Business Services Industry

POSTSCRIPTS

Entrepreneur, July, 2000 by Cynthia E. Griffin, Nichole L. Torres

FORTUNES MADE

THEN: When we first profiled Rhonda Lashen in 1996, Fortunately Yours Inc. was doing well in its innovative niche: selling fortune cookies as marketing tools to big corporate clients.

NOW: Lashen's business got serious exposure in 1999 when the entrepreneur was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Boosted by the response, Lashen created a Web site (www.fortunatelyyours.com) that sells her fortune cookies and other products: chocolate baby announcements, chocolate coins with companies' names on them and more. In 2000--with clients like Walt Disney Co. and Marriott Residence Inns--she expects to gross about $1.7 million in sales.

"If you grow too fast, you can't handle everything," says Lashen. "My customers like that I'm still the one talking to them [personally]. We're able to build a rapport."

Nichole L. Torres

CONTRACTS TO KILL

THEN: In September 1996, we covered Sen. Christopher Bond's (RMO) proposed HUBZone (Historically Underutilized Business Zone) Act, which would require participating companies to employ at least 35 percent of their work force from a HUBZone, with 50 percent of the work of any federal contract done in the HUBZone.

NOW: The HUBZone program recently celebrated a milestone, registering its 1,000th participating small business. Nearly 8,000 communities nationwide are designated HUBZones, and the number of businesses registered is expected to rise after a nationwide outreach by the SBA. According to the SBA, the HUBZone annual contracting goal is expected to reach its maximum level by fiscal year 2003--translating to 3 percent of overall prime contracting, or an estimated $6 billion a year in federal contracts. To find out whether your company is in a HUBZone, visit www.sba.gov/hubzone.> Cynthia E. Griffin

Nichole L. Torres