(bright music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright music) - [Announcer] It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge.

- Whether you're starting a business for the first time or you've already taken the plunge into entrepreneurship, it always helps to learn from others.

And that's what this show is all about.

We want you to be successful in your business endeavors.

So we bring together those who have been there so you can learn from their experiences.

Join us as we talk to these entrepreneurs and learn from their walk through the world of owning a business.

(upbeat music) Entrepreneurs start businesses for many different reasons.

When provided with opportunity, Jeffrey Potter saw a chance to turn something he's always known about and had a passion for into a venture that he hopes to pass down to his sons.

The namesake for J.L.

Bryant Lumber in Byrdstown, Tennessee.

(upbeat music) We're here in Beautiful Byrdstown, Tennessee with Jeffrey Potter, owner of J.L.

Bryant Lumber Company.

Jeffrey, welcome to the show.

- Thank you for having me here.

- Well, I see all kinds of great activity going on.

What do you do here at JL, Bryan?

- We make a lot of hardwood paneling for walls and ceiling, and we also make solid hardwood flooring out of poplar, ash, hickory, red oak, maple, and cherry.

- So I'm really interested in how all this works.

I see all this lumber around, I see so much going on in your operations.

Walk us through, from the time that you get something in to the time it goes out the door.

What does that look like?

- Now where we get a lot of our lumber from, like I said, the local saw mills here, a Pickett County, Fentress County, Overton County, several counties in Kentucky there, they'll bring it in all within a 45 minutes, an hour drive from here and they'll bring in the green fresh lumber.

And then we'll take the lumber, put it on sticks, allow it to air dry.

And after it air drys for, depending on the species, some of it 15 days, some of it's 60 days, we will put in a dry kiln.

And we'll take it out of the dry kiln, put it through our planter.

We've got a double sided planter that will do top and bottom, both on that to surface both sides.

Yeah, our lumber will go through the rip saw to rip the first edge on it and then send it through the molder to come out with a finished product on it.

And our products are usually eight, 10 or 12 foot long, depending on what the customer needs on there.

We can can try to try to increase the yield that the customer gets so they don't have a lot of wasted product afterwards.

- Now how did you get into all this?

- Of course we started out as a dry kiln, drying for companies in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, and Florida.

Kind of got into making paneling there for the local contractors, they like to use American made everything here is a local, locally produced American made products, and also the flooring trim, window trim, base mold.

We'll do a little bit of everything.

Anything you think of goes inside the house there on the hardwood, we can make it here.

- Now you said you started out with a dry kiln.

How did you get that idea and how did you really decide I wanna start a business?

- Of course, you know, I started out in the furniture industry and it's kind of, since I graduated Tech 2006, Lumber and furniture industry, hardwoods is kind of all I've known on that.

- [Micheal] So how long have you really been into this after you started the dry kiln to where you're at now?

- Well, of course J.L.

Bryant Lumber got started in January, 2019.

And like I said, we were a dry kiln operation, with a hundred percent of our focus on dry kiln and lumber.

And then found a market for making paneling as far as a need for that, there was a local need for it cause nobody produces paneling like what we make.

- Now the name of the business, J.L.

Bryant, where'd that come from?

- Now, J.L.

Bryant Lumber, the name of the business originated J.L.

is my oldest son and Bryant's my youngest son.

So I kind of give them something to grow up into and hopefully, you know they can can you carrying it on there for me.

- So when you started out to now, there's always gonna be challenges, you know, inherent with owning a small business.

What are some of those challenges that you faced?

And more importantly, how did you overcome those?

- A lot of the challenges been faced, there's probably a lot that's other business face too, as far as labor, market demand, supply.

I mean it's just, you know, list kind of for a small business goes on and on that.

But it's one of those things you gotta keep going at it, every day you make a try to make a little improvement, a little at a time on them.

- So you know, you've got challenges with owning a small business, you've got boys, you've got a family.

How are you making that balance between business owner and personal life?

- Gotta definitely take it just to, like I said, a little at a time on that.

And of course now my boys, they like to come down here and they like to look at, you know, what we've done, what we make.

They'll go with me every now and then to look at jobs, you know, that we're doing.

Kind of introduce 'em young on that.

- As a small business owner, you've gotta be everything to the business, everything to everybody.

And not everybody can do that.

You know, there's a lot of free resources here in the Upper Cumberland.

We're so lucky to have places like the Small Business Development Center.

Tell us a little bit about those resources and how have they helped you?

- Of course, the Small Business Development Center has definitely helped me by being able to take our business and expand in different areas.

Like I said, we've started expanding now where we been selling our paneling just to contractors here in Byrdstown.

We've started selling to Cookeville, Nashville, Knoxville, Somerset, Corbin, London, Kentucky.

You know, promote our name, get it out there and let people see that there's still American made products here to be found there.

Get me in contacts with people that otherwise I wouldn't really have any information to get ahold of 'em on that.

- A lot of times when I talk to small businesses for whatever reason, they're hesitant to take advantage or leverage a resource like the Small Business Development Center.

What would you tell to people that are kind of on the fence?

- Whenever I very first contact the Small Business Development Center, I was kind of in the same predicament on that.

Kind of, is it gonna be something worthwhile, is it not?

And now I couldn't imagine, you know, if I hadn't taken that step, couldn't imagine trying to get my name from open product and get, like I say, get our business out there into the public's eye without the help of that.

- Well, you know, talking about taking next steps, right?

You know, a lot of people that watch this show are thinking about starting a small business, but they just haven't gotten there yet.

They're hesitant for whatever reason.

As a small business owner, what would your message to them be?

- No time left the present.

Might as well go ahead and take that step.

And I mean, it's one of those things of how much work you put into, it's what you get out of it.

- Absolutely.

And so, you know, let's say that they start that business or maybe some small business owners are brand new right now, what have you learned over the past few years since 2019?

What advice would you give to them?

- You'll have your ups and downs, but when you'll never give up on the downs on that.

Cause I would being up afterwards, if you just keep working at it on that.

- Well, how are you dealing with the downs?

Talk about that.

- One of our biggest downs has been labor.

You know, finding help, finding people who wanna work.

I've got a good crew now working for me.

Been lucky to get what we've got there on that.

- [Micheal] What does it really mean to you to be a small business owner in a rural area like Pickett County?

- It's important for not only my employees, but the employees and families of the saw mills and stuff that we buy from branches out, you know, from here to several different saw mills.

Like so we buy all of our lumber within about an hour radius of here.

Definitely increased for several, you know, several families around the area here.

- So you said you started back in 2019.

One year later we entered the Covid Pandemic.

How did you get through that?

- Luckily our industry was one that's considered essential, so we were able to stay open.

Stuff slowed down, stuff kind of, shipping got a lot harder on stuff, but we were able to make it through and just, you know, making the essential items for houses, cabinets, floors, and everything needed, you know, for the industry there on that.

- Well hopefully we're through the pandemic now and thinking towards the future, what does the future hold for J.L.

Bryant?

- Hopefully the future hold, you know, quite a bit more paneling making.

Like I said, we're switching over to making the wall and ceiling paneling, a lot more than what we used to, and getting into the flooring and trim.

We'll do a lot more of the flooring and trim on that hardwood flooring.

- Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.

We really appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me and we appreciate you coming down.

(upbeat music) - Sometimes one person's passion can be turned into a business that helps bring the passions of others to life.

A perfect example of this is West Fork Screen Printing and Embroidery in Livingston, Tennessee.

They use their creativity and talents to bring their clients' ideas to life and make sure their clients get the results they're hoping for.

(bright music) We're here in Livingston, Tennessee with Jogenna McDonald, owner of West Fork Screen Printing and Embroidery.

Jogenna, welcome to the show.

- Thank you.

- So let's get started.

What is West Fork Screen Printing?

What do you all do?

- We do lots of stuff.

We obviously do screen printing and embroidery, but we do wooden graving, wood cutting.

We have group parties that you can come in and do group paintings.

We do kids art classes.

Just anything personalized we can do.

- [Micheal] Now how did you get the idea to start this business?

- I've been doing it for several years actually, started back about 10 or 12 years ago in our basement, just piddling with an embroider machine and it was a hobby that turned into a dream.

- So you do screen printing and embroidery.

I'm really interested in that process.

Let's start out with screen printing.

Tell me, how do you do that?

- Your customer comes in, they usually already have their logo.

If they don't, we help 'em with it.

Whatever they need.

We can do hoodies, T-shirts.

- So what is a screen press exactly?

When you say you set up the screen for 'em, what does that involve?

- To start with, it's kinda like photos.

Years ago, you know, they had a little black room and used some chemicals that make an, it's called an emulsion.

And you start off making your screens that way and you print off your design.

Then you have to burn the image onto the screen.

Then you bring it in and then you can put ink on it, squeeze it down, and it brings out a nice little design.

- [Micheal] How did you learn how to do this?

- Trial and error mostly, and a lot of YouTube.

- [Micheal] So let's talk about embroidery.

What does that process look like?

- [Jogenna] There's all kinds of things you can embroider, backpacks and stuff like that.

So depends on what it is, how you set it up.

But initially you just put it in your computer how you want it.

You have to select all the colors, you get it in there and ready to go and, hit the button.

- [Micheal] Run it through the machine, and it works.

- [Jogenna] Hitting the button and it works.

- You know, something else that caught my eye when I came in here is you're doing a lot of laser printing as well?

- Yes.

- Tell me about that.

- Yes, the laser is new to the business.

We've just started it when we opened a store.

It's so fun.

You can do all kinds of stuff.

I can engrave pictures, I do a lot of cutout pictures for Dale Hollow and we epoxy those.

We do the door hangers, we can do classes on those.

You bring your group of friends in.

If I don't have room here, I pack up the stuff and I take it to 'em.

I've done several church events and set up in their facility and it's a lot of fun.

- Well, that sounds like a lot of fun.

Well, speaking of fun, you said you do group classes too.

- Group classes.

- Tell me about those.

- I can hold about 12 in here.

You pick out whatever designs you wanna do, everybody can do something different.

And then take home a beautiful picture.

Even though most people say, I'm not artistic, well yet, it can be done.

- [Micheal] I think there's an artist in a little bit of all of us.

And what it's all about, like you said, is it's about having fun, getting together, and really this is your ability to bring the community together, make something fun, and ultimately also have some customers too.

- Yes, yes.

Usually the ones that come in to do painting, I usually see their faces several times throughout the year.

- So what made you decide this hobby of mine, I could actually make a business?

How did you get there?

- When I first started, I started making little key chains and putting people's names on 'em.

Well, I was lucky enough that I had a kid at the high school that was willing to sell these things for me and we sold a lot of key chains that year.

So it just kind of grew from there.

- So when you started your business, you said you started it in your basement?

Now you've got this beautiful location, a storefront.

Tell me a little bit about that transition from basement to storefront.

How did you get here?

- Well, I talked to Tyler Asher from the Small Business to Development Center in Cookeville.

He gave me the information to reach out to other people and the encouragement to do what I loved.

- Well, you know, we do a lot of work with SBDC.

I know that the SBDC is really prevalent here in the Upper Cumberland region.

They have a lot of free resources.

So you worked with Tyler, he kind of convinced you to take this thing to a storefront.

What are some of the other services that you've leveraged with the SBDC?

- So Tyler set me up with a gentleman named Chris McCulley.

He set up my website.

He got me going pretty quick after I got my storefront opened.

- [Micheal] You know, so working with the SBDC, they've been able to provide you with some interns, I understand.

Tell me a little bit about what they've been doing for you.

- Well, I've talked with Claire and PJ through a Zoom meeting.

And PJ is gonna come and do some photography and stuff for me.

And Claire, she's setting up my social media, so I'll be able to reach out to other people around the community plus other surrounding counties hopefully.

- So I understand that, you know, this comes at absolutely no cost to you.

So in addition to, you know, the transactional nature of being able to receive social media help, why does it really help you as a business to have a resource like an intern?

- The knowledge that they have that they're given to me to expand my business is just priceless.

- [Micheal] You know, now that you've got this storefront, you know, you're doing business here in Livingston and I understand that Livingston is a very tight-knit community.

What does it mean to you to be a business owner?

To be able to serve the residents of Livingston?

- When you're out in public, when you're at the ball games or just out shopping or any other kind of business, when you see people that have your items on, it's very prideful.

Yeah.

- So you've been in this location for several months now, about what, six or seven months.

What do you think the next steps for you are now that you have this location?

- Just reaching out to more communities.

I love my spot, I love this area.

It's a great location just right off the square.

I just wanna reach out to more businesses that I can help promote their business with their logo on their items.

- What are some of the challenges that you've encountered so far from, you know, you started out in the basement, now you're in the location.

Just owning a business in general, there's all kinds of challenges.

You have to be everything to everybody.

You've gotta be the floor mopper to the embroider, to the accountant and everything in between.

What are some of those challenges and how did you overcome them?

- Deadlines is a lot.

Whether it be your accountant needs your paperwork or you know, your customer come in two days ago and said, I need this tomorrow.

Sometimes that's a lot of late hours, but that's okay.

- So obviously you have grown your business now that you're in the storefront.

Tell me a little bit about the growth and how you're managing that.

- I would say without specific numbers, we've probably doubled, if not tripled our business since we opened up a storefront.

- And how are you managing that growth?

- Gotta have a plan.

Just like anything in life, you gotta have a plan on what you're gonna do next.

- And I'm assuming that plan is a little dynamic too, isn't it?

- It can always be changed.

- Have you experienced any changes in your plan so far?

- I never realized that I would be in a storefront.

I thought it would just be a little hobby, making some side money, but it's really come along.

- [Micheal] So thinking back to the hobby days, back in your basement to now with your beautiful storefront and owning this business and expanding, what do you know now that you wish you knew then?

- More of the details of the business side of it that I got from the SPDC.

Just the counseling from 'em, you know, all the resources that they have.

You know, I wish I would've had them several years ago and I could have been doing this maybe a couple years sooner.

- So I think it's safe to say that if somebody came to you and said, Jogenna, I'm thinking about starting a business, but I don't know what to do.

What advice would you give to them?

- Reach out to the small business folks.

They'll help you.

They're there to help you.

- So what's the future hold for West Fork Screen Printing and Embroidery?

- Yep.

Just reaching out hopefully to more businesses for I can put their logo on stuff and help them advertise their business.

- Well Jogenna, we really appreciate you coming on our show today.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

(bright music) (upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Jodi Pitts with the Small Business Development Center.

I am the Assistant Director of our local SBDC center at Upper Cumberland Development District.

We have lots of resources for local business owners and entrepreneurs, ranging from counseling and connection to industry professionals.

We have anything you need to help you start, grow, and sustain your business.

We have lots of resources available to local business owners at no cost to you.

One of these resources is an innovative internship program, utilizing students from Tennessee Tech College of Business.

These students will come and do projects in your business, like creating logos, doing web design, or financial analysis at no cost to you.

The best part is that they're managed at the SPDC Center.

So you have no additional work in managing the interns on a day to day basis.

And these are just a few examples of the many services that we can provide to you.

Each plan is customized for the business and the business owner to make sure that we have maximum results.

Once you're signed up and you're connected with a counselor, we'll start you on your journey to receive resources, counseling, and connections with industry professionals.

If an intern is assigned to you, they will work on very specific project based solutions to help you work on your business and not in your business.

As I mentioned before, interns are managed at the SBDC Center on a weekly basis.

This eliminates time that you're gonna have to invest in helping them understand your business and get started on their projects.

In many cases, using an intern to help you navigate through challenges that your specific business is having, can be the catalyst for tremendous growth and success in the future.

To utilize any of these resources, visit the website and we'll get you connected for the next steps in the process.

The SPDC is excited to help you on your entrepreneurial journey.

Be sure to contact us and we'll get you started today.

(upbeat music) - My name is Shehla Rooney.

I am a physical therapist by trade.

I have been treating patients for over 24 years.

Who am I?

I am someone who loves the older adult population.

It's why I'm a board certified specialist in geriatrics.

And I guess that's a good segue to what GoKnee is.

It's a tool that is used to help the recovery, both before and after knee replacement surgery.

And I don't know that I ever would've willingly decided to become an entrepreneur.

I'm one of those rare that I loved what I did.

I haven't had a multiple career changes.

I have been a physical therapist since I was 22 years old.

A few years ago, we had a patient that pulled at our heartstrings.

It was a gentleman, you know, who went in with all the hopes of having knee replacement surgery, you know, pain before, have the surgery and have this great outcome afterwards.

And it just didn't happen for him.

And for some reason he pulled at our heartstrings.

He was working hard, doing everything he was supposed to, compliant with his exercises, and he just wasn't getting the results that he wanted.

You know, and he just said some key words, you know, is there not anything I can do?

Like, tell me what I need to do so I can not have another surgery.

And something happened, you know, we went to a local hardware store.

Put some pieces of materials together, and we came up with this product, kind of showed him how to use it.

And I mean, just fast forward a couple of weeks and his surgeon's like, you don't need another surgery.

I don't know what you did, but it worked.

And that made us ask ourselves, huh, interesting.

Like that worked.

Let's try another patient.

And we had fantastic results with her as well.

And then all of a sudden you're like, maybe this is something, you know, there's over a million Americans that have knee replacement surgery every year, you know, and even more that suffer from chronic knee pain.

And the thought was, if this can help a few, well then why couldn't it help a majority?

And that led us to go online and be like, okay, how does one start a product business?

We found the Tennessee Small Business Development Center or the SBDC, and that's what launched everything.

So that was a couple of years ago.

You know, we told them our idea, we told them who we wanted to help, you know, and all of a sudden we're like hearing words like, well, you need to find a patent attorney.

You know, oh, you need to find a business attorney that can help with creating a partnership.

You need to, you know, find an accountant who can help set up some accounting and QuickBooks and bookkeeping services.

As a therapist, we created a product, we know it helps patients.

We were like, let's just do this.

Let's start building and let's start teaching.

And it just wasn't like that.

And having someone from the SBDC guiding us every step of the way, like, okay, whoa is great that you wanna do that, but what's your marketing plan?

Who's your customer base?

You know, what's your logo gonna look like?

What's your website, your company name?

Like so many things.

And again, we had a therapy mindset.

We want to help individuals.

What we didn't realize with the small business ownership or an entrepreneur mindset, you have to go through all these steps in order to get to the actual sales and helping the individuals.

We needed a lot of handholding, a lot of held accountable, a lot of why.

Why do you wanna do that?

Why do you wanna do this?

You know, how's that gonna help the business grow?

And just questions we would never, as three therapists that started this, we would not have asked ourselves those questions.

What I love about the SBDC is that they're constantly connecting you with people.

They're giving you names of businesses, mentors and other entrepreneurial centers.

So that's what led us to find the Biz Foundry.

And at the Biz Foundry, like they host a ton of workshops, webinars, it's like a co-working space.

So then all of a sudden you're meeting, you know, software developers and accountants that might be there or a videographer, and you get to make all these local connections.

And what I loved about that was this community in Cookeville, so small, everybody wants to help another local, everybody wants to help a small business.

And that's what the Biz Foundry did.

They also helped connect me with Tennessee's Center for Rural Innovation.

I was struggling with some business day to day functions, workflows, you know, they hooked me up and created some cool business spreadsheets to help with strategic business planning.

You know, they hooked me up with a photographer that could help take product pictures that I needed for my website and for print materials.

I mean, again, all the things required for a a product business to grow, just things you don't think about.

And when you're sitting there and have a challenge today, like, I don't know what to do.

I don't know who to call.

I don't know who helps with this particular problem that I have.

That to me has been the most valuable resource is I can text or call or email someone from the SBDC or the Biz Foundry.

I just feel like I have this team working for me, but I'm not paying them.

But they're providing me a valuable resource to help my business grow.

It has helped me grow beyond anything I could have done on my own.

So definitely head over and check out the Business Resource Collective or the BRC, they'll get you hooked up.

(upbeat music) - Thanks for tuning in to It's Your Business.

For more information on today's topics, please visit the WCTE website.

And to learn more about the free small business resources and expert assistance, visit the Business Resource Collective website.

Until next time, I'm Michael Aikens.

(upbeat music) (bright music) - [Announcer] It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge.

(bright music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.