My early Life and, Running a small business, or two
My wife and I have, for most of our marriage, been business parteners in addition to man and wife. To make ends meet we cut yards when we were first married. Later we added landscaping in to he mix and “Scenic Landscaping” was born in Memphis TN. That was in additon to woring at the Fedex hub and trying to get a few hours in to finish college.
As the years rolled by, and after an uneventful and short career in real estate working for Crye Lieke in Midtown Memphis, I ended up at Certified Chemical, a division of National Chemsearch, a chemical sales company out of Texas that focused on water treatment chemicals, cleaners and other assorted supplies. It was a 100% Commission only sales job, but in the beginning also included a very small draw on the commission. My boss was out of Tupelo Mississippi. My territory was W Tennesse and included many accounts in metro Memphis and then up in to Dyersburg and several other rural areas N of Memphis. It was a fun but very challenging job. I covered a lot of different industries with the product line offered by Certified Labs. Every day I was out the door with a car load of samples of popular products out in the territory, as well as a lot of Swag to give away. I had to turn in a weekly schedule along with daily goals to my boss. This was before cell phones and email, so we had phone conversations every few nights. The calls were sometimes long, since I had to go over some of the sales calls in detail. Usually we had a few reviews of victories, and a few reviews of calls that did not go so well. The calls we reviewed also were full of reminders to follow, the company’s sales template called the “Gears of Selling,” a 4 or 5 step process / template to move the process of sales ahead in a certain order. First Gear was to be professional and not sell products, but sell yourself and get interested in what the customer was interested in which was typically, family and hobbies. Then the sales person moved the process ahead using these “gears” to get to the closing and sell something. If you are reading this, and are, or were ever, a sales rep for a division of NCH, and remember the “Gears” steps, go to my Contact page, and send me a message and remind me of what all the steps were. The customer base at Certified labs was a very diverse cross section of businesses and industry. I called on the old Coppertone Sun screen plant, owned by Plough Inc manufacturing off of Jackson Ave in Memphis, and many others manufacturers in the area, and also called on Memphis Public Housing Authority, the City bus shops, and all kinds of small and medium sized businesses in and around Memphis and in to the rural areas outside of Memphis. One of the larger customers was a prison farm N of Memphis. I usually dealth with trustees there, and the farm manager. One thing I NEVER liked doing was going in to that prison. I usually went in and visited the cafeteria, and the boiler room occasionally to check on the water treatment chemicals. Certified was an interesting job, and I met a lot of hard working people. But after about 4 months, I soon realized that the expenses to cover car maintenance, as well as other overhead that the company charged to me, was a real drain on the commissions and that was how I got paid, so I started looking for a new opportunity.
I answered an ad in the local paper listing a sales job “Selling chemicals” and among the benefits there was a company car. Our car had taken a beating with all the miles put on it driving all over the region between Memphis, Brownsville, Dyersburg, so a job with a company car sounded like the job for me. Money was tight, we had a new baby and another mouth to feed. I had already taken a second job working in a near by grocery store to make ends meet, in addition to working at Certified Labs. We had decided to trade in our car and buy a little better used car. Our luck hit rock bottom in the car buying category. We ended up with a 4 cylinder Ford Taurus, a terrible car. We were facing a pretty large repair bill not long after buying it, and were feeling pretty low. When I saw that ad for the job at Cone Solvents, I knew I HAD to get that job – AND THAT COMPANY CAR! I called in to get the appointment, and was given a time to meet Mr Goodman, the boss at the Memphis Branch of Cone. I arrived a few minutes early, in my suit and tie, and as I was getting out of the car, smelled something familiar, and bad – our ol Ford Taurus was overheating. ( I had parked AWAY from the door to the offices, and out of sight) There is nothing like getting out of a car that is overheating and then pullling up the hood and seeing FLAMES coming up out of the engine right when it is time to go to a job interview! That will defintely get the adrenalin going, at the WRONG time! I found an old rag or something to get the flames out and just as I was closing the hood, I heard a RIP coming from my suit pants. I was really in a mess now. I decided to go on in to the interview and take my chances. I crept up to the door up the steps sideways and entered and was THANKING GOD when I opened up that door, the receptionist’s desk was positioned so I could HIDE my rear end and no one could see my shredded and ripped pants. Thankfully I was called back to the office and turned the best way I could to face the office and keep my bottom unexposed. I had to walk backwards most of the way back to the office where I was interviewing. I sat down and Mr Goodman and I had a nice interview, and I answered all of the questions about different things in my personal and very short professional life, and he keyed in on a few things I was really not that famliar with but I faked it the best i could. It dawned on me at some point during this appointment that this company did NOT sell the kinds of chemicals I thought they did. I thought I was in an interview for another sales position selling cleaners, detergents, disinfectants, and lubricants, like at Certified Labs, however I was working on getting a sales job for a raw material chemical company. I thanked the manager, and as I was leaving briefly met the man I would be replacing in the field, that would be my new boss, if I got the job, and said “Thanks,” then left to go home. I got home, and of course changed clothes. (Time to look for a new suit!) and told Anne about my crazy trip and what had happened to our DA%N car. We commiserated together after I told her that one big obstacle seemed to be that I did not have a degree yet. I had left school without finshing my degree, a decision I always regretted, and promised myself to finish. After a few hours, I decided to pick up the phone and do some follow up on the interview. I called in to the office and was connected to Mr Goodman, the manager that was retiring. We said our pleasantries, and I told him I was just calling to thank him for the interview and was hoping to be considered for the position. He hesitated, for just a moment, and then proceeeded to tell me that I was the only person that had ever called him back to thank him for an interview, and for that reason alone he was going to give me a shot at the job even though I had not finished my degree. To say Anne and were excited, would be a huge understatement!
I was at Cone Solvents right at a year. During that time, our small family was growing, with our middle son, Ben, on the way. I decided it was time to get out of the TN Air National Guard. I had been over at the 164th TANG (Tenneessee Air National Guard Aerial Port Squadron for just over 7 years. I relaly enoyed the Air Guard, a lot. Some of the greatest people were there that really helped me a long. But, from what I recall the Guard at that time had too many people. It was a little hard to get promoted, and I had a young child, and another one on the way. I decided to get out and maybe get back in larger. So I requested adischarge and recived it with an Honorable Discharge, and left, VERY appreciative of the time there. I had some really great memories of trips to Alaska, Japan, S Korea, Panama ( ok, that trip was not not so positive) , Germany, Newfoundland/ Goosebay Labrador, and other places and experiences I never would have had and loved all the people I met. A regret I always had was not getting back in the Guard, as I thought I would. Like we all know, life gets in the way. Someone once said “Life is what happens when you’re busy making all those other plans.” (John Lennon?)
In 1998, I joined Harcros Chemical co in Little Rock Arkansas as a sales rep for them in Central Arkansas. As my career there progressed I moved to Atlanta for a short stint as a manager there, then took a quick detour to Alabama before heading back to Conway Arkansas, all still with Harcros. At some point I had started a “side hustle” and started buying some surplus chemicals. That morphed in to more sales and resulted in a business my wife managed. In those days selling on Ebay was the BIG thing. The internet as we know it was a totally different space. It was more internet than just “google,” which did not even exist then. Ebay was getting a lot of traffic and was the most visited site other than maybe Yahoo, which had an early and very effective search engine.
Yahoo had also started up Yahoo stores, which provided an easy way to build a website on your own, even if you were not a coder. We decided to to take that next step and build a “Yahoo Store,” and started putting hard to find chemicals and ingredients on a new website. As far as I know it was one of the first websites developed to help small business and the “do it yourselfer” chemist find chemicals and ingredients online and get them shipped out without going through a lengthy process of opening up a business account with a large distributor. The “regular person” could buy anyting from A to Z literally – Ascorbic Acid, to Zinc Sulfate and a lot of chemicals in between. As time progressed, we added another website and continued to add to the product line. The business really continued to grow as the home crafting business really exploded. More and more people were figuring out how to make extra money and build sustainable businesses out of their homes making all kinds of creations
Operating a business during COVID was very difficult . . . . ( write another post about operating a business during COVID 19 . What a challenge that was. Thankfully, I had some really hard working, and very smart people to keep it all goong in the right direction.
We sold the business later.
In 2021 we started up a new venture. We have some new ideas to offer a wider variety of industrial and commerical chemicals, and many supplies on a website more geared to business. ( write additional post about new business start up overall and during covid blah blah
IN the meantimes, as Started focusing on real estate more . . . Hughey Properties. . . .. AirBnb. . . listings in destinations instead of around Conway. It has been very challenging since there is a lot of competition in the real estate market everywhere. . . .another article / post . . . blah blah blah