From wantapreneur to entrepreneur.

Well, we are reading and studying everything we can get our hands on to prepare us to launch our business. I have been through dozens of courses on LinkedIn learning. and read at least a dozen new books ( I probably have read 50 to 100 previously). So if preparation is key we are there.

Now is the time to put the big launch on. We have our business plan and our strategy in place. I must say this has been 12 years in the making. I had my own business in 2006 that fell victim to the big recession. I am all in. This is going to be a great adventure for sure.

Why we want to start a new back office support business

A little about us. My wife and I retired within the past year from having been in the workforce for a combined 100 years! Now we are older but really in the middle of life, not the end. I am in the best physical shape I have been in for the last 20 years. We are walking and working out at the gym.

But we don't want to disengage from the business world. My wife has her Mary Kay business and I am working for an IT company helping to develop business. We are actively engaged in social media. We are attending networking events on a regular basis and building a strong base of contacts.

We want to give back in the form of helping micro and small businesses grow and succeed. My wife has worked for the Federal Government, a Fortune 500 oil company, merchandising wholesaler, and a large growing manufacturer, just to name a few. I have been a pioneer in retailing in the 70's and successfully ran a school book wholesale business. I ended in the workforce in the service industry in one of the top 30 event and party rental business' and was their business development director helped take that business from 5 million to 16 million in 5 years.

In a future blog, we are going to list our skill sets and impressive resumes and let you know what we bring to the table.

In the meantime feel free to reach out to us with any helpful advice you have.

How to learn from scratch

So after I was hired to run the branch office of the book company I was pretty much left on my own as to how to make it all work. Make it happen and you figure it out were the tow types of advice I got in various forms.

Well this suited me perfectly. Since my time in retail was mostly autonomous I didn't need handholding an coaching.

The strategy was simple at . first, the company would buy a list of school names and addresses and mail out catalogs. The only thing was the bozo's I worked for mailed the parent companies catalogs out off the same list. Their catalogs looked the same as ours and content was identical, except for the company names, addresses, info, and logos.  The only problem was that their company was offering 30% discount off list and we were offering 25% off list. They figure that the local market would order form us to save a few bucks shipping. Duh that made no logical sense, We were competing against each other.

The end of retail the beginning of wholesale.

My big break came when a friend of mine turned down a job offer to run a wholesale book business. He could live on the draw the offer and the base salary wasn't enough. Hey, I'm used to retail wages so it was a step up for me.

The job was marketing and distributing books to schools.  Mostly classroom reading material (such as classic and modern literature books). We also sound new and used textbooks, mainly to private schools. The public schools got their textbook from state agencies.

I was in full charge of a branch office. The owners were in Brooklyn and I was opening a Dallas office. We were an independent company. I was soon to realize I found the perfect job. 

I was almost totally autonomous. The owners left me with the keys to the building, two folding chairs and the telephone laying on the floor. Time to get started. Little did I know this would be my career for the next 20 years.

The end of retail.

Well, I was realizing that retail was becoming a dead end career.

Some of what was happening was that as one moved higher up the rank, there would be a built-in roadblock  The management system was that at every level the person above you wanted to keep his job and protect his position. This culture evolved in several chains, The person above you wanted only to surround themselves with people who were incompetent. This accomplished two things. One was that at least temporarily their position was secure. Two it made them look better by comparison. This kind of de-evolved into survival of the un-fittest.

I could postulate on several reasons how this developed but suffice to say it just did.

Escape or slide into the mediocrity rut and self-protection mode of firing competent people and keeping the losers around for job security.

I had to find a way out.

Next steps.

Well Its been a while since my last blog post. I am going to try to be more active.

I was called out of retirement to do some consulting for my old company. That and working at my business development role for an I.T. company I have been prey busy post retirement.

Since my blog started out journaling my work and career history I will add a paragraph or so.

In the late 70's a retail career was not the promising fast track it once was. Too much transitions and buyouts. You would climb the ladder then the company or store chain would sell or merger and one would be back at the bottom again.

I tried many things to move out but now in my early 30's the possibility of a new career seemed a daunting challenge. Back in those day's the 80's it was still old school, you started down a career path and you followed it for life. There wasn't a fork in the path so to speak. So I had to re-invent myself and that became the framework of how I want to move next in post retirement. I want to be a life coach.

Moving up and away

Back in the 70's most shoe departments were leased by big shoe company's retail divisions. Shoes were a better fit for this type of arrangement. The buying power and know-how of a national organization was superior to trying to do the special segment of retail in-house.

So I went to work for U.S.Shoe's retail division Cincinnati Shoe Company. I became the companies troubleshooter and development specialist.

This was a fantastic experience for someone in their early 20's in the '70's. I saw retail operations for the inside. I got to learn how to manage people as well as all the other areas such as merchandise display, add copy, human resources, sales, training and coaching and the variety of functions and skill sets needed to be successful.


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