Since 2013 I have been self employed running a sole proprietorship business, buying and selling vintage items. I started out buying storage lockers that I thought had cool older stuff and gradually got into picking and auction lots, simply because that allowed me to select the merchandise I was selling versus storage locker where you just really don’t know what you are going to end up having to sell and deal with.
2011 into 2012 I was basically retired, enjoying life and my family. At one point, my wife told me I needed to find something to do and that is how I ended up doing what I presently do.
2003 to 2011, approx, I owned at one point four corporations. A company called SEO King, Inc in which I and my staff provided web services to customers throughout the Tampa Bay area, This was a small business focused company doing web design, small scale programming, ecommerce solutions, SEO, web marketing and other service. I owned another company called Down Payment Solutions that provided resources for home buyers needing down payment help with home buying. These two companies were very successful and profitable for me and many of my clients. I cannot even remember the name of another company, at the time, it wasn’t but a few months old and someone bought out the web assets from me before I could ever get started with it, it really was a nice payday for about 90 days of part time on the side evening work. I had one e-commerce corporation within a partnership and that never really went anywhere due to multiple failures in operations, that was where I learned having partners in business ownership takes a very special person and that special person was not me. Regardless, it was through my company SEOKing, Inc that Google invited me up to Washington DC. On side note, it was that trip to Washington DC where I met my beautiful and special wife!
From approximately 1998 to 2002 I was an independent Mortgage broker for a mortgage bank out of New York.
Prior to that time period, I worked for other individuals. Some of my accomplishments included
Hired by Don Lewis to turn around the Florida operations for his regional company in preparation for selling the firm. Mission accomplished, with the company profits increasing by 10x and resulting in the successful merger with Hertz Equipment Rental. Unfortunately for me, I was not qualified to work for Hertz in the capacity I was in. Unfortunately for Hertz, they let me go, and with me went their good business practices. It only took about 12 months for the FL operation to get shutdown and full operations merged into their existing locations due to mounting losses.
Hired by Bob Manee to help him turn around his company so he could sell and finally retire. Mission accomplished, profits up, buyout done. I stayed with the new owners, happily, for about another 2 1/2 years. Unfortunately, they were floundering with equipment sales at the time and they moved me into a position requiring national travel which, as a single father, I could not do.
Successfully helped develop and then manage the Americare Program for a company called American Hi-Lift, the program was duplicated across the country and the firm was later acquired for Prime Equipment Company. Martha Manee saved me from Prime Equipment when she reached out to me out of the blue telling me about he dads situation. He, and she, were such wonderful people.
Over the course of almost my entire adult life, I have been a problem solver for business, and made the hard decisions that needed to be made in order for a company to grow and be profitable. While my approach to doing business was always successful for other firms, my style of management was not suited for making friends during the process. In two of the cases, I had staff full of bad apples that had to retaught how to treat customers, how maintain assets etc and that is hard thing for people that think the way they have always done business, is the only way to do business.
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