POOR ‘country’ boy turned owner/operator of an international consulting and publishing company, Alvin Day is no stranger to hard work in the pursuit of his dreams.

The 50-plus-year-old opened the doors to United States-based Empowerment Institute, formerly Mountain Movers, in 1993, walking away from a six-figure income to make it happen.

He had, up to that point, worked with Fortune 500 entities P&G, a consumer products manufacturing company; and Bristol-Myers Squibb, a household products and medical supplies company.

His 12 years of experience with the two companies, he said, proved invaluable even as they helped to fuel the desire to run his own operation — one focussed on inspiring people to identify and reach their own goals, whether personal or professional.

“It was a great period of growth and development. I believe every would-be entrepreneur should get at least a couple years experience with a massive, market leadership company that imparts the professionalism and strategic thinking to make you an accomplished businessperson,” Day, who holds degrees in Spanish and business from the University of Wisconsin, told Career & Education.

“Without that experience, I could have been a rough-cut peddler lacking understanding of ‘Best in Class… Best Practices’. (Instead), as a little boy from the tiny town of Frankfield in Clarendon, I found myself thinking in the massive ways of big business and operating in the world of multi-billion-dollar enterprises. It was mind-expanding. I learned the structures, strategies and principles of delivering customer value at the highest levels of excellence,” he added.

Still, Day had the urge to run his own enterprise — one he’d had since he was a teenager in Clarendon.

“The entrepreneurial bug bit me when I was 15 years old and going to Edwin Allen High School. My friend Dereck Levy (and I) were deviants; definitely not satisfied with just being students. We were looking for a way to supplement the resources we got from our family’s meagre funds. As members of our high school camera club, we joined forces and started a photography business,” he recalled.

“We had a captive market of 1,300 students. Every single school day, students lined up at break time, giving us cash in exchange for their photographs that we had taken, developed and printed. We learned by instinct how to produce with quality, communicate and deliver value, and price to make a profit. The autonomy, passion and excitement of a successful small business were intoxicating,” added Day.

The married father of two also recalled how he longed to operate his own business “immediately after the honeymoon period wore off” his first job out of college.

“I dreamed of sitting at my desk and talking to business partners and clients in various countries around the world, then getting on a plane and flying off to work in those various places,” said Day, who has traveled to such places as Argentina, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Holland and Spain, among others, doing what he knows now is his passion.

His opportunity to launch out on his own came in 1993 when, he said, Bristol-Myers Squibb sold his division.

“I had several job offers from massive companies and I turned them all down. I didn’t want to start over in a new job,” noted the now executive director of The Empowerment Institute. “I wanted a business where I could use the power of words to deliver value, change lives and boost businesses — a company to change the world without widgets and inventory.”

Initially, the company was called Mountain Movers.

“We started as Mountain Movers, imparting the thinking, competencies and strategies for attaining excellence, even if one has to move the proverbial mountain. That name worked for a while, but then people found us in the Yellow Pages and began calling for moving and storage services. The marketplace wasn’t getting the message clearly. The ‘Empowerment Institute’ says: we empower people and organisations with the competencies and the fire-in-the-belly passion to deliver excellence,” he noted.

On offering at the institute are:

* leadership and executive coaching – hard and soft skills that convert managers to leaders and make leaders inspire a following;

* presentation skills and public speaking – the best practices leadership process for how to deliver with power to audiences of two to 2,000;

* personal empowerment – the thinking methods that ignite a fire-in-the-belly passion for excellence, both personal and professional;

* selling skills and strategies – how to get more ‘yes’ without being aggressive or pushy; and

* category management – the global best practices process by which suppliers, retailers and distributors collaborate to deliver maximum consumer value.

To help support his offerings, Day has also authored a number of books, including If Caterpillars Can Fly ~ So Can I, Persuasion Power and The Flight Manuals.

And the cost of accessing his services?

“It is difficult to provide finite answers here, as so much depends on the time commitment and the nature of the programme. Let’s say it this way: In America and Europe, my prices are not the lowest in the market. And in Jamaica, my rates are more affordable; maybe it’s a soft spot for my local clientele because when I work in Jamaica, I can feast easily on real ‘skubeech’ (escovitched) fish, curry goat and ackee and salt fish,” he said.

Meanwhile, it cost him zero dollars to get the business going.

“After quitting the big company job world in 1993, the president at one of my former competitors offered me a job as international director. I turned him down and asked if he would be willing to hire me as a management consultant. He agreed, paid me US$2,000 per day and I was off and running,” Day told Career & Education.

Of sacrifices, he said he made “virtually none” — except sheer hard work.

“One contract led to another and that went on steadily for 10 years until I shifted focus and began writing books,” he said.

And the business continues to grow even as he counts among his clients Colgate-Palmolive, Campbell’s Soup, Guardian Life Insurance, ScotiaBank Jamaica, Sainsbury’s Retail Stores in London and Winn Dixie in Florida, in addition to the Jamaica Employers Federation.

“At the moment, it is growing faster than I’ve seen in over a decade. Last year was like the biblical seven years of famine. This year is so great, I am looking to find skilled, capable business partners and administrative assistants,” he said.

The Kingston-born but Frankfield, Clarendon-bred Day has no regrets.

“There is no replacement for it (entrepreneurship). With all the risk and turbulence of the marketplace, you need at least a little home business these days — and I teach people how to do this and make money,” Day said.

“I feel grateful; I feel that I am doing far better than I deserve. Today, I live a life of abundant blessings, not because I deserve them or am good, but because God has a sense of humour. He routinely does great things through simple people. Yet, I would not give up the experience of my childhood if you paid me a million dollars,” he added.

“I was never unhappy for long, depressed or poor; all of those are conditions of the mind. My upbringing was a happy one of visions, dreams and aspirations. I learned to be real; to love the flowers in the valley while yearning for the mountain top,” Day said further.

He has been quick to credit his grandmother who raised him in the absence of his parents. It is she, he said, who helped to equip him with the essential tools he needed to make a success of his life.

“I was a child with no dignity, no social respectability. For the first 20 years of life, I had no electricity, running water or inside toilets. I bathed in the Rio Minho, often rode a donkey, hitch-hiked to Knox College when doing my A’levels and all this time, studied by lamplight. All I had was a dream instilled in me by my saintly grandmother, Miss Daisy,” Day told Career & Education.

“She taught me that if I trust in God, obey the law and paid attention in school, one day, I would grow up to be greater than all my present detractors could possibly imagine. There are many from my childhood, some of my teachers included, who back then did not even expect me to make it,” he added.

Day’s advice to prospective GameChangers

* Sit, think, plan and prepare, seeking out the advice of visionary, experienced and trusted mentors.

* Do not quit when you are in weak situations; quit in moments of strength. It is a bad investment to sell your stock when the price is low.

* Do not change to escape something, but to find something.

* Launch out with managed risk, having counted the cost and prepared for some eventualities.

* Launch out with faith, confidence and wisdom.

* Recognise that change is pervasive in life and business today, but remember that the best of followers respond well to change; the best of leaders don’t. Instead, they create change; new, captivating realities that woo lesser souls to respond.

— Alvin Day can be reached via e-mail at info@AlvinDay.com or via telephone at 561-432-5610.