Perseverance pays off! Veronica Damewood and Michelle Birt have learned this fact first-hand after facing adversity, followed by success, as small business owners.

In June 2008, just two months after Veronica, Michelle, and their spouses acquired Graphic Ideas and the Vanishing Point Car Wash, flood waters poured through the streets of Corning and into their two new businesses. By the time the business owners got to their building at 6 a.m., the water was already in their businesses and rising. Within an hour and a half other townspeople had arrived to help the new owners unload the two stores’ contents.

Graphic Ideas and the Vanishing Point Car Wash are located in the same building on the east side of Corning. By the time the flood waters stopped rising, their building was six feet under water. The new business owners had no flood insurance and FEMA quickly denied their claim because they were business owners and not home owners.

Veronica and Michelle run the graphics business while their husbands, Jon Damewood and Doug Birt, concentrate on the car wash. Graphic Ideas was relocated to the Birt’s basement for a couple of weeks because there were orders that still needed to be completed. The store itself was closed for clean up and the men worked quickly to get the car wash reopened.

Exactly one month later disaster struck again. This time the flooding affected the car wash side of the building only, so the recovery process was much less extensive. Unfortunately, they still periodically have issues with the car wash due to the time the equipment spent underwater. However, each time they flooded, the two couples quickly had both businesses back up and running.

The Damewoods and Birts attribute a lot of their success and their quick recovery time to the assistance they received from Dave McLaren of the South Central Iowa Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in Creston. Dave helped them obtain small business funds from the Southern Iowa Council of Governments to help with their flooding expenses. However, their relationship with Dave goes much deeper than that.

In fact, it was Dave’s early meetings with Veronica that gave her the idea of purchasing an existing business instead of opening a new one. She first connected with Dave through the Corning Chamber of Commerce with an idea to open a scrapbook store. According to Veronica, Dave advised her not to go that route because there was already a large scrapbooking business in nearby Creston. Dave then asked if she had looked at existing businesses in town.

Veronica and Jon began talking to Doug and Michelle about their entrepreneurial ideas and everything progressed quickly from there. The foursome soon became partners and purchased their two businesses.

Dave assisted both businesses with setting up their budgets, setting up profit and loss reports, helping them apply for grants, and just being an overall resource. He also got them in touch with Brandi Shay, an independent consultant with the SBDC, for QuickBooks training.

Today, business is good for these two companies. Graphic Ideas focuses on customized apparel, vinyl lettering, printing, and promotional items. Vanishing Point offers manual or automatic car washes. The owners are even considering ways they can expand their businesses.

When asked what advice she would give to others who may be considering starting a new business, Michelle quickly states, “Use Dave! He has taught us so much. His knowledge on how to set up our reports has been invaluable. Now we can watch the business and really know how we’re doing.” Michelle continues, “There are resources out there (like Dave at the SBDC); utilize them. You’re busy enough with the day-to-day business; you don’t have a lot of time to research everything out there yourself.”

Michelle and Veronica still have regular meetings with Dave. They appreciate when he just stops in and says, “What do you need?” They also appreciate the business contacts he has throughout the region.

“Dave’s invaluable to us,” Veronica states. “He’s more of a resource just because of his connections and how we can get together with him for assistance.”

For more information about Graphic Ideas and their services, visit www.graphicideas.net.