military network.
Knowing all this, don’t be shy to put your network, whether it’s military or not, to work. As you are developing your business concepts and ideas, use your Rolodex (that’s a contact list, for you Millennials) to reach out and share the details of your business plan. You might be surprised at how eager they are to help you! Describe your ideal client in detail, so your well-connected colleagues and friends can be your eyes and ears in their community and help extend your business ideas quickly.
1 2. The Beloved US Military Brand
Brand names like Apple, Nike, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A all provide a sense of trust and reliability, no matter where you visit them. They are brands you can depend on without a second thought. The same is true of the United States military community.
As a member of this community, the rest of the population holds you in high regard as a person that is reliable, trustworthy, loyal, and disciplined. Investors, clients, supporters and even your competition give you instant credibility due to your years of military experience. It’s not just “civilians” who hold military businesses and employees in high regard. According to the Harvard Business Review, military consumers are recognized for their affinity to buy from other military businesses. This support is “rooted in institutional culture and reinforced” by members of the community whether it’s with purchasing power or hiring power.
While other small business owners have to work tirelessly to build that type of trust, military entrepreneurs and businesses who hire military veterans get the privilege of having it organically right from the start. Military entrepreneurs have a unique opportunity to create businesses that seek to hire fellow military community members. As colleagues who can interpret the unique skills and abilities of a military spouse or service member’s resume, you have the pick of the litter when it comes to hiring and building something that can truly leverage the power of the military brand. So, use it strategically to increase the speed of your growth.
1 3. One of the Best Investments
As a trustworthy, driven and reliable individual with the backing of the military brand, people are eager to help you succeed. Whether it is veteran resources, scholarships, higher education or loans, there are ample opportunities if you just look.
If you are looking for a modest amount of funding, I recommend you begin your search by looking at a range of nontraditional investment options for small businesses. Often, they are quicker, easier and less stringent to obtain than traditional bank financing for a small business. Some examples are crowdsourcing, microloans, and angel investors.
I remember lying in bed at night, thinking about my big dreams of starting my first business. I was ready to launch, but the timing for us financially couldn’t have been worse. I had just transitioned from the active-duty Air Force to the Air Force Reserves, and I was only working one weekend a month. On top of that, were burdened with a hefty mortgage in California, right before the housing crash caused the value of our home to plummet. We were in a tight financial position, to say the least.
Even though I knew my idea to start a decorating business for military families was viable, the thought of scraping together a thousand dollars to get a certification in home staging was daunting. I looked at business loans, but there weren’t a whole lot of options for less than ten thousand dollars and the thought of taking on more debt was even more depressing. Thankfully, I found a way to fund the training by selling a few household items online. But I will never forget that feeling of helplessness knowing I had an effective business idea that I was willing to work for, but had no funds to get started.
So when I began my second venture in 2010, I made it a priority to find ways to give back to the start-up businesswomen like me who just needed a little kick-start to get themselves on their way. I partnered with a young branch of a national lender, Accion, in San Antonio, Texas. I asked them to earmark my donations for military women who wanted to start small businesses. Then, those donations became small loans that, along with Accion’s development program, helped businesses get off the ground.
After many months of donations, I received a letter from the first woman who had been able to launch her business with my help. It was, by far, one of the most rewarding moments of my life. The recipient was a military spouse and sent pictures of the opening day in the yogurt shop she opened with the help of her Naval husband. The smile on her face in the picture put an even bigger smile on mine. Plus, it provided more motivation to grow my own business, so I could give back even more in the future. And it reinforced the idea that our military community is worth the investment.
So as you begin your journey, don’t be shy when you are seeking capital to get started. You might be surprised at how many individual angel investors within the military community may have an interest in your success as well. The bottom line is this: the money is out there…be diligent and creative, and you will find your funding source!
1 4. Broad Range of Experiences
Being an entrepreneur means that you are required to wear many hats: CEO, bookkeeper, fundraiser, sales manager, secretary, customer service specialist, and marketing expert, just to name a few. Unfortunately, a lot of times visionary business owners can lack the self-control, confidence, and breadth of skill to be able to succeed in a position with so many requirements.
It is no secret that military life puts families and members through a vast array of experiences. As a result, they are adaptable to change and are very confident with making tough decisions in unfamiliar environments. Experiencing a lifetime of change, involving a combination of military moves, combat deployments, single parenthood, and rebuilding lives in new locations, makes a person very independent and confident. That confidence and decisiveness are also the same skills necessary to be a successful entrepreneur.
I started my first business while juggling a newborn (days old) and a two-year-old. What possessed me to start at this particular moment, I will never understand! But I did. And I loved the challenge.
Thankfully, my resilient nature, after enduring so many years of moving, deployments, and chaos, helped me handle this season of craziness. My husband was often traveling during my business start-up period, so the schedule was pretty hectic. When he was gone on trips, I was a one-woman show. I would work a full day of decorating homes, feed the kids dinner, put them to bed, and then I would begin hours of administrative work for my business. Needless to say, I never saw any TV during those start-up years. But I truly believe that my experience and resilient state of mind were what led to my eventual success. And I attribute all of that to the many lessons military life taught me.
1 5. Awesome Work Ethic, Discipline, Problem-Solving, and Decision-Making
According to Bloomberg Business, eight out of ten business owners will fail by their eighteenth month in business. The New York Times cites one of the top reasons for failure as “operational mediocrity.” Fortunately for those in the military community, years of structure, disciplined decision-making, and developing a stellar work ethic help increase a person’s odds of success. Ask any corporate recruiter why they love to hire military spouses, veterans, and family members. Unequivocally, it’s because they have a dedication to work that is unmatched!
Additionally, when you move as frequently as many military families do, you don’t survive without the ability to make sound decisions and problem solve. For example, when traveling cross-country from California to our new assignment in Virginia, we were forced to be quick on our feet when we learned our rental house would not be available to move into until nearly a month after we arrived. It wasn’t financially feasible to live in a hotel for that long, so we made some strategic phone calls and found a family friend who had an extra couple of bedrooms that were available. These strange twists and turns to normal life may be perceived as devastating
