Q 1. Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: Bittner’s Spray Equipment is Dealer and Service Center for Spray Equipment out of Elk Grove Village, IL. Our customer base tends to be contractors, such as painters, roofers, water-proofers, line stripers, insulators as well as some niche coating applicators and manufacturers. Currently we only have a single location but have aspirations of expanding to different cities.
Q 2. Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: I come from an incomplete Electrical Engineering curriculum and have always made money in my youth by establishing a business, finding customers and enlisting my friends to help. One of the only “jobs” I had was as an estimator for a home builder. My job was to take a set of blueprints and figure out how much the house would cost to build. This was a life lesson in taking large tasks, breaking them down into many little parts and then adding them together. In that position, I developed a program that automatically priced out “semi-custom” homes where customers got to pick options from everything including driveways to shingles and everything in between. I was told it was the first program of its kind in the industry.
Q 3. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Ans: My father Ervin Bittner, was working for a large painting contractor and due to a death at the top, serious turmoil developed in the company. My father asked me to help him start a company that fixes spray equipment for painters. We each gave our notice and started Sept. 1st 1989 with my Father fixing equipment and me selling and administering much of the clerical tasks.
Q 4. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans: 1. Unless you have a very unique niche in an underserved market, be prepared for battle. Nobody wants to give up their share of the pie, so it’s not going to be easy and you will have to out-perform your competition. Sometimes it’s as easy as being friendlier, other times you will have to be better, faster and less expensive.
- Whatever it is that you do, expect to add about 10 different things you’ll have to do. Especially at first. That means you will have less time to do your trade, so you’ll have to hire people to help you produce. That means you’ll have to hire salespeople to pay for the production crew you just hired and possibly administrative personnel because those tasks just became more time consuming.
- I was told that entrepreneurs have a harder time finding jobs because employers are convinced you’ll only stick around until you get in a position to start another company. This means you are married to the business you are developing and have to stick it out no matter what happens, be it global financial crisis or global pandemic or anything else that comes along. Hanging in there during rough times is the only way to succeed in your journey.
Q 5. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: 1. Salesmanship. This doesn’t mean always be closing and endless cold calls, though that helps. Most of the time, being friendlier and more cooperative than your competition is the key. Oh and follow-up on every lead!
- Accounting. You don’t need to be a CPA or close even, but you do need to be able to read an income statement and a balance sheet. You’ll need to develop a few Key indicators and keep an eye on them. There’s a saying that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Turning into a bean counter will help a lot.
- Leadership. Inevitably you will end up with a team at some point. If you are not a people person you may find it difficult to keep them all focused and motivated. This is the key skill that keeps many small companies small and others that just keep on growing.
Q 6. How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: In the beginning it was a 7am-9pm schedule, but as we became more established and additional team members were brought in, it turned into a more normal work/life balance. But, being the main person, you are still expected to get the job done, so if someone goes, you have to fill-in.
Q 7. To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: We have outlasted about 10 competitors and the reasons vary from being friendlier, because nobody likes dealing with a jerk if they don’t have to. Being fair with pricing, providing good service, having some empathy for their situation if they’re desperate and just being there. When you’re in business for many years, that gives your organization credibility.
Q 8. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans: It may sound cliché, but word of mouth has been our most successful form of marketing. When we started it ran in 90 day cycles of market to customers, then service customers. When you’re done helping everyone out that you marketed to, you have time to market again. Eventually, if you are good, fast and fair, word gets out and you don’t have time to market because the customers just keep on coming.
Q 9. Where did your organization’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Ans: We started out by putting together enough cash to pay rent, stock up and get phones, and the rest was hard work and hustle to create enough cash flow to keep the organization going. There were times, when financing was needed to get through the economic crisis for example or a large purchase. In that case, a typical bank loan or credit line or friends or family is needed to get through. I suggest anything except for easy money predatory lenders. That’s hard to crawl out from under.
Q 10. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans: Long-term indicates you’re around forever. In that time you can either get a good reputation or a bad reputation. If you have a bad reputation, it is easy for someone to take your share of the pie if they are better than you. So the best way to achieve long term success is to be better, faster, more fair and friendlier than your competition.
Q 11. Where do you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: Hopefully I see myself retiring in 5 or 10 years. I have a ton of interests and hobbies and projects that I can’t get to when managing a business, so I am waiting for the day that I can work half days or hire a manager. Maybe sell the business, but I’d still like to stay in the game in at least a symbolic way.
Q 12. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: I’ve always admired McDonald’s. The level of quality control and management that they have has always been my example of a company that really has it together in all the ways that matter.
Q 13. How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Good employees are what enables a company to grow or whether the boss gets to go on vacation or if the company actually makes a profit. Too much time and valuable effort are spent sweeping up after the mistakes a bad employee makes or always seeking out new customers because of poor performance.
Q 14. How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: At some point it is evident that an idea isn’t going to work out and to keep trying is just wasting valuable resources. Sometimes you realize that there isn’t enough capital to realize the plan and a sober assessment has to be made whether a conservative estimate of ROI will be enough to pay off a loan.
Q 15. What motivates you?
Ans: Security motivates me. Be it my place in the industry, maintaining cash flow, preparing for old age or getting everything a customer needs on time. To a lesser extent, it’s making my company an ideal vision that’s in my head.
Q 16. What are your ideals?
Ans: To be everything to everybody while maintaining a profit and a clean organized, efficient business while achieving a healthy work / life balance.
Q 17. How do you generate new ideas?
Ans: Through creativity. There’s a problem, then a search for solutions. Did someone already solve this in a successful way? If not then time to start brainstorming and then finding the faults in the ideas. The one with the least amount of faults is the winner.
Q 18. How do you define success?
Ans: I have always been told that success is not a destination, but a journey. So if everyone is happy and the bills are paid, then we’re on the right track.
Q 19. How do you build a successful customer base?
Ans: You start out developing a list of the customers you’d like to do business with. When you get some to do business with you, you service them the best you can. Eventually word gets out that you are a good resource for their company and more people take the chance to leave their current vendor and try using you. Sometimes, personnel leave to go work for a different company and take you with them. After many years gaining more customers than you lose, gets you a successful customer base.
Q 20. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans: I’m not sure if there is a favorite. I’ve often thought that I should have finished school and got a high paying job or gotten a job with a large corporation and climbed the ladder or gotten 20 years and retired. Being an entrepreneur is stressful and often thankless. The only good thing that comes out of it if you are successful, is a good name and reputation.
Q 21. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ans: I’m not sure of any single moment. Surviving an economic meltdown and a pandemic are somewhat satisfying. There’s another term that you can’t rest on your laurels, so even after getting a quarter million dollar order, the struggle continues or decline will happen.
Q 22. What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Ans: Entrepreneurs either have a skill or an idea and decide to start a company to make money with it without even thinking about working for someone else. Those that work for someone else have a skill or a need for money and don’t even consider starting their own company to make money. It’s just a built in problem solving mindset.
Q 23. What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
Ans: Get along, would be the operative term. In an organization that isn’t built organically by a bunch of friends, it’s important to get along while being productive. People who don’t get along end up being toxic to a workplace and have to be removed in order to preserve the greater whole.
Q 24. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Ans: Struggle
Company Detail:
Company : Bittner’s Spray Equipment
Contact : Greg Bittner
Address : 1301 Brummel Ave
City : Elk Grove Village
State : IL
Zip : 60007
Country : USA
Phone : 847-364-7661
Email : billing@bsesprayit.com