Page 56 - BusinessWest December 22, 2021

Truck
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“I had a group of really intelligent engineers put together the truck ... and we just started,” he said, joking that he could have bought two Ferraris for what he spent on the trucks and the related equipment.
The Road to Success
A big component of any business venture is timing, said Connolly, adding that, with Stand Out Truck, his was awful. For the most part, anyway.
He launched on March 9, 2020, a carefully cho- sen date that coincides with the death (in 1997) of rapper Biggie Smalls. Unfortunately, it also coin- cided with the arrival of COVID-19. Indeed, just as he was putting his trucks on the road, the state and most all businesses were shutting down, and people across the region were hunkering down.
It was a tough time to start, but Connelly, again practicing what he preaches — in lectures to col- lege students, advice to young entrepreneurs, and also in the book he wrote called Launch and Stand Out — made sure he started out with enough capi- tal to withstand what he expected would be a few soft months of getting his name and product out and building up the business.
Business turned out to even softer than he anticipated. But he was helped by some of those connections he made teaching and lecturing in area colleges.
“In month two, they started canceling gradua- tions,” he recalled. “So I said, ‘forget about selling ad space to businesses ... I’m just going to go cel- ebrate all these kids that I know.’ I turned it into a graduation truck.”
Elaborating, he said he essentially covered half the cost of hiring one of his trucks to celebrate
a graduate himself, charging the rest to families looking for a unique way to honor a son or daugh- ter not able to walk across a stage to pick up a diploma.
“I made it super affordable,” he recalled. “Kids were being celebrated on the truck for $75, and that included photography, editing the photos, everything; we gave them something really special. We probably did more than 500 of those.”
Since that adventurous start, the company has been steadily building its client base, which now includes everything from the local pizza shop to national brands (Texas Roadhouse, for example) to the president, and the goal is the same with all of them — to help get the message out, but in a unique and somewhat powerful way.
The concept caught the attention of Peoples- Bank, which first used one of Connolly’s trucks to drive applications to the EforAll Holyoke class last spring. The bank used the company for its own
business for the opening of a branch in West Hart- ford, hiring SOT to generate awareness around the banking-center location prior to its official open-
ing, and also to appear at the grand-opening party and a nearby ‘build day’ undertaken in conjunc- tion with Habitat for Humanity in Hartford.
“Mychal is a ‘hustler’ in the very best sense
of the word,” said Matt Bannister, senior vice president of Marketing and Corporate Respon- sibility for the bank. “He has endless energy and enthusiasm, tremendous work ethic, and a strong focus on getting results for his customers. The SOT allows us to bring our message to places it might not ordinarily reach, and the quality of the images on the truck is a good representation of the brand.”
Moving forward, Connolly, who now boasts a team of 10, including designers, drivers, and those managing the equipment, wants to earn more tes- timonials like that. With them, he believes his goal of taking the company national — and eventually going public — are perhaps within reach.
“Some people think we’re a guy with a truck. We’re not — we’re a startup, and we’re looking to build the right way,” he said, adding that, while there are digital billboards in virtually every mar- ket, his concept is relatively unique. Meanwhile, he brings strong marketing experience to the table that can help clients create a strategy, not merely a message on wheels.
“I’m not just a guy with a truck — I’ve been doing marketing since I was 9 years old,” he went on. “I love marketing, and I respect the craft of marketing, and I love giving that to my clients. It’s not just about putting a picture on a truck and driving around.”
To a Higher Gear
In addition to all those framed pictures of his trucks in action, Connolly’s office also sports a small sign that serves to inform and inspire both his students and himself.
It features numbers breaking down what $1 mil- lion a year in revenue equates to, as in ... $83,333 a month, $19,230 a week, and $2,739 a day. There’s then a poignant tagline: ‘Dreams Don’t Work Unless You Do.’
Connolly has lived by that credo all his life, and Stand Out Truck is the latest example. He doesn’t know where he can go with this concept, but he’s allowing himself to think, and dream, big.
That’s the message he drives home to his stu- dents and mentees, and now ... well, he’s driving home all kinds of messages. And, in doing so, writ- ing another stirring chapter in the book that is his life. u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
Fire
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resources to bear aiding in the recovery process, and connecting impacted business owners with grants, loans, and whatever else is needed to start anew.
Grace Barone, who leads one of those agencies, the East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce, knows firsthand what it’s like to claw back after a fire has destroyed a business and left dreams in a state of perilous limbo. Indeed, she owned Bridal Reflections, one of 20 ventures left homeless by a massive blaze in a retail plaza in Palmer.
She told BusinessWest that, in the wake of such a disaster, business owners go through a wide range
of emotions, from the initial shock to what amounts
to grief concerning their loss, to the frustration that comes from dealing with insurance companies and the myriad other issues related to getting back on one’s feet.
“This is a challenging time, and it can be so over- whelming,” she said, adding that, in such a situation, the best her agency and others can do is stand by those impacted by it and provide whatever support they can.
“You go through the shock of ‘oh my gosh, every- thing I’ve worked for is gone; what do I do next?’”
she said. “You try to formulate a plan and determine whether you’re going to rebuild and where you will conduct business in the meantime. And you go for- ward from there. But every time you think you’ve taken a few steps forward, there’s always something that pops up, and then you have a setback. We want to make sure we’re there for our members when those times come.”
As for Vallides, she is moving forward with plans to find both a temporary location and, if the Maple Cen- ter owners rebuild, as she expects they will, return to Shaker Road in the future.
“I’m checking out places in Longmeadow and Enfield for a temporary location, but, unfortunately, Longmeadow doesn’t seem to have anything quite big enough for our needs,” she said, noting that the opera- tion requires roughly 5,000 square feet. “There are a few potential landing spots in February, and maybe by February we can get something up and running.
“We’re in it for the long run, and if we can set up something temporarily, close to our customers, we’ll do that,” she went on. “But, ultimately, we want to be back on Shaker Road.”
As for what she learned from her brother’s experi- ence and is using to help her in her comeback efforts, she said there were many lessons from that story.
“It’s important to be strong and hang in there, not just for myself, but my employees as well,” she said. “Everyone counts here.”
And with that, she spoke for everyone impacted by that fateful fire. u
Invest
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formed the S&P 500 several times. But having the courage of his convictions, and staying invested through market cycles, has served his clients very well, despite periods of underperformance.
Investing today is about constant measurement. Companies produce quarterly earnings reports, compelling Wall Street analysts to change projec- tions and adjust ratings, which forces investors to rethink their investment ideas. Add in exogenous events to amplify anxieties, and it is no surprise
that the investing public has become so shortsighted. No, I don’t worry about the potential ramifications of Russia invading Ukraine on my stock portfolio (an actual assertion from a client!).
As a kid, I remember my grandfa- ther diligently keeping track of the few stocks he owned, writing the end-of- month prices in a journal. He didn’t have the luxury of technology; his analysis was straightforward and prag- matic. He invested in companies with which he was familiar. He had no for- mal degree, having to forgo college to
support his family during the Depres- sion. The son of immigrants, he owned and operated a small grocery store whose customers were almost entirely working-class or even working poor.
One of his suppliers was a company called Corn Products Inc. The com- pany still exists, now called Ingredion (symbol: INGR). For him, investing was about owning a piece of this com- pany that he had a personal connec- tion to, in the hopes of growing a nest egg. Whenever there was ‘extra’ money from his earnings, he would add to his
—George O’Brien
positions. My grandfather retired in 1982 having never earned more than $30,000 in any given year. The value of his portfolio exceeded $600,000 prior to his death in 2011.
He didn’t know he would live for nearly a century, passing at age 97, but he sure invested like it. u
Jeff Liguori is the co-founder and chief Investment officer of Napatree Capital, an investment boutique with offices in Longmeadow as well as Providence and Westerly, R.I.; (401) 437-4730.
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