Millionaire Businessman Talks Making the Jump from Employee to Entrepreneur

When to make the jump from employee to entrepreneur is often a decision that requires a lot of consideration. After all, being an employee guarantees a steady paycheck and those monthly bills won’t go on hiatus while you’re building your business. When Oscar Horton had the opportunity in 1999 to acquire a commercial truck dealership, his friends and mentors had different opinions.

The dealership represented a good opportunity, Horton thought. He had the experience, currently employed as a vice president and general manager of and General Manager of a foundry subsidiary of The International Harvester Co., a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, construction equipment and commercial trucks.

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“I was talking to my mentors who also knew me very well and said it would be a good thing to do,” he recalls. “But as I talked to friends and family and others, they thought I was nuts.”

In the end, Horton decided to go for it.

“I knew that there was some risk in the process,” he admits. “I guess my confidence level in what I had learned over that 27 years left me with two conclusions. One was that I could make this work. The second one, if it didn’t work, I could find another job in the marketplace.”

There were some stumbles along the way, but over the next decade, Horton and his team would triple revenues and increase profitability for Tampa, Florida-based Sun State International Trucks L.L.C.

(No. 29 on the BE INDUSTRIAL/SERVICES list with $106.1 million in sales).

Fortunately, Horton didn’t listen to his naysayers and over the following 13 years, the new team in place grew the company from $28 million in annual sales to its present $100 million-plus. Drastic steps were taken to accomplish this, however.

Revised the pricing structure.  The business was only marginally profitable, says Horton. “We would look, for example, at parts margins, which might have been 20% and the best [competitor] in the marketplace getting 30. So why can’t we get the 10?”

Replaced 90% of the workforce. According to Horton, many of the personnel at the time “had gotten used to just sort of getting by, and that didn’t work,” he asserts. “Probably should have moved faster on that. But I wasn’t sure where I was going to go get the talent I was looking for so I was willing to take the time to try to work with that group.”

Younger employees with the right education were hired and carefully trained as they gained experience.

Accounting lessons were given to all employees. To better understand profit margins and operating costs management, employees were taught how to read income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements. “Banks had to know that [understanding finances] was important so we could go out in the marketplace and get traditional capital to keep growing the business.”

Identified new revenue streams. When the company was acquired in 1999, the business had six revenue streams, 43% of which came from new truck sales. By 2012, four more revenue streams were identified,

reducing dependency on new truck sales to 15% of total revenues.

Sun State sells all makes and models of new and used trucks and tractors, offers parts and servicing, rentals, leasing and provides contract maintenance, financing, insurance and aftermarket services. It’s grown to include five locations, employing 180 workers in West Central Florida. The 60-year-old Horton has no plans to retire any time soon, but plans to groom daughters, Kelli and AlIsan, as they enter the business.

“I would very much like to see this be more than a one generation family business,” he says. “And that’s the reason I’ve worked and spent time trying to develop the girls.”