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Wednesday, November 07, 2001

By Corilyn Shropshire, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Correction/Clarification: (Published Nov. 10, 2001) In Wednesday's story about SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, we said the group's workshop on small-business basics at the Carnegie Library next Saturday is free. Not so. The cost for the seminar, if paid in advance, is $60, plus $40 for each additional member of a group. The cost at the door is $5 higher. Continental breakfast and a buffet lunch are included with the fee.

After more than 35 years of buying for some of Pittsburgh's most prestigious retailers, Shirley Goldstein wasn't going to retire to a life of social clubs and garden parties.

	SCORE counselors Shirley Goldstein, left, and Bob Soergel speak with Martha O'Grady about marketing and business plans for Panta Rhei Media,, of which she is president. (Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette)

When a friend told her that her marketing expertise and business skills could help fledgling entrepreneurs grow their businesses, she knew she'd found her next mission.

For the past 10 years, Goldstein has volunteered for SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a nonprofit group of retired business owners and executives who advise small businesses. SCORE's approach is to ask questions, help clients clarify their ideas and let them come to their own conclusions.

When she was trying to build a multimedia production company almost 20 years ago, Martha O'Grady sought SCORE for help balancing books and planning for taxes. She recently reconnected with SCORE to launch a marketing plan for the now grown-up company, Panta-Rhei Media, based in Wilkins. SCORE also has helped expand her client base by linking her with potential customers.

"I'd dry up if I didn't do something along this line," said Bob Soergel, who works with Goldstein on the Panta-Rhei project. Soergel was a marketing manager for 26 years before joining SCORE in 1995.

In addition to advising O'Grady on topics from marketing to database maintenance, he helps a trade exhibit designer expand his clientele and a uniform retailer with his business plan.

Julie Shepley, proprietor of Selling by Julie in Bethel Park and Julie's Sew & Serge in McMurray, said Goldstein held her hand as she considered hiring an employee a year after she launched her business.

"I had to hire somebody or quit -- I was burning out. [Goldstein] helped me figure out if it was doable," Shepley said. SCORE matched Shepley with Goldstein because of her retail experience. Subsequently, the two sat down to devise a business plan and budget. Shepley employs eight in the two shops and said, "SCORE has given me the confidence to take new and bold steps."

Soergel, however, added that SCORE didn't encourage every budding entrepreneur to forge ahead. Sometimes, counselors help clients realize that their concept is not developed enough or that they need to raise more money.

"The best thing SCORE does is keep people like me from feeling lonely. Because as an entrepreneur, who do you turn to?" asked Don Gould, vice president of Riverside Design Group in McKeesport.

The glassware retailer turned to SCORE in the company's development stages for help pricing its products. Gould estimates that his SCORE team brought 120 years of combined business experience.

Riverside's sales have soared, and the firm has acquired high-profile clients such as the Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons Hotel chains.

SCORE counselors provide confidential advice for any business quandary, both online and in person, from the initial steps of a business plan, to accounting for the mathematically challenged, to the most obscure, industry-specific problems.

"No matter what the business is ... it's the same format," said former SCORE chairman and retired Bayer executive Walt Becker. "You have to have a product or service that somebody is willing to pay you for. And you have to be able to compete with people who can maybe do better."

Since its inception in 1964, SCORE counselors have assisted more than 20,000 Pittsburgh entrepreneurs. SCORE consultants are in the 55-plus age range and average 40 years of business experience.

Free workshops on small-business basics are offered periodically, including the next one, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Carnegie Library Center, Downtown.

Most of SCORE's clients have a team of consultants, depending upon the scope and size of the project. "Two heads are better than one, and sometimes we have four or five heads," said Goldstein.

And unlike a typical consultant who "writes up a plan, tells you what to do, charges you $300 and walks away," SCORE workers stay with a project as long as they're needed, said Lee O'Nan, SCORE's current president.