Key takeaways
- Keeping it local with small town pride and connections
- A married couple buying a local business together (twice)
A business succession and transition (BST) case study
Storyteller: Married couple; buyers of two small businesses
Business location: Rural
Industry: Commercial printing; business and professional services
On this page
- Introduction
- Background
- The first purchase: Fena Advertising
- The second purchase: Express Print
- Two transactions, two experiences
- Business transition in small town Minnesota
- From life partners to business partners
- Adjusting to new business ownership
- Planning for the future
Introduction
This case study highlights two small business transitions in Hibbing, Minnesota, a small town in the northern Iron Range of Minnesota. The story exemplifies the unique complexities that arise in business transitions in rural areas and the importance of small business succession in rural economies. Katie and Mike Fredeen are partners and co-owners of both Fena Advertising and Express Print in Hibbing. Fena Advertising is an advertising agency that produces custom promotional products and apparel, and Express Print is a commercial printing services company. Katie began working in the field as a freelance graphic designer before she was approached about the purchase of Fena Advertising. Mike and Katie eventually went through with the purchase of Fena Advertising and purchased Express Print shortly after, undergoing two business acquisitions in just three and a half years.
Background
Katie’s relationship with the advertising industry began more than 20 years ago. She had a full-time job at an advertising agency, but her work didn’t end there. She also worked on her own freelance projects in the evening. Eventually, it got to be too much. Katie decided to cut ties with her day job, and she became a freelance graphic designer full-time. She opened her own small business, “Pink Tie Design,” of which she was the only employee, and she ran it by herself for many years. The business worked well for her, and she didn’t plan on absorbing any others.
When someone in town mentioned the owner of Fena Advertising, a local advertising agency in town, was planning to retire, Katie didn’t think much of it. She and Mike agreed that it wasn’t for them and was not a good idea to take on. And so, they passed.
The first purchase: Fena Advertising
Fortunately for Katie and Mike, this was not the end of the conversation. Nearly a year later, the town was still murmuring about the prospects of the sale of Fena Advertising. This time, the couple was not so quick to pass, believing it could actually be an opportunity worth pursuing.
Katie and Mike each had their own skillset to bring to Fena Advertising. For Katie, the promotional products — hats, apparel, cups, ChapStick — were all a natural extension of her graphic design skills. She saw the power of promotional items to help companies get their branding message out, and she knew she had the skills to do it. As for Mike, a natural born people-person, he could talk to anyone and sell anything. Ultimately, Katie and Mike realized that Fena Advertising might be perfect for them after all.
Katie and Mike, however, had an awkward phone call to make. While they had heard through the town grapevine that the owner of Fena Advertising was planning to retire, they hadn’t heard it directly from the owner herself. They were interested in purchasing the business, but they weren’t sure if it was actually up for sale — not unless they asked themselves.
“I called Laurie one day out of the blue. We’re a small town, right? You can make these kinds of phone calls.”
— Katie
Mike and Katie hesitantly called the owner out of the blue. They told her they had heard she wanted to retire and was thinking about selling the business, and they wanted to know if that was true. Laurie, the owner, told them that yes, it was true, and she was willing to sell it to Katie and Mike. The three of them then had a lot of plans to make. However, they had to do it without word getting out — a task that is notoriously difficult in a small town where everybody knows everybody. Katie, Mike, and Laurie set up a series of “super-secret meetings,” as they called them, in order to negotiate the terms of the sale. They met in secret, not speaking of the arrangement to anyone, for over a year. They wanted to make sure the deal went through before anyone in town heard about it. If word got out, and then the financing fell through, then everyone would know they couldn’t afford to do it. Mike and Katie, like any business owner, didn’t want that stigma to follow them around.
Luckily, Mike and Katie never had to worry about that. Everything went well, and in some ways, it went too well. Just as they were signing the paperwork, Mike was recruited to be hired for his dream job in facilities management and new construction. It was the job he had been working toward ever since college, so he knew he couldn’t turn it down. At the same time, Katie was working a teaching job at the college. With the two of them still working their day jobs, they knew they were going to be swamped, but they believed in themselves anyway. So, with both of them still working full time jobs, Katie and Mike became the new owners of Fena Advertising.
With one business, three kids, and two jobs, Katie and Mike were pushed to their limits. Their days were long, and their nights were longer. Eventually, the couple knew that something had to give.
“We said, ‘Something has to give,’ so I gave.”
— Katie
Katie quit her full time job and became a full-time employee at Fena Advertising. She worked alongside the sales rep that was hired by the previous owners but had decided to stay on with Katie and Mike. The three of them chugged along for about a year and half, running Fena Advertising without any plans to grow — but their small town had other plans.
The second purchase: Express Print
“It’s a small town. I love small town stories.”
— Katie
One day, Katie was walking through the showroom of Fena Advertising, a space where people can see example products displayed, when a woman she knew from town came in. Kelle, the wife of the print shop owner in town, walked into the store and greeted Katie like always.
“Hey, Kelle, how’s it going?”
“It’s great, but Jeff wants to retire, and we think you should buy the print shop.”
Katie was taken aback. Living in Hibbing together, Katie and Mike had been family friends with Kelle and Jeff for decades. She was honored and extremely flattered that Kelle and Jeff would think of them, but she didn’t know exactly what to do. She figured she would pass the message along to Mike, but she thought the idea would die out from there. However, when she told Mike the story, the ideas started flowing. Print and promo went hand in hand. Moreover, with Katie’s background in graphic design and Mike’s mechanical background, print manufacturing was well within their wheelhouse. The more they thought about it, the more Express Print seemed like the perfect fit for them.
Katie and Mike decided to move forward with the purchase of Express Print. Not only would it align perfectly with the business they were doing at Fena Advertising, but Kelle and Jeff were their friends. They were honored to have the opportunity to take over the business their friends had run for more than 35 years and to keep ownership of the print shop within the town they knew and loved. Since Katie and Mike had already undergone one business transition, this one went a lot quicker. Since they already had a business plan written for Fena Advertising, all they had to do was modify it to include Express Print. In addition to Katie and Mike’s experience, Kelle and Jeff had already been working with a business broker for more than a year before they reached out to Katie and Mike. With all that preparation, the entire process only took about three months.
Before they knew it, Katie and Mike were the new owners of Express Print. Mike quit his full time job to handle day-to-day operations at the print shop, while Katie continued to handle operations at Fena Advertising. Just eight blocks apart, the two shops sit on each end of the business district in Hibbing.
Two transactions, two experiences
When Katie and Mike purchased Fena Advertising, they worked directly with the business owner. However, when they purchased Express Print, the two of them had a very different experience. Even though they knew Jeff and Kelle very well, Katie and Mike had to go through a business broker in order to communicate with them about the deal. For Katie and Mike, the business broker made them both very uncomfortable and didn’t allow them to speak to Jeff and Kelle unless she was there, completely swearing them to secrecy. The business broker had previously only worked on deals involving big businesses, and she didn’t have experience working with small businesses like Express Print. Because of this, she treated the transition like a big business transfer, when they were really just two couples trying to make a transaction. Katie and Mike were overwhelmed, and in a lot of ways, felt pushed through the process.
“It definitely would have been very difficult to manage or know where we were headed if we hadn’t gone through the first process, because it was moving so quickly.”
— Mike
Katie and Mike were familiar with the steps of the process, so it made it easier for them to navigate the transaction quickly. Had it been their first purchase, however, things might not have gone as smoothly. The two of them agreed they much preferred working with the business owner directly, especially when transferring a business of this size. If they were to do it all over again, they would work directly with business owners and not a business broker.
However, Katie and Mike did not go through their first business purchase all alone either. When they purchased Fena Advertising, they reached out to their local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for help. Through the SBDC, they had an advisor work alongside them and provide education along the way. The SBDC acted as a neutral party who could give them the advice they needed without any stake in the transaction. To Katie and Mike, this advisor was the biggest help. She had helped other businesses make these deals before, so she helped Katie and Mike ask the right questions to get the right information. Without her, the deal might not have happened at all.
“If we didn’t have her, it would have taken longer, or may not have happened.”
— Mike
In addition to the SBDC, Katie and Mike had a lot of other support to ensure the deal went through. Katie came from a long line of business people within her family, so she had watched both her father and grandfather own and transition businesses. Additionally, the family’s accountant and local bank helped guide them through the process financially.
Business transition in small town Minnesota
The greatest support, however, came from the community itself. Located in the small town of Hibbing, Katie and Mike had a tight knit community that rallied around them. While Express Print, which opened in 1982, had an established presence in the community, Katie and Mike had to build up community awareness for Fena Advertising themselves. Fena Advertising is all business-to-business transactions, so there is limited interaction with the community. To elevate awareness of the business, Katie and Mike opened up a physical showroom where people could come in and see their products, even if they couldn’t purchase them right there.
Their experience with Express Print was very different. Express Print had been in the same location since 1982, right on the main street of the business district in Hibbing. Over the years, the shop had already become a staple in town. In fact, when Jeff was planning to retire at Express Print, an article was published in the Mesabi Tribune. The fate of Express Print quickly became the talk of the town. Suddenly, as a result of the article, Katie and Mike had competition as new buyers came to the table. A lot of the community, however, was on Katie and Mike’s side. Even though their plans to purchase Express Print were completely under wraps, many of their friends in town sent the couple the article and told them they should buy the business. It was this support that got Mike and Katie through.
“It was knowing that people knew who we were with Fena Advertising, and they knew what our skill sets were, and just knowing that the community was kind of rooting for us. It helped to encourage us to continue on, like on the days where it was kind of tough, or we were having doubts. It helped to encourage us to keep on going, knowing that if this transaction happened, we felt like we would really have community support behind us.”
— Mike
When the news broke that the owners of Express Print were looking to sell, a lot of the clients in town were nervous. Jeff and Kelle had run the business for more than 35 years, so what was going to happen to it once they were gone? Many people feared the business wouldn’t be local anymore, or that its character would be lost. Jeff and Kelle were sworn to secrecy during the transition, but they reassured their clients that the business would be in good hands.
While the support of their small town community was important to them, it also made it all the more difficult to keep the transaction under wraps. Everyone in town knew that Express Print was for sale, and everyone wanted to know who was going to buy it. If Katie and Mike were walking in and out of the business all day long, the whole town would catch on. They had to be careful about when and where they met to discuss the deal, or else the secret would be out. Even Mike and Katie’s three kids were kept in the dark. They had no idea their parents were buying a business up until the day the deal went through.
“After we had signed all the paperwork, we walked in, and we were like, ‘This is our new business. This is what mom and dad are going to be doing.”
— Katie
It was stressful to keep such a large secret from their friends, community members, and even their own family. But for Katie and Mike, that is just a part of life in Hibbing, and they wouldn’t trade it for anything. Growing up in the Iron Range, Katie and Mike have an appreciation for everything the region has to offer, and they wouldn’t want to start a business anywhere else. To them, the people in their community and the communities of the Iron Range are often misunderstood. They want Minnesotans to know that they are so much more than what they might think.
“I think the Iron Range gets this kind of weird rep throughout Minnesota. People don’t really always understand Iron Rangers, you know. They think of the mines, and that’s it.”
— Katie
Through their work with Fena Advertising and Express Print, they have come to know the Iron Range in ways they hadn’t before. While people can be quick to dismiss rural areas, claiming “there’s nothing there,” Katie and Mike know that’s not true. With Fena Advertising, they have spent a lot of time working with the businesses in the Iron Range, and they’ve come to realize just how strong the business community is there. They may not be the big box stores or retail outlets that people are accustomed to, but they are thriving, nonetheless. Many of them do not have storefronts, so they tend to get overlooked altogether. But they are there, and Katie and Mike feel honored to not only be a part of this flourishing business community but also support it through their work.
“The Iron Range is a great place to raise a family, to work, to live, to enjoy all four seasons of the weather. And, you know, just life without the pressure of the big city, the traffic, and the extra people.”
— Katie
From life partners to business partners
“Oh, it was perfect. It was peaches and cream all the time.”
— Katie
For many people, the idea of going into business with their romantic partner can seem overwhelming. Marriage can be hard enough, but throw in purchasing and running two businesses, and things can get complicated. The thing is, when you’re a business owner, you can’t just walk away at the end of the day. There is always more to be done for the next day. A lot of nights, this made it hard for Katie to put her computer down. In fact, Mike says they barely go anywhere without her computer. For them, the biggest challenge is just finding family time where the computer is fully put away, even just for a few hours.
However, Katie and Mike find that working together is an advantage more than anything. They know one another better than anyone, and at the end of the day, that is what makes them perfect business partners. They know each other’s strengths, and they know each other’s weaknesses, and they can and they can play off of both. There are some things that Katie does really well, and there are others that Mike does better. The two of them like having each other there to help when they need it. When they were purchasing Fena Advertising, Lori, the owner, told them constantly how jealous she was of their partnership. She envied how they had each other to bounce ideas off of and talk their problems through with one another. When Katie is designing something, she is able to bounce the idea off of Mike. When they are facing an issue, they are able to talk through the challenge together. This way, they are able to share daily challenges, so neither one of them has to bear the burden alone.
In many ways, purchasing and running these businesses together has brought Katie and Mike closer together. Katie jokes that Mike used to never answer the phone when she’d call him during a work day, but now he has to. They go back and forth all day, solving daily problems that arise. Before they bought Fena Advertising, Mike worked at the mine for nearly a decade. He left for work before the sun came up, long before Katie and the kids were awake. For all those years, Katie was the only one home in the morning. All the duties that came with parenthood–getting the kids up and dressed and backpacks filled–rested on her shoulders. Now, Mike is home to share that time with his family. On top of that, while running your own business can be overwhelming, it also allows you a flexible schedule. If you work at the mine, and your kid has a Christmas program at 1 p.m., you can’t just take an hour off in the middle of the day. But now, they have that flexibility, and it brings their entire family closer together.
Adjusting to new business ownership
Transitioning to new business ownership is not over the day you sign the paperwork. For Katie and Mike, there was still a lot to figure out in the weeks and months following the purchase of the business. First, they needed to decipher the financials, especially with the purchase of Express Print. While buying Fena Advertising came with its own loose ends, the business didn’t have the kind of overhead associated with Express Print. Unlike Fena Advertising, Express Print came with a building attached and unfamiliar equipment, some of which was up to 40 years old. This introduced a myriad of questions that Katie and Mike never had to consider before. What was the value of the equipment? How much would it cost to replace it? Is the equipment leased, and if it is, is the lease running up? More and more questions flew back and forth as Katie and Mike penciled out the financing. They all led to the most important question of all: would they still be able to put food on the table?
Beyond the financing, Katie and Mike had a lot to learn. At Express Print, there was all new technology, all new systems, and all new processes they were unfamiliar with — and they needed to master all of it as quickly as possible. They had to figure out what things worked the old way and what things might work better in new ways. They wanted to build off the knowledge that Jeff had established, but they also wanted to incorporate their own ideas to make the business even better. It wasn’t always easy. It took about three months for the two of them to absorb all of that new information and turn it into a system that worked for them–a system they’re still refining every day.
“We broke a lot of stuff at Express Print in the first three months.”
— Katie
There are a lot of complications that come with taking over a business. Customer projects were already there that needed to be finished up, and on top of that, new projects were coming in. During this rocky transitional period, Mike and Katie relied on the people who knew the company best — the previous owners.
“The nicest thing, I think, for anybody, is to form a good relationship with who you’re buying it from.”
— Mike
It was important to Mike and Katie that they maintained a good relationship with the previous owners, because without them, they weren't sure they would’ve been able to take on the businesses at all. For Fena Advertising, Lori stayed on for the first month and then came back as needed with an hourly wage. For Express Print, Jeff stayed on for three weeks, then trickled his hours down from three days a week to once every two weeks, and then gradually reducing his time until he reached full retirement. For Mike and Katie, having that relationship was invaluable.
Their relationship didn’t end there, either. Three years later, Mike and Katie have no doubt that they would be able to call Lori or Jeff out of the blue. Katie says if a customer had a question about an order from three years ago, and she wasn’t able to find it in their files, she would not hesitate to call Lori up for help. More than that, she’s confident that Lori would be there to help in no time.
Similarly, Mike says if he was having a hard time with the equipment at Express Print, Jeff would have no problem taking an hour out of his day to help him out. Ultimately, Mike and Katie know that the previous owners just want to see them succeed, and their relationship did not end the day they signed the paperwork.
Planning for the future
While they don’t have a written succession plan yet, Mike and Katie have begun to plan for the future of their businesses. When they made their business plan, they made sure to include some verbiage that could be incorporated into their succession plan one day. For now, all they have is a mental documentation of what they need to start doing down the line–at year 10, at year 15, and so forth.
Like any family-owned business, their dream is to pass the business onto their kids one day, but they know this isn’t always a possibility. For both Fena Advertising and Express Print, the owners’ kids had no desire to take over the businesses, instead finding their own paths. Mike and Katie want their kids to have the same opportunity, and they would never fault them for that. If their kids decide to go their own way, all Katie and Mike want is to find an owner who has the same passion and care for the businesses that they do. They want someone who is not only willing to offer products at a reasonable price but also someone who will help out the schools and the community when they need it. They want someone who will be able to employ as many people as possible, so these businesses continue to be a stable and flexible place of employment for their community.
Ultimately, they just want to keep the business local. Before they purchased Fena Advertising and Express Print, the owners had offers from buyers out of town, but they chose not to sell.
“They did not sell because they didn’t want to lose this business out of town. That meant a lot to them, to keep these businesses in town. Otherwise, they did have potential buyers, but they would have tried to buy, you know, basically, the client base and try to pull things out of our community. And that would have been a big loss for our community to not offer some of the services that we offer.
— Mike
It is important to Mike and Katie that they carry these values through to the future of their businesses. They know how important their businesses are to the community of Hibbing and the broader Iron Range, and they want to keep it that way.
Reviewed in 2026