Girl, Mind Your Own Business!

Cross a smart blonde Vogue model with a pretty nerd, throw in equal parts hyper Energizer Bunny and optimistic Disney Dori, minus short-term memory loss, and you have a picture of Indiana’s Crystallized Cleaning & Painting owner Ms. Tracy Coleman, 38, and the Hoosier State’s Dr. Whitney Purtzer, O.D., 28, optometrist and future owner of the Center for Eye Care Excellence (CEE).  Coleman and Purtzer are intelligent, driven, inspirational women with a head for commerce and a heart for people.  From vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds, they share a high-energy, tenacious, and savvy business temperament.   The entrepreneur Ms. Coleman, raised by a tough motorcycle riding single working class mom, never attended college and by age 12 worked 30 hours a week as a dishwasher while attending middle school and at 24 started her own painting and cleaning business.  Optometrist Dr. Purtzer, urged to attend college by middle class parents who taught her quitting is not an option, worked and attended school full time and at 24 began purchasing CEE, a highly respected eye vision business with multiple offices.

Katy Perry’s Eye of the Tiger dramatic notes and lyrics swell as they tell their spirited can-do stories of feminine ingenuity and philanthropy which restore a faith in womanity and inspire a palpable desire to start a business.  That’s because, even though they have succeeded in the rough and tumble world of business, they choose again and again to help struggling customers and employees and a financially strapped community.

Crystallized Cleaning & Painting, Bremen, Indiana

At 23, she was a single parent living in a Bremen, Indiana one-bedroom apartment eating Ramen noodles and raising a baby and a toddler on a $600/month nanny job while toggling which monthly bill to pay when she started a cleaning business. By investing all of her $300-dollar savings, without OPM, other peoples’ money and shrewdly saving, she painstakingly (literally, with pain) grew her prestigious client base.  (Black businessman and Shark Tank expert Daymond John in his book The Power of Broke, which Coleman lives, also calls OPM other people’s marketing or muscle.)  Coleman had only her muscle, her marketing, and her money.  She created, copied, and carried fliers to cars, companies, and colleagues -- advertising her cleaning business in calls and conversation whenever she could.  The cleaning jobs trickled and then poured into her client database.  Based on excellent quality work and service she has built a private company now valued at nearly $500,000 and with the help of Ms. Nancy Lilves, her smart business manager (the kind every company tries to recruit), she has a loyal, satisfied customer base. 

Early on, Coleman balanced single motherhood and her business obligations. While she attended her son Blake’s wrestling meets, scheduled her younger daughter Sienna’s parent-teacher meetings, and helped the elder daughter Samantha with homework and college applications, she also booked clients, reckoned accounting books, hired employees, cut paychecks, and managed client evaluations. She laughs and says that at first she was so poor – putting earnings toward her children’s needs first and the business second – that she often went without breakfast and lunch, eating whatever abandoned unopened food she found when cleaning and painting vacant apartments:  boxes of spaghetti, canned goods, or still-wrapped Nutri-grain bars!   

Once while painting outside, she fell 2 stories off the ladder on to pavement, got up, checked for major injuries, and continued to work knowing she had no one else to finish the job. Driving home exhausted and wincing in terrible pain from the impact, she recalls the deep satisfaction of meeting the client’s deadline and expectations. Another time, early in her business career, she took a spill on a skateboard, broke an arm and bruised ribs and limbs.  She was horrified!  She had a full job of several apartments to clean and paint.  On her own.  Once the doctor stitched, plastered with a cast, and bound her arm in a sling, she painted one-armed the several apartments on schedule. One friend worked alongside her without pay. She admitted with laughter that she cried for most of that day but said to herself when finished: I am an Amazon!  “I knew then I could do anything because I finished what I started – even with my broken arm and I was really proud of myself!”  She says that once she had employees it was a matter of inspiring them to care the way she did.  One Friday night, as she headed out in heels, pearls and a stylish full-length ballroom dress to a swanky affair, she got a last minute phone call to clean apartments in a building.  She called an employee who grumbled but agreed to go.  Tracy showed up, too, in full evening attire, picked up a sponge, mop, plunger, and brush and worked with her for 2 hours to finish the job!  “She was shocked! There I was in the same fancy dress, but this girl didn’t say another negative word the rest of the evening! I know she was impressed.” While many people say they have a great idea for a business, few people have the pluck to take risks, lead by example, and balance career and motherhood like Coleman, to win and retain clients in the face of painful obstacles.  

Eventually her (now deceased) brother Tony Coleman encouraged her to bid on a huge painting job at his rental property saying, “Sissy, they did a terrible job – you could do a lot better than these hired contractors!”   Intimidated and nervous, because she had never done a large professional contract, but also pumped and persuaded by her brother’s confidence, she dressed in crisp khaki slacks and a button down Oxford business shirt, carried an empty professional-looking leather brief case, and nervously pitched her bid.  They hired her, on the condition they pay her more money! Despite challenges faced by all business owners: finding great employees and maintaining excellent standards as service requests escalate during peek summer months, Coleman and her manager Lilves strive for to hire, retain, and motivate reliable employees who work as hard as they do.   

The Center for Eye Care Excellence (CEE), South Bend, Indiana

“My mom got me into the medical field more than anything else. She was always on call; she was always on a hospital call and I got into the field I did because of her. She got me into the medicine side,” says Dr. Whitney Purtzer.  She says she saw her dad, a businessman, and her mom an x-ray technician working and being available to others 24/7 and 365 days of the year.  She saw how much people depended on them.  “The combination of my parents was kind of cool, so both interested me: those separate sides – business and medicine,” says Purtzer.   Even as a young adult and college student she asked herself important questions, “When do I want to work?  How important is it for me to have time off on holidays, weekends, or nights?”

Dr. Whitney Purtzer will purchase CEE from its owner Dr. Lindsey Kintner, O.D.  within the next five years. She says, “I do not have investors – not at all. I’m $200,000 dollars in debt from school, and I’m 28. So I talked to my husband about buying the business.  My family, my grandparents, my parents helped me to get through college.  In all honesty we’re all about the same. We’re all working class, middle class people, unless I was going to get to get an inheritance to pay for the business I’ll just have to save.”    Purtzer says, “There’s no opportunity like this (anymore). What you have is new optometry graduates graduating, with 8 years of college with thousands dollars in debt. They have debt and no business history. It’s almost impossible to buy these things (businesses).   The unique situation that I’m in?  Lindsey Kintner owns CEE – after his father and then his grandfather, who started his practice Mishawaka, – and is a 3rd generation businessmen. He was my optometrist growing up.  I shadowed him.  I followed him. Lindsay bought it (CEE). I will financially back this thing. So that’s our plan. Really, it’s huge!  It’s perfect for me because I watched someone good.  I get to learn from the best and learn from someone who has made mistakes.” 

“It’s interesting that Corporate America is buying businesses for example Midwest Eye etc. They’re going around and buying all these businesses; they’re giving them (employees) packages, but they’re not offering partnership or ownership. South Bend businesses are more locally owned. It’s a small town.  It’s everything that corporate America isn’t.”

“You have more freedom when you have your own business. A lot of my friends work at corporate-owned vision clinics. It’s essentially like a franchise, so they kind of are able to make some of those choices. They don’t get to set the hours, but I do. As my work life changes, I can change my hours to fit my lifestyle. Don’t want to work at 7 on Wednesdays?  Okay, you don’t have to do so.  She (her optometrist friend at the corporate vision franchise) works from 10 to 7 on Wednesdays.  I’m on a percentage base, and she’s on a salary.  (For me), it’s motivating.  I’m sure she has a salary with a bonus package, but she definitely has less control than I do.”   Purtzer says, “I look at Lindsey the present owner, and I want what he has – the way he takes care of his employees. If there’s a hardship, he will cut a deal.  He will work hard not to lose an employee.”   

That Girl’s Got an Eye for Business

Purtzer says she knew from an early age she was bound for college, no ifs, ands, or buts, and credits her mother with her superb time management and organizational skills. People often say they can’t keep up with her quick decision-making and talking, and she laughs, “I get that a lot!”  But why own a business?  “So first of all, my grandparents owned a ton of different random businesses. My dad had a business until I was 10 years old. When I was growing up, it was not if you are successful it’s when you’re successful. It was not if you’re going to college, it’s when are you going to college. It was not if but when. So people were talking in high school about whether they were going to college, and I would think that’s not how I grew up! We had to go, and we could not just quit!” 

Mrs. Susan Lamb, Whitney Purtzer’s mother says, “I saw her as an entrepreneur or a lawyer when she was growing up. She has always known what she wants and how to get it.  I think I raised her to be successful.  I taught her that she has to work for what she wants.  As a child she always had chores to do and she knew those had to be done, and done correctly, before she would get to do what she wanted. Whitney has always liked the finer things in life, and I told her that she needs to work to support herself and be able to afford the luxuries that she loves.”  Mrs. Lamb says, “I think everyone in Whitney's life has taught her the can do spirit: starting with her father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, her little sister, myself, her preschool teachers, to her college professors, to her business partner. (They) have all let her know that she can succeed at anything she puts her mind to.”

Whitney’s husband, Chris Purtzer, also a business owner, describes her directedness during her undergraduate and School of Optometry days at Lafayette Indiana’s Purdue University and Ohio State, respectively.  He says, “Yeah, you wouldn’t think (becoming an) eye doctor would be super involved. Her first days she was putting in 14 hour days to get through school. She definitely knows what she wants and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get it.  She would come home and study until she went to bed.” They met at Purdue when she was 19, and he 23, and they later transferred to Ohio State (which creates a complicated Fall college football season of Boilermaker and Buckeye loyalties in Notre Dame Irish country!)  She had the ultimate goal of being a business owner.  She knows that she has to kind of start at the bottom and work her way up!  She knows she has to sacrifice.  Starting out she had to work 3 different jobs.  (At school), she worked a couple different places, at Eye-Mart (for example to build patients. She built herself so she could work (at CEE).”  

While Purtzer overcame financial and academic hardships, Coleman early on successfully tackled personal and financial problems.  Her parents divorced when she was 9, and her mom Cheri Coleman lectured her and her brother Tony about paying their own way.  Her mother says, “I told them around the time of the divorce I can pay the bills. I can afford all the essentials but anything more than that, like the $100 dollar shoes, you’ll have to get. She (Tracy) just jumped right in and did it!”  Coleman whose childhood best friends were Sonia Ritter whose family owns and runs Great Lakes Heating & Air Conditioning and Stephanie Huber, the step daughter of Van Gurley of Gurley Leep Car Company, came from very wealthy families and had really nice things.  Armed with a strong work ethic Coleman got a job washing dishes at the Inn where her mother worked and became a thrifty teenage money manager and consumer who made the fancy purchases of an upper middle class teen.  About nurturing her kids’ robust work ethic, Miss Coleman says, “I know they say it is not okay for kids to work like that, but I had a paper route at 12!  I mean I worked like that, too. If you wait and expect them to have a job at 22 or 24 after college and stuff I think it’s too late. If you try to teach ‘em when they’re young, they learn that stuff at a very early age.” 

Miss Coleman says her daughter always had an innate entrepreneurial streak. “She worked relentlessly. I mean from lemonade stands in the yard to school salesmanship projects. There was a $200-dollar prize for selling the most number of items, and she (was the) most successful. (With) the money she saved from dishwashing and that prize she bought her first car at 16 and paid with cash!”

Her father Buck Coleman says his daughter was destined for success, “Yes, I mean something in that little kid just was mind-strong. If Sissy (his daughter Tracy) put her mind to something, just anything, she’d do it. Yeah, I mean I can see her having her own business. Even from when she was kid she was bull headed like her daddy!  Dad’s always worked, and her mommy’s always worked.  I mean we said if you want something, a nice Harley over there, do like dad and mom: Well, get your money together and go buy it!”

Tracy is exceptionally bright. Was she pushed to get good grades and move on an honors/ college track in high school? Tracy was talented and highly inquisitive early on in grade school and eager to work to get good grades, but as she grew older she was uninspired by teachers and the curriculum.  Miss Coleman explains, “I mean she was more into selling things; Neither one of my kids were into school (later). Tracy quit school and got her G.E.D., and her brother, too. I just knew I was a worker’s worker, and they was kind of the same way. We’d rather jump into it and do the 12 hours a day.  School did not matter to us. I mean some people are just like that, you know? Some people are workers and work with their bodies, not that working at a desk and in an office are not hard. I’m not saying that, but you know what I mean.” 

Coleman tells a revealing sophomore English class story, “We were sitting there reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and I noticed the teacher had underlined and written in the margins of several passages throughout the book, so I asked him, ‘What specifically is going to be on the test, I mean, what are the most important things to know?’ And he replied that we had to read the whole book.  So one day I took his book, copied the underlined passages, scribbled the marginal notes, and lent them to a bunch of friends and students.  When he saw my book in class, he thought it was his.  I repeatedly said, ‘It’s not yours!’ which was true!  I denied it again and again, until I was confronted by the principal.”  The anecdote reveals efficiency, intelligence, helpfulness and a bottom line whatever-it-takes-within-reason attitude: qualities of a good boss.

Tracy Coleman’s best friend Stephanie Huber says Coleman’s driven nature was forged in childhood, “Coleman and I met when we were in 8th grade on a Washington, DC field trip. Any job she could get, she could do! She was detassling corn up at 4 o clock in the morning!  She was a go getter. We worked together in a factory (as young adults), getting up at 4 am, and both of us had horrible cars, and I would see her skipping that she had signed us up for double shifts on weekends and holidays – I was dragging!  I would just want to cry, and she would say ‘Too late! We’re signed up!’  She is not one to hit the snooze button. She would pop right out of bed and on her way would go. She is off the charts.” 

Doing What You Love + Family + Philanthropy + Sleep = Business Success Recipe

So why have these women made it – aside from innate ability and singlemindedness?  Dr. Whitney Purtzer and Tracy Coleman cite 4 factors they have in common that forged business success: a love for what they do, a happy family life, giving to others, and plenty of sleep. In addition, Purtzer, now pregnant with her first baby, says she has an incredibly strong marriage to husband Chris Purtzer and Coleman, a single parent, says she has great health and terrific kids: Sienna, Blake, and Samantha who inspire and motivate her.  Scientific studies and academic studies support their assertion that their morning up and at ‘em attitude and success come from these factors.  

First, serving others motivates both women and makes them happy.  For Purtzer its giving clients great medical eye care and for Coleman its providing customers a well-serviced and beautifully cleaned and painted home and office space. Purtzer wants to provide a 365 degree check to clients’ health.  With a senior retired client, Mr. Leonard, she does a thorough eye and medical evaluation, says, “Let’s go over your medications!” lists all seven separately, and asks why he’s taking them.  She recommends putting off an expensive cataract surgery because it will have a minimal effect given his overall good vision, and the cost, for him, is exorbitant.  She suggests he go to his physician and reduce the various medicine.  Leonard says, “She’s direct. She explains everything. She pretty much puts it all on the line, (lets) you know what’s really going on without question.” For Coleman, her clients’ happiness is priority number one, “I’m a contractor, the low man on the totem pole. If people don’t like my work, then I didn’t do my job.  I’ll work until the job is done, and the client is happy.”  Her manager Nancy Lilves says about her best qualities as a boss, “Honesty in everything and (being a) people pleaser she will do anything to make someone happy: the customer and the employee.”  Purtzer and Coleman’s attitude dovetail with a 2015 Forbes article Do What You Love?  Or, Love What You Do? which quotes the 2013 Great Work Study research. It says the happiest employees like Coleman and Purtzer, who love what they do, focus on the services and projects that make clients happy.   These lady bosses put their employee and customer’s satisfaction as their first priority and in turn they are also satisfied and happy. 

Second, family keeps both entrepreneurs grounded – and successful. Purtzer says, “I’m lucky.  My parents are supportive, and when I go home there is no drama. I know a lot of women, a lot of business owners, don’t have that.  My husband is very supportive, and I couldn’t do this without him.”  Her husband Chris laughs and says early on in her studies and career, “I was more of a supportive role.  I made dinner and kept the place clean, just taking care of the everyday stuff: grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning.”  He says the two of them “have a pretty strong work ethic; you do what needs to be done regardless of where it is or what the situation is.”  He says they support each other and that that’s what makes their marriage and thus the business a success, “She’s definitely been (an inspiration).”  He credits her with the idea of starting his own business, “I used to do apartment maintenance. It was kind of a dead end job. With my career I do full time air conditioning and heating and she pushed me to realize there is something out there in the world for me to do.” He explains, “I’m not normally a confident person (but) she makes me have that confidence and supports me in whatever I do. We truly are each other’s best friend. We just like to spend time with each other.”  A good marriage like the Purtzers does contribute to happiness says The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). In its December 2014 publication How's Life at Home? New Evidence on Marriage and the Set Point for Happiness authors John F. Helliwell and Shawn Grover say, “We find that the married are still more satisfied, suggesting a causal effect…and friendship could help explain a causal relationship between marriage and life satisfaction, and…that well-being effects of marriage are about twice as large for those whose spouse is also their best friend.”   The Purtzers, best friends, says marriage created their business success and happiness, and the NBER study says it is true.

Like Purtzer, Coleman says she has the motivation of family, specifically her children. While her parents respect her success and business savvy, her children motivate her to work hard and as they grow they emulate her work ethic.  Daughter Samantha, a popular and successful college student and full-time Mishawaka, IN Bob Evans restaurant manager, says her mom is her role model.  Coleman inspires her son Blake, an excellent student and middle school wrestler who made it to State, to strive to be the best in sports and academics. His wrestling coaches recently honored him as athlete of the year and say he has “a heart of gold.”  Like her brother, eight-year-old Sienna strives to achieve in studies and like her mom loves to help others.  Providing for her children financially has pushed Coleman to create and sustain her lucrative business which pays the bills, maintains the roof overhead, finances typical teenage and young adult amenities, vacations and funds future college tuition.   Purtzer and Coleman whose families encourage and support them mirror the business family behavior cited in a Harvard August 2014 article on the long-term success of a family-owned business.  The article explains that family owned businesses thrive over time when the “families are entrepreneurial, maintain a culture that encourages family members to create things of lasting value, encourage entrepreneurs and remain reasonably united, keep supportive members loyal to one another and to the family's mission.” 

While Purtzer has a great marriage, Coleman says she enjoys excellent health, never missing work for illness, and surmises that it’s the dirty work she does.  Smiling she says, “I mean, I’m scrubbing kitchen counters and floors and never-cleaned bathroom tubs and toilets. I think that somehow being exposed to those germs probably keeps me healthy!”  Coleman says her immune system is tougher.   In a March 2016 phone interview Dr. Dale Sandler, PhD Chief of Epidemiology and Principal Investigator in the NIH of North Carolina says that according to more recent research that could be true. “There’s a hygiene hypothesis – if you’re exposed early in life to bacteria then the thought is that you’ll develop fewer sicknesses.”  If Coleman was exposed to bacteria at an early age, she could have a hardier immune system and she admits with suppressed laughter to to rookie dumpster diving from ages 2 to 4 years old.  Sandler explains that there are also scientists in the pro-biotic camp, who think introducing bacteria to the human gut helps fight off infection.  Within that group, she explains, “People believe you should eat yogurt because there’s micro bacteria in that.”  People who study biotics and the bacteria that live within say that bacteria-enhanced food can positively affect our body’s microbial flora and fauna, and thus our overall health. “People who study the micro biome or who study the hygiene hypothesis might say that a constant exposure to these surfaces might alter your exposure to diseases in a positive way,” explains Sandler So, it is possible that Coleman has nearly zero missed work days because of that toddler dumpster diving or exposure to bacteria that amps her gut’s immune system with bacteria. A junk food fan, she says it’s definitely not because she eats healthy!  

Third, Purtzer and Coleman say they both give back to the community.  Each woman tells stories of community philanthropy.  Purtzer says she wants to give back to her community to help others like her get a leg up with internships and shadowing while Coleman says she wants people who have a dream achieve it. Purtzer says an associate optometrist at CEE, and former owner of Bartlett Eye Clinic, Mathew Bartlett, O.D. has Amish clients with whom he has bartered corn, beef, and produce for eye care. “There are days where you have to sit here and listen and listen and let them vent. I have to think about the big picture.”  She says she had one especially stressed out client, recently out of jail who broke her heart.  “She was under the impression that her mom, while she was in jail, was paying her bills, but (instead) she lost her house and had no electric (because) her mom was stealing her money!  I listened while she said, ‘I really don’t know what I’m going to do.’  I said, ‘Well we can get you those glasses and get you eye care help.’ She broke down and cried.”   Similarly, Coleman says, “With my staff helping their livelihood improve, if they had a minimum wage job, and I could give them more hours is satisfying.  I can make their life better.  I mentored someone, and they started their own business and cleared $40K in their first year.   I’ve helped other girls with business venture and vacations.  I just want to help.”  When her brother Tony Coleman, a motorcycle expert and rider, was murdered in a local pub 2 years ago by a man experiencing a drunken blackout, she immediately set up the Tony Coleman Memorial Foundation which raffles a Harley Davidson and free riding lessons.  She says, “I have forgiven this man, and I wrote a letter to his father saying I did.  I don’t want to hate him or have bitterness. It was an accident that killed my brother and robbed us of him, but it was not done in malice.  I want the Memorial to be a positive tribute in the community to my brother.”  Her best friend Stephanie Huber says her unique and honest character, leadership, and authentic concern for people are her greatest strengths. An April 2015 Entrepreneur article by Torry Holt explains that philanthropy: job mentoring, discounting business services, networking, and assisting fledgling businesses serves a 3-fold purpose: it builds a client relationship, one’s brand, and employee engagement.  Business experts say Coleman and Purtzer’s financial success in Northern Indiana is directly linked to their unique philanthropy of pragmatic giving.

Finally, both women say they hit the pillow at night, rarely missing any zzzzs. Coleman says, “You know I could have the worst day, but when I go to bed, I’m out, and I don’t wake up until morning.” When asked about how she stays on top of her busy schedule, her pregnancy, her marriage, and her daily stress Purtzer says, “I sleep a lot, too.  I always get a good 8 hours.  And that’s been since I was a kid. I never pulled an all nighter, never in college nor (optometry) school. That’s not my thing.”   In the article Brain Basics, a July 2014 study by the National Institute of Health’s (NIH), the author states a good night’s rest is “necessary for our nervous systems to work properly. Some experts believe sleep gives neurons used while we are awake a chance to shut down and repair themselves. Sleep also may give the brain a chance to exercise important neuronal connections that might otherwise deteriorate from lack of activity. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which sponsored the study says, “Activity in parts of the brain that control emotions, decision-making processes, and social interactions is drastically reduced during deep sleep, suggesting that this type of sleep may help people maintain optimal emotional and social functioning while they are awake.  In “The Benefits of Slumber, Why You Need a Good Night’s Sleep,” an NIH Health article, sleep expert and neurologist Dr. Merrill Mitler says, “Sleep services all aspects of our body in one way or another: molecular, energy balance, as well as intellectual function, alertness and mood.  Loss of sleep impairs your higher levels of reasoning, problem-solving and attention to detail.  Sleep expert Dr. Michael Twery says, “Sleep affects almost every tissue in our bodies.  It affects growth and stress hormones, our immune system, appetite, breathing, blood pressure and cardiovascular health.”  Sleep benefits Coleman and Purtzer’s overall health, decision-making, intellectual abilities and mood.

Great People Skills = Loyal, Happy Customers

Both ladies have great people skills inspire colleagues and win loyal clientele. Coleman’s manager Nancy Lilves (the type of manager daily sought by headhunters) says “She listens. I think the fact that she’s caring is the biggest thing ‘cause if she didn’t care it would not go as smooth as it goes. If someone is having a bad day, you can call and she’ll talk you right out of it. If you’re doing a hard job and think it’s impossible, she’ll talk you right out of it!” Does she have a weakness? Lilves says, “I think her weakness is probably that she loves a sad story, which means (if) someone is having a hard time she’ll try to fix it and as far as work goes it is a weakness because she wants to keep on people (who need to be fired).”   Steve Davis, a former employee and one of her best friends says, “She’s definitely a people person and she’s not afraid to try anything!  She’s got the determination and pride her mother has and she definitely inspires me to do well. Her drive and her determination?  She’s born with it.”  Her father Buck Coleman, a charming storyteller and life of the party guy, says “I’m a people person, you know what I mean?  Sissy (his daughter Tracy) would tell you she got her personality from daddy. Anybody would tell you she’s just like her dad.”   

Her mother says Tracy’s driven desire to find solutions and work hard might also come from her, “She works really, really hard. She hates inefficiency. She doesn’t ask her workers to do anything she would not do herself. She’s hardworking, honest, and she sees opportunities where others see problems.  I think it is just her stubbornness or tenacity.  She might get that from me. People say to me, ‘Cheri you have a solution for everything!’ But you know what? I think there is a solution to everything, I mean if you try!  With all (that’s) going on (in) her life, she’s always got to be helping someone.  She’s a hard worker. I always made her work, if they (her son and daughter) needed a boot in the butt, they got a boot in the butt. I had to work hard, and I expected them to do it, and she wants to give her kids the same, you know?” 

Mrs. Lamb says of her daughter Dr. Purtzer, “Whitney is great with people but also savvy about economic and financial planning.  I think I taught her to be a proud independent woman.  She is beautiful, both inside and out, and that shows in the way she interacts with patients, staff, and everyone.” She says Whitney is winningly argumentative and persuasive, “Whitney wanted to go to a friend’s house to spend the night.  I really didn't think it was a good idea.  I had many reasons why I didn't think she should go.  We had a very long discussion about the event and she had a long list of reasons why she should go.  She pleaded her case so well, that even as I drove her to her friend’s house, still weighing the pros and cons, I couldn't give her a better reason as to why she should not go!”  

Her boss and mentor Dr. Lindsey Kintner says, “Her greatest strength is putting patients first.  Without them there is no business.  (She) has principled resolve which gives her clarity of purpose, and she is not afraid to cast a vision and see it through to implementation.” He describes Purtzer as a person who is able to be a friend and a colleague. “One of the coolest things about Whitney is her ability to take direction and yet not be a push over.  This will serve her well in the coming years. She doesn’t add drama to potentially flammable situations thus minimizing problems instead of exacerbating them.”   About being a woman entrepreneur, Kintner says, “I am idealistic enough to think in doesn’t matter.  It is about correct principles, hard work, and tenacity.  Neither sex has a monopoly on these.”  Does Purtzer have any weaknesses? He responds, “I’ll let you know when I find one!” 

The Challenge & Satisfaction of Running One’s Own Business   

Life as a businessperson is risk-filled and definitely not for the financially faint of heart. To begin or to buy out a business is a high tightrope wire act, where every step counts as one crosses from fledgling year one when most businesses fail to a lucrative proprietorship or privately owned corporation that survived years of a fraught-filled balancing act.  Managing people is the toughest part of her job.   She says, “Hiring good help and training someone really kind of go hand in hand. If you’re good help, you’re going to be easy to train. I can typically tell someone will make a good employee because they are eager, and they have a positive attitude and eagerness.”   The most common reason people do not come to work “is that they’re sick.  Um, some lie and some are honest and matter of fact. And some think I’m a complete idiot and think I believe the stories that they tell!  But I would say the majority are honest.  I just dismiss (the stories); I don’t even water the plant!”  Some people have surprised Coleman.  “I have a girl working for me right now she said ‘Oh I’ll work a little maybe just part-time.’ She was a heavy girl, and I thought she was not going to cut the mustard and now she’s a nearly two weeks in, and I did not think she would last a week!”  Coleman sighs and explains, “Lately people just do not care about the business or our customers in the same way I do, and it’s really hard to motivate them, even with financial incentives like raises and bonuses and outings It’s hard.”   

While her toughest challenge is to manage people, she’s grateful to have Lilves for a manager. “Nancy sets my schedule.  I just wait for her text message to tell me where to go and what to do.”  Nancy agrees that managing people is the toughest.  She explains that Tracy has a soft spot for needy employees who will say, “Oh I’m hurting for money. She’ll try to get them more hours; It’s not always a weakness but it can be.” She explains that Tracy’s desire to help her employees means she bonds with them in conversation as she labors alongside them, “She just likes to talk (with her employees) and therefore a little more things come out and therefore it’s different and that makes it hard!”   “As far as a female versus a male boss,” Lilves says, “I would say women are better and because of they see the quality more, at least in our business you know. We’ve had plenty of men come in and they don’t see what we see and I’ve had men for bosses, lots of them, and they’re kind of like, ‘Just do it!’ (but) and women care more and take pride in it.” 

Recently Coleman lost a contract with a business for whom she had worked 10 years.  The business’ actions read like a Three Stooges movie script.  The property manager (PM), who was leaving his position, and his assistant (now the full time PM), offered to sell her the company’s used business equipment – which, as it turned out, were not theirs to sell. Unaware of the mischief, Coleman agreed, paid a fair price, and loaded and transported the equipment in her truck at lunch, in full view of the office.  When the PM departed, the newly promoted PM, and the administrative office staff rebuffed Coleman, criticized her to her manager Lilves, and then terminated her contract.  Coleman asked for a meeting and explained in a formal letter the misunderstanding. She offered to return the items at no cost given the misrepresentation by the outgoing PM.  The company refused the letter, the meeting, and the contract. The company had no comment for the story. Coleman shrugs and says, “When you’re a contractor, you are a bottom feeder, and the employer can do whatever they want – fair or not.  At one point on a contract, one of my staff cleaned an office with a safe, and the employer accused her of taking money. She had no access to the safe. None.  Now I trusted her, as I do all of my employees, but I reimbursed the company for the money and later learned it was one of their own administrative staff members.  They did not want to tell their corporate office, so they blamed one of my girls.  I kept the contract, but I definitely had to take that hit financially.”    

Coleman says that being able to make a difference in peoples’ lives, her independence, the freedom to set her own hours and schedule, and making peoples’ lives more beautiful, organized, and attractive give her tremendous satisfaction.  Her best friend Huber says, “Ever since I’ve known her she does her own thing. She’s not someone who is a follower. She’s someone who is a leader. She does not do what’s expected. She thinks outside the box and people march to her tune and follow. She never liked school.  She’s never going to ask you to do something that she’s not going to do herself.  She’s down in the trenches with her workers. It’s not always butterflies and rainbows, and it’s dirty (work), and she motivates her workers.  She cares about them. She wants to know about their troubles. She wants to make a difference. She won’t let you take her for a ride – she’s tough when she needs to be tough, (and) she is not a mean boss, or a controlling one, or one that barks orders.”  Coleman says, “I just like doing good work. I like making bids for people for quality work that is below my competitors’ rates.  I want to make a good living, buy the nice things I want, but I don’t want to gouge my customers or the market.” Huber says, “We both had brothers who beat us up constantly!  I have 4 brothers and the one closest to me in age constantly beat me up and Tony (her brother) did that, too and we laughed.  We just kind of go through life trying to help others and we do not take things for granted.”  Interestingly, Coleman and Huber credit their brothers with toughening them up and encouraging risk-taking!

Above all, Coleman wants to maintain her reputation as a trusted and reliable businesswoman – her word is her bond. She works long hours Monday to Friday and sometimes weekends and holidays, pulling 16 to 18 hour days when a last minute apartment cleaning and painting job opens. However, she says, “That’s what separates us from our competition. If a business needs it done last minute tonight, tomorrow or next week, we’re there.” She often asks other successful business owners how they work efficiently, so she can improve. Presently, she wants to find a good seminar training course on management for Lilves to help run the company.  The long term plan ten-year plan?  She smiles and says, “I think to be able to pull back from the day to day and let my employees work the contracts, to purchase a beautiful home in the Caribbean, and to watch my children and grandchildren grow.”

Like Coleman, Purtzer says managing people, customers and colleagues, is the toughest part of running a business. She shakes her head saying, “It’s a fine line, and I battle that line constantly!  The girls will tell you the pregnancy has made me nicer!  In this location, people make appointments, and they do not show up or they make appointments, and they are 15 minutes late.  But there is also an accountability issue.  We’ve had to make a strict 15-minute late rule.  Late arrivals leave the chair open, and I have no one, and now I have nothing to do, and I’m not getting paid.”    What does she do with the downtime?  “When you’re the owner, you have always got stuff going on out there – return phone calls, the girls have questions.  I flip through journals, get the best research. Some of it is worth reading, but some of it is so new that they’ll come through with a new article. I’ll also make referrals to doctors about (patients with) diabetes, and I’m calling patients back when they call with questions.”  She says she has various clientele – from single parents, to the working class/poor, the unemployed, as well as professors at Notre Dame. 

Her first client one typical day is a single parent with 3 children ages 12 years to 18 months, so she puts in the Finding Nemo video while she examines the middle schooler.  Very late to the appointment, Purtzer learns the girl has standardized tests so she’s even more efficient and speedy in to hustle the student back the school state-mandated testing.  “This is how some days go. Some day’s people don’t show up! It’s either feast or famine, and you get whole families coming in screaming or crying. The mom comes in with all three kids, and the kids are off the wall so that was one of the reasons I got the t.v., a Black Friday purchase!”    She’s always teaching clients about good health, better eye care, and responsibility for both. About her clientele she reflects, “If mom and dad don’t pay for glasses, there is a whole issue of entitlement and that’s a problem. It’s frustrating!  (Then there’s a) kid (who) has taken care of their stuff (and) does not get a new pair!” She says if the government pays, a client gets a pair of glasses even when there is gross irresponsibility, and that’s tough for Purtzer who wants her families to be healthy and responsible. She was a young student and professional paying every penny for her business, schooling, and amenities, so she knows she can expect from all her patients, too.    

Purtzer sometimes worries as a medical practioner about getting audited. “It would be Medicare, Medicaid, VSP, or another eye insurance plan. A lot of major medical companies will have a vision plan.  You are more likely to get audited if there are tons of codes coming through that are the same and computers make that easier.   What’s the likelihood of getting audited by the government?  She responds, “Absolutely we can. They can say give me 20 files, and we’re going to make sure you’re billing and coding properly.  They’re going to make sure the doctors are billing and coding properly, and if your codes are off, they (the insurance company) can take back their payments on all the incorrect records.  The more they find, the more investigating they do.”   

 Being a sounding board for the staff is one of her chief priorities. They daily handle the stressed and running late clients who blow off steam on them. “They have it way worse than I do. People will come in and disrespect my staff on the phone or in person all the time. They come in here and suddenly I’m the doctor and they’ll respect me, and it’s strange because I’m much younger.   Clients can throw their weight around out there, but a lot of times in here they are much nicer.”   “Kathy and Michelle, her front office administrative staff members, sit back to back in close quarters, so there are bound to be conflicts.  I think that’s why Lindsey is using this book Ten Habits of Highly Effective People and reminding people that your way is not the only way, but to remind people that you have to be flexible and respect people.” How does she manage people who are older and more experienced?  “You just have to come in and know your own role, but I’m also only 28, and (sometimes) I don’t know. If I am short one staff member it makes my life so much harder. It makes my life more hectic and at the end of the day we’re all pooped. I’ve worked around doctors, and you don’t need to be mean to staff and talk down to them. That’s rude.  You’re going to have a hard time, without them, getting through your day. I mean they’re called support staff for a reason.”   What happens if someone does not work out?  She reasons, “People look at getting fired or moving on as a negative thing, but it doesn’t have to be. We had to fire a girl, but maybe this girl is in a better place and almost instantly our office’s morale changed.”   

Her mother Mrs. Lamb says, “Today she has to overcome some challenges in order to purchase her business in 5 years: a new baby, school debt, her husband's school debt, the usual planning (and) time management, (and) budget.  (But) talking to her one believes she will do it all.”  Purtzer, already an up and coming brilliant young optometrist and well-respected business woman and partner says debt worries her, too.  “My school debt is straight up $200,000! Optometry is exempt from low-income debt relief.  You go through these government programs, and they pay the debt down but it’s longer over the long haul, even then with the debt relief it is a cost benefit analysis.  Go into private practice or work with one of these programs.  It’s not exactly what they say it is.” 

 On a day she’s observed at work, she laughs, “Today is the first official day of maternity pants! I tried the rubber band, but it’s only 22 weeks!  We are not going to find out the sex of the child.” All day she answers questions about her pregnancy, motherhood, and her practice while she works.  She’s matter of fact, efficient, blunt, direct, honest, down to earth, and sensible as she peppers clients about their health and eyesight.  These qualities win client trust, among the cynically rich and the burned out working class patients.   Despite carrying, at a very young age, the weight of the practice’s future on her shoulders she says, “I think if you have a successful business it’s because people are talking about what a good business you are.  I mean if that guy goes home and tells people how great I am, and I’ve noticed them, then I’ll see one patient and then the next week I’ll see the husband and the kid, and I mean that’s success to me, people talking positively about me and that’s what’s going to make the business grow.” 

She de-stresses in a variety of ways.  “I like to exercise, I like to go on vacation, I like to get massages; But I think I get to go home to detox, too. I feel blessed that my family is so supportive.  My family is in good health, and I don’t have to deal with divorce and family problems. There’s not a lot of family drama. My friends? They’re great.  One of my biggest blessings is that my home life is not stressful. My husband and I have a great marriage. I don’t have to worry about having a hard conversation or a fight with him. I can de-stress.”

Her long term plans?  Her husband Chris Purtzer says, “Well, she doesn’t own the business at this point, but I tell people (about) her. If someone even on a (refrigeration) call, says they need an eye doctor I just try to spread the word. Obviously we all go to see her.  Again she wanted to do something in the medical field. It’s a well paying job (and) there’s not a ton of responsibility (as to life and death medical issues.)”   He says, “You set your own hours, I was a little worried she’d get halfway through and not like it, but she really loves it, and she gets a lot of joy working on peoples’ eyes.”  Purtzer says she wants to build her practice, help the community, give a professional opportunity to other young people like her and raise a family with her husband in a small town with good values. While the work is hard she’s gets tremendous satisfaction from building the eye medical practice, meeting the needs of her patients, and working alongside a smart professional staff. 

Statistics on Women & Business

Purtzer and Coleman are not alone in the business trenches.  The consigliere to Congress, the President, and the Small Business Association on women-owned businesses, called The National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) has crunched the numbers and they show a trajectory of a successful bright future for the Colemans and Purtzers of America.  As of 2012, women-owned firms, who have employees, generated $1.2 trillion in receipts.  From 2007 to 2012 these employers increased employee pay by 25.8%, or $47.0 billion dollars.  As of 2012, there are now 9,878,397 women-owned businesses in the United States – an increase of 26.8% from 2007 to 2012, specifically 2,086,282 more businesses.  If business investors were baseball owners, to win the World Series, they’d draft a woman for coach, manager, and every infield position– specifically the pitcher.  Interestingly, per the NWBC, and as to black women owned businesses, Indiana ranks 3rd in the country for highest percentage of black women-owned business relative to men-owned and equally owned businesses.  Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio were 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th, respectively.   In the Olympics of encouraging minority owned women businesses, the Midwest wins solid gold. 

Tracy Coleman and Whitney Purtzer have a strong work ethic, energetic drive to succeed, and inspired zeal to serve others and give back to the community which make them happy their successful business women.  Above all, these Indiana lady entrepreneurs have a natural, feminine, unique service-minded attitude in everything they say and do which inspires girls and women to forge a similar path, saying, “Girl, I’m going to mind my own business!”      

 Note: Since writing, Dr. Whitney and her husband Mr. Chris Purtzer welcomed baby boy Austin Thomas June 27. Purtzer says, “He is absolutely perfect, and Chris and I are overjoyed with the arrival of our happy, healthy baby!”