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117 C H A P T E R 6 Microenterprise Performance In this chapter the entrepreneurs discuss factors they believed affected their business performance. To begin, we take a closer look at businesses that have done well and others that have done poorly. These cases illustrate the range of factors that influenced performance. Allison’s Home-based Sewing Business Many years ago, Allison had made a satisfactory but unrewarding living as a seamstress, before going overseas to work as a volunteer. She returned home to sell her house, earn some money, and return overseas, but in the meantime, decided to support herself by sewing and selling bedroom accessories. There was a building boom in the area and before she was able to sell her home, her business snowballed. So instead of moving, she enrolled in a microenterprise course and developed her business. She liked the independence that her business offered her: “If I wanted, I could totally leave it behind, and [it] would not mess up someone else’s work schedule. One of the reasons to stay doing it was that if a door opened to go to another country, I could close down the business, go to the foreign country and come back and open it [back] up.” She had not traveled as she had hoped, but she had no regrets. Allison generated most of the capital for her business from savings and credit cards. She kept her start-up capital needs low because she already owned much of the sewing equipment. And she learned the business from her former boss, who had built a small home-based sewing business into a large one with many employees. Allison felt supported by friends and family, and although her mother did not always show it, “I guess that my mother is proud, deep down.” Her parents purchased her first house (“something I never would have been able to get at that point in my life”), and let her keep the equity when she moved into her second home.This allowed her to qualify for a larger loan for a larger house to accommodate her business. She was also part of a national religious support group that helps people out with their health expenses through a type of pooled “insurance” fund. She treated it as an insurance premium, even though she understood that it was not really insurance and would only cover a limited amount of expenses. Over time, her local church had provided several small cash gifts to help her as well. Support from the microenterprise development program (MDP) was helpful , especially in the beginning. The MDP provided a small loan that she used to pay off the credit card debt she had from purchasing a sewing machine. The peer group and training provided basic information, but it “kind of fizzled. . . . If the group had functioned more like it should [and] been more active in arranging for guest speakers, [we] could have benefited from it further.” Over time, the proportion of revenues that went toward paying off her expenses had gone down, and she was able to pay herself a larger salary. The only thing that slowed things down was when she brought in three foster children who took up much of her time while they lived with her, although they also brought in a little additional income that helped at the time. In addition to having a marketable skill and an outward-looking and entrepreneurial nature, Allison attributed much of her success to her business choice and location. There were many new homes in her area and although she advertised, her business mostly sold itself. Former customers stayed with her. Her success made her “a little bit more positive in my outlook,” she said. I remember back [when I was] working for someone else, and the fact of the daily grind, of always living from paycheck to paycheck, and never seeming to get ahead, and wondering how on earth I will be able to replace it when it dies, it seemed to me more like a heavy cloud of gloom and now, in a way, I am not much better off than I was. But my outlook is better. Somehow, I think it is all going to work out. Lanette’s Wellness Training Business With only a high school education, Lanette had worked as a semi-professional manager in a hospital prior to opening her business. She always liked administrative work, and her job paid well, but she had always...

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