Students in Monmouth College’s “Midwest Entrepreneurs” class were busy taking their mid-term exam on Monday, so there was a break in the steady stream of visitors that business professors Mike Connell and Herb Schmidt have been hosting this semester.
The visitors included Monmouth alumni Chris Byers ’89 and Will Zimmerman ’11 during the final week of February. Rich Hornbaker of Hornbaker Gardens in Princeton, Illinois, is scheduled to speak Wednesday.
“This class builds a bridge between you and the alumni you’ll be working for,” Schmidt told the class. “It’s a great asset to have this course. I wish we would’ve have had it at the school I came from.”
A co-owner of Advanced Rehab & Sports Medicine, Byers said his Monmouth education made him a better communicator in his business, which he co-owns with Mike Salaway ’89. There are 13 Advanced Rehab clinics in central and western Illinois, including one in Monmouth, just a few blocks east of campus on Broadway.
“When you leave here, you know a little about a lot of things,” said Byers, whose company has around 130 employees. “You’re well-rounded, and I’ve found that I can relate to just about anybody. It’s rare that you’ll run into somebody and they’ll talk about something you know nothing about.”
Zimmerman said his business classes, including the first iteration of “Midwest Entrepreneurs,” as well as the department’s core economics (BUSI 105) and finance (BUSI 306) courses, have helped him run his general construction company, Modern Grains Systems, which is in Avon, Illinois, where he lives with his wife, Kelly Sheets Zimmerman ’10, and their four children.
“I knew I wanted a college degree to fall back on,” said Zimmerman, who also wanted to keep his baseball career going. “Monmouth was close to home, and I could still get back to Avon and work.”
Getting started
Both Byers and Zimmerman told the class that they took over established practices or businesses, then developed them into their own. Zimmerman said it was a “life-changing moment” when he casually asked his boss, Bill Thompson, “When are you going to sell your business?”
“I’m ready whenever you are,” came the reply.
“I knew I wanted to run my own business, be my own boss,” said Zimmerman. “Whatever I did, I wanted to do it well, and that helped set me apart. Customers noticed that I would go above and beyond. Bill Thompson noticed. I was a foreman at age 16, and I had a CDL at age 18.”
The line of succession took a little longer for Byers and Salaway, who bought out another physical therapist over the course of a 10-year period. Byers said a banker in Bloomington, Illinois, who’s been with him and Salaway the past 30 years, offered valuable counsel through that process and many other developments since.
Both alums said their business is not as simple as providing a service and being paid. For Zimmerman, there is plenty of heavy-duty equipment and vehicles to purchase, such as cranes, forklifts, trailers and trucks, and there are advantageous ways to finance those assets to have a stronger bottom line.
For Byers and Salaway, the situation is even more complex, with government regulations and insurance taking a big bite out of their time and, in many cases, their bottom line.
“The expenses of being a business owner now are vast,” said Byers, who lives in Bloomington and is the “hands-on” partner, while Salaway now works on the financial side from Phoenix. “Expenses are high and eat into revenue. For example, it costs $15,000 a year just to stay licensed. It can be burdensome.”
Just as Zimmerman has the support of Kelly, who keeps the company’s books and handles payroll – for as many as three dozen employees during the summer months – Byers is grateful for his longtime business partner.
“It’s pretty rare to have the same partner this long,” he said of Salaway.
Advice for entrepreneurs
“I thought I knew quite a bit. I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t,” said Byers of his early days in business.
Both he and Zimmerman – an avid outdoorsman – stressed having a life outside of work.
“Owning your own business is full of highs and lows,” said Byers. “Today, my first email was from one of our physicians, giving 30-days’ notice. Not a great way to start your Monday. You have to be pretty even keel. Don’t take your business home with you. If you live it 24/7, it eats you up. I try to leave it at work and walk away.”
Zimmerman offered several pieces of sage advice for Monmouth students eager to follow in his footsteps.
“Book smarts only get you so far. You have to be motivated. You have to have that drive.”
“Five or six years ago, my thoughts were the sky’s the limit on what’s to come for the business. Now it’s more about quality over quantity and making sure that what we’re doing, we’re doing very well.”
“As the (financial) numbers get bigger, your chance of failure gets bigger.”
If you make a bad hire, don’t be afraid to let them go. Do what’s best for the company.”
“When I start to have a bad time, I think, ‘What do I need to do?’ I make a list, do the top thing first, and keep moving through it. By the time I get to the bottom of the list, I feel pretty good.”
“I try to hang out with people who are more successful than me. I want to learn how they did it.”
One of those successful people, by the way, was Alex Tanney ’11, who’s had a long career in the NFL. The former Fighting Scots star quarterback was one of Zimmerman’s roommates his junior and senior years.
***Courtesy of Barry McNamara, Monmouth College***
