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Doing it right: Anthony Samuels learned early on that delegating tasks was key to his company's survival.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, IF YOU WANT THE JOB done right you can't always do it yourself--though Anthony Samuels certainly tried. "I was stuck in the office trying to take care of everything," the entrepreneur recalls of his early startup days in 1993. "[Back then], I was just starting out, and I needed to keep costs down."

Samuels used credit cards and $3,000 of his savings to start Done Right Building Services Inc., a Boston-based building maintenance company. He set up the business in a home office, purchased cleaning equipment, a vehicle, and lined up clients. Everything was in place--or so he thought. Before long the newly minted entrepreneur was working until 10 p.m. almost every night. Not only was he managing the day-to-day operations, he was also cleaning buildings in the evenings, leaving him little time to scout for new clients.

Samuels seemed headed the way of so many entrepreneurs whose startups fail in the first year, until he heeded the advice of his Small Business Administration adviser. "He said to me, 'If you're out doing the work you're not running your company right,'" Samuels recalls. "And I was upset at first, but I eventually realized that what he said was true."

Samuels immediately began making changes. He hired an office manager, an operations manager See datacenter manager. , and enlisted en·list·ed  
adj.
Of, relating to, or being a member of a military rank below a commissioned officer or warrant officer.


enlisted
Adjective
 a team of workers to handle the cleaning. Then, four years ago, he moved the company out of his home and into its current headquarters in Copley Place Copley Place is an enclosed shopping mall located in the Back Bay section of Boston, Massachusetts. It is part of a complex that includes office buildings, two hotels, and a parking garage. , in Boston.

Once Samuels began delegating tasks and broadening his company's services, he noticed a gradual improvement in the bottom line. Revenues the first year were $60,000; three years later that figure jumped to $300,000. By 2006 revenues were $4.3 million, and Samuels projects Done Right's 2007 revenues will reach $5.5 million.

Today, the company employs 40 full-time workers and 90 part-time staffers and has additional branches in New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of
, New Hampshire New Hampshire, one of the New England states of the NE United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts (S), Vermont, with the Connecticut R. forming the boundary (W), the Canadian province of Quebec (NW), and Maine and a short strip of the Atlantic Ocean (E). , and Vermont. Bolstering the workforce also allowed the company to diversify its services and expand. Besides janitorial services and building maintenance, the company now offers snow removal, landscaping, and mechanical maintenance. "Today, property managers want a company that does it all, so we try to offer them the fill range of services that they might need," says Samuels, who now has more time to pursue new clients.

Samuels' efforts have paid off almost right away--and handsomely--for Done Right. He scored one of his first contracts, worth $380,000, with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) is a public authority in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that provides wholesale drinking water and sewage services to certain municipalities and industrial users in the state, primarily in the Boston area.  to clean and maintain more than 200,000 square feet of office space in the authority's three buildings in the Charlestown Navy Yard Noun 1. Charlestown Navy Yard - the navy yard in Boston where the frigate `Constitution' is anchored
Bean Town, Beantown, Boston, capital of Massachusetts, Hub of the Universe - state capital and largest city of Massachusetts; a major center for banking and
. Done Right's client roster also includes Trammell Crow F. Trammell Crow (born June 11, 1914, in Dallas, Texas) is an American property developer who created several famous projects, including Dallas Market Center, Peachtree Center (Atlanta, Georgia), and San Francisco's Embarcadero Center.  and the City of Boston. Through the assistance of the SBA's small business programs--which Samuels has been enrolled in for nearly a decade--Done Right snagged snag  
n.
1. A rough, sharp, or jagged protuberance, as:
a. A tree or a part of a tree that protrudes above the surface in a body of water. Also called sawyer. See Regional Note at preacher.

b. A snaggletooth.
 nine government contracts worth nearly $2 million.

Now Samuels can share the company's workload, and its success.

Done Right Building Services Inc.; Four Copley Place, Suite 135, Boston, MA, 02116; 617-236-0155; www.donerightservices.com

EDITED BY TENNILLE M. ROBINSON: RIBONSONT@BLACKENTERPRISE.COM
COPYRIGHT 2007 Earl G. Graves Publishing Co., Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2007, Gale Group. All rights reserved.

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Article Details
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Title Annotation:MAKING IT
Author:McRae, Sheiresa
Publication:Black Enterprise
Date:Oct 1, 2007
Words:518
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