Sage Advice
Download article in PDF formatAmbassador - The Magazine of Trans World Airlines and Trans World Express
By Bennett Daviss, October 1997
Small businesses find a potent resource of practical wisdom among a volunteer corps of retired executives.
IT'S WHO YOU KNOW
After working for a decade in marketing for Fortune 500 companies such as Eastman Kodak and Dow Brands, where she launched a computer media department, Lougheed was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug in 1995. She took her business plan for Lockheed Guidance, a World Wide Web design and marketing enterprise, to her local SCORE office in Indianapolis. There she met counselor William Bell, a former president of the Indiana Gas Company.
Computer media entrepreneur April Lougheed consults with SCORE adviser William Bell, former president of Indiana Gas Company.
Bell reviewed her plan and liked what he saw. "He opened a lot of doors for me into the local business community," Lougheed says. "He interested the Indianapolis Star in doing an article about me. The story ran in the summer of 1996 and I'm still working off the business it brought in."
After her initial meeting with Bell, the SCORE volunteer "would spend at least a couple of hours with me every week to make sure I was on track with my goals," she recalls. "He gave me more leads than I knew what to do with. Before long, my biggest problem was handling all the clients I had."
She still talks with Bell once in a while. "I don't have a lot of time to talk with him now because I'm so busy," she says, "which is a result of having SCORE's help in the first place."