Saying that I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life is the equivalent of asking if a kid likes cake. Inspired by my late-great grandfather, I watched as he brought the first self storage facilities to Tulsa, Oklahoma and ushered in a new phenomenon.
Working with several partners, General Building & Supply Co. built apartment complexes, shopping centers, new home construction and self storage facilities for several decades.
This was considered a family business and I was expected to help out with making apartment units ready, doing odd jobs and mowing all of the grass plots for each property.
One year, my grandfather got the bright idea to get into the car wash business. One of my more fond memories, during those crazy summers, was getting to help count all of the change, put them into rolls and go to the bank.
I didn’t understand the concept of the machines and the sophisticated counting systems at the time, but have grown to appreciate how it’s helped my endeavors over the years. While my grandfather was helping create new properties, I was on the playground flipping Starburst, Now & Laters or Jolly Ranchers for a profit.
At the ripe age of 8, I was taking a 50 cent package of candies and turning it into $2.00. In today’s dollars and cents, it might be peanuts, but at the time it seemed like a fortune. Little did I know that this entrepreneurial bug would never go away and would follow me wherever I travelled.
I’ve created and dissolved more sole proprietorships, limited liability corporations and loose partnerships than I care to admit, but the more original ventures required bank bags, coin changers, change rolls and a host of ribbon tape for calculators, among other things.
At that time, getting my hands on those banking supplies was a bit tricky because they were mainly offered only to preferred banking members that had accounts with a lot of zeros.
I was just a small-time mom & pop operation that wanted to speed up my administrative obligations and focus more on networking and finding new customers. During my time as a sandwich shop owner, the banks gave me some leeway and let me have what I needed to keep the money organized and the change flowing for the video games.
When I ran my pre-packaged vending business, Eco Snacks, my main niche was setting up a booth at relevant trade shows. Trail Mix, Nuts & Candies would fly off the shelves because most of the events I paid the rental were ones that didn’t have food vendors. This would create a monopoly or at least, very little competition.
I did my best to keep the prices reasonable, but opted to go for whole dollar amounts, so my need for change would be limited. At these events, it was usually a one-man show setting up the booth, putting out the product and being there the entire conference. It exhausts me just thinking about those first handful of events I ran, where I was ill-prepared and didn’t have my act together.
Getting those bank supplies might have seemed like a nuisance, at the time, but in hindsight it kept me out of trouble and on-point, when it came to paying booth rental, invoicing customers and staying on track. In those types of environments, it’s easy to get distracted and lose focus. Having my own makeshift infrastructure in place definitely saved me time and money, in the long run.
In the ever-evolving world we live in today, one can go to a Staples or an Office Depot and find some of what you may need to run your concession stand, baseball card store or nail salon.
I still prefer to go with companies that specialize only in this niche. If I wanted a one-stop shop to get mixed nuts, printer cartridges or ink pens, a place like that would be fine. Many times, I find myself not necessarily knowing the best way to go about doing what I have set out in my mind. It’s good to speak to someone that’s knowledgeable about the products and can offer up suggestions on ways for you to be more efficient.
If I had known that I could get ropes and stanchions at a banking supply business, during my concert promoter days, I would have been totally set up for domination! Crowd control is extremely important, when promoting an event and having access to purchasing those items, as opposed to having to rent them for each show, would have saved me tons of money and given me a sellable asset that I could use, once my concert promoting days had passed. But, alas, hindsight is always 20/20, right?