Remember the trite phrase “been there, done that?” It’s not used that much anymore, but it once was used to describe experiences that were so overrated, people declined to experience them again. Yet if we were to dust it off and use it in more of a positive, contemporary context, it could help explain the value of the business counsel provided by mentors who volunteer for the Madison Chapter of SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives.
The roughly 40 local SCORE mentors who are ready to serve startup business operators – or nonprofits or even established businessmen and women who need guidance — have “been there and done that” in the business context, and they are ready to share that hard-earned wisdom free of charge with the next generation of Madison business leaders. It’s their way of paying it forward during retirement.
One of the local mentors is Gregg Schieve, founder and former CEO of Tweedee Media Inc. Schieve, who retired in 2018 after 20 years of ownership, was brought to SCORE by Madison Chapter Chair Ken Wundrow, and he now mentors 10 or so local organizations. “I really love working with small business owners,” Schieve states. “We tend to get people that are a one-person business or a very small business and they’re just starting out. They don’t know what they don’t know, and we help them through that initial process of getting their business up and running.
“I enjoy doing that and I can see that I’m having some sort of positive impact on their on their journey to being a business.”
SCORE’s mentoring and resources are free, and it also offers low to no-cost virtual business workshops on topics such as strategic planning for nonprofits, preparing and filing business taxes, turning data and research into business intelligence, and social media strategy for small businesses. Most businesses that seek counsel are startups — Schieve’s biggest “mentee” is a partnership with two employees — and typically, they have a certain set of skills, or a certain knowledge base, that they want to turn into a business. That’s not always a viable proposition, but part of a mentor’s task is to help them figure out how to create a business out of what they know or otherwise help them come to the proper conclusion about viability.
Most mentors have a particular area of focus, but they can offer advice on a broad range of business issues, including strategy. Based on his experience with Tweedee Media, which created marketing videos for client organizations, one unique way Schieve can mentor a business owner is on the use of imagery and video production in marketing a business, particularly in the digital age. It’s not the only way he can help people, but it’s a unique way that often gets neglected because too many businesses don’t understand the importance of marketing, or they don’t understand how to market.
The biggest difference between the SCORE of today and the pre-pandemic version is that most of its meetings are done via Zoom and not in person. The initial conversations typically cover the degree of setup work — registering with the state, obtaining an Employer Identification Number (EIN), and determining whether you are a limited liability company (LLC), a partnership, or an S Corp. If the business is already operating, the topics of discussion pertain to boosting sales performance and profitability.
“A lot of times, that first meeting is just a lot of general stuff,” Schieve notes. “I’m just trying to find out who they are and why they’re in business.”
From there, the advice takes on more depth.
Pet project
When it’s “gut-check” time, self-described “petreprenuer” Grace Wang, owner of the pet-supply retailer Petphoria, seeks the advice of Wundrow, a retired accounting and tax professional. Formerly a pop-up store in the Hilldale Shopping Center and now an online business, Petphoria started during the COVID-19 pandemic — Dec. 7, 2020 — which might have been Wang’s first gut-check because she wasn’t entirely sure pet owners would buy what she described as “wants” rather than “needs” for their pets. As it turned out, Madisonians (including Wang) are wired to spoil their dogs with luxury treats and handmade accessories.
Wundrow’s expertise is in tax and financial planning, but he can help startups in a variety of ways, including customer service, pricing, and strategic development. Wang met him and first heard about SCORE when she worked with one of his daughters at a local digital marketing agency. “We talk a lot about finance and taxes because that’s his expertise, but we also talk about a variety of other topics,” Wang says. “I basically use him to gut check a lot about, ‘Hey, is what I’m doing, or what I’m thinking, the right move, or something that I should be thinking about? Or is there any concern? Is this not something that I should explore?’”
Perhaps the most important gut check involved the two pop-up stores she opened in Hilldale. Both lasted about six months, with the last closing at the beginning of the year. Petphoria now is fully online, but the pop-up stores helped her gain the foothold of market awareness. According to Wang, Wundrow helped her decide whether to open the pop-up stores, but the decision was hers.
“He was helping me along with questions like ‘do the Hilldale pop-up stores make sense for me?’ Wang notes. “Because it’s a lot of work. It’s a pop-up store, and it’s for six to seven months, but you need to make sure that it looks like an actual store, like an actual storefront. And so, there’s a lot of investment in the front end where you’re building out your store, but you’re only really having it for six to seven months. So, he definitely helped me a lot with those conversations about does this make sense for the business? Is this the right positioning for us? All those types of things.”
Launching during the pandemic was both scary and fun, but Wang had already experienced a life-changing event. The Madison native lived in Los Angeles for eight years after graduating from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising [FIDM], where she studied merchandise marketing and business management. While in LA, she worked at Live Nation Entertainment and was in charge of national retail marketing for its clubs, theaters, and House of Blues locations. Unfortunately, burnout ensued, she left her corporate job, and moved back to Madison, where the rents are more reasonable, and eventually decided to open a business.
Fortunately, Madison is “a really big dog community,” and during the pandemic, people were stuck indoors. To keep their sanity, a lot of people adopted dogs, so “it just happened to be the right place at the right time, even though the times were tough,” Wang notes.
With the shift to online, her main focus now is digital marketing, growing online sales, and making deeper connections with the community at summertime events. In addition, Petphoria has done well enough with canine merchandise to expand into the feline world, where Wang is fascinated to learn from cat-obsessed consumers. “It’s really been an interesting kind of add-on to the business,” she notes, “and definitely, the business has grown a lot faster than I thought it would.”
Driven enterprise
SCORE mentor George Wennerlyn is a retired energy executive. Jori Mundy is a motivational speaker who runs her own business, DRIVEN Global Enterprises, and she’s an author and works full time for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. She has many ideas about how to grow her business, but how could Wennerlyn possibly help her? As a SCORE mentor for the past dozen years, Wennerlyn has worked with all kinds of entrepreneurs — from psychics to landscapers — but Mundy is the first author.
It came down to taking one logical step at a time. “When Jori came to me, she was telling me of her dream, which was to be a motivational speaker for female entrepreneurs ages anywhere from 25 to 50 and to help them achieve their own dreams,” he explains. “At the time, she had a lot of clients and many ideas, so what I did is I try to direct her to plan this out. Kind of like a Gantt Chart … You take, over a timeline, all the different steps you need to accomplish your tasks, and you have many tasks, and then put them all together into a sensible timeline, and then start to follow it through to focus on what she needs to do first, second, third.
Beyond that, the objective is to financially determine how this is all going to work. For example, will entrepreneurs be able to make ends meet between revenues and expenses? “So, that was basically, where I provided a lot of input to her,” Wennerlyn notes. “As with any SCORE client, what they ultimately end up doing is making their own decisions. What we try to do is bring different key points to their attention, and then from that, have them decide, find the resources, find the answers, and so on.”
The DRIVEN in DRIVEN Global Enterprises stands for Determined to Revolutionize and Inspire Various Enterprises and Networks. And driven certainly describes Jori Mundy. Working two careers, one in public service with the State Department of Health Services, and another with her motivational speaking business, the self-described “public servant at heart” has a lot of irons in the fire, and she credits Wennerlyn for helping put her on the right business development path.
Mundy, a member of In Business magazine’s 2023 Forty Under 40 class, has written a book titled From Doubt to Clout: Your 7-Step Fast-Track Guide to Becoming an Executive. The book was released in January 2023, and Mundy is in the process of developing other platforms for executive coaching. Wennerlyn’s guidance helped her home in on her target market by “niching down,” identifying resources, developing a robust business plan, and building tools — an online coach-and course program and podcasts featuring women executives who have demonstrated authenticity in their leadership — that reach her target audience.
That niche market is professional women who want to become executive leaders, including those in middle management who feel stagnated in their careers. The book hit No. 6 in its category on Amazon’s best-selling book list, and its proceeds are being plowed back into business development.
“George has helped to really keep me accountable and keep me focused from a business standpoint,” notes Mundy, “because quite frankly, I’m a creative and I just want to share information and help as many women as possible.”
Been there
Perhaps the best part about SCORE is that startups get advice from mentors that have been in their shoes, no matter what the industry. Wennerlyn began by working for an energy utility now known as Alliant Energy Corp. (formerly Wisconsin Power and Light), and eventually formed his own consulting firm. The most pertinent experience he brought to SCORE is that he ran his own business for 25 years.
Wennerlyn believes he can advise any type of business owner. “At SCORE, what we do is try to provide them direction to the resources,” he states. “The individual entrepreneurs need to make their own [business] decisions. I don’t tell a client, ‘Well, you must do this or you must do that.’”
