Today we’d like to introduce you to Estella Hernandez.
Estella started her journey in Liquor licensing in 1987. She worked for a couple of licensing agencies throughout her career. The first one she was with briefly and the second one is where she spent a large amount of her career. She worked there for 30 years, which is unheard of for the most part these days.
She was always a loyal worker; she would stay late most days. She would take her lunch break and instead of eating she would rush to go pick her son up from school. She would then return to work with her son and continue to work into the night. When almost everyone would be gone, she would be the last person there working. She did this for many years, up until a few years ago, to the shock of her and many of her coworkers, they were notified that the company had been sold and that there was a new owner that was taking over. If you can imagine, you have been in the same routine for many years and to find out that it was all going to change.
On one fateful day, Estella determined that it was time for a change. She decided she was going to leave, now like most folk after having worked doing the same thing for 30 years, there is not much that you can go into. She decided that she was going to start her own business doing what she loved and continue helping people get into the business. Now she had no business experience other than having sold Herbal products for a company and a short time selling Avon.
Determined she stumbled through the small business world as most do when you have minimal experience, and now almost two years later, the business is stronger than ever continuing to grow despite facing major setbacks! Our motto is we can only go forward you never look back.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We have faced setbacks along the way, When you are an employee for a company, you never quite grasp how much work goes into keeping you employed by making sure the machine that is the business running.
When you start a business there is a lot that you learn in what seems like a very short time, Estella got a crash course in business from day one.
The first question that you have to ask your self or the question that holds most people back from starting a business is how am I going to pay for this? Like most people, we didn’t have the network of business owners around us as we do now and when you start to ask around, it can be really difficult to determine what is good information and what is wrong information. However we navigated through by the skin of our teeth, We even sold our house that we had lived in since 1992 to make this all happen.
The second huge hurdle that we had to cross was how do we market this company and what does that even mean? If your whole life you have never cold-called someone and then you have to learn first hand what a cold call is it can be humbling, to say the least. Also, if you have never “networked” before you show up to a room full of people and have to explain what you do, it can be very intimidating.
That being said, Estella has grown so much over the last couple of years, Now when she is calling on clients, she knows exactly what to say she gets the decision-makers on the phone no problem. In public or even at networking event to say she has come out of her shell would be an understatement, She has bloomed from a timid Terrier* to a full-blown Wolf!
*Not saying anything against terriers, it is just a metaphor.
Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
Hernandez & Associates is a Liquor license company, Basically what we do is if you have a location that you want to sell alcoholic beverages, you need a permit. We help our clients to navigate the permitting process from start to finish and then even continue by keeping up with their renewals. We not only do TABC permits. We can help them with just about any permit. However, that is where we specialize.
We are proud of the relationships we build with each client because our purpose is to help people get into the business. We want to make sure that getting a liquor permit is the right thing for our client. Transparency is really big with us because we know that this is potentially the livelihood of our clients and their staff.
We would say the thing that most sets us apart is the network of businesses we surround ourselves with. We want to help our clients get into the business, so even if we can’t directly help them if there is something they need and we know someone who can help them, we will refer someone to them that specializes in that particular need.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We have the goals that we want to achieve this year and going forward. We would like to continue to grow as a company and continue to pick up larger clients. We plan on adding more staff to our team that would include more in house services that we can provide. Increasing the number of states that we work in also. 2020 is only the beginning for us!
Contact Info:
- Website: Hernandezandassociates.net
- Phone: 713-514-4801
- Instagram: @hernandezandassociates
- Facebook: @hernandezandassociates
Image Credit:
Evan Salinas
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