Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in training and development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Tim Dalhouse, CEO of PM-ProLearn, located in Kailua Kona, HI, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Founded by a retired U.S. Marine and staffed almost entirely by Military Veteran Instructors with project management experience across multiple industries, we bring powerful and unmatched value to our civilian and military clients with Project Management Certification Training.
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We are certified by the US Dept of VA as a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), and we are an Authorized Training Partner (ATP) of the Project Management Institute (PMI). We combine military leadership, resiliency, and teamwork with vast corporate experience using proven project management methods, processes, and best practices, to empower organizations with high-performing project teams. Our methods have empowered success in organizations like Facebook (Meta), T-Mobile/Sprint, Capital Square, Jacobs Technology, Norton Healthcare, Johnson Controls, and hundreds of military units across all branches.

​Whether you're in a civilian company or active/reserve in the military, we speak your language. If you're an organization decision maker looking to train your team or an individual seeking to upskill and get certified, we can bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Tell us about yourself

I'm a retired U.S. Marine who got into project management after the military and started helping other Veterans do the same by coaching them and mentoring them to gain the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. That eventually turned into a business, and now we train 200-300 students a month, and most are Active-Duty Military or Veterans.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I am so proud that my business has so far created 26 well-paying jobs for the U.S. economy and helped over 13,000 students pursue their professional development goals!

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

The hardest thing about being a business owner is just making it work. There are so many ways to fail at a business, but only one way to be successful. That one successful way is properly INTEGRATING everything from product/service, pricing, hiring, cost control, marketing, government regulation, taxes, team building, customer service, information technology, and business development to paying bills so that end of the year, we have a profit rather than a loss.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Do not go into debt if you can help it!
  2. Make sure you know your TAM, which is the total addressable market. This is the universe of people who can potentially pay for your products/services, and it tells you how large you can scale your business. You can't grow a business beyond your TAM, so knowing the limits of how big you can do the business is a key deciding factor in what type of business to even build! For example, a local lawn service can never grow larger than the number of lawns that you are physically capable of transporting your equipment and workers to. On the other hand, a training business like mine may be able to scale globally.
  3. Relationships trump everything. Build great relationships with EVERYONE, and your business will survive and thrive. If you think clever marketing will do all the work for you, plan to be disappointed.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

I recommend starting small with an idea and seeing if you can make it work, in principle, before quitting your day job. I started four businesses before one of them worked well. Be ready for risk, failure, and resetting your expectations multiple times. If you want a less risky way to start a business, then go with a franchise, but realize your up-front costs will be huge, and you are really just buying into someone else's idea that they did work. It's much more rewarding financially and psychologically to create your own baby from scratch and grow it into a powerhouse business!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.pm-prolearn.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pm.prolearn
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pmprolearn/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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