Fiducial | We help your business grow and be profitable.

by Stephen Parezo

August 6, 2004 —At a time of life when many of those his age have traded the executive's chair for the golf clubs, Richard "Rocky" St. John still comes to work each day at his Fiducial office in Colorado Springs, CO. Even after operating his own business for 26 years, St. John still gets a kick out of helping clients.

Over the years, the needs of small businesses have become more complicated. St. John says today's entrepreneurs want to learn more about how to better manage their business, how to be more profitable and how to make better decisions to maximize the benefits of their business.

Renewed hope

Payroll check writing has sparked increasing interest in his locale due to sudden staff changes, notices from the tax agency or clients finally deciding to outsource their payroll functions to an outside firm. St. John noted that he and his staff have interceded on behalf of clients besieged by tax woes by dealing with the Internal Revenue Service.

Clients come to St. John all tense in the shoulder, expecting the worst kind of news. When what they hear actually is positive, the shoulders drop down and then they turn to him and smile.

"We got them into a plan that was doable," he said. "They were scared and lost hope but we gave hope back to them."

Whether it's a good-sized company or a mom and pop operation, clients come to St. John's office after trying to keep up their accounting, financial and tax records. Despite keeping records to the best of their ability, these entrepreneurs were unable to prevent something from happening which is what brought them to his doorstep.

"They come to us to clean up the mess, control cash flow, track inventory and other financial records of their business," St. John said. "A lot of times we're just their mentors."

There are even those circumstances when a husband and wife are at-odds with each other. In one case the wife owned a small business but didn't want to give her husband control of it. "Sometimes you have to be the people's counselor," he said.

Maximizing strengths

St. John looks at client relationships by using an analogy involving his favorite football team, the Denver Broncos. As a big Broncos fan, it's just natural for him.

"Do you think there's a single player on the field that doesn't have talent?" he asked. "Why then are there coaches? To keep the players focused on what they already know, maximize their strengths and develop new capabilities. You take what you know and build on that."

St. John makes the distinction that clients, like athletes, are skilled and gifted in many areas but they &quo;get buried in the situations of the moment." That's when he acts as a "coach" by bringing them back to get focused on "using their talents in the right way."

In today's business climate, he says the same concept rings true for entrepreneurs who get caught up with having enough cash for payroll and paying bills plus dealing with personnel issues.

While many seniors have started taking things at a more relaxed pace, St. John admits that he views retirement very differently.

"I'm working where I want to work and I'm doing what I love to do—interacting with people which is exciting," he said. "It doesn't have any restrictions other than those I set myself."

Asked how he received the nickname of "Rocky," St. John says he picked up that moniker while earning his first degree in geology.

"While I was a student I used to do field work in any kind of weather," he said. "When I got to the point of first knocking the ice off the bedrock to get at some fossils, my college roommates started calling me Rocky and it has stuck these many years."

St. John recently attended the Fiducial 2004 Leadership Summit in late July in Portland, ME. This annual gathering of Fiducial's top performing franchise owners left him feeling refreshed and refocused for the future.

"I love what I do," he said. "Touching people's lives and making a difference in the quality of their life by energizing them and giving them hope—that's my motivation."

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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