The Tampa Times du lieu suivant : Tampa, Florida • 9

The Tampa Times Wednesday, May 14, 1980 Page 8-A Business center often counsels against opening small businesses Bill Warren Times Business Editor "Hs I- 4 hi'i Vi4 FAIL 1 MM? 1 i A thought and a gpod plan," he said. The center can help. It provides counseling from retired executives, university faculty and graduate students. Just by asking, an enterprising small businessman can get free on-site consultation to observe problems. The center conducts regular workshops and has a special "group emphasis" center that is designed to help people who have traditionally had the hardest time breaking into the working world: the socially and economically deprived, and women.

The center also will help prepare a loan package for local financial institutions and the Small Business Administration. "It's my belief that if you go in there with a decent package, you'll get the loan," Manck said. "Most people just walk in with it all scribbled on the back of an envelope." Manck admits he may sound pessimistic when he counsels people, because he asks them so many questions that usually can't be answered. The idea behind the center is to develop small businesses that will stay afloat and make a profit. Manck will tell you it's his philosophy to develop a few prosperous businesses than dozens of shaky ones.

"If I seem pessimistic, it's because I've seen too many fall apart. But if you do your homework, most ideas can turn out pretty good," he said. Tampa's Small Business Development Center usually convinces people that going into business for themselves is not the best thing to do. Considering the name of the University of South Florida organization "development center" the thought is puzzling, if not downright contradictory. But to Director Bill Manck, a talka-tive veteran of several small business failures, it's a sign his counseling service is doing its job.

The center was organized several months ago with the help of the Small Business Adminstration as a free ser-vice to people either thinking about 'working for themselves, or to current of a small business. Looking at national and local statis-" tics, a lot of people need advice. Every year, 500,000 new businesses opened in the United States and close. A majority of those are run by small businessmen. Stated' another way, four out of every five new businesses which open each year fail.

In Hillsborough County, there are 12,732 businesses. Of those, 9,461, or percent, have less than 10 employ- ees and are considered small businesses. In Pinellas, 78.5 percent of 13,702 businesses have under 10 employees. '-There are no failure statistics for local new businesses, but Manck is con- vinced they would be high. In its infancy, the development cen- ter has been getting about 20 calls a week seeking advice or professional help.

Of those, about 50 percent set up a second appointment. The other half usually get discouraged right away and many of the second callers follow suit. When the plan for a successful small business is laid out on paper for an interested caller, it is usually an eye-opening experience. "The biggest problem with people is they don't plan ahead. A lot of people think all they need is the money, but they have to have the management expertise to make it," Manck said.

The director talks from experience. He has seen his own businesses fall apart. He was once in a partnership that manufactured non-food products, like bird feeders, to be sold in local supermarkets. He held up his end of the deal marketing and created a greater demand than his manufacturing partner could meet. He became one of the 400,000 failures.

"Most of it is just common sense. We are not talking about any real sophisticated practices. Just some fore People in Business v-1 1 Jack Baughman inspects one of his gill nets he sells to Tampa Bay area mullet fishermen. Baughman runs the Peninsula Net Twine Co. at 3642 Cypress a fisherman supply shop.

the Sarasota district office. Robert S. Covington has been elected vice president of the national account division of the Exchange Bank. Covington has been with the Exchange Bank since September 1973. He last served as vice president and manager of the bank's main office in downtown Tampa.

Arnold C. Kotler, chairman of the board of Tropical Garment Manufacturing has been re-elected to the American Apparel Manufacturers Association's board of directors. The association is the largest representing the American apparel industry. Kotler will serve a three-year term. For the second consecutive year, Tampa's Louis Benito Advertising has won the Affiliated Advertising Agencies International's Management Excellence Award.

Benito is the first agency ever to win the award two years in a row. "We were impressed that Benito Advertising was able to maintain its strength and solidarity in the face of doubling its size, both in terms of billing and employees," said Mac Patrick, the association's international chairman. Stanley Blumberg has been named manager of the Tampa district office of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. Since 1975, he has been manager of ZtjitM tvCSv Stanley Blumberg district office manager John BordTAMPA TIMES Job swifchbvideswhopper pay hike Burger king leaves throne to peddle pizzas Pepsico spokesmen refused to divulge Smith's new salary, but Burger King officials said he had been earning $230,000 a year jn salary plus bonuses. VJ JiSfiS fl V' 'f r-TOrxy: IfC -ll mm wwwm I If III A If MIAMI (AP) Donald N.

Smith, one of the nation's premier marketers of fast food, has resigned as president of Miami-based Burger King to run the troubled Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains, officials say. Pepsico parent company of the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell operations, said the 39-year-old Smith would become president of Pepsico's new food services division. "We had been planning to create a food services division since we acquired Pizza Hut in 1977," Pepsico spokesman Al Goetz said Monday. "And the availability of Donald Smith came at the right time." Smith's resignation from Burger King is effective June 16. Four executive vice presidents Jerry Ruenheck, Don Chris-topherson, Zane Leshner and Ron White will run Burger King until a new president is selected.

Officials of The Pillsbury which owns Burger King, are not ruling out the possibility that an outsider will get the post. Pepsico spokesmen refused to divulge Smith's new salary, but Burger King officials said he had been earning $230,000 a year in salary plus bonuses. "They (Pepsico) must have offered him a tremendous amount of money maybe $100,000 or $200,000 more than he's making now," said Ed Tavlin, a fast-food industry analyst. Pillsbury officials were disheartened by the surprise announcement. "Don's a fine executive," said William Spoor, Pillsbury's chairman.

"It's quite a disappointment. We're going to miss him." "We're unhappy to see him go because he has done a superior job," said Pillsbury spokesman Lou Gelfand. "He has demonstrated a lot of leadership qualities." It's the second time that Smith has stunned the fast-food in- dustry. In February 1977, he left the third-highest job at McDonald's the industry leader, to take over the then-struggling Burger King operation. Since he took over.

Burger King's average store sales increased from $524,000 to $639,000 at the end of the last fiscal year; operating profit rose from 8 percent of gross to 10 percent; the number of stores jumped from 1,877 to 2,700 as of last month. In the last fiscal year, Burger King operations sold $1.46 billion worth of fast food. "It was his ball park," Gelfand said. "Nobody at Pillsbury got in his way. He got the capital he needed and that's because he did a good job, a super jo" Industry observers say Smith's talents are especially needed at Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

Consolidated sales for those operations rose in 1979 to $748.3 million from $622.1 million, but operating profit declined from $64.1 million to $49.9 million last year. Smith's appointment came as a bitter disappointment to Frank Carney, who founded Pizza Hut 22 years ago and served as its president after Pepsico bought the firm in 1977. Carney said he had decided to resign. "My basic reason for staying with Pepsico was to have the ability to move up," he said. "With that position closed, I have no reason to be here." AP pnoio Blob on wheels This 1953 Chevy coupe serves as an ad- rolling billboard and sometimes functions as vertisement for Lee's Body Shop in the Ven- an all-load hauler for the firm.

The sign on ice section for Los Angeles. It has been cov- the hood reads "Quality workmanship for ered with foam pads after it was cut in half Less." and made into a panel wagon of sorts. It's a Boards of directors need more improvement trill What Dayton has in mind is not prohibiting anyone who works for the company to serve on its board of directors. Nor would he delegate board seats to constituent groups such as workers or consumers. Few cities in the U.S.

can match the growth and progress that is the theme of today's Tampa. "I was appalled by a recent survey that 84 percent of the corporations don't retire directors until age 70 or older," says Dayton. "I think that when a board gets into the position of being dominated bjpretired people, there is a real danger." Retirees, nevertheless, may be one of the few groups that can afford to serve on a board, according to the Philadelphia-based management consulting firm of Worden Risberg. Finding the average non-employee director of a manufacturing company earns between $8,000 and $11,000 a year, the firm says "corporate directors are substantially underpaid and are worth much more than their present compensation." The firm also is rather sanguine over who gets on today's boards. "The days when the friend of the chairman or major customer or political ally automatically is placed on the board have come and gone," it says.

Dayton just wants to make sure that once on the board directors are not there forever. "Boards of directors are not clubs with lifetime memberships," he says. "It is more valuable for management to be challenged periodically with different perspectives than it is to continue receiving the same counsel and perspective however wise and valuable," he said. "This principle seems to me to be so crucial that I cannot understand why more corporations don't do By JAMES A. WHITE UPI Writer NEW YORK Pressure for change in the choice and responsibilities of directors who set policy for America's corporations has shown some impact but not nearly enough to please one veteran board member, Kenneth N.

Dayton. Dayton is chairman of the executive committee of Dayton-Hudson the Minneapolis-based department store chain. While hardly a radical bent on wrecking the boardroom, he sees dangers in today's system of corporate governance. "1 think boards of directors are the Achilles' heel of the American business system," he said in an interview for the May issue of Directorship, a newsletter for directors. Calling the current director system an "anachronism" in a changed business world, he contends, "We have got to perfect the performance of boards." What Dayton has in mind is not prohibiting anyone who works for the company to serve on its board of directors, as has been suggested by Chairman Harold Williams of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Nor would he delegate board seats to constituent groups such as workers or consumers. He opts instead for electing relatively young directors, using their ideas and independence to direct the and then getting them off the board before they wither. "After you've been in a board role for so long, I believe you have given most of what you have to give. Therefore, the institution is better off if you move on and someone else comes in," Dayton told Directorship, based in Westport, Conn. The composition of boards today remains quite the opposite: members most often are connected with the company as current or former executives, serve as its laywer or banker or fill some perceived need on the board such as having minority or female representatives.

So to combat the cronyism he believes is the chief handicap to effective director decisions, Dayton advocates measures adopted on the Dayton-Hudson board aimed at turnover. The retailer has a mandatory board retirement age of 65, directors are limited to 12 years service and they also are forced to retire from the board if they leave the position they held when first elected. With more than billion in new commercial construction planned and currently underway in Hillsborough County, Tampa is truly a city on the move. Get your firm on the move with an advertising message in The Tribune-Times upcoming City On The Move section by calling 272-7455 today. THE TAMPA TRIBUNE it." I a inc.

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