Four years ago, Skip Kelley was
featured in INC. as an up-andcoming
entrepreneur working
out of Newbury, a town north of
Boston, Massachusetts. He had
just converted his business —
Kustom House Co. — into a
franchise of Mr. Build International.
Mr. Build offered management
expertise and marketing
clout, and in Kelley's first
year with Mr. Build, his sales
rose 50 percent. But in 1985,
Kelley liquidated his business.
He had lost his marriage, his
house, and his company car in
the process. What went wrong?
When Kelley dissolved his
business, Mr. Build was operating
on projected earnings of
$1.2 million. This figure was
based on annualizing the dollar
volume that Kelley was getting
in sales at the time — but it
bore little