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Allegany Business
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"Helping you learn business as easy as ABC" Lending, Education, Technical Assistance |
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In 1991, Voni returned to New York after living in Colorado for ten years. Almost a year later, she decided to return to the workforce after a temporary leave due to home renovations and volunteering at her daughter’s new elementary school. She attempted to locate a temporary placement service and found it was in another county. It was then that she decided to try her own temporary placement business. She first spoke with the local SBA office and was told she needed to have a business plan. She left without knowing where to turn for help in writing one. The following week she saw an ad in the newspaper for the How to Start Your Own Business classes hosted by ACCORD Corporation’s Entrepreneurial Assistance Program and she knew help was on its way. She signed up immediately for the classes and states that “It was a vital part of starting my business. The class forced me to write a business plan - to write down what I needed. Ultimately, I secured $24,000 in financing.” In March 15, 1992 Walker Business & Staffing Services, Inc. began as a Sole Proprietorship. Shortly thereafter, Voni had ten temporary placement workers to fill vacant positions for local businesses. Even though Voni had strong human resource experience, it was extremely helpful for her to take the EAP classes. Voni learned the importance of business planning and found the financial aspects most useful. She states that she learned “how to put the plan in place as a sort of road map and that with out the class, I wouldn’t have known what I needed to do.” Voni soon found she had underestimated her “best case scenario”. After placing her first ad in the paper, she received about 20 resumes and took them around to local businesses. After the second return call, she realized she needed to rent office space. By the end of that first year she grossed approximately $26,000. Within two years she outgrew the small rented space and was able to purchase the office headquarters now located on 23 West State Street in Wellsville, the oldest home in town, with an annual gross sales figure of $1,200,000. Voni soon found she was educating the area businesses about temporary placement services. She found that many people did not have any formal computer training either, so she filled this need by offering computer training to fill the needs of a growing technological trend. With further research, she found a need to assist businesses with writing job descriptions, policy and procedures, and employee handbooks, which led her to offer Human Resource Consulting services as well. In January 1996, Walker Business Services became incorporated with Voni owning 100% of the business and its shares. Two years later she opened a second office in Olean and the following year she opened another office in Erie, Pennsylvania, then later moved that office to Bradford, PA. Currently, Walker’s employs six full-time and two part-time employees and offers permanent and temporary placement workers for an annual average of 800 employees. Her highest gross sales have reached over $4 million and are currently at about $2 million annually. This downward trend has been a result of closing the Erie office and the current trends in the economy. Voni is also a NYS Certified Woman Owned Enterprise and is currently the only temporary service agency in Allegany and Steuben Counties. Voni has gone from being a student in the business world to a full time business owner, teaching others what she has learned. Voni states, “as long as we keep getting funding it’s a great program” and that “it’s good to know I found a niche and it has been very successful.” She stated that she owes a lot of that knowledge to what she learned in the EAP classes and doesn’t know where she would be today with out that training. |
Voni Walker 23 West State Street |