During the halcyon days of the dot-com boom, Roger Boyce shuttled between his Monmouth County home and Silicon Valley, where he worked for and founded high tech start-ups.

It was a rough commute even by New Jersey standards, but the entrepreneur kept it up for almost fifteen years before retiring from the industry in 2009.

That Boyce found himself restless after abandoning this frenetic pace should come as no surprise. Soon after returning to New Jersey, he began putting his business acumen to use in Asbury Park as an informal mentor.

Referring to the local bicycle shop with which he started, Boyce said, “I was helping them with general business coaching on a volunteer basis, then I picked up another client and another, then I had a half a dozen people I was mentoring.”

Around the time Boyce focused on his community, an Asbury Park community group called Interfaith Neighbors set its sights on business.

“We see it’s economic conditions that drive families into trouble,” said Paul McEvily, Interfaith Neighbors’ associate executive director, “So we decided to devote some of our resources to helping people create businesses that will create better jobs.”

For the past quarter-century, Interfaith Neighbors has provided vital social services: it helps teenagers earn high-school equivalency degrees and gain job skills, it builds and secures housing for low-income Monmouth County residents, and it runs the local Meals on Wheels operation.

When the group sought to foster local entrepreneurship, it turned to Boyce to lead the effort. The result is a business incubator that — since launching in fall of 2011 — has served more than 100 entrepreneurs and actively mentors 18 companies.

McEvily said when he and Boyce explored the business incubator idea by touring others throughout the region, they came across some encouraging data: “If you’re an entrepreneur and you incubate your business for up to two years, you have an 80 percent chance of remaining in business after three years,” McEvily said, adding that “incubated” businesses are likely to remain in the area in which they launched.

Boyce said his position — though fulfilling — is unexpected. “I’m the last guy you’d think would be in a community development role,” he said, “but as entrepreneur, you’re a problem-solver. So I’m just applying the entrepreneurial process to the problem of unemployment.”

Boyce and his colleagues will soon continue their quest for economic vitality by opening the Kula Cafe, an eatery that will employ local residents and aim to train them for jobs in Asbury Park’s growing entertainment and restaurant industries. Funders such as the Spring Lake Five, Jersey Mike’s Subs and PNC Bank made the café possible.

This December 2012 photo shows the space that will become the Kula Cafe.

The idea for the Kula Cafe came from Cafe Reconcile, the New Orleans restaurant — founded by social entrepreneur Craig Cuccia — that serves much the same purposes. “That’s how this got started,” Boyce said, “we got inspired seeing what someone else had done that’s been proven to work.”

If Interfaith Neighbors continues its entrepreneurship-related work apace, it’s likely groups from around the country will, in turn, seek Boyce’s advice on what he’s proven to work.

Intersect Fund client Janis Blayne-Paul just got a new outlet through which to exhibit her unique, stone art.

The Brodsky Gallery at Princeton’s Chauncy Conference Center will display Paul’s work through March 31st; visitors can meet Blayne-Paul at the gallery during an opening event from 4 to 8 p.m. next Thursday, Feb. 21st.

On rough stones, Blayne-Paul etches a number of designs that reflect her customers’ interests, hobbies, or religious beliefs. Some feature yogic images like the “ohm” symbol; others depict Hindu deities or Hebrew good-luck charms. One of Blayne-Paul’s most popular stones features a lithe runner mid-stride.

Some customers have embedded the stones into kitchen backsplashes; others have used them as stepping-stones in gardens. One used a version of the “runner” stone to decorate the runners’ supply store she owns.

Edison mayor Antoinette Ricigliano (left) helps Fund client Patricia Moreno cut the ribbon on her new salon — Morgan’s Hair Mastery — during its grand-opening ceremony on Feb. 7th.

When Patricia Moreno enrolled in an Intersect Fund business training class almost three years ago, she’d been working as a hairdresser for others and looking forward to start a business of her own.

This month, the grand-opening of Morgan’s Hair Mastery marked the realization of Moreno’s dream.

Moreno moved slowly but surely toward her goal. She initially sought to pursue a partnership that eventually dissolved, and she registered the current iteration of her business in the spring of 2011.

She continued doing hair on a commission basis as she hatched plans for striking out on her own. Last summer, she found a suitable space in Edison and received an Intersect Fund loan to help fix it up.

Then, on February 7th — Moreno’s birthday — the business hosted its grand-opening. Moreno’s salon — Morgan’s Hair Mastery — is located at 246 Plainfield Avenue in Edison, N.J.

In the past 11 months, the Intersect Fund has received 75 applications from Perth Amboy businesses and has disbursed more than $46,000 over 19 loans.

Here’s a breakdown of the types of loans we disbursed:

• Eight credit-builder loans
• Five disaster-relief loans
• Six expansion loans

The Perth Amboy-based Jewish Renaissance Foundation helped ensure the Intersect Fund could expand its work in Perth Amboy, a city with a high concentration of entrepreneurs and one that Superstorm Sandy hit especially hard. The pins on the map at right represent locations of businesses that applied for loans; the blue pins represent disaster-relief loan applications.

The loans went to businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants, clothing stores, and more. Although the Intersect Fund is based in New Brunswick, we send our coaches and loan officers out to cities and towns throughout New Jersey. And with more than 700,000 microbusinesses in the Garden State, we’ve got our work cut out for us.

For longtime hairdresser Alison Dominguez, entrepreneurial ambition grew from a simple question: “If I can work for myself, why not do it?”

Late last year, an Intersect Fund loan helped her locate and renovate a space on Sayreville’s Main Street that would soon house her business: Salon 107. The salon will host its grand opening this weekend, on Feb. 2nd and 3rd.

The Edison resident has worked in cosmetology for more than a decade, most recently managing a branch of a well-known hair salon chain.

Dominguez’s desire to own a business helped guide her over the bumpy path toward opening her salon:

First, the floor had to go. The building once housed a dance studio, and the multiple levels of padding underfoot — designed to soften falls and preserve dancers’ knees — had accumulated mold.

After fixing the floor, Dominguez had to spend a week renovating bathroom so it hewed to accessibility standards.

If the first two obstacles were foreseeable, the third blindsided even the area’s most seasoned entrepreneurs: Superstorm Sandy. The storm knocked power out of Dominguez’s soon-to-open store for a week, and it created problems that plumbers — in especially high demand at the time — had to fix.

While Dominguez’s storm-related challenges paled in comparison to those other business owners faced, they still delayed her grand opening for two weeks, potentially costing her thousands of dollars in sales.

To make up for lost time, Dominguez is working hard to spread the word about her new business. She’s also offering special prices for customers who check her out soon: until Saturday, Feb. 9th, haircuts are only $8 for children and seniors and $10 for everyone else.

In the near future, Dominguez said, the salon will cater to prom-going students and bridal parties. It is located at 107 Main Street in Sayreville, N.J.

Most small-business owners start their firms in hopes of earning some extra money and — if they’re lucky — making a living for themselves and their families.

Noelani Musciaro’s goal is somewhat more ambitious: she hopes to earn enough revenue to donate $1 million per year to charities that feed the hungry in America.

Musicaro’s business — an online store called Figlie di Fortuna — sells fair trade foods and crafts, organic clothing, and crystal jewelry the Hillsborough resident makes by hand. When the business gets underway, she will donate a set portion of each sale to Feeding America and Blessings in a Backpack, both nonprofits that aim to alleviate hunger in the United States.

Calling it America’s “dirty little secret,” Musicaro said hunger receives too little attention in given how pervasive it is. Indeed, the National Poverty Center reports that in 2010, more than one in five American children were poor. “You heard nothing about it in the last Presidential election,” Musicaro said, adding, “They talk about economic recovery, but if you’re not eating, what does that mean for you?”

Musicaro sought to bring poverty to the fore when she ran for Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey in 2009 on the “Middle Class Empowerment” ticket, only to find her campaign — operating as it did from the margins of Garden State politics — was “pretty much ignored.” Winning only 2,538 votes, Musicaro doubted whether electoral politics was best vehicle through which to tackle poverty.

So she continued going to work, selling jewelry on the side, and volunteering when she could. Then, when she lost her job in December of 2011, she joined the ranks of those she had long sought to help.

“I see how easily I could end up on the street and hungry. What’s the difference between me and anyone else?”

If you knew nothing about Musicaro except that she’s started a social business and made a principled run for public office, you might assume she’s a well-heeled denizen of the charity circuit.

In-fact, Musicaro’s family tread a financially precarious path when she was growing up, and her recent job loss drove the issue of poverty home. She said her living expenses — though low — devour her unemployment benefits. “I see how easily I could end up on the street and hungry,” Musicaro said, asking, “What’s the difference between me and anyone else?”

Musicaro said her experience ought to debunk the notion that those living below the poverty line are necessarily grappling with some mental or emotional flaw. “I’m just a person, just like they are people, and circumstances happen,” Musicaro said, adding that for many, the difference between living under a roof and in the street is having family with whom to stay.

Although Musicaro can rattle off statistics about poverty and evaluate efforts to assuage it, one gets the sense the issue’s softer side — stories of warmth in an economy that can seem sterile — is what motivates her. In addition to merchandise and facts about hunger, visitors to Musicaro’s website find a page labeled, “The Kindness Conversations;” it features video interviews with a variety of people — including me — about acts of kindness they have witnessed or received.

Online, Musicaro writes that her company seeks to effect “an awakening in humanity through kindness, selflessness, trust, generosity, compassion and goodwill.” Such an intention seems ambitious even compared to her seven-figure donation goal. Nothing about Musicaro suggests that will stop her from pursuing it.

Photos courtesy of Figlie Di Fortuna.

Most small-business owners are more concerned with plying their trades than selling their services.

That’s the conclusion Michael Gerber reaches in his seminal book “The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” (Harper Business, 1990). The “E-Myth” is the false notion that it’s entrepreneurs who start most of America’s businesses.

Rather, Gerber writes, most businesses founders are good at a certain craft but fail to quality as entrepreneurs because they are ignorant or even suspicious of sales and marketing. He calls these people “technicians.”

If technicians fear sales, they are in better company than they may know. I spoke recently to an ad agency staffer who said the work she does for a major client centers entirely on building a certain perception of its brand; she insisted this work has nothing to do with sales.

I realize things that are clear at the small-business level (like the ostensible connection between advertising and sales) become diffuse in corporations, but I have to imagine the client in question would be troubled to learn its ad agency is indifferent to moving units.

Gerber’s writing, my conversation with the ad agency staffer, and my experience working with hundreds of small-business owners leads me to believe many who ought to embrace sales fear or loathe it.

“Selling is the asking of appropriate questions so that your prospective client determines for himself or herself that he or she needs what you offer.”

If you are among those who suffer from sales-phobia, I’d like you to consider this quote from marketing consultant Frank Kern: “Understand that no matter what you’re doing, even if you want to be a ballplayer, a rapper, a movie star — nothing happens until something gets sold. Ever. The reason actors make so much money is because their face sells the [expletive] movie tickets. It’s not about their ability to act.” I learned of this snippet of Kern’s thoughts when Michael Ellsberg quoted it in his book, “The Education of Millionaires” (Penguin Group, 2011).

In Ellsberg’s book, Kern continues: “The key to making money, and therefore living a life of less stress, is to cause someone to joyfully give you money in exchange for something that they perceive to be of greater value than the money they gave you.”

Kern’s comments lack subtlety, but they contain a glut of useful guidance. If you believe your product or service is useful and could even delight your potential customers, why balk at selling it?

Granted, even the best of offerings fail to please everybody. But the sales process — if executed correctly — can address this. “Selling is the asking of appropriate questions so that your prospective client determines for himself or herself that he or she needs what you offer,” writes author Sandy Schussel in his book, “Become a Client Magnet”(Robert D. Reed Publishers, 2009).

If you believe Schussel — and I do — you realize the process by which you sell something should never impose or intimidate; rather, it should educate. And if you’re doing it really well, it should give your prospective customer the chance to share the problems she faces and feel relieved when she finds your offering can solve these problems.

In such a situation, the customer may well give you her money “joyfully,” as Kern says. When this happens a few times, you will warm to sales, begin thinking of ways to attract more clients, and embark on the path toward turning your business into a powerhouse.

Photo:Flickr/Christoper Dombres

Juan came to us after his restaurant, just a block from the bay in Keyport, NJ, was irreparably damaged by flooding from Hurricane Sandy.

With his livelihood gone in the blink of an eye, Juan found a new restaurant space with a willing landlord and turned to The Intersect Fund for a $6,000 loan to acquire the equipment needed to get his new restaurant, La Casa del Mariachi in Perth Amboy, NJ, up and running. We disbursed the loan — our 200th — within days.

We are inspired by Juan’s story, along with those of so many New Jersey microbusiness owners that are bouncing back after Superstorm Sandy.

Big clients — like corporations and government agencies — mean big bucks. But many small-business owners struggle to win them over. The networking, bidding and reporting processes scare away thousands of entrepreneurs who could otherwise win lucrative contracts.

That’s why the Intersect Fund has signed on to partner with the New Jersey Associate of Women Business Owners in hosting its 15th Annual Growth & Procurement Conference on Thursday, April 18th, 2013 at the Pines Manor in Edison, NJ.

The event will feature panels, speakers and workshops that aim to guide you in bidding on big contracts from corporations, agencies, and even the organizers of the Superbowl, which will come to New Jersey next year.

If you’d like to sign up — and we hope you will — click here. Type the promotional code “procurepartner2013″ to receive reduced, member-level pricing. Also, you’ll receive an additional 10 percent discount if you register by January 31st.

When the break-up of a 10-year marriage pushed Melissa Gasnick-Cloeter back in to the workforce, she chafed in companies she said reserved their most prestigious – and lucrative – positions for men.

When Gasnick-Cloeter started a business seeking autonomy and career advancement, she was dismayed to find obstacles to women’s achievement pervade the world of entrepreneurship just as they do corporations.

Lack of access to bank and investor funding and a lack of know-how when it comes to pitching businesses are two barriers Gasnick-Cloeter seeks to topple through Own It Ventures, a firm she founded approximately one year ago. The company hosts conferences, training sessions and networking events that connect women entrepreneurs to investors and retail buyers.

Gasnick-Cloeter’s business model is based in part on a desire to harness skills many women already have: “We’re great networkers for our families: for finding the right orthodontist, and that kind of thing. I’m talking about segueing what we do for our families into running our businesses.”

Some of the obstacles women entrepreneurs face are external: most investors are men, and many are former tech entrepreneurs who tend to fund only ventures in industries with which they are familiar. “Very few tech businesses are founded by women,” Gasnick-Cloeter said. She added: “Right then and there, we’re not even qualifying to get to the table.”

“While men play it up, women play it safe. When you’re projecting capital for growth, you can’t play it safe.”

Gasnick-Cloeter’s success in connecting investors to female entrepreneurs — her conferences feature pitch sessions called “Sharkette Tanks” — may derive partly from investors’ changing attitudes. Many who have been burned by ventures whose actual results fell short of their founders’ atmospheric projections (which male entrepreneurs are admittedly adept at making) are seeking something different: “The investors I’ve been fortunate enough to meet say, ‘I don’t care who owns it or who’s running it; if it’s a solid business that will give me a strong return, I’ll invest in it,’” Gasnick-Cloeter said.

While de facto discrimination hinders many female entrepreneurs’ quests for funding, internal impediments — like undue modesty in pitching one’s business and seeking investors — weigh down the ambitions of others. “While men play it up, women play it safe,” Gasnick-Cloeter said, adding, “When you’re projecting capital for growth, you can’t play it safe. It’s likely you’ll underestimate how much you’ll need.”

Some entrepreneurs — especially those whose ambitions lie more in earning extra income than building empires — may question whether they need to enter the world of pitch sessions and angel investors.

While Gasnick-Cloeter concedes that Own It Ventures’ offerings are not for everybody, she adds that preparing one’s business to receive investment — even if one never seeks said investment — comes with some advantages: it forces an entrepreneur to keep accurate financial records, for example, and it leads her to consider hiring employees to handle day-to-day tasks while she focuses on strategy.

Own It Ventures’ next conference and pitching expo will take place on March 20, 2013 at the City University of New York Graduate Center in Manhattan.