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Golfers pair their drive in community-focused pro shop Two local business executives are stepping outside their day jobs to bring the first Pro Golf franchise to Minnesota. Darin Zielsdorf and John Hanselman opened the golf merchandise store last fall in Blaine and plan to weave the franchise's youth-centered focus into the community. The Pro Golf franchise is more than 40 years old and has about 120 stores in the United States and Canada. Nationally, it's a big supporter of The First Tee, a program promoting junior golf. "Being a business owner is one thing," Hanselman said. "But being a community partner and watching Blaine grow is another." Pro Golf this spring will partner with the National Youth Golf Center at the National Sports Center in Blaine by setting up a satellite pro shop at the center's golf course. Last year, The First Tee program in Blaine gave golf lessons to nearly 5,000 children. The 4,000-square-foot Pro Golf store has "everything you need for the game of golf," Zielsdorf said, from beginner and professional equipment to club repairs and lessons, and will compete with other local golf retailers such as Golf Galaxy and Nevada Bob's Golf. Besides selling golf equipment, Hanselman and Zielsdorf also jumped into the business of virtual golf, opening an indoor golf center, called Eagles Nest Golf, next to the shop with simulated courses. Golfers can play 18 holes at St. Andrew's, on the same course where Tiger Woods won the British Open, or size up the favorite Pebble Beach course in California. Neither Hanselman nor Zielsdorf will work full time at the store. Zielsdorf is a vice president/business banker at Wells Fargo. Hanselman is locally based vice president of marketing for PenCal, a California firm that administers executive benefits. To run the shop's day-to-day operations, the duo hired golf professionals who know more about the game than they do, Hanselman said. General manager Tom Pream is certified in club fitting and club repair. The other full-time employee, Rob Probus, is a PGA professional with experience in pro-shop management. Purchasing rights to a Pro Golf franchise evolved as an investment opportunity, Hanselman said. Instead of buying an office building or condo as an investment, the friends followed their passion for golf. "When it's something that combines golf and business, it doesn't even seem like work for me," Zielsdorf said. Zielsdorf's zeal for the business might be precisely Pro Golf's recipe for success, said Ralph Massetti, president and CEO for The Franchise Builders, a franchise marketing firm in Scottsdale, Ariz. Finding franchisee prospects who have enthusiasm to run a business around something they love is a lot easier than finding a franchisee who is passionate about sandwiches or doughnuts, he said. As a result, Pro Golf has nabbed a solid portion of the $25 billion golf industry, Massetti said, and seems to be going strong. "Their brand is pretty established, pretty well-known," he said. "They've definitely held the No. 1 rated golf franchise for the past 10 years." © cities.blzjournals.com, January 21, 2005 BY ELLEN P. ABLER, STAFF REPORTER

Brothers Andrew and Ben Baechler have been doing a vigorous business since they teamed up four years ago to create Blaine-based Eniva Corp., marketer of a line of liquid-form nutritional supplements. Profitable almost from its start, their company generated sales of $12 million last year and is headed toward $15 million this year.   All the way through high school, Andrew and Ben Baechler were the quintessence of identical twins.     They were co-captains of the football team and record holders on the swim team at Cotter High School in Winona, Minn. They shared first-chair trumpet duties in the school band and were co-valedictorians of their senior class.     Fortunately - for their futures, at least - their interests diverged at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     Ben graduated in medical microbiology and immunology on the way to medical school at the University of Minnesota. Andrew enrolled in business, started peddling prepaid telephone cards to earn extra cash and generated $20,000 in sales in six months. Dick Youngblood   Eniva Corp. Business: Produces more than 70 nutritional supplements in liquid form Founded: 1998 Headquarters: Blaine Web site: http://www.eniva.com Executives: Co-founders Andrew and Benjamin Baechler 2002 revenue: $12 million, headed for a projected $15 million in 2003. Strategy: The company recruits users of its products as distributors, a direct-marketing approach that so far has attracted more than 20,000 people to the program.   Identical twins Ben, left, and Andrew Baechler created Eniva Corp. in 1999. Ben provides the scientific muscle, Andrew the sales and marketing hustle.      When last seen on campus - before leaving in his sophomore year to start his own business - he was tooling around in a red Porsche 944 of somewhat venerable vintage.     Thanks to the fact that their dissimilar paths crossed again in 1999, the twins today are proprietors of Eniva Corp., a rapidly growing Blaine company that markets a variety of nutritional supplements in liquid form.     With Ben providing the scientific muscle and Andrew the sales and marketing hustle, the Baechlers have built their blends of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients into an enterprise that produced sales of $12 million in 2002 and is on track to do $15 million in 2003.     Their products are used - and praised - by the likes of former Vikings lineman Todd Steussie, Minnesota Wild center Jim Dowd and Olympic hopeful Kevin Jewett.     And the result: Eniva has been profitable almost from the start, with cash flow providing most of the more than $4 million invested since 1999 in manufacturing, research and development facilities.     Oh yes, did I mention that these entrepreneurial phenoms have not yet celebrated their 27th birthday? It's enough to make a grudging geezer weep. 'True believers'     Despite their youth, they've grown the business with vision and sophistication, mainly using the kind of direct marketing that helped Andrew distribute all those telephone cards.     "We couldn't afford our own sales force, and we knew we'd get lost in the crowd of other companies with established distributors," Andrew said. So he started recruiting users of Eniva products to distribute the line to individual consumers via Shaklee-style home parties and to health-food stores and other retailers through business presentations.     Today the company has more than 20,000 such distributors - call them "true believers" - with more being trained by field supervisors whom Andrew and his staff have assembled and trained.     All of which is a long way from the business Andrew and three friends started in 1998 to peddle a gasoline additive designed to reduce noxious emissions and improve mileage. But then gasoline prices fell and emissions regulation eased, cutting demand for the additive, and he began looking for alternatives.     Enter brother Ben, who recommended the multibillion-dollar nutritional supplements industry and weighed in with a recommendation: According to the research he'd seen, nutritional supplements of the sort he was suggesting were absorbed more easily and effectively in liquid form than as capsules, pills or powders.     Dipping into his scientific background, Ben developed a half-dozen liquid mineral products designed to promote energy, muscle, bone mass and general health. These first products produced 1999 sales of about $1.5 million.     Ben interrupted his medical training for two years - he'll return this fall - to lead the development of more than 65 additional products with varying blends of minerals, vitamins and plant-based nutrients aimed at about 20 health-related issues. There are products to help with weight loss, others to promote cardiovascular efficiency and still others to help you sleep, improve your digestion or sharpen your memory. Steussie's pain relief     The twins are acutely aware of questions raised about the safety and efficacy of their industry's products. They contend that their formulations are based on clinical research and that they rely on dosage recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences. Their facilities are inspected regularly by the Food & Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department.     They are careful to avoid claims that their products will treat, cure or prevent ailments. No matter: Folks such as Steussie, now with the Carolina Panthers, are perfectly happy to do it for them.    "I've had knee pain -- at times significant pain -- for the past four years," Steussie said. Then his massage therapist recommended a couple of Eniva's mineral concoctions, and "the problem has been rolled back about three or four years, from the standpoint of pain levels," he said.     Meanwhile, Jewett, a Minnetonka native and candidate for the Olympic windsurfing team, regularly uses four of Eniva's formulations. The payoff, he said: More energy, greater endurance and speedier recovery from sore or pulled muscles.     And while Dowd's not crediting Eniva for the Wild's recent heroics, he said the formulations he uses have made him "feel as good as I possibly can."     The most interesting testimonial came from a Florida man who claimed that he was able to discard the pills and catheters used to treat his enlarged prostate after using one of Eniva's newest products, called "Motor Oil for Men."     The name for the concoction, which is packaged in a plastic bottle resembling a motor oil container, was chosen after Ben heard an older gentleman talk about the need to "keep my old engine running." Introduced in February, the product generated upward of $50,000 in sales within 60 days. Copyright 2003 Star Tribune. Republished with permission of Star Tribune, Minneapolis-St. Paul. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written consent of Star Tribune.