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Tim Travis, president of Goldner Walsh Garden and Home in Pontiac inspects a greenhouse with office manager Angela Delahanty on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. Peg McNichol/MediaNews Group
Tim Travis, president of Goldner Walsh Garden and Home, does more than run a small business. He exemplifies why Michigan is considered the third-most entrepreneurial state and fifth in the nation for business growth.
Goldner Walsh, 559 Orchard Lake Road in Pontiac, is a landscape design-build company with a floral department, garden center, tropical greenhouse, event space and 9.5-acre garden plant nursery. The company helps other small businesses by hosting Spurlock’s Natural Stone and Brick Paving, Crooked Tree Fine Woodworking and an independent yoga instructor. For nearly a decade Goldner Walsh showcased City Girls Soap, a one-woman operation producing goat’s milk-based soap, lotion and detergent.
Being involved in the community is part of the Goldner Walsh company culture. The event space doesn’t require clients to use Goldner Walsh’s floral shop. Travis is just fine with caterers and beverage providers setting up for greenhouse events because it helps other small businesses, he said.
A report by the business consulting firm Venture Smarter analyzing data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Michigan had a business growth rate of 9.8% between December 2021 and December 2022.
During that time the state saw businesses increase from 275,636 in 2021 to 302,624 in 2022.
“Michigan experienced a small business revenue increase of 24% between January 2020 and January 2022, significantly higher than the 6.9% average rate across the nation,” according to the report.
Running a small business in Oakland County makes sense for many reasons, Travis said, despite challenges such as the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.
He’s always loved working with plants and flowers, which he attributes to his grandmothers, Lily and Rose. He started working for Goldner then rose to operations manager and, with landscape designer and horticulturist Jim Slezinski, bought the company in 1988.
Since then, the business expanded the greenhouses and hosted events from weddings to memorials, non-profit fundraisers and bocce. They often rent out the greenhouses to independent photographers.
Michigan’s healthy business environment comes from a variety of programs and resources, including personalized assistance for start-up businesses or those relocating or expanding operations in the state. Michigan also offers a 6% corporate income tax rate and $500 million in annual business savings through the elimination of industrial personal property tax, according to Michigan Economic and Development Corp.
Topping the list was Georgia, with a business growth rate of 13.5%, followed by Virginia at 10.5%, Arizona, 10.4%, and just ahead of Michigan were Montana and Vermont, which tied with a business growth rate of 10.2%.
OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
Miranda Bissinger launched her facial spa salon Beauty by Miranda Leigh in May, 2022, after six years as a licensed esthetician working for others. She specializes in facial waxing and laser hair removal, along with other beauty services. Her salon is based at a beauty business incubator, ChairZ Salon Suites, 28145 John R Road in Madison Heights.
Oakland County is the right place for a new small business, she said.
“I feel we have a lot of resources to support small business and the proper demographic for a luxury self-care business,” she said.
She started out working with Sairy Garcia, one of the business consultants provided by Oakland Thrive. Over the last eight months, Bissinger has learned how to get certified to do business with the state or other government agencies; improved her business planning skills with a better financial-management plan that positions her shop to qualify for a future business loan; and developed a robust social-media plan.
“The social-media workshop was awesome and will help me take that as far as I can to grow my business,” she said. “We also did speed networking to make new connections in the business community.”
Oakland Thrive is a spin-off from the county’s business-forward program, developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to support small-business owners. The success led to launching Thrive as an independent non-profit in March with business consultants and a plan to expand outreach services.
“That’s an innovative way of doing this,” said Thrive CEO Vicki Selva. “Instead of waiting for the phone to ring with calls from business owners, we’ve been working really hard to provide value to small companies.”
Since March, Thrive has hosted 36 workshops, on top of helping entrepreneurs connect with accounting and legal professionals for free or low-cost services.
The laser-focused workshops can draw anywhere from 20 to 60 attendees and are based on information collected by business consultants about what entrepreneurs want to learn.
“Right now we find quite a few are interested in digital marketing skills – how to build and run websites and develop social media plans,” Selva said. “They have very specific needs. We just approved 20 attorneys and accountants to help our client companies with business planning. We provide 2 to 3 hours in free professional consulting, depending on the client company’s business category.”
Business consultants can help clients navigate support from the U.S. Small Business Administration, too.
“We’re excited and honored to work with these small businesses,” Selva said. “Everybody sees big businesses as the nation’s economic engine but these small businesses are holding up the economy.”
NEW BUSINESSES
When it comes to new businesses, Florida might be last on the list since it’s where many go to retire from working. But it actually tops the list of states with the most entrepreneurial population.
Researchers at The Digital Project Manager analyzed eight indicators for how entrepreneurial a state is including percentage of the population that start a new business, percentage of start-ups still active after one year, number of small businesses per 100,000 of the population and growth rate of business applications as well as others.
Their data showed Florida had the highest percentage of population starting a business at 0.61% or 13,238 per 100,000, and 86% of those were started out of choice rather than necessity. This could mean residents living in Florida who are unemployed or retired found the need to create another stream of income.
Georgia took second place, with 10,871 small businesses per 100,000 of the population and what is an obvious entrepreneurial drive.
Michigan ranked third.
The national average of businesses failing after 5 years is 49%, Michigan is slightly below that, with only 47% of businesses failing.
Following Michigan in the Top 5 for entrepreneurship were Oklahoma, where 0.44% of the population started a new business and Wyoming, with 12,357 small businesses per 100,000.
LOCAL GROWTH
All of these numbers follow what was a severe drop in businesses caused by COVID-19.
Travis said without help from the county and the community during the Great Recession and the pandemic he might have had to shut down.
“We have been very supported by Oakland County,” he said. “Like many businesses, we were 12 minutes away from going out of business when the economy crashed because of predatory lending. The county connected us with (the U.S. agency) SCORE and really helped us rewrite our business plan and get us back on track.”
During the pandemic, he said, loyal customers kept the store going. Even this month, with construction underway on Orchard Lake Road and the eastbound lanes closed to traffic, he’s confident the dip in customer traffic will rebound.
“We’ve created a destination that is dynamic and natural,” he said. “We never take our customers or community for granted. As long as we keep doing positive things, that’s contagious. They’ll be there when we need them. We’re very fortunate. We have fabulous employees and they’re the ones who really make it happen. It’s not just me.”
Entrepreneurs will find Oakland Thrive at 35 W. Huron St., Suite 201 in Pontiac, and online at oaklandthrive.org. Call (248) 602-0040 for more information.
The Center for Pontiac Entrepreneurship and the Pontiac Regional Chamber are co-sponsoring a workshop on using analytics to help a new product succeed from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 20, led by Dennis Shaver, a small business specialist from the Southfield-based Centrepolis Accelerator. Learn more at www.centerforpontiac.com.
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