We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eric Vasquez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Eric, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
From doing chores to getting my first job, my work ethic is a direct result of my parents’ influence. Furthermore, when I was 18 years old, I joined the US Air Force, and over the course of 24 years of service, I learned time management and resource management, which greatly contributed to the work ethic I have today.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My professional story starts when I graduated high school and left for the US Air Force in 1999. After 6 years of active duty, I went on to finish college at California State University, Northridge while holding down several jobs just to make ends meet. When I met my spouse, he was working for someone that recognized my skill set and encouraged me to enter the start-up world. I quit what I was doing at the time and began learning everything I could about sales, operations, and business development. During this time, I was able to wear many hats and was later inspired to start my own business.
For the first 12 years of my Air Force career, I was under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy where I legally could not disclose being openly gay or I would lose my job and military benefits. Similarly, in the business world, not a lot of people were not openly gay at the time. This led me to get certified by the Department of Veterans Affairs – Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), Southern California Minority Supplier Development Council (SCMSDC) (MBE) and The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). I decided that I wasn’t going to hide any aspect of my identity in business. I believe that my direct approach and pride across all aspects of my life have helped me get to where I am today.
Today, my passion and focus as a 42-year-old entrepreneur is continuing to build my business, not only for my own benefit, but for the benefit of everyone on my team. I’m enjoying the process of learning how to continuously improve and scale. As a business owner, you learn something new every day. There’s always a new challenge ahead of you, but you just have to keep your eye on the prize. My goal is to one day build a $100 million company and be able to provide support and stability for my team and the people I love.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three key areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my career journey have been financial literacy, operations, and sales.
The advice I have for folks early on in their journey is to get your finances in order upfront, and admittedly, this is still something I’m working on. Track every dollar that comes in and out of your business and don’t commingle business and personal expenses (which can be difficult to avoid when you’re just starting). Another piece of advice I would offer is to figure out and perfect your processes. This will make everything run more smoothly.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
The number one challenge I’m currently facing is an Achilles’ heel for many small businesses, and that’s cash flow. We work with some pretty large Fortune 100 clients, but because of the payment terms of these large companies, it can take a long time to collect receivables, which makes balancing finances extremely difficult. As a solution to this problem, I’m trying to scale the business more to include more shorter payment term clients to help balance things out.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.vetslg.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericdvasquez/
