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Small Business Success Stories – Secrets of the Tiny Store – Part I

Is your business becoming extinct and you don’t even realize it? Or is all your hard work, blood, sweat, tears, and money about to go up in smoke or down the drain and you feel helpless to do anything about it?

Let me share a short story about a small family business that struggled, fell, tripped and succeeded….

 9.11.2001 6am

It was on this day that I was supposed to fly to Wisconsin to meet with our biggest vendor, hoping they would approve of the new buyer who was soon to purchase our small family business.

The call came from my sister-in-law around 6am Pacific Time. It came as quite a shock so my wife and I quickly dressed and drove to my Mother’s home to view the unfolding tragedy in New York, the place of my birth and early years.

We quickly realized that I would not be flying that day and that our business sale may be put on the back burner. But we continued to watch and then waited to see if more disaster was to come.

In the weeks after Nine Eleven, we worked to salvage the sale and the buyer did purchase our company, although without the #1 vendor on board.

This vendor, who we had promoted and marketed for 12 years, was at that time the biggest in the industry. We had aligned ourselves with them so we could grow our small enterprise and this decision turned out to be one that we would not regret. Although it did cause some serious aggravation with our buyer.

Ultimately the executives at our #1 vendor held our fate in their hands and decided that the buyer of our business would not be permitted to sell and promote their products.

How ironic it was that we as small business people had to get their blessing and the people approving this deal were not even involved in a small business. They were corporate folk, doing their jobs, looking for increased sales and covering their bottom line.

To my knowledge, not one of the original executives are still working for this vendor and the business we sold….

Well, that’s another story that I will continue with in Part II. So stay tuned, avoid online extinction today and look for my next article where I’ll share what happened after the sale…

Dave Krygier
Publisher

PS – Want to learn more about the Tiny Store and how this small family business dominated niches? Get the inside scoop and check out Secrets of the Tiny Store and you’ll find out.