Sue Ley had been a truck driver for a local oil company for about four years. Before that, she had worked as a forklift truck operator in the same company. In a recent interview, she said, "I was getting fed up with this type of work. I like working with people and thought I'd like to get into selling. One day a friend in Personnel, when I indicated interest in getting into marketing, called my attention to the company's education program, which pays tuition for employees taking college courses. So I applied for it and was accepted."
Sue, whom the interviewers found to be a woman of above-average intelligence, personality, and drive, enrolled in the marketing program at the local university. She completed her marketing coursework and graduated in three years with a business administration degree. She had continued driving the truck while working on her degree.
When she approached her employer about the possibility of transferring to the marketing department, she was told it would be four or five years before there would be an opening for her.
A short time later, Sue's uncle suggested she go into business for herself. The uncle, who had taken over Sue's grandfather's steel oil drum cleaning business about 200 miles away, advised her that she could make around $100,000 a year ($300,000 by the third year) if she started and ran a business of that sort. He offered to help her form a business and get it started.
Sue, who had been married and had two grown children, said, "I could not see any future in marketing with the oil company, and I did not want to drive trucks the rest of my life. I had saved $25,000 that I could put into the business. Why not?"
Questions
1. What do you see as Sue's alternatives?
2. What are Sue's qualifications for going into business for herself?
3. What are Sue's deficiencies?
4. What do you think of Sue's uncle's profit predictions?
5. What do you recommend that Sue do?
Source: Prepared by William M. Spain, Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), and Charles R. Scott, University of Alabama