Switching Roles

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Case in point: children and parents who attend Robert Cole's Little Gyms don't care that Cole is a 73-year-old international tax lawyer working in a field that attracts mostly women in their 20s. Cole has four Little Gym franchises in the northern Virginia area. The outlets offer a variety of motor-skills and developmental programs for children up to age 12. Throughout his career, Cole has wanted to work more directly with people instead of with large corporations; he rediscovered his love for children after becoming a grandfather seven years ago. "I don't care what people think," he says. "I'm really enjoying watching these kids grow and develop, and I like working with the staff. It is so different from international tax law, and that helps keep it new and refreshing for me."

As Gene Fairbrother notes, if you're going into a reverse-gender business--especially a bit later in life--it is almost essential that you at least have some background in a related field to get funding and be taken seriously by clients, suppliers and peers. That is especially true if you are starting a business from scratch, as opposed to buying into a franchise, as Cole did. Role-reversing boomers need to utilize all the contacts they have made over the years to help attract customers. They may find more acceptance than they would in a corporate setting, but they will still have to work harder than the competitors who are the traditional gender.

For instance, Marla Letizia, 52, was able to use her background as a television reporter to help launch her business, Mobile Billboards of Las Vegas. The four-year-old company, with sales of $1.5 million and 30 employees, features billboards on a fleet of seven trucks. The mobile-billboard industry, which is 99% male run, was new and exciting to Letizia and seemed to offer an entrepreneur a lot of potential for growth. "People thought I was crazy, a girly-girl like me who is careful with her hair and makeup working with truckers and going into such a 'guy' kind of business," says Letizia, who has two grown children. "But I don't paint, garden or sew, and I wanted to make my mark on the world in a way that made sense to me, even if not to everyone else."

Jonell Chavez, 49, was able to draw on a lifetime of valuable experience when she bought JD's Farm and Ranch, a hardware and farming store, nearly two years ago. Chavez, who grew up on a farm, had been working in the Moriarty, N.M., store since 1984, doing everything from loading cattle feed and ordering supplies to waiting on customers. When the owner of the shop wanted to sell, Chavez saw a perfect opportunity for herself. She didn't want to be out of a job, wasn't ready to retire and hoped to stay in a business that she had grown to love.

Her background was crucial when she was seeking acquisition financing, which she ultimately obtained from Business Loan Express LLC, a New York City--based small-business lender that provides loans of up to $5 million to companies nationwide. "Even though there are no women that I know of running a hardware/farming store," says Chavez, "I was able to capitalize on my knowledge of this field to get a loan and also gain credibility with my vendors."