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by Stephen Parezo

Dave Buth

January 5, 2005—David Buth observed first hand the entrepreneurial spirit close to home while growing up in Crown Point, IN. His grandfather owned a 500-seat restaurant while his father worked by day at the post office and tended to the family farm at night.

"It was usually a lot of hard work and long days," said Buth, a Fiducial franchisee who recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of opening his office in Naperville, IL.

When he went to college he originally started out in engineering but quickly shifted to business and fell into accounting. He earned a BS in accounting at Valparaiso University.

"It seemed like people were always going to need an accountant," he said. "It made a whole lot more sense to me than economics did."

Buth was in charge of divisional accounting for a seven-office manufacturing company that included posts in Canada and Mexico. He says it was a good job to start out of college. While the company had been looking for someone with a lot more business experience they decided to hire somebody right out of school and train them. He was there two years before they offered him a position as controller of their plants.

From manager to CFO

After getting an MBA in finance from Central Missouri State, Buth came back to the Chicago area and began a stint that lasted over 25 years with an international moving company. He started as an accounting supervisor, was promoted to manager and eventually became a CFO for the $300 million company.

During his first year there he was asked to design a computer system that became the bedrock of the company's financial systems, updating the system from a mini computer to a main frame. Since the moving company had an overseas parent, Buth picked up substantial international experience meeting people from around the world. To a large degree, he says that business is conducted pretty much the same way around the world.

Things did get a little tricky sometimes when he was traveling, especially at mealtime in a foreign country. Once when he was in a Paris restaurant, Buth was not able to read the menu because it was in French so an executive from the host country took the liberty of ordering. He says the food tasted good but he didn't know what he was eating.

Every few years Buth did some preliminary research to try and uncover some franchise opportunities.

"I had looked at a variety of businesses but couldn't find any in the area to buy into that were that great," he said. "I had seen an ad from Fiducial and talked to them and some of their competitors." Buth soon took the plunge. What sealed the deal for him was Fiducial's long-term vision of being able to offer a variety of services to its clients.

Hard work, long hours

Reflecting on his entrepreneurial milestone, Buth says there's been a lot to learn with any new small business.

"There's a lot of hard work and long hours involved," he said. "I think I've learned a whole lot more about taxes and that's probably been one of the best things about dealing with Fiducial's Tax Research Hot Line. Every week I'm writing them about something."

Assisting Buth is his wife, Jane, who helps do some of the bookkeeping. She also brings substantial tax preparation experience with her since she worked for a national tax firm for over 10 years.

Buth landed his first client through someone he met at the local Chamber of Commerce who had a relative that was involved in the moving business. It was kind of bonding a experience for him and has worked out well. The client owns an insurance agency that had just lost eight months of critical data on its computer for three different customers.

Buth had to go back to bank records and make copies of every check and create new files.

"Basically, it was a catastrophe," he said. Still, he was able to accomplish that painstaking task to put his client back on track.

Perfecting closing ratio

The local economy in the Naperville area, located 30 miles west of Chicago, is doing pretty well especially in the construction industry which has been booming.

"A lot of refinancing has certainly helped people remodel, add rooms and roofs on their homes," Buth said. "A lot of older homes are being torn down and replaced by new ones."

With that in mind, Buth believes Fiducial's newly offered mortgage services will do well in his locale.

"I've had quite a few clients that have expressed interest in mortgage services whether they make $50,000 or $125,000," he said.

Most of his typical small business clients are always looking for a way to minimize their tax burden with many just needing some general help.

When he started making his initial sales calls in November 2003, Buth says they literally were "cold calls" and at first he didn't have a lot of success for the amount of time that went into it. Since then, he's perfected "a pretty good closing ratio" when he gets in front of a potential client. His past experience has contributed significantly to his sales success.

"It's a big change when you have had 2,000 people working for you but now it's just the two of us, " Buth said. "Every day's a challenge. The thing I like best is the variety because from one opportunity to the next you may not get any phone calls and the next day you'll get 12. Everybody wants something different. "

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial.

Whatever your small business needs, your Fiducial tax and financial professional can analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate action plan. To locate a Fiducial office nearest you on fiducial.com, see the Zip Code Locator located in the upper right hand corner of the page. Do you have a particular topic that we should be writing about that can help your business? Please send your suggestions to: stephen.parezo@fiducial.com.

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