You didn't build that

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

President Obama’s now famous speech whereby he casually dismisses anyone who has built a business was the final straw on an already overburdened camel.

I have been a consultant, a small business person, for 23 years of my 42-year career. I counsel others who think they want to be a consultant. I have a 15-question test I developed years ago which I give anyone thinking they want to get into this business.

I have selected a few questions from this quiz to demonstrate how clueless President Obama is. The answers are at the bottom. More than 100 people have taken this quiz and the range of scores has been from 40% to 97% with an average score of 76%.

See how you do.

1. You have not had an assignment in several months. A prospect you have been working on calls in a panic on Thursday. You need to be at their facility on Saturday. Saturday is your daughter's 16th birthday. Do you:

A) Take the assignment and reschedule your daughter's birthday celebration?
B) Decline the assignment?

2. I am comfortable working on several overlapping long tasks within a short period of time. (Yes or no).

3. You have completed your research. It is time to write a report, which you anticipate will be about 30 pages long. How long will it take you to write the report (state in hours)?

4. How many non-fiction books have you read in the last six months?

5. You are going to a facility for an intensive period of work. You have three choices of hotels: (1) a no-name hotel two miles down the road, next to a local eatery, (2) a Ritz-Carlton hotel at a resort seven miles away, (3) a Hampton Inn about 10 miles away. The facility does not have any special deals and has not given you any instructions. You choose?

6. How many journals and magazines do you regularly read each week?

7. While on an extended business trip, I prefer to: (1) eat at a restaurant of my choice or (2) sort through data gathered during the day, ordering room service.

8. Visualizing your life as a consultant, how many billable hours per year do you think you will have?

9. Visualizing your life as a consultant, how many hours per year do you think you will work?

10. I hate to get out of bed in the morning and go to work. (Yes or no)

11. How many hours per year do you think it will take for you to complete forms and otherwise comply with government regulations and tax reporting requirements for your business?

12. You have just completed an important assignment which has become well known. Your order book is now empty. You receive a call from a competitor of your client, asking you to come to their facility to discuss a similar assignment. When you arrive, it is clear all they want you to do is tell them what you did for your former client. They have a check made out to you sitting on the table in the amount of $10,000. What is your reaction?

13. You completed an assignment several weeks ago and you know the client is implementing your conclusions. As you sit in your office in an idle moment, you pick up the report you had done for the client (after all, you were very proud of it). You casually look at some of the calculations and, alarmingly, discover you made a serious mistake which will eventually cost the client hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, the resulting loss may be several years down the road and perhaps will not look like it is attributed to your work. It is possible you will be sued if the error is found out. What do you do?

14. You have just been forced into early retirement by your longterm employer. You decide to become a consultant. How long do you think it will take for you to reach the same level of take-home pay you had in your previous job?

15. When employed full time, I did not mind occasionally taking some of my vacation time and my money to attend a seminar that I thought would help my career. (true, you agree with this statement; false, you do not agree with this statement)

Answers: 1. a; 2. Yes; 3. 25 -30 hours; 4. Six or more; 5. (1) or (3)—never (2); 6. three to six; 7. (2); 8. Maximum 1,000; 9. Minimum 2,000; 10. No; 11. Minimum 60; 12. Walk away and "blackball." These people are unethical and cannot be trusted; 13. Check, check and check again. Then go to your client with the solution at your cost, both travel and time; 14. Two to four years; 15. True.

This is what small business is really like.

How did you do? How do you think President Obama would do?

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.