BY TASHA CUNNINGHAM » SPECIAL TO THE MIAMI HERALD »
A passion for tinkering with electronics as a young boy and a stint in the Marine Corps Reserve as a teen paved the way for Alex Varela to own a small business as an adult. Varela, who was born and raised in Miami Springs, always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he knew early on that it wasn’t going to be easy to accomplish.
“Being a small business owner really is a 24-hour job. It consumes all of you,” Varela said. “I saw that firsthand growing up when my dad, Emilio, had his own business working as an accountant,” he said. “There were definitely struggles along the way, but my dad worked hard and became successful in his business. He inspired me, and I knew that no matter how hard it was, I wanted to do it, too.”
When he was 19, Varela joined the Marine Corps Reserve and served for six years. During that time, he worked as a technician repairing small missiles. It was an intricate job that required discipline and attention to detail, both of which would serve Varela well on the road to owning a small business. But Varela didn’t jump right into entrepreneurship when he left the Marines. Instead, he started working on construction sites in Miami fixing computer equipment and machines. Varela knew that he loved electronics, but he wasn’t as confident about his skills as an entrepreneur.
“I needed to see what being an entrepreneur was like,” Varela said. “I wanted to know what running a business would entail and whether it was something I would really like doing before I made the leap to actually owning one.”
Varela wasn’t an employee for long. Just shy of a year of working for someone else, Varela decided to strike out on his own in 1991. He opened Alex Electric Services in Hialeah the same year. The company provides a range of services from repairing consumer products to installing and repairing electrical systems for buildings and homes.
“Back then, I really didn’t know how I was going to grow a business,” Varela said. “But I knew that I was good at what I did and that I was born and raised here.” He took a grassroots approach to getting the word out about his new company. “Early on, we got a lot of referrals through friends and family,” he said.
As a graduate of La Salle High School in Miami, he had quite a few friends in the area who eventually became his repeat customers. The clients at his father’s accounting firm were also good customers.
Business boomed for a long time, according to Varela. But in 2008, at the start of the economic downtown, Alex Electric Services took a hit financially. “It was a rough time,” he said. “But I didn’t want to lay people off.”
So Varela began pouring his own money into the business to keep it afloat. The economy improved, and the business eventually recovered, thanks in part to his decision to expand into commercial and industrial projects.
Today, he has 14 full-time employees and one who works part time. He owns five trucks that electricians take on service calls. And, according to Varela, the business is profitable.
While many small businesses need help with marketing or customer relations, Varela has an entirely different problem: His business can’t run without him.
Varela, who is married and has two children, wanted to be less hands-on with the day-to-day business and spend more time with his family and on increasing sales of commercial accounts. But to do that, he would need to structure a solid management team and streamline existing processes for things like invoicing and record-keeping.
To get help, Varela turned to the Miami Herald for a Small Business Makeover to help him find the best way to achieve his goals. The Herald, in turn, brought in SCORE Miami, a chapter of the national nonprofit organization of retired volunteers who have been successful entrepreneurs and built thriving businesses. SCORE volunteers use their entrepreneurial skills and offer mentoring services to small-business owners for free.
The SCORE team included Rosa Arboleya, owner of Perpetual Message, a Miami-based design studio. Arboleya has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, Web and graphic design. Alvin Hayes is SCORE Miami’s director of development and has built a long career in sales with companies like Robert Half International and the Kelley Law Registry. He recently was chairman of the 2015 SCORE Miami Business Leadership Awards. Raju Mohandas owns BridgePoint Financial Group. For the past decade, he has worked with small-business owners to obtain financing. He helps businesses restructure and obtain working capital. He recently was named SCORE Miami’s volunteer of the year.
After working with Alex Electric Services for about three weeks, the counselors put the company on the road to running efficiently without Varela at the helm day-to-day. The counselors agreed that Varela had to focus on finding ways to get things running more efficiently by identifying staff members who could manage the process. To accomplish these goals, the counselors recommended the following:
▪ Delegate nonessential administrative tasks: “In this business, Mr. Varela is very hands-on,” Hayes said. “He needs to delete some of his nonessential tasks that are administrative in nature. I suggest that he create a list of the things he does in a day and determine what can be delegated to someone else.”
Varela agreed. “I’ve been so involved in the day-to-day running of this business that it’s difficult to transition away from it,” he said. “But I need to do it because I need to be focused on the bigger picture in terms of sales and on quality time with my wife and two great kids.”
“To increase sales, the company needs to focus on developing a solid sales team,” Hayes said. “Mr. Varela can’t do it on his own. He needs to identify the people in the company that can lead by taking on core managerial tasks.”
From left: Alvin Hayes from SCORE Miami-Dade, Raju Mohandas from SCORE Miami-Dade (seated), Alex Varela, and Nikki Howard, bookeeper of Alex Electric in Hialeah. HECTOR GABINO hgabino@elnuevoherald.com
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