By Debbie Gregory.

Whether at the helm of a two-person company or a bigger player, strong leadership skills can mean the difference between a successful business and a failing one. Leadership is almost 100% about managing people.

Having great ideas and a strategic vision won’t get you far if your employees aren’t willing to follow you. And too many entrepreneurs take leadership skills for granted.

This is usually not a problem for veterans in an entrepreneurial role. But just what is it about the military that has created individuals with such a strong sense of leadership? What values do veterans leave their military service with that that makes operationalizing a team so easy?

A business’s success really boils down to the way the team works together. Here are some pointers that will serve all businesses well:

• You’re one team, despite your position. Lead by example. And never be afraid to ask for advice.
• Listen throughout the chain of command. Communication is key! Share successes and failures. Information clearly transmitted gives them context and a sense of belonging to the company.
• Embrace diversity. Hire and retain the best of the best. Often times, these employees will be your fellow veterans.
• Have a strategic vision. Plan where you want your business to be in five years and how you are going to take it there.
• Don’t be afraid to delegate. Leaders can be found at all levels in an organization. Giving your employees more responsibility will help you to identify which ones have what it takes, allowing you the opportunity to help them develop their leadership skills.

Successful CEOs must build a team that are prepared to pitch in and move out of their comfort zones. This is something fundamental in the military, where the teamwork ethic is so strong that they never leave a man behind.

By Debbie Gregory.

Thinking about the years ahead can help you plan your goals and strategies better and if you do it right, you can beat your entrepreneur competitors to the finish line by doing something before they do.

Here are the industries to watch in 2018:

Classroom education

Tools geared toward educators are helping to transform the educational process. Schoology creates a platform for teachers, parents, and students to review work and communicate with one another. Newsela, an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject, uses artificial intelligence to transform news articles into age-appropriate reading comprehension materials. Examity, a startup that helps administer online tests while preventing cheating, has partnerships with more than 100 universities.

Health screening

Artificial intelligence might soon be able to diagnose patients better than your physician. Freenome is working on technology that would be able to detect cancer in the body, including its location and type, using only blood samples. Grail also has an early-stage cancer detection system.

Insurance

Oscar offers health insurance policies via a user-friendly app-based interface. Lemonade targets the under and un-insured market of renters.

Law

In the legal arena, CaseText has developed software that can read a brief and suggest relevant past cases in a matter of seconds. LawGeex, offer platforms that can examine written contracts for missing information, troublesome language, or other potential red flags.

Weddings

The wedding industry is in a state flux, and engaged couple are by and large ditching the wedding planner and directly contracting their caterers, bartenders, DJs, and other vendors themselves. Companies like the Knot’s offer an app that includes contact information and access to some 300,000 vendors. Joy, a free wedding website and app, allows users to build a website, create and manage their guest list, send paperless “Save the Dates” and invitations, share details about the event, and more.

By Debbie Gregory.

A 53-year-old business owner and a 57-year-old service-disabled vet have pleaded guilty to engaging in a pass-through scheme designed to fraudulently land $13.8 million in federal contracts set aside for veteran-owned small businesses.

Jeffrey Wilson and his partner in crime, Paul Salavitch, hatched a “rent a vet” scam that led to the charges.

By listing Salavitch as the person responsible for the day-to-day operations of Patriot Company, a construction business owned by Wilson, they were able to leverage Salavitch’s disabled status to access lucrative contracts that the company otherwise wouldn’t qualify for.

As a result, the company 20 government contracts worth almost $14 million, with some worth as much as $4.3 million apiece.

The fraud was uncovered in 2013, when the Department of Veterans Affairs visited Patriot Company’s headquarters unannounced. Of course, Salavitch was nowhere to be found; Salavitch had a job as a federal employee with the Department of Defense in Leavenworth and did not actively run the company, located in Kansas City.

Salavitch told the Missouri Division of Purchasing and Materials Management that Patriot Company was a “legitimate service-disabled veteran-owned small business,”  knowing that it wasn’t.

Under the terms of their plea agreement, Wilson now faces a sentence of up to 18 months in prison without parole. Salavitch faces up to one year in prison without parole. Both also consented to a civil forfeiture agreement of about $2.1 million.

While thousands of combat wounded and service disabled men and women work hard to succeed in American business, corrupt business owners continue to defraud the U.S. government by falsely claiming they are eligible for these set-asides.

When these fraudsters illegally secure SDVOSB contracts, our nation’s taxpayers and legitimate service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses suffer.

By Debbie Gregory.

As post-9/11 veterans re-enter civilian life and begin transitioning to new careers, many find they’re perfectly suited to becoming a veteran entrepreneur. Here’s a list of some free resources to help start or grow a business:

Bunker in a Box was created by The Bunker, and it’s the ultimate source of thought leadership from top entrepreneurs and veterans around the U.S. The short and simple online mini-course in veterans entrepreneurship is divided into 14 “missions” created around the themes of INSPIRE, EDUCATE and CONNECTION The missions include topics such as confidence to be an entrepreneur, thinking like an entrepreneur, testing hypotheses, and working on a venture as a team, plus many more. Each lesson has a short video from the Bunker team, as well as relevant third-party articles, interviews, podcasts and presentations from prominent entrepreneurs and experts.

The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) is a free training program for post-9/11 veterans with a service-connected disability. Offered by Cornell, Syracuse, Florida State, UCLA, Texas A&M, Purdue, UConn, LSU, Saint Joseph’s, and the University of Missouri, the program is sponsored by Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University. The novel, one-of-a-kind initiative is designed to leverage the skills, resources and infrastructure of higher education to offer cutting-edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management. The 30-day, instructor-led curriculum is taught online, followed by a 9-day in-residence session at the university. Participants also receive follow-up support and mentoring after the program. The program runs from March through November each year. While all of the costs are covered for qualified participants, the opportunity is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Since 2012, Patriot Boot Camp (PBC) has been on a mission to assemble and activate an inclusive community that advances veterans and military spouses in their mission to become creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs leading the new economy. PBC’s core program is an intensive 3-day technology entrepreneurship boot camp modeled after the Techstars accelerator to provide educational training and 1:1 mentoring to inspire and advance startup founders. PBC runs this program twice per year, in Texas and Colorado, for cohorts of 50 tech entrepreneurs.

The StreetShares Foundation mission is to inspire, educate and support veteran small business owners. The non-profit foundation gives away $10,000 in veteran business grants to veteran or military spouse entrepreneurs each month. First, second, and third-place awards of $5,000, $3,000, and $2,000 are awarded, and applications may be submitted at any time.

VetToCEO offers a free 7-week online program called “Entrepreneurship for Transitioning Warriors” through a series of modules that cover everything you need to start your business. Lessons are recorded for later viewing in case you miss one. A full course outline can be found here. Veterans can join the program at any time through a simple registration process in a rolling enrollment model. Enrollment is free for veterans and transitioning military members.

Your local Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC) is a good resource for training, counseling and mentoring, and also provides transition assistance programs via Boots to Business Program.

The Veteran Entrepreneur Portal (VEP) is hosted by the VA and offers resources on starting, financing, and growing a business, in addition to government contracting opportunities. VEP makes it easier for small businesses to access federal services, regardless of its source—and quickly connects Veteran entrepreneurs to relevant ‘best-practices’ and information.

By Debbie Gregory.

It’s encouraging to see military veterans take advantage of entrepreneurship opportunities available to them, especially when it comes to franchise opportunities. For many, a franchise business offers them the chance to be their own boss, but it comes with an established structure. Someone’s already proven that this works.

According to the International Franchise Association’s VetFran program, approximately 14 percent of franchises are owned by veterans.

Having served, many of these entrepreneurs find that their military experience easily translates into franchise success. Franchisors believe that veterans make for great franchisees for several reasons. Many of the factors that made veterans excel within the military environment make them ideal for franchisees.

The world of franchising represents a marriage between the self-start world of entrepreneurship and the rigorous discipline needed to follow a set of instructions and execute on a proven plan. The ideal franchisee is someone who can take direction and work within guidelines provided by the franchisor, but who can also effectively lead a team and get things done.

Attention to detail, knowledge, and understanding of chain of command and how things work contribute to their success.

Most brands offer a discount to veterans and people with connections to the military, most commonly a markdown on the initial franchise fee, averaging a little more than 18 percent. Discounts are typically restricted to people opening their first franchise.

Veteran-owned franchisees contribute to the economy not only for the franchisee, but also for their fellow veterans: franchisees are 30 percent more likely to hire their fellow veterans than their civilian counterparts.

The largest numbers of veteran-owned franchises are in California, Texas and Florida, which have the first-, second- and fifth-highest military populations.

Remember, doing your homework about the franchise first will help you gain a solid understanding of what to expect as well as the risks that could be involved. With that said, more than 87 percent of veteran-run franchises stayed in business over the past three years.