By Wilton Johnson
Kilgore College's Small Business Development Center wants East Texas entrepreneurs to be prepared for the open market.
An Air Force career taught Jeff Milam computers. After running a thousand workstations at top secret clearance, he went left for the open market.
"Went to work for myself and just went from there. Started advertising and letting people know where I am and what I do," Milam recounted Friday.
He is in the 50% of those who are living a successful American dream.
"Approximately half of people that come to this course are already in business for themselves and looking for that expertise they didn't get before they started their business," said Brad Bunt.
He's Director of Kilgore College's Small Business Development Center and wants to add East Texas business owners name along with Milam's. They're offering an eight week course that teaches entrepreneurs everything from insurance and taxes to financing and bookkeeping to developing a business plan and marketing.
"The biggest pitfalls are those individuals that don't learn how to interact with their bankers or deal with monetary issues and they have cash flow type problems. They have customer service issues," Bunt said.
Customer service is what Milam wants to improve in the East Texas computer service industry.
"There's alot of people out there that know just enough to be dangerous and a few that know enough to get the job done."
He says his experience with Kilgore College will help him increase the latter.
Click here to if you would like to sign-up for the course or find out more on what is offered.
