The Type Of Business You Are Suited For: Personality and Lifestyle
July 6, 2007
Tom Brown had been an electrical engineer with a large instru¬ments manufacturer for more than 20 years. In the earlier years of his career, he really loved his work. He could sit for hours at his desk designing and analyzing electrical circuits. He became very good at his work and rose steadily within his company. Every Fri¬day afternoon he felt a little sad, knowing he’d have to wait until Monday to get back at those circuits. As often as possible he’d take work home with him. He submitted papers to engineering journals and even spoke at engineers’ conventions. But after a number of years a certain amount of boredom set in. What was worse, as he rose in the company he dealt less with circuits and more with office politics, since he was reporting directly to the vice president for engineering. But what really soured him on his job was that it was a job. No matter how far he rose (and there was only so far he could go, since the company was family owned), he would always be on a salary. He saw that some of his neighbors who didn’t have his abilities but who ran their own businesses made far more money than he, and they didn’t have office politics to worry about.
One of Tom’s neighbors, Fred Ostling, owned a string of stores that sold CDs, DVDs, and videos. Tom told Fred about his dissat¬isfaction with his job. As luck would have it, Fred told Tom the manager of one of his stores was retiring and, rather than try to find another manager, he’d sell the store to Tom. The asking price seemed pretty stiff; the cash down payment alone was more than he had in his savings. But Tom looked (briefly) at the books of the store and saw it turned a hefty profit. He was so dissatisfied he decided to take a flier and buy the business. Tom figured his back¬ground as an electrical engineer would make him a natural candi¬date to succeed in the sale of radio kits, batteries, tubes, and headsets. He didn’t know anything about CDs and DVDs, but that seemed like the easy part of the business: The CDs and DVDs just sat there waiting to be wrapped up and sold.
Fred agreed to pay the retiring manager, Gene Downing, two weeks’ salary if Gene would stay around and break Tom in for two weeks after the sale. During that two-week period Tom learned all about the business of running an electronics store. As he suspected, it wasn’t all that difficult. The suppliers delivered, you opened the shop, and you sold the radios, CDs, and DVDs. He did learn a few things, however, that were disturbing. He learned that if you wanted to make any real money, you had to stay open after dinner, when most of the teenagers go out shop¬ping. In fact, the lease with the landlord (the shop was located in a large mall) required that the shop remain open during mall hours. He also learned Gene Downing’s wife had also worked in the store, handling the invoices and the records while Gene dealt with the customers. Tom’s wife was a nurse; there was no chance she could help out in the store.
Nevertheless Tom forged ahead in the business. After about a month, however, he realized that while sales were okay, he wasn’t. For one thing, he hadn’t realized that staying open until 10:00 P.M. five nights a week could be so draining. At least Gene Downing had been able to take breaks or one or two nights off a week, since his wife could cover for him. Tom was pretty good with the customers who asked about plugs and jacks. But every night some kid wearing a black leather jacket or sporting blue hair would ask when Aerosmith’s new album would be in, and Tom didn’t know Aerosmith from Kate Smith, and he didn’t care, either. (That’s when he remembered that Gene Downing, even though a man in his sixties, seemed to enjoy rock music.) Most of these kids seemed to just hang around looking, without buying anything.
The worst part about it, though, was how insanely boring it all was. Except when he was unloading and shelving equipment, which itself wasn’t particularly challenging, all he ever seemed to do was stand there, waiting for someone to buy something. It was simple, all right, too simple. It got to the point where he said to himself almost every day, “I went to college for this?” His lack of enthusiasm started to show. He soon learned if you don’t “romance” these kids, they don’t buy CDs. He’d overlooked the fact that sales of CDs and DVDs, not equipment sales, were the bulk of the business. If they don’t buy CDs, you don’t make money owning an electronics store.
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