MNGT 310

Assignment 3, Business Analysis

Halbert Performance opened its services as a Go-Kart part distribution and repair center

in Allen, Kentucky during the year 2012. This small, sole proprietorship company had its

beginnings as a general repair shop a few years prior. After building a reliable customer base it

began reaching out to manufacturers, and eventually became a local – and online – distributor of

several major manufactures along with continued repair and technical support for part

maintenance. Currently it is still a Sole Proprietorship, ran by Shannon Halbert. I interviewed

Shannon for more information about his business and how it runs.

Entrepreneur Background

Shannon Halbert is a 39-year-old male, currently living in Banner, Kentucky. He is the

Sole proprietor of Halbert Performance. He graduated from Morehead State University with a

degree in Engineering. He runs his Business from his home in Banner, making use of a large

garage as a workspace. When he is not spending time purchasing inventory or working of a daily

schedule of repairs, he can be found spending time with his family and their dog and cat, Daisy

and Jack. Some of his hobbies include; Cooking, Woodworking, Driving, and Engineering. He

was a Go-kart enthusiast several years before he began doing repairs and then starting his

business.
Business and Industry

Shannon, as a sole proprietor is the only current employee at Halbert Performance. He is

currently a Full-Time employee under the company. He runs the business finances, manages

inventory, takes repair orders and orders new stock as it becomes needed. Halbert Performance

falls under the NAICS Industry of Retail Trade code 44-45 (NAICS Code, 2020).

Business Opportunity

Shannon began his business as a side job to make money from one of his biggest

interests; racing. He began doing on-site repairs out of a trailer at racing events, and swap meets.

As he continued, his background in engineering and ability to make timely and well-done repairs

grew his reputation. It only took two years for him to grow a constant supply of new repair jobs.

Slowly, these repairs got more and more intensive and the profits from these jobs grew to the

point where starting a Sole Proprietorship was the right choice for Shannon. The business

continued only doing repair jobs until he was approached by several customers asking him to

buy specific upgrade parts. After a few more interested customers pushed him, he contacted

Bully, one of the largest clutch manufacturers on the market, and began the process of becoming

a distributor of their parts. This only grew his business. This led to the starting of a website,

fueled by forum posts that led to an eventual online market where people could place part orders

and repairs. Shannon currently has constant customers from around the nation that he regularly

works for.
Preparation and Difficulties

As Halbert Performance was (and is) a sole proprietorship, it wasn’t extremely difficult

for Shannon to develop goals and objectives for his company. His Mission Statement of “Halbert

Performance is dedicated to being the best available repair and part distribution center for small

independent hobbyists.” He is focused on bringing affordable pricing and quality repair and part

availability to the local racing scene. He also independently developed a business plan that

focused on small repairs and part distribution for a bulk of its profit, but also allowed for

flexibility for a growing online marketplace.

The biggest difficulty in starting a business for Shannon was, to quote him “All of the

business mumbo jumbo that I didn’t know about”. Starting a Sole Proprietorship was an arduous

task, but it needed to be undergone to develop a capacity to hold stable income. He went on to

talk about how he was mostly self-taught, and occasionally sought advice some “business savvy

friends”.

Scheduling and Time Management was also an issue in the beginning. Shannon went on

to describe in the interview that early in the company’s development he would often overbook

his jobs and finish a handful of them late. His work however was exemplar and still earned him a

dedicated customer base. He said that it took a while to understand how much work could be

done in a single day without overworking himself. He still sometimes struggles with large

capacity of orders from time to time, having to make sure to have alone time to himself at the

end of the day.

Help and Guidance

Shannon said that the main issue for him was “the business side of his business”. Thusly,

he turned to several college colleagues and close friends. Two of these people were business

majors, and one was an entrepreneur themselves. He said that having these confidants made

many of the difficult decisions the he had to make a lot easier. He was able to confide in these

people and trust in their knowledge and experience and pursue his interests in the mechanical

side of his business. There were multiple times when the stress and overworking of his business

stressed him out, leading him to confide in his family and take a “intervention vacation”.

Growth Plans

Currently Halbert performance is ran out of a twenty by twenty-foot garage which limits

the size and amount of orders that they’re able to accept per week. In the near future they plan on

expanding into a ten by fifty-foot wooden building. This will make them able to accept more

orders, giving more working space to repairs, and give them more space for inventory which is

an extreme difficulty. Currently they have to order parts as they are ordered, due to a lack of

space. This would also open them to taking on more part time employees, although admittedly

Shannon has his doubts on ever expanding to that degree. He seems like he would be completely

content with a larger working space.

Business Slumps

During the week, Halbert Performance experiences a flock of orders for repairs and

manufactured parts. During the weekend however, a majority of the day is spent fulfilling orders

and repairs. Lower than 5 percent of the total orders for any given week are during the weekend,

excluding the outlier of swap meets and racing events that Shannon attends to make sales. To

combat this, he attends the aforementioned events to make more sales during the racing season.

He says that it doesn’t adversely affect his sales but it’s always nice to sell more repairs and

product.

Triple Bottom Line

Shannon’s lack of business workings made this one of the more difficult questions to

answer. After attempting to explain to him what a “Triple Bottom Line” was, he was able to give

a solid idea of how he works to put effort into his community and the environment. He

frequently commissions local students to design new graphics for his business, paying them

above average for their work and then crediting them on his advertisements. All of the waste

material from his business is sent to be recycled each week.

Crossroads
Halbert Performance is currently struggling with the influx of customers coming to it for parts

and repairs. Shannons goal is to take in at least 50 orders a week, and currently without more

space to adequately work on multiple things at once he struggles with this goal. He is planning

on upgrading to a larger building to provide himself with a larger working space.

Advice

When I asked Shannon for the single most important piece of advice that he could give he

looked at me and thought silently for a few minutes. After a long breath he leaned back into his

chair and said “The most important thing? I think that’s understanding how to balance running a

successful business while also achieving your ideal goal.” He further elaborated by saying that

you should always expect something to be far more expensive and time consuming that it really

should be.

Analysis

I. Advice

I believe that Shannon is making the next logical step in facing the biggest problem (an

issue for working space) for Halbert Performance. I think that this would be the easiest fix for the

space issue he is currently facing. I do think that there could be more work done however during

the weekend business slumps out of the racing season for the business. I think that Product
expansion would be the easiest way to combat this. According to the text, product expansion is

“A strategy whose goal is growth, based on selling existing customers a product or service

they have never bought before.…selling the same customers a new product is called

product expansion.” (Kats, 354) Expanding the range of products he sells could perhaps solve

his issue of low order numbers on weekends. By pursuing the ability to distribute more that just

mechanical parts, accessories, cleaning supplies, guide books, tool kits and other DIY

instructional materials when people are the most likely to be spending their time doing DIY

racing projects could be beneficial.

II. Learning Experience

My learning has been overwhelmingly positive. As a self-pursuing musician, insight into

a sole proprietorship is very much appreciated from someone in a different field. Shannon was

able to share specific knowledge for his industry during our interview. I learned about how an

overwhelming majority of his repairs are clutches and how integral they are to his business. I

even got to watch him finish a repair firsthand as I arrived on site for the interview. I had no idea

that he commissioned art from local students for his decal work, and that was surprising. I’m

glad someone like this is working hard to make their community a better place with the work that

they do.

References

Search NAICS Codes by Industry. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.naics.com/search-naics-

codes-by-industry/
 Katz, J. A., & Green, R. P. (2011). Entrepreneurial small business. New York:

McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Blackburn, A. (March 2020). Personal Interview