Our first guest speaker of the young semester was a good one (and a former student in the Midwest Entrepreneurs class); 2011 Monmouth College graduate Will Zimmerman.
Below, current class member Jordan Junker tells the story of Will Zimmerman’s fascinating journey from Monmouth College student to successful entrepreneur. It is, as you will see, a story of hard work, determination, and personal achievement.
Prof. Gabel
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Will Zimmerman came and spoke to Midwest Entrepreneurs on January 19th. Will owns Modern Grain Systems, a company that sells, builds, and maintains grain bin storage systems. Will is a Monmouth College Alum that graduated with the Class of 2011. When Will was in his senior year at Monmouth he took an independent study to work on his business plan and at the young age of 21, successfully took out a loan of $200,000 to purchase Modern Grain Systems.
Zimmerman had worked for the firm’s previous owner, Bill Thompson, since high school. He was approached by Thompson to buy the company because of the hard work and expertise he displayed on the job. Zimmerman learned from a young age that you have to work hard and that you can’t take any shortcuts to get where you want to be in life. This mindset helped Zimmerman project almost $4 million in sales the first year that he owned Modern Grain Systems.
After the first year Zimmerman owned his company he was able to pay off half of his loan of 200,000, and after his second year as owner he had fully paid off his loan. Being able to pay off a loan of this amount is a huge accomplishment for any entrepreneur. Zimmerman also overcame his biggest fear of not being able to repay his parents for the loan they game him within the first year that he was the owner.
Zimmerman operates the firm out of Avon, IL and sells grain systems that range from large 110,000 bushel bins to smaller bins that only hold half of that. Zimmerman’s first project as owner was built just outside of Monmouth. It was a three-bin project with two large bins and one smaller bin. This project accumulated to around $950,000 for Zimmerman, who started his presentation with the video of the project at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qELQMCDRtk
Zimmerman is not only a hard worker but a family man as well. His business is seasonal so during the summer and fall he is very busy doing all of his projects. During these weeks Zimmerman claims that sometimes he can work 7 days a week and up to 100 hours per week. With having a wife and two kids it is hard to balance time with his family and work during this busy season, so after the busy season he does things such as bring his kids to work or takes a family vacation to make sure his family is always first in his life. But there is always work to be done. Will told that class that he had unloaded supplies from semi-trucks each of the last two very cold days.
As I spoke about earlier, Zimmerman is an extremely hard worker. Even though he is the owner of the company you will see him on the work site working along his employees just as hard as they are. His advice he shared to the class was “Work as hard as you possibly can, then work 10% harder.” He also followed that with “no one is going to give you anything so you have to make them notice.”
Zimmerman is the perfect story of a successful entrepreneur, a man of his word that strives to keep his family first while working a hectic schedule.
Jordan Junker
