Meet Our Mentors: Paul Oehm
Paul Oehm, founder and owner of The Biz Coach, as well as five other businesses.
Meet Paul Oehm, a successful serial entrepreneur and long-time member of the Grey Bruce community.
He is currently the founder and owner of The Biz Coach, where he coaches struggling business owners and entrepreneurs how to better manage their businesses and scale them profitably. To do so, he focuses on improving six metrics crucial to a business’ success: strategy, sales and marketing, operations, systems management, human resources, and finances. Since starting The Biz Coach, Paul has helped dozens of businesses improve their profit margins, including Allstyle Retrofit, KnK Lawn Care, Shout Media, Saugeen Tree Care, and many more.
Additionally, Paul Oehm has over 35 years of experience owning and managing several businesses from multiple different industries.
“The ultimate lessons with my companies to scale, to be profitable, and to be able to sell them — which leads me to where I am at today, that’s what I help people with — is to just learn how to work on the business versus in the business.”
Entrepreneurship has constantly been an active mindset in Paul’s childhood family. Growing up, his father operated three businesses as a farmer, feed dealer, and hardware store owner, yet his lifestyle and work ethic was a great source of inspiration for Paul.
Paul began picking eggs from his father’s 6,000 hens at the age of seven, but eventually he had other plans. He wanted to be an entrepreneur just like his father, but he couldn’t do so by collecting eggs every day.
“About three or four days a week, I would hire my buddies for like, two thirds or three quarters of what I was paid per dozen to pick the eggs,” Paul said. “So, I pocketed the little bit and with that time, I went up and helped my dad in the store and ran my other little businesses.”
Paul already had “four little side hustles” at the age of nine. He spent the rest of his childhood upgrading used bicycles, motorcycles, and cars for sale; collecting dew worms for fishermen; painting houses; and working part-time at a service station; along with other mini ventures. By the time he reached 18, he had already sold 50 bicycles and other vehicles.
At this point, Paul knew he wanted to pursue entrepreneurship full time.
Paul began his first serious business venture in 1983, when he was 20 years old. As the founder of Saugeen Farm Supply, he sold feed and grain to farmers. The early days of the business were rough and he made a critical error in judgment.
“[I] had a company rep that knew my business pretty intimately but helped me grow the business,” he said. “[I] woke up one day — he was my competitor. He had way too much information: how I ran my business, my customers, and within six months he went out, made up stories, cheated, and stole half my customers.”
Fortunately, he recovered from the experience, made over $3 million in annual sales after three years, and sold his business after its ninth year.
The rapid success of Saugeen Farm Supply paved the way for many more entrepreneurial ventures:
He started his second business, Saugeen Filter Supply, as a parts distribution company in 1990 and sold it after 13 years.
His next business, Superior Road Products, was a road construction company started in 1990 and he sold it after 23 years.
He then started his fourth business, The Water Centre, as a pool and hot tub store in 2000 and sold it in 2011.
Afterwards, he started Eve as an e-commerce startup in 2015 and sold it after three years.
And of course, his current business, The Biz Coach, is a business consulting company he’s been running since 2019.
Paul said that Superior Road Products — his third and longest running business — was his proudest professional achievement.
“I had the systems and procedures in place,” he explained. “That’s why it was very attractive to a private equity firm. We sold it for a great dollar. It’s still operating and growing today, and just going through that experience and learning and reassuring that a systemised, profitable business is what you need to do if you want to have a decent exit from it.”
However, Paul also had to deal with the stress of running multiple businesses. Some of the lessons he learned were prioritizing his time and systemizing his ventures to reach long-term goals.
“The ultimate lessons with my companies to scale, to be profitable, and to be able to sell them — which leads me to where I am at today, that’s what I help people with — is to just learn how to work on the business versus in the business,” he explained.
“Back in the early 2000’s, I was operating three companies, had 50 to 60 employees, three small children in which I coached their hockey, working stupid hours, not making any real money, and I hired a business coach for $15,000 that I couldn’t afford back then, but that was an ultimate pinnacle shift in the way I managed and operated my businesses.”
He added, “That’s their [entrepreneurs] biggest fault. They get so tied up in the day-to-day — doing the $15 to $20 an hour jobs — that they can’t really scale and grow their business because they’re too much in the weeds of their companies.”
Because of all the lessons he learned throughout his entrepreneurial career, Paul will be a valuable Fast Lane Plus™ mentor for any local business owner willing to listen.
He claimed, “I have a super power in that I can look at a business and see the problems and the opportunities, and how to coach/mentor these business owners to overcome these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities. . . . I take the emotion out of things, look at the situation, and give them other options of how to deal with issues and challenges to reach their goals.”
One of the primary reasons he is a Fast Lane Plus™ mentor is to give back to his Grey Bruce community and support local businesses.
“I’ve lived in Bruce County my whole life, so [it’s] just [filled with] honest, high integrity people,” he said. “You just know thousands and thousands of people in this area and connections and how to put people together and that’s one advantage of being in a small area like Bruce County.”
Finally, his biggest piece of advice to anyone seeking his mentorship is to be open, honest, and willing to accept feedback.
“Be open minded,” he said. “Open the hood of [your] business up. . . . Don’t sugarcoat anything. Let’s look at the real situation and be open to ideas to improve the situation. Don’t do it on [your] own. That’s a mastermind — two or more smart minds getting together.”
Click here to learn more about Fast Lane Plus™ and apply if you want someone like Paul Oehm to mentor you on your entrepreneurial career.