a standalone operation or a franchise — is risky business. This

is no time to take a blind leap of faith. Leggiere hired a franchise

attorney. Among other things, he went over every detail of her contract,

ensuring that she could live with each of its terms. "He was expensive,"

she says, "but I went in with my eyes 110 percent open." She

also used an accountant with knowledge of franchise agreements.

Anyone contemplating the purchase of a business needs to realize,

she says, that no one possesses all the skills necessary to thoroughly

evaluate the opportunity. "I was smart enough to know I didn’t

know how to start a business," she says.

franchises. "They couldn’t be more different," she says. "They’re

day and night." She can not think of a single negative thing to

say about Sign-A-Rama. "Post Net is a different story," she

says. She bought the franchise when it was owned by Sign-A-Rama, and

it was later sold to another company. Both are franchises, and each

courts similar customers, but management styles in the home offices

vary markedly.

boss can be, the hours he expects are almost always less than those

new entrepreneurs log. "I could work 24 hours a day," says

Leggiere.

After her first month in business, friends called to see how she was

doing. A common question involved what she missed most from her days

as an employee. "Lunch with friends," was her reply. As a

business owner she took her lunch not in a restaurant chair opposite

a co-worker, or even in the cafeteria with a gang of friends. "I

eat standing up in the production area," she says. So accustomed

is she to the arrangement that she gets nervous when she occasionally

shares lunch in a restaurant with a client. "I think I should

be standing up," she says.

turn into firemen, putting out little blazes as they erupt. "You

go to input an order and the phone rings," she says. "You

stop to answer it, and then remember an appointment. You spend 15

minutes looking for your keys, and run out the door without inputting

the order."

Slow down, is her advice. Prioritize. Make a plan and stick to it.

She visits clients on the way in to work. Upon arriving, she settles

in to review orders, and make estimates. There is a routine for the

day and a routine for the week. Sticking to it gives her focus.

to complete projects on time, new entrepreneurs have a tendency to

let some things slide. The first casualty is sales and marketing.

Doing so is a guarantee of trouble. "It’s a vicious cycle,"

Leggiere says. "You’re trapped."

No matter what else an entrepreneur does, he has to "learn to

love sales and marketing," she says, acknowledging that this is

hard for many. "We’re used to thinking of sales in terms of going

with our parents to buy a used car," she says. "It was considered

a less than reputable occupation." This is a perception every

business owner needs to rethink.

six months to get a company going. Wrong, says Leggiere, who has seen

any number of under-capitalized businesses go under. Start with the

expectation that it could take three years to get to profitability,

and in the meantime watch every penny.

A common mistake, she says, is over-spending on a first office. It

is likely to be temporary, and the carpet will not be moving on to

your next location. Don’t spend a lot of money on it. Ditto the furniture,

which may not fit well in a new space.

As for the feature-filled phone system you used without a second thought

at corporate headquarters, learn to do without. No one thinks about

what seemingly-basic items like a phone system cost, says Leggiere.

It is a shock find out that the price tag can easily be $40,000.

scream of rising unemployment, but Leggiere says every small business’

biggest problem is finding and keeping good people. She finds many

applicants simply unemployable, lacking basic job skills and/or the

character and personality to report to work every day and treat customers

professionally.

"If you’re Dell, it doesn’t matter if one salesperson is rude,"

she says. One lost sale is of no great moment. For a small company,

though, a single surly employee is enough to crater the whole operation.

Not only do employees of a small business need to be savvy, pleasant,

and reliable, but they also have to be more flexible and harder working

than their corporate counterparts. There is often more work to do,

and fewer people to do it.

an ad for an employee on Monster.com, the online job board. "I

got thousands of responses," she says. Applicants from as far

away as Las Vegas sent in resumes for a job that paid $10 an hour.

Now, when she places an ad, she stipulates that candidates must live

in Middlesex County. She refuses to speak to anyone who does not.

they try to be too involved in day-to-day operations, they risk losing

sight of big picture tasks like marketing and expansion planning.

But if they hire too many people to help them out, they risk going

under.

Leggiere is a hiring mentor for other Sign-A-Rama owners. On any number

of occasions she has had to tell one of them that he his staff is

too large. "They say `but you have three employees,’" she

reports, "and I say `Of course I have three employees! I’ve been

in business for eight years, I need three employees.’"

In the early going, though, it is the boss who will have to tend to

sales, customer service, and probably deliveries, computer repair,

and janitorial duties as well.