On the Money

NAVIGATING THE SMALL BUSINESS MINEFIELD: Phillip Saxton with Small Business Samaritans and Mike Hardesty with Hardesty Hackett & Partners

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Phillip Saxton with Small Business Samaritans and Mike Hardesty with Hardesty Hackett & Partners discuss the pros and cons of launching and operating a small business with Joe Moss, the president of Embassy National Bank.

Phillip Saxton/Small Business Samaritans

Small Business Samaritans cares about the individuals who have the dream and courage to start a business. These dreams are important, not just to them and their families, but to their customers and the community where they operate.

We are living in challenging economic times where much of the future of the United States depends upon job creation. Our top concerns as a nation lie with economic recovery, job creation, and setting up & operating successful businesses. It is highly doubtful that many new jobs are going to be created by big business, global business, governments, inventions or new investments. During the last 15 years, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses generated over 64% of new jobs. Currently, 70% of job growth is generated by small businesses, which is expected to continue, if not increase, in the next four years.

Small businesses have been severely affected by economic, global and political forces completely out of their control. The current recession was caused by poor political decisions, poor leadership from large financial organizations, a liquidity shortfall in the banking system caused by the overvaluation of assets, poor leadership from large corporations, and greed.

The concept of SBS was born out of the idea that small businesses and entrepreneurs needed to do things differently in order to insulate them from these economic and political forces. Our communities depend upon doing things differently. The goal is to operate a business that is less subjected to outside forces.

Mike Hardesty/Hardesty Hackett & Partners

Since their beginning in 2004, Hardesty Hackett & Partners set out to be different and unique. They had seen consulting from both sides of the desk and knew what was good and what was not good. They wanted to provide excellent value for the money, achieve their goals every time, insure that their work was sustainable, and make a real and significant difference to their clients’ performance. There was no “Plan B”.

To achieve this vision, they needed excellent and consistent performance from their people; unique people with particular skill sets that would go the extra mile to create success and compete with themselves, not each other, and think “outside the box”. These people would possess a personal authority – morally, technically and energetically – so their clients would be motivated to engage in the process, rather than fight it. The use of independent contractors would prove to be the appropriate model.

They also needed a process that allowed them to see the issues quickly and then effectively change systems, processes and behaviors to bring about significant and sustainable change. They created the Hardesty Hackett Change Process (HHCP) which is largely credited with establishing an outstanding reputation for creating sustainable change.

Under the ownership of the five original partners and two subsequent partners, Hardesty Hackett has grown substantially every year. Part of this success is due to their insistence to always delight their clients. Part of their broad industry experience has allowed Hardesty Hackett to grow in ways to help their clients, and part has been their selection and mentoring of the Hardesty Hackett team to successfully execute the original vision.

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On the Money focuses on topics and issues allowing small businesses to better navigate the financial services minefield, with analysis and opinions from today’s industry experts on banking and loans. On the Money also introduces you to some of the top small business leaders in the Atlanta market.

Hosted by Joe Moss, the president of Embassy National Bank, On the Money airs live every Wednesday at 3:00 PM EST from the Business RadioX studio in Gwinnett.