Author, and Certified Leadership Coach - Trent Kittleman

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Trent Kittleman, managing partner of GenderStrategy, located in West Friendship, MD, USA.

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

I've had two "businesses." The first was entrepreneurial. Three of us created a partnership that owned and operated "GenderStrategy," a company that taught men and women how to better converse with one another in the workplace. Our customers were employees in larger companies. Originally, we thought we would target females, but it turned out that men really appreciated our message.

Tell us about yourself

My other "business" is politics. I have been involved for most of my life, and in 2014, I was able to win a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates, where I served up until this past November. What drew me into politics was an effort, right after graduating from college, to understand life. How should I conduct my life to do the "right" things? To be the best that I could be. How did things work? What worked? At that time, I began to listen to the conversation of politics. Back then, we were actually able to talk with people with whom we disagreed without devolving into a screaming match or trying to shoot one another. I listened to both sides. I read both sides. Eventually, I discovered that I fell most closely into the libertarian-conservative category. I then began my political career with the goal of having governments adopt policies and procedures that WORK. (I have been uniquely unsuccessful!)

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My greatest achievement in both of my jobs grew out of my writing. For GenderStrategy, I wrote a book called "Why Must There be Dragons." It is written as a fable and was published on Amazon, where it is still drawing buyers.

As a Republican Delegate in Maryland, where the Democrats have a supermajority, my greatest achievement was the substantive newsletters I wrote and sent out every week during the 90-day session. When my term ended last year, I had over 6,800 subscribers.

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

The hardest thing about our business was that we had three partners. I realized that developing a strong working relationship might be our greatest challenge. In fact, I had the three of us participate in a forward-looking mediation before we filed our organization papers. This gave us the opportunity to speak openly and honestly and share our perceptions of where and how the business would go. Although it helped, disagreements ultimately overwhelmed us.

What hurt us the most was that the organizational plan allowed for and called for each of us to put in a different number of hours based on the other things we were doing. For example, one partner was still working full-time for a large company. Compounding this problem was the fact that we were each working from our own homes. This meant that we didn't actually see what our partners were doing. Since we were working in different parts of the business, we tended to feel that the workload was uneven. For example, I was working full-time, and for me, that often meant late into the night or very early in the morning. We should probably have been required to keep time sheets as I did as a lawyer.

The final straw that prompted us to close the business was my realization that I didn't like what we were doing. Although I was and am passionate and knowledgeable about male/female communication and wanted to share that knowledge, I learned that giving whole presentations was not at all like giving a speech. The training was a field of endeavor all on its own. In order to give a presentation worthy of the fee we were collecting, each presentation had to be planned almost from scratch based on the size of the audience, what the client wanted out of the presentation, and the client's business. Some presentations went well. Others did not. And I found that for a full three weeks before a scheduled presentation, I would be tied up in knots, worrying about and preparing a presentation.

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

1. Don't do it in Maryland or any other state without carefully familiarizing yourself with the ubiquitous business regulations that are so harmful to small businesses and make the cost of starting a business almost prohibitive. Particularly look at the laws and regulations governing the employer/employee relationship. I made a cursory list of the laws and regulations governing employers in Maryland and came up with 31 of them without including any local laws or regulations.
2. My second tip would be that when you prepare your business plan, be sure you understand what you have to do to make the business successful and be sure it's something you really enjoy. But don't forget that clients are the driving force. Be sure you do some forward thinking about what clients might want and be sure you're ready and willing to accommodate them, even if it hurts.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: http://trentkittleman.com/

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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