Consulting Manager, ASBTDC Lead Center
Brandon was director of the Henderson State University ASBTDC when this Q&A was originally published.
Q: What drew you to working with small businesses and entrepreneurs?
A: I absolutely love the passion that a small business owner or entrepreneur has for his or her business. That passion is contagious. When I am around people who are actively chasing their dreams or working diligently to be their best, it inspires me to chase mine and be my best.
Q: What’s the best part of your job?
From a client standpoint, seeing a first-time entrepreneur open for business and be successful. There is nothing more fulfilling to me than to work closely with a client and see that client be successful as a result of the work we did together.
Additionally, clients all think differently. I strive to think differently, and they open my eyes to new trains of thought. I can then take their ideas and best practices and look for ways to install them into our ASBTDC office to move us forward.
Q: What do you wish everybody knew about starting a business?
A: It is not a sprint. Starting a business is a marathon. Too many entrepreneurs want to realize dreams immediately. I spend a lot of time with startup entrepreneurs simply getting them to slow down.
When an entrepreneur rushes to start a business, mistakes with long-lasting consequences are made, and those mistakes will impact the success of the business moving forward. Spend the planning time on the front end and be strategic in your approach.
Q: What is a favorite resource you recommend to entrepreneurs? Why?
A: I recommend various podcasts all the time. While I have many that I like to listen to related to entrepreneurship, my favorite is “The Tim Ferriss Show.” First, Tim is an experienced business leader who invested early in startups such as Uber and Facebook; he has the experience to back up his thoughts.
But my favorite part about Tim’s podcast is that he encourages people like you and me to think differently. He offers slightly different ways of looking at things that, even if those ways do not align with your goals, challenge you to think about the tasks you do frequently or the goals of your company in a different light. He also brings on major entrepreneurs with amazing stories.
Q: Who is an entrepreneur you admire?
A: I admire Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, co-founders of AirBnB. I listened to Gebbia talk about AirBnB on the podcast “How I Built This,” and the way Chesky and Gebbia approached AirBnB is pretty amazing. Picture two guys struggling to make ends meet, looking to make a quick dollar, and utilizing resources they already had to accomplish a goal. They then recognized a major opportunity to disrupt an existing and stable industry because they thought differently about something that has been around for a long time.
Q: What lessons from your own experience operating a business do you most often pass along to clients?
A: Invest strategically in marketing. There are thousands of ways to spend a dollar with marketing. Before spending that dollar, first understand who your target customer is, and then understand where they are. Invest where they are.
Q: What do you do for fun?
A: Currently, my hobby time has been replaced with taking care of my newborn son, but I wouldn’t change that for the world. When I do have some time, I love to go to concerts, spend time around classic cars, take the boat to the beautiful lakes of Arkansas, and experiment with cooking on the grill and smoker.
Q: How do you think owning a business has or hasn’t changed in the last few years? What changes, if any, do you anticipate in the next five years?
A: The competitive landscape has never been more intense. With the evolution of technology, I can become a customer in seconds of a company across the globe, and I can access goods and services without leaving my couch. In the next five years, the competitive landscape will further intensify and those businesses that do not have a strategic plan to remain competitive will unfortunately fail.
Additionally, companies that are not looking at ways to install AI (artificial intelligence), data analytics, VR (voice recognition), etc. into their business model will be left behind. Companies that can do this strategically will become more efficient and more profitable.