The Early Years

The Early Years

I am not sure where to start this journey, but I will begin somewhere early in my life at around age 14. I was an only child. As I recall at that age, although my parents both worked and were able to send me to a private Catholic school, I decided to work at the school doing minor janitorial services to help offset some of the tuition. I think that's where I began to understand the value of education, work and mentors and what it could provide in the way of benefits both to my family and me.

From that point on I always had some form of a job to help defray expenses like books and the in-style clothing that all we teenagers needed to have. I never complained because I enjoy it many of the jobs I had and it provided a lot of the things that I wanted to have the mom and dad could not afford.

It was during this period in high school that I experienced my first attempt at being in the sales and distribution business. I was able to arrange a job with the local news agency that allowed me to sell all the out-of-town Sunday papers at the main corners of our small community, deliver the papers on Sunday to the regular subscribers, and then sell the papers in front of our church on Sunday morning’s after I completed the delivery route.

Dad was a great help in establishing this job, as he knew the previous holder of that position. He introduced us and I was then introduced to the news agency. Dad also helped when the weather was inclement by driving me to and from the street corner and the news agencies picked up by delivery route. However most of the time I used my bicycle to get back and forth and the agency provided a special bicycle for me to deliver the papers. Dad was also my first and perhaps my best mentor.

The way I made money in this job was to buy the papers from the news agency and the difference between what I paid them in what I sold the papers for was for me to keep. The leftover newspapers were taken back by the news agency to be resold in various stores and locations.

Now I was beginning to learn how to sell and how to provide good service to customers and how to make profit. I grant you this is a small business but it taught me lessons that I could take with me for the rest of my life.

Lessons learned:

1. The value of understanding customer needs and desires.

2. The importance of providing good service.

3. Asking for the order.

4. Providing services tailored to the customer’s desires.