doors is due to a death or a disability of the business owner or a key person in that business. If you check most businesses that are for sale, or you see them in the newspaper or on the Internet, it is estimated that anywhere between 70-85% of these businesses are being offered for sale because of a medical condition or death of a key individual. You often don’t see this advertised because once you announce that someone is disabled or dead, the value in that business drops dramatically. For example, if you’re in business and you tell your CPA that you have to sell your business because you have cancer and have 6 months left to live. Or, you have a heart condition and your doctor advised that, your CPA would tell you that you have to sell your business because you can’t run it. This is what most CPA’s will do rather than do rehabilitation of the business. That’s where we step in and our specialty. About 20% of the people that we service are existing business owners who become disabled while owning a business. We have to go and rehabilitate the business, so that the business owner is able to run the business with their disability. People who don’t have that resource with their businesses up for sale usually disguising it saying, I’m getting to old, I’m tired, or I’ve made my money. There’s not a requirement of full disclosure like there is when you sell real estate in a lot of parts of the country. You have to look for these opportunities. This is a critical way of doing it. Of course, the business owner has to have a certain personality to be able to work in the pull environment of business where that business world is looking for them instead of them looking for a business. The pull environment is when a person who has patience could wait for the next bus, meaning not every business that they could possibly get into would be the right one for them, and there will be a lot of disappointments on it. They also have to have the personality that they want to get into business irregardless of the type of business. Like I’ve mentioned before, once you understand the basics of business, you really don’t need to know that much about its product or service to be successful. The business world is loaded with business owners who are ignorant about their own business and what they sell on the market. It’s not uncommon. It may even be an advantage. In certain businesses or based on your personality, the lower the emotional value you have on your product or service, the more chance you are going to be profitable. Too many people that are emotionally tied to their business often will sell the customer for more than what they paid for. Instead of just getting the same price and going on to the next customer, they’ll give little incentives and promotions and everything else to actually oversell the product if they’ve gotten the money. These types of businesses often suffer. I see this a lot with Native Americans especially when they’re doing something from their heritage [such as] selling items. They put so much detail [in the products]. A lot of craftsmen [and] arts and crafts people are in the same mode, even food service people. Sometimes not having an emotional tie to your business, but providing good customer service like you should, can be one of the traits that you have to develop as a business owner to be successful in business. To get into the pull environment where you are being pulled into the market, the first thing you have to do is check your resources. I’m not talking about how much money you have. It’s based on who do you know, or who do you know who knows somebody, and what do they do? For veterans, it is your veteran’s status. For example, in most states, if you look in your state’s business and professional codes, you’ll see that veterans are exempt from paying business licenses and food services permits and other types of licensing permits. [They are] still required to get these licenses and permits but you’re exempt if you’re in a vending, hawking, or peddling business whether it’s indoors or outdoors. For example, a veteran who can open a coffee stand, a hot dog stand or go into vending machines should not have to pay any licenses for that. They will still need to get those licenses. There’s a health requirement [and] food handling permits. They still have to get them, but there should be no charge for those permits. Getting your state’s business and professional code will do that. I know in California 16102 is the professional code. That’s just one of the resources that many [people] don’t have. A veteran who is legally blind may qualify to be part of the blind vendor program. That’s called the BVP. That’s where you can get a concession in government or federal, state, and other buildings, and it’s not always into a food handling or selling newspapers. There have been stories of people opening dry cleaning businesses and flower shops all under the blind enterprise program. These are some of the resources that few people even explore. They get in their head they want to start this business. Right away they’re pushing themselves into the business. They don’t understand why they’re not getting the funding or why is the VA or voc rehab not helping them start? After all, they are a disabled vet. It just doesn’t work that way. They have to understand the business side of it and the roles of these agencies in order to be successful in business. Those are just a couple of the resources. Sometimes family members and neighbors can be valuable resources. Of course your background, training, or experience can often be a valuable resource that could be used to capitalize on later. The type of business you go into is really immaterial when you pull yourself into business. The goal is to really get into business no matter what it is. One of the advantages of getting into business this way is that often if you choose right and you have the patience. As soon as you start the business, especially an existing business you are taking over, you often experience very quickly a positive cash flow, mainly if you’re in a retail trade. Remember what I said, positive cash flow and profit are accounting terms. Profit seldom is a good indication of the success of a business, although some people use that as the measurement. The positive cash flow in most business evaluations tends to be critical. Basically, a positive cash flow is just like your checking account. If you get your pay check and you pay all your bills, what’s left over at the end of the month, is your positive cash flow. This is so critical especially in the retail trade where cash flow is king. So, many people, disabled or disabled vets, are able to get into business with a positive cash flow even though the business on paper or legitimately is not doing well financially. They often can walk out of these businesses quite easily. I just wanted to introduce this to you, where you are pulling yourself into business as an option. The pulling yourself into business as an option is great as a self-employment tool to find full-time employment. An example would be someone, who checks their newspaper. They talk to a number of people and they find this business. I’ll give you an example that recently happened in Los Angeles. A Mexican restaurant had been in business 12 years. One of their customers is a veteran with paraplegia. It was a husband and wife team and the husband passed away. The wife didn’t like the restaurant business. She didn’t do the cooking; the husband did the cooking. She was the hostess in the front. She put the restaurant on the market for $45,000. It was in a Hispanic neighborhood. It was a nice little place. It sat about 55 people. They had beer and wine. They weren’t doing that much in sales. She went with a business broker who charged her 10% and put it on the market for $75,000. Here you have a widow who was running a business she doesn’t like. All the staff knows she does not understand business. She never really handled the books or anything. They start stealing from her and the bills start piling up. Meanwhile the business broker is bringing people in who are really not interested in her business. It’s not being kept clean. The employees are really taking advantage of her. The end result is that the veteran with paraplegia went in with an offer. The offer was to pick up her bills. She said, “No. I need so many dollars because I don’t have my husband’s income.” In another month she called him up. He went in as the manager of the business at a salary with an option to buy in three months. He had an income right away. (This is a veteran, with paraplegia, non-service connected veteran.) At the end of three months, he exercised his option and bought the business for $1. That’s right, $1. She gets 2% of gross sales every month for the next three years. His business is doing quite well now, and he actually has turned a profit. I have to get with him sometime and tell him it’s time to expand or go into frozen foods or something because we want to get rid of that profit. She will get her money back. She’ll probably make $15,000-$20,000 on the business after the three years at her 2%. That is just one example. We do this a lot with homeless people or ex-offenders who are just getting out of prison. We will try to structure a business beforehand that they could go right into it with no money down, if we can’t find someone to foot the money for them upfront. This is an option to look for. You have to realize that they will probably have to talk to 10, 20, or 50 businesses before they get an opportunity. They are going to learn about the business world. If they’ve ever thought about owning a restaurant in the community, try to buy an existing restaurant that’s being sold. You’ll get all the garbage and crap of what’s happening in that community. Many times they change their mind. Maybe if they don’t want to open a restaurant in the business. They have no concept of what a restaurant takes in the form of mainly time. This is a big misconception many have about getting into business. They didn’t realize how hard it was, how difficult it was, or the amount of hours they had to put in or how much profit they were going to make per a dollar in sales. Their expectations were completely different than what really happens. That’s probably the biggest number one reason I see people with disabilities and veterans with disabilities not making it in business is because of their expectation. It doesn’t meet that expectation at all. We’ve covered expectations before from financial to time management. Another resource veterans have, especially with public law right now, is government procurement. We sell goods and services to municipal, state, and federal government agencies. Whether it’s a public law 10650, which deals mainly with service disabled veterans or the state has the specific law for veterans, service disabled veterans. We often don’t recommend someone going into government procurement as a startup business or as a primary source of funding. They have this expectation that because they are a disabled vet that they are automatically going to get government contracts. Nothing could be farther from the truth, even though there are set asides. Often these set asides are competitive. You probably will be competing with another service disabled vet who has been in business longer than you who maybe has stronger bonding or qualifications to bid on a job. It’s not always the lowest bid that gets it. It’s often the lowest, best qualified, or most qualified bidder who will get the job. We suggest to people if they go into business to use their service connection veteran status for government procurement, if they want to get into a federal 8A program, which is a disadvantage program for those often based on gender or ethnicity. They have to be in business for two years before they qualify for the 8A application. Get into business and use this procurement or this government contracting as a secondary, not a primary, source of income unless you are going into business with the contract in hand, which does happen sometimes—mainly those in highly skilled areas. People with PhDs sometimes can get a government contract before they actually start their business, so it’s in hand. Often people get right out of the military. We recently had a gentleman who is a security database programmer. He in the government for 20 years and continued working for the agency he used to work at as military personnel in Washington, [D.C.]. They just kept him on staff, but he’s now a civilian. His business was easy to start and very little need of funding. That’s another area of the resources. You could get a resource that helps you in business right away. That’s the “pull into business” theory. I often say that the homeless are the best entrepreneurs out there, because if you’ve ever lived on the street you become an entrepreneur instantly. Otherwise you starve or you die. Whether it’s washing windows or washing dishes one day or it’s panhandling, you’re always out there marketing yourself to raise money, whether it’s for survival, drugs, or alcohol, whatever the reason is. I know in working with the homeless, we try to have them convert what they were doing before into a viable business. They have already gotten [over] that fear factor of I don’t like to sell to anybody. They’re not worried about that after they’ve been off the street for a while. It tends to be a big problem with a lot of people. They just want to do their job and hopefully the customers will come knocking on their door, for their services rather than them do the marketing. Other forms of business that are great on the pull method are part-time employment. A person can commit to 5-10 hours a week and start a business on the side by absorbing another business. We see this often in the service sector, software development, computer repair, public relations, marketing, freelance writers, [and] artists. Creative people tend to do the part-time. I’m talking about actually working, not saying you’re in business and giving the impression that you are working 60 or 80 hours a week when you really are working 10 hours a week. If you do it as a part-time employee, you have to set your goals and be disciplined. Otherwise your business will fail. A lot of home-based businesses start as part-time ventures even though they say they are full-time. They are really part-time businesses or glorified hobbies. There are three different types of home-based businesses. There is the home-based where you do everything from home exclusively. This is where you never leave the home for marketing. This is a lot of the internet businesses. These businesses tend not to make so much money. Then you have the business where the service is done from the home or production is done from the home, but the business owner actually leaves the house to meet with clients or do marketing of some sort. These businesses tend to make more money. The third type of home-based business is a home-based business where you are only at home for financial reasons. Once the business has the financial resources, then you’re plans are to go to a storefront or an office building. Those third type tend to make the most money and people like the jobs. Microsoft’s Bill Gates and partners started in the third phase of a home-based business. They started in their home or their garage. Their goal was always to get out of their home. The home-based business industry is one of those which can be a wonderful pull industry if you design it correctly. Sometimes a home-based business is a hobby. We’ve had a lady do flowers/bouquets. She now has a commercial bouquet business which she sells to event planners and churches that buy her gardenia bouquets. She’s in Louisiana area. She ships them all over the country. I believe her bouquets now are $3.50 each on wholesale level. Of course they market those at $10-$20 each. She’s doing quite [well]. Her biggest problem is running out of flowers. Often the pull business does not require a business plan. You are solving the need or desperation of someone else. When you look for an opportunity, you look for the opportunity of getting in with no money down. Yes, you might be absorbing headaches and debt, but sometimes you’re not. That’s what you have to decide. If something is too big of a debt, then you have to take the next bus. That is to just drop it and go on to the next project. I purchased a few businesses that way. I found it quite rewarding in doing that. Of course, when you make money you can do the push and do any type of business you want. I tell people make money first and then you can do what you want. Everybody can do what they want, before they can make money. [I] just want to try to highlight this with the traditional or the push type of business versus the pull type of business and doing it nontraditional. In the push type of business, you need money. Often money has to be acquired in the traditional mode such as a bank, some type of lender if voc rehab is not going to fund it. Under a pull type nontraditional way, there often is no or little money required. Sometimes it is less than $1,000. It’s not uncommon. In many cases, the existing owner often will fund any needs. If the business is being sold for $10,000, $50,000, or $1 million it doesn’t matter. The owner is so desperate to get out of there. That’s what you are looking for. It is someone who is desperate. It’s almost like shopping around for bankruptcy. You are really providing a service for these people. In many cases, they are not going to sell their business. They are just holding on, the bills are piling up, and they are going to claim bankruptcy. Some of these businesses are profitable. Not all businesses close due to business failure. We have to have the patience to look for this. Where do you get leads of businesses that might be up for sale or people in trouble? Not only in the newspaper, but Chambers of Commerce, bankers, CPAs, etc. What you do is just let them know that if they hear of anybody who is desperate to sell their business, I’m looking to getting into business. I’d be willing to take over someone’s headaches. One of the advantages of acquiring an existing business or someone else’s headache, or potential of someone else’s dream, is that the startup cost is difficult. If you are going to start up the business, the amount of money you need to start up is exorbitant. Let’s take a restaurant as an example. Food service equipment on an auction block, if a restaurant fails, is worth at best 10¢ on the dollar. On the resell value depending on how old the equipment is and what type it is, you are lucky if you get 25¢-30¢ on the dollar. Whereas, you opened up the business on the push, your opening up a new business, you’re going to pay 100¢ or 90¢ on the dollar to possibly have that same type of equipment. The easier way to start a business, especially if you don’t have business experience or have never been in business before, know nothing about the business, the worst that could happen is that you walk away from it. Especially if the former owner is still owning he paper to it, making the financial loan. Then you would just turn the business back to them. I’ve owned businesses where I’ve sold it to somebody, not due to desperation, and I’ve gotten it back. This is an issue where I wound up selling it again. It’s part of the business world and the business cycle. There are businesses right now in your community that someone is in trouble, especially in today’s economy, in almost every community that a consumer could possibly go in and make an offer. It’s not going to happen easily. It just starts out by walking in. All you have to do is say, “Hey if you ever think of selling, give me a call. I’m looking for a business here in town.” Every business is for sale at the right price. Again, price does not matter when you do the pull type of business because the price is immaterial. What they are asking for and what they get are two entirely different things. If someone is a stickler on the price, you’ve got to move on to the next business. You can’t get emotional on any business or any offer. The situation has to be right. As I said before, it could happen right away, but in most cases it can take a month, two months, or even longer. I have one person that’s on two years and still looking. He had some issues with that. The individual has to have a personality. This is one of the criteria on one of the pull type of business venture. The person who is looking for this business opportunity has to be able to talk to people. If someone is going to give you their business, especially if it’s a good business, they are going to have to like you, such as this lady in Los Angeles with the veteran. There has to be some kind of a relationship there because there is no money being transacted in most cases. There are a lot of promises and hopes and maybe some of these businesses are going bankrupt. Here is an example of one of the ways you could do it. Let’s say a business is about to go bankrupt and you tell the existing owner, I’ll take over all your headaches if you just give me the keys to your business. You find out the business owes $100,000, as an example. Before you actually sign the papers, you get a list of all the veterans he owes money to, all the debtors/creditors he owes money to. You go to each one of them. You could start with the landlord. He’s probably behind on his rent. You go to his suppliers and others that they have. You tell them that you are thinking of taking over the business and this business owes you $20,000 and say would you take 10¢ on the dollar. If it goes into bankruptcy, they are lucky if they get anything for it. I bought a restaurant that way in Albuquerque, [N.M.] in that exact fashion. You just go to the lenders and all and they are often happy. If you could still use them as a vendor, they would love it. They could keep you as a client. All your purchases will have to be cash in most cases and then you pay whatever you agree on as the percentage on the debt. So, if it’s 10¢ or 20¢ on the dollar, you’d make separate financial arrangements with them to pay them that amount and go from there. They will work with you always. Each situation is different. There is no template to work this from. Everybody has a different reason. You’ll have people who want to sell their business but don’t want any cash because of the tax problem. This happens more than people would expect. In cases like this, often there are options to buy, sometimes a three year or five year option or there’s payments so that they could break the sale of the business into small taxable bites rather than getting a lump sum settlement on the sale of the business. You could find if you know them well in the community where someone is looking to get a relative or a friend employment and they know you are looking to start a business and they want you to hire that person. They may have money and become a partner with you. This is very common. It’s often your next door neighbor or possibly a family member. There are just so many options. They are not being explored. It’s so easy versus the push method of business for self-employment which everybody tries to implement. It is so hard and difficult. Under push you are acting traditional. When you are nontraditional, you don’t have credit, you’re unable to borrow from the banks readily. You might not have any work experience, and you’re trying to raise money to start a new business in a new location which requires more money. It’s going to be so difficult to do it. Traditional lenders want a track record before they will even consider you to investing you. Of course unless you had collateral or compensating balances, someone to cosign, or you have the money. They often will not take your real estate equity for collateral on a business loan for two reasons. You have to prove, not guess, but prove that you can pay the debit, so you have to have income other than that of the business to pay off that loan debit on that equity loan. In some communities, banks will not take equity on a person with a severe disability because if you have to foreclose on them, it could be considered endangerment. Kicking someone out that has quadriplegia out of their home on to the street, especially a veteran, is not really good public relations. Banks are not really in the business of really kicking people out of their homes. Get into business. Then use the business’s existing track record to build it or you build it up as best you can, even if it is only a three or six month period. Go to a lender and show them what you’ve done in the period. It’s not that difficult and if it doesn’t work, hopefully you haven’t taken on too big of a responsibility. It’s the push or pull method of business and looking at the pull method is a great way because it teaches the veteran, the disabled person, about business more than they’ve ever known. They’ll learn they have to go out in the street and do homework. You never know, they just might find that opportunity where they’re only looking for a manager and the disabled vet possibly could go in as a manager, get some income going for them right away in employment with that. Also, on the other side with the part-time venture, there are ways that if they are collecting Social Security Disability or possible even VA pension, they can continue receiving those benefits with a part- time business effort. We don’t call it a business effort; we call it a hobby effort. Everybody knows the difference between a hobby and a business. Basically, once you make $1 in profit, you’re a business. Remember my previous session about profit. It is strictly an accounting method. There’s possibly ways, depending on the type of business, where you can have a hobby activity that will allow you to continue receiving your benefits a little bit longer until the point you are ready to convert it into a business because of legitimate profit potential. Then you can go from there having started the business already having a track record, rather than starting from day one [as with the push method]. In the push method, you are going into business and open the door with a license and borrowed money. All of the sudden, your benefits, if they are subject to it, could be in jeopardy. That tends to be a big issue with the disabled, especially disabled vets, of losing their benefits or possibly pending claims. Another area to look at is partnerships. I’m a strong believer in partnerships. In my case, most of my businesses have been partnerships. We’re starting our 24th business right now. I mentioned that last time. Businesses that I tried as a sole proprietor, I did not do well in. The main reason is because of my disabilities. My limitations are different or more pronounced. I need someone to compensate my limitations due to my disability. That’s where I’ve always selected my partners. I’ve have good partners and bad partners. Resources of partners can be a tremendous, especially two vets as long as they’re not duplicating any medical or other issues. You would not want two blind veterans or two spinal cord injured veterans going into business necessarily, although some do and do that pretty well. But it could be a possibility that that’s another resource that could develop a stronger pull into business method because when two people are taking over business that one person previously ran into the ground (it’s not doing well and that person is severely disabled or retiring due to age or dies), it looks good when two people come in even though they have disabilities. [I wanted to] bring that up that partnership is another area to look at. Again, we’re only doing a brief thing. I want to bring up some personal issues on business since we’re in the business start-up. For those of us with disabilities, especially if we have obvious disabilities, [we have to put the business first]. What I mean by obvious is a disability that people can see that something is different about you or communicating with you. They notice that there is something different about you which sometimes people with psychological or mental illness have. The thing to do is always put the business first. You are not first. One of the recommendations that we make is never put the business in your name. My name is Urban Miyares. I wouldn’t do Urban Miyares Consulting, as an example, because it is obvious that I’m the business owner and it gives the image that it couldn’t be that much of the business. If you see me, you know that I have obvious disabilities and if I gave you business card, the attitude would be one of—you have a little home-based business; you’re really not doing that good. Especially when you go into government procurement, that’s an area that’s real strong even though they know that you’re the business owner. The attitude of purchasing agents, especially when you do set asides or preferred bidder type of status, is that you won’t get as many if you are known as the owner or you are named as the owner too. That tends to be an ego related action. The only exception is if you are a known celebrity in the field you are in or a known celebrity for some other reason. I don’t mean known in your own mind. I mean known publically. This would be something. Your business card would also show it. I had one company. We had 122 employees. [It] was a company I founded. I founded it [with] $1700. Three years later we were doing $10 million in sales and manufacturing. My business card said marketing director. When I passed that out people would say, “Isn’t that wonderful. A company like that hires the disabled.” I would respond [by saying], “[I] couldn’t think of a better company to work for.” They never knew, but the impression is-image is everything. When you’re a business owner, you are really in the entertainment business. Too many people in business don’t realize that. You are there to please others. Your personality, your character, your product, [and] your service is to please others and entertain at all times. That’s why you have to be noticed and seen irregardless of how you think others perceive you visually. There’s a saying in business pretty much, visibility brings credibility. The more visible you are, the more credible you become. When people see you around all the time or get newsletters from you, even though they don’t know you, the business owner, they make assumptions. Before you know it, you get business. This is one of the downfalls of those who lock themselves in their home and do the internet type of business, eBay, or something like that. They reach a plateau. Until they get out of the house and become more visible, they are going to miss so many opportunities. Opportunities happen out on the street before they ever hit [the] internet. That’s one of the critical things. We often tell people, don’t use your business name. Avoid any promotions, marketing, stories, [or] articles about you as the business owner based or slanted on you having a disability. About 12 years ago, we had four people we helped in business featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Three of those businesses went out of business in six months after that article. Before that, no one knew they had a disability. As we say in the disabled community, they will pat you on the back, tell you how wonderful you are, how inspirational you are, but they won’t buy from you. That’s why when you go around and say you are working for this company, the emotion is then, “Oh that’s great. How much does it cost? ” There is a different response. It’s very pronounced. That’s been the way I’ve always had it. I’ve always had a second business card that said president or CEO or something like that for special meetings when I was with other CEOS or presidents. It’s so critical that you are in the back room. It’s not right. It’s unfair. I know people argue with it. I’d rather make money and do it that way than to get my pride out in the front page and set an example and be broke. There’s other ways of doing it. Again, the goal is to be successful in business. So that’s a little marketing business tip that we tell people about their disability and how to use it as an advantage. I will tell you it is important how the person looks visually. Do they take care of themselves? How do they groom themselves? Just like employment, they’ve got to look the part and fit the part. How do you sit and stand? Then you learn little tricks about business, such as where you sit in the meeting when you go to a Chamber of Commerce meeting or a business banquet. Where should you sit? Where do the influential people sit? How do you introduce yourself? Networking is an art. Disabled [people] have to do networking completely different than everybody else. For us to go around and pass out our business cards, you might as well throw them in the garbage. There’s a specific art in how to network when you have a disability. In my case it has to be very specific. [I have] little tricks that I’ve developed. I’m total blind if you didn’t know it. I have a Seeing Eye dog. When I go to business meetings I know where to sit and people are amazed at how many names and influential people I wind up sitting with automatically. I know where they are going to sit because they read the same book I did on where to sit. These are some of the tricks we teach people with disabilities and veterans. Of course, with the veteran unless it’s in a veteran surrounding, don’t promote the veteran’s status. Being humble is critical in business. Most people don’t even know I’m a veteran when I go around, unless it’s a veteran purpose with it. I would like everybody if you can to pick up Sunday’s paper. Look back in the paper classifieds under business for sale and you will see some interesting things. Or, if you get Craigslist on the Internet and just put in your city and look up businesses for sale. You’re going to be shocked. If you’re working with someone starting a business and want to buy a piece of equipment, get Craigslist and look over that industry’s used equipment for sale and see what it’s worth. You might find a product that someone wants to pay $15,000 being offered for sale for $1,000 or $1500. Most people who push their way into businesses put everything down at retail and in business you never pay retail. One of the tricks is that everything is wholesale. With that I’d like to thank everybody. I hope there was some value in this and you are able to use it. Please don’t hesitate to contact me.