Thriving in a Tough Market

Seeking prosperity
By Rhonda Moore
Published: 03.19.09
When the business of making money gets rough, it’s time for businesses small and large to pony up. That is the word from Joey Edge, owner of Edge Commercial Properties, which April 3 joins the business-to-business support network at work in Castle Rock with its inaugural business resource fair.The fair is titled Thriving in a Tough Market, reflecting a trial familiar to most businesses in and around the Castle Rock area. While many might see a recession economy as a time to withdraw, Edge sees it instead as an opportunity to make the necessary adjustments and step up the game.With the help of local companies that include a marketing expert, business coach and technology specialist, Edge aims to help those business owners whose goal is to rise to the challenge.“When we go through these times in our markets and lives it’s time to get better and refine what we do,” Edge said. “It’s a time to look for new opportunities. These times motivate us to use that creative energy to redesign the way you’re doing things and look at things differently.”
Edge saw things differently with the help of a freshman broker who recently joined his firm. Heather Taylor formerly wrote business plans for prospective borrowers and in December 2008 obtained her broker’s license. Despite the decline in the market, she chose real estate for the opportunity to help people strengthen their businesses.A free business fair to support area businesses seemed an ideal way to combine efforts with others who share a similar ideal.“I’ve just seen there are a lot of people out there, individuals with great ideas and a drive to do this,” she said. “Our main goal is to bring businesses together with different resources.”Among the interested businesses is the event’s sponsor, QeH2 Business Intelligence. With a name that combines the initials of its primary owners, the information technology specialists are led by a man with a history of his own.Darrin Eisele started out in business as the single employee of a company that stocked convenience stores with sunglasses, toys and novelty items. By the time his company was 12 years old, he employed 300 people who serviced 14,000 stores. The operation had $60 million in sales the year before it sold, he said.Eisele sold his company in 2004 to McLane Co., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, which is owned by Warren Buffet, he said.Eisele started QeH2 three years ago, offering small and mid-sized companies a service that might otherwise be of reach. The business intelligence group is a clearing house of technology services that include web marketing and design, inventory management systems and network administration.Offering an information technology package under one umbrella enables even the smallest companies to harness a commodity most cannot afford, he said. With years of business experience behind him, he additionally understands the bottom line in ways rarely seen among most information technology support staff.“When you’re a business owner, you do it the way you think is right and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t,” Eisele said. “We took all those years of growth and experience and said we’d love to help companies learn from what we did — so the small business owner doesn’t have to learn it the hard way, like we did. We help them use information and technology to grow their business.”Eisele will be joined at the business fair by action and business coach Michael Feinner, credit coach Steve Hensley, the Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce and the Castle Rock Economic Development Company. They are among a host of businesses that will offer advice and lectures throughout the day.Thriving in a Tough Market is from noon to 4 p.m., April 3 at Edge Commercial, 810 New Memphis Court, in Castle Rock. The event is free of charge and open to the public.