KEEPING THE
Here are his top tips: 1. MAINTAIN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS.
The world is smaller than you think, especially when you’re younger. You will keep running into a lot of the same people over the course of your career. Be a good person. Keep contacts and foster relationships. “I’ve never had to chase work,” he says. The relationships that Jerry built and maintained have brought work to him since he started his business. He created his own referral system long before he formed Precision Formulations. 2. LEARN CONSTANTLY. Never pass up an opportunity to acquire a new skill. When Jerry was at a company after the military, they offered a lot of training opportunities. He took the courses offered and added to his expertise. When new assignments came, they came to him. He had the skills and demonstrated capacity to take on something new. “I’m still learning,” Jerry says. “For example, the hardest thing to learn as a new business owner was asking to get paid.” Indeed, many an entrepreneur knows that having clients pay on a timely basis is a skill set that needs to be learned early on. 3. TEACH CONSTANTLY. “You should be teaching your clients so that they can learn to do things for themselves.” Jerry has found that by freely giving of his experience and empowering his clients, he generates more (and more interesting) work with each of his clients. Becoming a trusted partner has been invaluable. 4. HAVE A GOOD TEAM. Jerry assembled a strong team around him to fill in areas where he didn’t have the background. His accountant, Craig Cody, has been invaluable to him, especially in managing the tax aspects of running his own business. He is one of my favorite clients to work with and learn from. And, recently, his daughter has become a partner in the firm. “I never thought I’d be able to do it, but I’m so excited to have Laura join in.”
S ome people are satisfied with one successful career. For example, Jerry Rotando could have retired as a Major after his twenty years of service to our country in the U.S. Air Force and been proud. An engineer by training, he served in the bomb disposal unit. The story about how he defused a live nuclear bomb is thrilling, and his wife is grateful he didn’t tell those stories at the dinner table. After the military, Jerry went to work in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. He spent another 25 years in chemical engineering. He figured out how to put the chemicals together to make and improve the products and medicines so many rely on daily. If you open up your medicine cabinet, you’ll most likely find some of Jerry’s work. Not content with merely two successful careers, immediately upon “retiring,” Jerry formed Precision Formulations, Inc., which serves as a consultant to the very industries he recently left. In less than 18 months, his business has taken off. (It seems like overkill to mention that after Jerry started Precision Chemicals, he started a joint venture with a former colleague, sold it to a large firm, and now is a consultant to that entity.) I sat down with Jerry to talk about how to have a hot career. Since Jerry has been successful four times over, I knew he had a lot to offer. His enthusiasm for his company shines through everything: “When you work for someone else you are stuck doing what they want you to do. When you work for yourself, you get to do things that are fun.”
It’s only just becoming Summer, but Jerry’s company is already hot and is only getting hotter. Jerry can be reached at jerry_rotando@yahoo.com.
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