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Command Post What is this?
Posted on Aug 17, 2015
SGT Marion Townes
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Responses: 13
SGT Ben Keen
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SGT Marion Townes - Have you filed to be recognized officially as a Veteran-Owned Business? If not, I highly recommend you do that as soon as possible. Great work keep it up!
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SGT Rick Ash
SGT Rick Ash
9 y
Oh yeah, great point SGT Ben Keen. With only 1% of the U.S. population ever enlisting in the armed forces it's a distinction we earned and should use. It will rarely close doors but always opens new doors. It's even on my KY drivers license. Any other states doing that?
Thanks,
Rick
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MSG James Douglas
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Valuable information in which I will be able to utilize within the next year......Thanks for sharing!!
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MAJ Rod Harden
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Great story of your journey and really makes the connection between the military ethos and success in the business community. Thanks for sharing !!!
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Leveraging your Military Experience to be a Successful Business Owner
Michelle Titus
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Marion Townes - thanks for sharing! Your tips for small business owners are right on point!
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SGT Rick Ash
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SGT Marion Townes Excellent Post! I believe you will continue to have success. I started three companies on my own and could not afford anything BUT stellar performance from the Sales Team members. I always hired based on attitude along with skills and experience. All three companies grew to around $40M in annual revenue at around 22% Gross Profit Margins. I banked around $2M each as I sold each company at around 7 years so that spanned 21+ years. Only one bad hire in that time and he infuriated me. Every team member was hustling every day except for him. And around 4:30 every day he would stand at the glass wall in his office tossing his car keys UP & Down, over and over. I fired him the day he got his first paycheck and enjoyed doing it. No free rides. Thanks for sharing your inputs, they were all dead on!
Rick
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Capt Brandon Charters
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SGT Marion Townes This was an excellent piece. Thanks for letting us in on your entrepreneurial journey. So many great bits of advice. Hiring the right people can't be emphasized enough. The less internal issues you have to deal with on the performance front, the more time you'll have to advance ROI and the bottom line. Veterans like yourself offer so much to a business in respect to motivation and training. You're a force multiplier. We've all had to do it in uniform, and it's really no different in the civilian world. Measuring the goals, holding your team accountable, and following up with support to remove roadblocks are all critical pieces as well. Thanks again for your unique perspective!
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CPT Jack Durish
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I spent the better part of my life as an entrepreneur, sometimes successful, sometimes not. Yes, my military experience helped, not directly. Training to kill people and destroy things doesn't translate well to the civilian world. But the training and experience in self reliance, leadership, etc sure didn't hurt. I have posted several essays in my weblog on entrepreneurship, WTMI to repeat here, so check them out. In fact, this posting may inspire me to continue the series...

http://www.jackdurish.com/4/category/entrepreneurs/1.html
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SN Greg Wright
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SGT Marion Townes Excellent post, Sarge, great information. From a fellow Oregonian, too! Welcome to RP!
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SPC Sheila Lewis
SPC Sheila Lewis
9 y
If You have the will, there is always a way.
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PO2 Robert Cuminale
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My best employee was the only one who was a vet like myself. he had most of the qualities I needed on the skills side but what swung me over to his side was that he was working at a Burger King rather than collect unemployment. I hired him and his electronics background was easily transitioned into telecommunications installation and repair.
He passed away at age 31 from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma or he'd still have been with me until I retired. I'd have given him the business he as so deserving.
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SSG Hector Guerra
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The military sees and understand these skills and value them. In the civilian world is not quite the same. I work for a gas compression company. I spend anywhere from 50 to 70 hours a week, on call every weekend. I have 150,000 horse power of compression engines, two warehouses, and three containers. I'm burned out. 
I started my own company. One thing I've learned about working outside the military is this. We are LEADERS, we MAKE A DIFFERENCE, we HAVE NO QUIT ATTITUDES, we DON'T COMPLAIN. 
To tell you the truth, no matter how much tenacity, dedication and the motivation, it rarely makes a difference. We need more Veteran owned companies to take care of veterans. SBA knows that most veterans have what it takes to build, sustain, create jobs and some. 
the second phase of my company is in the works now. 
I created a platform for military members, students, and homeschool students to be able to take a personality test, research over 1100 jobs that fits your personality, those jobs have minimum requirement and pay. let's face it. who wants to get out the military and work in a place that they are not satisfied in. We have money for school and people out here looking out for our best interest. The one thing Service Members lack is a Plan.

http://www.mymapplan.com
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