Fiducial | We help your business grow and be profitable.

by Stephen Parezo

Ed Comer

July 12, 2006—Ed Comer celebrated his 20th year as a franchisee last month with Fiducial in Springfield, OH. During that span, he’s determined that every successful entrepreneur does three things well. These include managing, marketing and persevering.

When small businesses run into trouble, Comer usually finds that the owner has come up short by having problems in one or more of these areas. Successful entrepreneurs, however, he says “figure out a way to do it.”

As Comer knows, having a great knowledge of your particular industry is just not enough. Case in point was a client that was in the sewing machine business.

“The lady could sell but she never could figure out how to manage the business,” said Comer.

Born in Charlottesville, VA, Comer lived there until he was five and moved to Pittsburgh, PA where his father was an iron worker. He attended Duff’s Business Institute in Pittsburgh and furthered his education by getting a degree in business and accounting from Drake College of Florida. He later earned a masters degree in business management from Central Michigan University.

Comer worked for Combustion Engineering as a controller in the pulp and paper business but really didn’t become a full-fledged accountant until later. After he had been with the company for about 16 years, he noticed that there was trouble brewing.

“When I started to see the handwriting on the wall I began looking into getting a franchise,” he said. Fortunately he had learned some valuable entrepreneurial lessons from his grandfather back in the Shenandoah Valley.

“He had a convenience store and taught me how to be a business person,” Comer said. “He never got beyond the fifth grade but he knew how to make money and he knew how to manage money.”

His grandfather became the first individual in his locale to sell cold beer and was one of the early business owners to get a beer license in Page County. He was also well-liked by his customers and Comer says he was lucky to be exposed to that environment working there in summers during high school and college when he helped run the business.

He’s never looked back

Though he knew that striking out on his own was a risk, it was one Comer was prepared to take and he has never looked back.

“I certainly do not regret what I’ve done,” he said.

When Comer first opened up shop he was not fully prepared to handle tax preparation for his clients. But he eventually became an Enrolled Agent and now represents clients in audit meetings with the Internal Revenue Service. Later this summer he will be sworn in as president of the Dayton, OH, chapter of Enrolled Agents.

For more complex tax issues, he draws upon the expertise of Fiducial’s Tax Hotline, namely tax advisors Bob Sperling and Guy Mullen in the company’s Technical and Administrative Support Center (TASC) in Columbia, MD.

“Taxes are too complicated to just do it on your own,” Comer said. “A man’s got to know his limitations. I probably call on Bob and Guy as much as anybody in the field because they keep me out of trouble.”

Perhaps his greatest strength lies in helping get small business owners get up to speed in terms of keeping accurate records.

“I do a pretty good job of training people to keep some basic records,” he said. “I noticed in the early 1990s that people were buying computers and buying accounting software but weren’t doing anything with them.”

In two decades of serving small business clients, Comer has had his share of success stories. He recalled that he had a drywall contractor that he had to push and shove to get involved with financial planning.

Clients count on him

When one of the contractor’s major accounts went under it could have meant the end for the drywall operation. But since the owner had decided to take Comer’s financial planning advice, he was in good shape.

“He admitted that if he hadn’t done this he probably would be out of business,” Comer said.

Having important professional connections also makes a difference. When a convenience store client was targeted by the State of Ohio for a sales tax audit, Comer called on a long-time friend who had worked as a sales tax auditor for 30 years.

He recommended that his client hire the former auditor because these audits can be quite demanding. The client consented and acknowledged that had he not had this type of representation, the audit would have been a nightmare.

Comer also takes pride in the fact that he represents clients in tax audits and in 20 years has only had four audits and all have been no-change audits.

“I make sure the tax return is done to code,” he said.

It’s clear that Comer’s clients have come to count on him delivering expert advice and service to their small business.

“They’re comfortable knowing that they’re dealing with the same person each year rather than a CPA firm where you have a different person each year,” he said.

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial.

Whatever your small business needs, your Fiducial tax and financial professional can analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate action plan. To locate a Fiducial office nearest you on fiducial.com, see the Zip Code Locator located in the upper right hand corner of the page. Do you have a particular topic that we should be writing about that can help your business? Please send your suggestions to: stephen.parezo@fiducial.com.

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