Since her first child was born -- she now has three -- Mullins has been working for her firm on a "flextime" arrangement. She works five days a week but bills just 1,200 hours per year compared to the usual 2,000. Although her salary is reduced accordingly, Mullins has the freedom to be a mom when she needs to be.
"If I were working full-time, it would be difficult to juggle family with my job," she says. "Now I have the opportunity to be involved in school activities and not worry about it conflicting with my job."
Mullins receives full benefits from her firm. And if you're thinking that she's chosen the "mommy track" over her career, you're wrong. Mullins is up for partner this year.
Balancing work and home
Based on a survey completed last year by online job site CareerBuilder.com, 60% of the nation's workers find it difficult to be professionally successful as well as highly involved in their family relationships. That's why the vast majority of job seekers -- 87% -- look for career opportunities with flexible work environments. Of those seeking flexibility, 74% want the ability to work from home, 69% seek time off for family-related issues and 63% want flexible hours.
Employers are starting to respond, statistics show. According to a survey completed last year by the Society of Human Resource Management, 51% of those responding offered flextime to employees, with another 3% planning to implement flextime this year. About one in four respondents offers compressed workweeks (27%), telecommuting (26%) or job sharing (22%) as scheduling options.
The advantages of flextime to the employee are obvious. By decreasing the demands on the employee and allowing him or her to achieve a degree of balance between work and family, employee morale is boosted. Loyalty and productivity are increased. And turnover -- always costly to a small employer -- is reduced.
Sue Siebert has been working flexible hours since she began her job as a senior account executive for Plantation-based Boardroom Communications last year. "I enjoy working and keeping my skills sharp and all the challenges that work brings, but if I were working full-time, I would only get a few hours in the evening to spend with my daughter," she says.
Building loyalty
And what's in it for Boardroom? "Flextime enables us to attract high-caliber professionals by offering them a good place to work and accommodating the demands on their schedules," says Julie Silver, Boardroom's president.
Although the great majority of those seeking flexible arrangements are women with children, plenty of men are on flexible or alternative work schedules as well, says Bob Losyk, a Davie-based human resources consultant and author of Managing a Changing Workforce. "The big trend is toward being more and more supportive," Losyk says. "If you're not, you're going to die out there in terms of recruitment and keeping people."
What's the best way to implement a flextime plan? Talk to other companies that have plans, suggests Losyk. Find out what works and what doesn't. And don't forget to talk to employees. Says Losyk: "Just ask them what they want. You don't have to give them everything, but at least find out. When people don't ask, they don't have their pulse on their people, and their people are soon gone."
Protecting Your Domain
There's a lot riding on your company's web address, so think long and hard before deciding.
By Robyn A. Friedman
When Andrea Milrad started her business three years ago, she knew she would be selling on the web. So she applied for a domain name based on the name of her company, Little Big Man, a Deerfield Beach-based printer of birth announcements and invitations.
Much to Milrad's surprise, her first choice -- LittleBigMan.com -- was already taken. So she selected an alternative, LittleBigMan.org. Big mistake.
"When someone looks for you, they type in .com," says Milrad. "People call me all the time and say they can't find my website or that they sent me an e-mail and it got bounced back."
Milrad wanted her domain name to be the same as her business name, and now it's too late to make a change. "I have thousands of brochures out there with my website address," she laments.
At one time, internet entrepreneurs had only three choices for web addresses: .com, .net and .org. There was also only one source to register names, Virginia-based Network Solutions. But times have changed, and so have domain names. Now, you can also choose .tv for your suffix; soon, there will be .firm, .shop, .web, .arts, .rec, .info and .nom, among others.
What to do?
Go for the .com name first. Most people consider a .com name to be a professional business, and it's the first place people go when searching out a company. If you can't get the .com extension, choose .net or .org. You can check for availability on Network Solutions' website, www.networksolutions.com.
Even if you get .com, consider reserving .net and .org anyway. "Go after the others as a defensive move," suggests Stuart Rosenberg, an accountant with Miami-based Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Co. and the president of the firm's technology consulting business. "They're not that expensive to register, so you may want to get whatever is available." Network Solutions charges $35 to register a name for one year; Verio, another domain-registering company, charges $19.
Keep your name short, simple and easy to spell. The web address should be related somehow to your business name or product. You want people to be able to find you easily.
Once you've registered your name, protect it. "Be aware of the expiration date of your domain name so you can renew it," says Mitch Roop, president of Tampa-based Technical Resource Center. "You don't want anyone purchasing it out from underneath you."
Use a reputable firm to register your name and host your site. If you go to any search engine and type in the words "domain name," you'll come up with thousands of hungry web-hosting companies looking for your business. But be careful. Web-hosting scams abound; they are one of the top 10 scams facing consumers who surf the net, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Milrad learned her lesson the hard way. Although her customers have been contacting her by phone when they can't find her website, she still suspects that she has lost business because of her choice of domain name. Says Milrad: "Think hard before you start publicizing your website. Go out and purchase similar names, if you can. Even if you don't use them now, you might in the future."
Demographics: Minority Businesses
According to 1997 data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, Florida is home to a large number of minority-owned businesses.
Of the 823,500 businesses owned by African-Americans in the U.S., 59,700, or 7.2 %, are based in Florida. Florida ranks fourth after New York, California and Texas in the number of African-American-owned firms.
The Sunshine State ranks third in the number of Hispanic-owned firms, with 193,900 businesses, or 16.2% of the total Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. Some 15% of all firms in Florida are owned by Hispanics.
Cleaning Up
A Plant City woman risks everything to start her own dry-cleaning delivery business.
By Amy Welch
When Margo Sloan was 55, she walked away from a 24-year real estate career making six figures to start her own business. In 1994, with two teen-age sons to support, Sloan took out a second mortgage on her house in Plant City and started Dry Cleaning To-Your-Door with about $20,000. The company picks up and delivers dry cleaning to customers' doors within 24 hours, with no extra fee for pickup or delivery.
Sloan's company does not clean the clothes. It negotiates prices with dry cleaners in the area and then splits the profit with them, with Sloan taking 40%. Why would dry cleaners do business this way? Sloan says she brings them about 70 customers a day.
Sloan no longer totes the laundry herself, instead collecting royalties from 60 franchises in the U.S. and Canada -- 3% of each franchisee's revenue. She still visits franchisees often to keep up with how the business is going on the front lines, and she researches dry cleaners in new franchisees' areas, helping new owners get the business off the ground.
When she started out, Sloan studied how many and what types of people would benefit by using a pickup and delivery dry-cleaning service. She learned that no one else in the area was doing what she planned. Then, when she was comfortable with the concept, she literally went door to door in her neighborhood to get customers. "People have so many choices, so you have to steer them in your direction," Sloan says.
Franchises cost $18,500, which includes all of the equipment -- hangers, uniforms, etc. -- and a protected territory. Franchisees get a two-day management course and a unique messaging service that automatically calls customers, reminding them to put their laundry out. Franchisees must purchase their own cargo vans and pay for a home office, phone line and a computer.
Sloan helps new owners negotiate deals with local dry cleaners. She also advises franchisees to send out fliers to people in the ZIP code in which they work, get friends and family involved, send out e-mails to people in the area and network with other business owners. Last year, Sloan made about $700,000 from franchise royalties; this year, she plans to generate $1 million. She also wants to sell about 15 more franchises this year.
With just two employees at the business's home base in Hernando Beach, about 30 miles north of Clearwater, Sloan can now concentrate on making sure her franchisees are doing a good job. She likes feeling in control of her own destiny. "Someone having control over whether I'm here or not, that to me is more scary than putting everything I have on the line," Sloan says.
Awards: Top Honors
Brindley Pieters has won the U.S. Small Business Administration Small Business Person of the Year award for Florida. Pieters owns and operates Altamonte Springs-based Brindley Pieters & Associates, an engineering consulting firm.
The award is given to entrepreneurs who have contributed significantly to the economy through their small businesses. Pieters' firm has built several state roads and buildings in Orange County as well as other projects throughout the state. It recently opened an office in Atlanta.