Coming Soon!

My Amazon E-book

“We Knead Your Dough”

Prologue.

What follows is factual. Everything, the blood (a tablespoon or 2), the sweat (gallons of it over 5 years), the tears (approximately one pint), occurred during the Krueger’s ownership of an everything-baked-from-scratch- bread store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina from 2002 to 2007.

Other immeasurable elements germane to our family’s Odyssey…… laughter, charity, wonderful employees, loyal customers, and a lot of love.

I left a job as an operations’ manager in a 2 million sq.ft. consumer products distribution facility a.k.a warehouse.

As 2nd in command under the facility manager, I had immediate access to 10 other specialized departments for correcting problems. Just pick up the phone or stop by in the office of personnel, accounting, data processing and so on.

Our bakery had one oven. During one of several oven failures, my wife came up with a beautifully concise explanation for why I was so frustrated during each occurrence.

She explained …….

“In your old job, you could pick up the phone and get immediate help from one of the other 11 staff members. Now you have no one to call. You are all of them.”

To this day we laugh about that stinging observation.

All of this comes to mind in the context of advising people who will actually tell me, “I want to own my own business someday”.  Even today with all that’s happened to the small business owners the past 2 years, that sentiment still exists. I am a former small business owner. Actually, to state it correctly; I owned a small business. I’ve never been physically small — always been about 5’ 11”. But I digress — and as this Odyssey unfolds, I’ll treat you to plenty of digression.

Digressions are “cognitive speedbumps” — don’t allow them to derail your train of thought. As I was saying, there are educated adults who actually do want to own and run a small business. Whenever I’m within earshot of that statement, I jump in letting them know that I ran a business of my own for 5 years and that today I offer free consultations to anyone considering doing the same. I’ve been offering this free consultation for 15 years — ever since I (Oh, thank you GOD) sold the business. Without exception, this offer meets with a smile and positive response.

From this point I go on to say that the “consultation” is very brief. I tell the might-be owners,

“Don’t Do It”!

Next, I will address the personal motivations which led to me purchasing my own business. As soon as I pin down exactly what those motivations were, I can start Chapter One.