Employee Database
	Performance Appraisal of Employees

Making Small Business Management Easier Using Today's Technology

Unable to find adequate software for E.S. Dygert’s employee compensation needs, Larry Goode designed his own programs. Now he’s marketing to other small-business owners and has to manage the growth of two companies.

Looking Goode

Necessity is the mother of
invention: Larry Goode turns familiar
saying into promising enterprise.

By Bobbie Keller

What do you do when you can’t find a product that fits your needs? Larry Goode, president of E.S. Dygert Co., created his own with the help of outside resources, and now is sharing his creation ?two human resources software programs ?with other small firms through a growing new company, Goode Enterprises Inc.

Goode Enterprises and its first two products stemmed from a human resources need at E.S. Dygert, a 40-year-old distributor of hydraulic seals and packings, corrosion resistant materials, and other industrial products that has grown from $1 million to $6 million in sales since Goode, a former employee, purchased the firm in 1987. The company employs 14 people, most of whom have been with the company more than 10 years.

When a member of E.S. Dygert’s sales staff came to Goode in early 1996 with a concern about fairness of the company’s compensation policy, Goode listened.

“I told him if we were going to re-evaluate his pay schedule, we needed to look at how we compensate the whole sales group,” says Goode. The resulting review produced a revised sales incentive plan and sparked the initiative to look at pay programs for the rest of the staff. For a year, a three-member employee committee, representing various areas of the company, discussed compensation issues.

“We wanted to tie pay with performance,” says Goode. “I wanted reviews to be a collaborative effort because I never enjoyed playing God with people’s careers. Employees said that if E.S. Dygert established a peer-review system, they wanted a high degree of anonymity. That led us to explore PC-based software.”

After committee members found no software in the company’s price range that offered the services they wanted, Goode asked Jim Urbach, an independent programmer, for help. With input from Goode, Urbach custom-designed a human resources program. When Urbach suggested the product might be of interest commercially, Goode agreed, and his life as a software publisher/developer began.

In mid-1997, Goode asked a dozen of his business contacts ?companies and individuals, including an HR consultant, an accountant, and an employment law attorney ?to review the software informally, and received valuable input. With appropriate tweakings, two software programs were released in June 1998: Data-Aide, an employee database; and Evalu-Aide, a performance appraisal tool.

The two programs are easy to install and use for anyone familiar with Windows, says Goode. They work together as well as separately, so there is no double entry required, and together they are priced more economically than similar packages on the market. The products’ target is companies with between 10 and 100 employees and less than $50 million in sales, with a small, if any, HR department.

“There are several million companies in the nation that meet that criteria, so we have a large marketing opportunity,” says Goode. “The problem is our as-yet small staff: Jim [Urbach], my wife, Carol, and I.”

GETTING THE WORD OUT

To market its product, Goode Enterprises has developed a Web site (www.goode-ent.com), although Goode admits it is difficult to find, with search engines listing 4 million “Goodes” and 2 million “Larry Goodes.” The company also has purchased direct-mail and email lists, which have produced an even better response, and is working with various trade associations and small industrial distributors similar to E.S. Dygert.

Goode says developing a totally new product with a totally new name has taught him such things as how to price a product and how to define a market and reach prospective customers ?challenges he has not had to face with E.S. Dygert, which is well-established in a narrow market niche. He also has been surprised at the details involved in the startup effort, such as finding a company to print the computer program CDs.

Goode’s greatest challenge now is balancing limited time and resources. “We’ve put a lot of sweat equity into Goode Enterprises, spending evenings and weekends on mass mailings,” he says. “But I have to remember that I still have E.S. Dygert to run. Luckily, I’m blessed with responsible employees to help me do that.”

Even as he works to market Goode Enterprises’ first two products, Goode has ideas for future development. In the idea stage are upgrades for Data-Aide and Evalu-Aide, but Goode doesn’t want to stop there. “I have ideas for other management-related programs that would help small businesses,” he says. “I don’t want to limit Goode Enterprises to just human resources products. Being a one-product operation is risky.” Goode also is exploring new marketing options, such as working with stores, consultants, and direct agents.

So far, Goode says, his efforts to develop Goode Enterprises have been a labor of love ?he hasn’t yet made a profit. So why is he doing it?

“Because nobody told me I couldn’t,” he says. “I’ve always been fascinated with technology, always needing to have the latest software, so owning a software company is a natural for me. I’ve enjoyed the experience of taking a software product from idea to reality and the challenge of marketing it.”

Bobbie Keller is a Twin Cities-based freelance writer.

Minnesota Business & Opportunities /MARCH 1999  Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.