In the early 1990s, Mario F.X. Salwan struggled to stay awake during his pre-med classes at The Ohio State University. He was tired from painting the town red — and yellow and blue and green. Salwan wasn't hitting the bars on High Street nightly: He was painting houses during the evening and on weekends to pay for college.
After three years at Ohio State, Salwan decided to quit school and return to his native Cleveland to run Buckeye Painting & Decks full time. The company, which he started at age 17 in 1989, was thriving. During summer breaks, he worked with the Cleveland Restoration Society to restore apartments built in the 1920s to their original color schemes.
Once back in Cleveland, Salwan immersed himself in work and grew Buckeye Painting & Decks to a company with 15 full-time employees and annual sales topping $1 million. But in 2005, the entrepreneur put his paintbrush aside and picked up the pencil once again — at least for 11 Saturdays. He attended the Strategic Planning Course offered by COSE, the small-business division of the Greater Cleveland Partnership.
"It's like a condensed MBA course, but all the homework is about your business," says Salwan. The six-month course benefited him tremendously. He initially enrolled to gain a fresh perspective on operating Buckeye Painting & Decks, but in 2006 he launched a second company, Slide-Lok of Cleveland. This year, Salwan expects sales for Slide-Lok, which provides full-service garage makeovers, to exceed those of Buckeye Painting & Decks.
Salwan formulated the concept and business plan for the garage remodeling business during the COSE Strategic Planning Course. "I had always done things in garages, like build shelves, when clients asked," says Salwan. "But I wanted to find a good floor to put in that was porous." So when another student in the course asked him to provide a quote on flooring for his business, the entrepreneur leapt into action.
Salwan researched flooring and garage remodeling on the Internet. He discovered a need for such services in Cleveland. "All these builders construct beautiful houses and just leave the garages empty," he says. So in the midst of the Strategic Planning Course in January 2006, Salwan started Garage Finisher by Buckeye Painting & Decks (now Slide-Lok of Cleveland).
When he read "The E-Myth" (explaining how to create a business that works independently of the entrepreneur) by Michael Gerber as part of the class, Salwan expanded his vision for the company. "The garage angle struck me as something I could systemize and duplicate in other cities," he says. Salwan became an exclusive distributor for Slide-Lok of Arizona, a manufacturer of plywood-based cabinets. In August 2006, he changed the company name from Garage Finisher to Slide-Lok of Cleveland.
The company installs floors, cabinets, wall shelves, heaters and more in new homes and existing ones. In October 2007, he added a Columbus franchise (Slide-Lok of Columbus) and signed an agreement for an Atlanta location.
Success has not come without challenges, however. For Salwan, the biggest was owning inventory. The company stocks products to refinish more than 100 garages. "For the first time in my life, I carry hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory," he says. "All of a sudden, I had this huge cash outlay — more than I would've anticipated." Salwan is currently negotiating with an investment partner so he can focus on running the business rather than finances.
In addition, he outsourced warehousing of the inventory to Handl-it Inc. in Cleveland. "My niche is selling, producing and installing. I didn't see how becoming an expert in warehousing would help make us more money," says Salwan. "Handl-it's specialty is warehousing: They have guys sitting on forklifts all day."
Salwan's second company is thriving thanks in large part to his first one. "Without the whole experience at Buckeye, Slide-Lok never would've been possible," he admits. "I got to know customers' needs and was able to put together a system." He also had longtime employees from Buckeye, including a carpenter who has been with the company for 15 years, help start the new business. Today, Slide-Lok of Cleveland has seven employees.
Jeffrey C. Susbauer, an instructor for the COSE Strategic Planning Course, is not surprised by Salwan's achievements. "Mario is a classic entrepreneur," says Susbauer, president of Growth Strategies Inc., co-founder of Business Owners Consulting Group and an associate professor emeritus of management and labor relations at Cleveland State University. "Like most entrepreneurs, every place he looks he sees an opportunity. And he knows how to make money."
That's the hard part. Susbauer says the majority of entrepreneurs can't translate good ideas into moneymaking businesses. "Only 10 to 20 percent can dip their toes into any pond, gauge the temperature quickly and figure out how to succeed," he says. "Mario is one of those guys."
The Strategic Planning Course helps Salwan and others focus and answer basic business questions, adds Susbauer. During the course, designed for CEOs of established companies, students (called "snakes") partner with mentors ("mongooses") who previously participated in the class. Salwan's mongoose was Chuck Whitmer, owner of The Whitmer Co., a distribution and consulting business to commercial and institutional pools.
"Mario is outgoing, bright and intuitive," says Whitmer. "He's a risk taker, and that's the true sign of an entrepreneur." Whitmer has served as a mongoose approximately nine times and says each time he gains as much as he gives. "Everybody learns from the cross-pollination of ideas from both the mongooses and snakes."
Salwan concurs. This year, he's a mongoose for an entrepreneur in the computer consulting industry. "I'm refreshing my memory on everything I learned, and I'm building a relationship with another business owner," he says. That's ultimately advantageous for both his companies.
"If you want to work smart, you have to continually educate yourself," says Salwan. It may seem ironic that the kid who once left school now advocates education. But the businessman understands the value of hands-on programs, such as those offered by COSE. "It's worth the time commitment," says Salwan. "It can alter the way you do day-to-day business forever."