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Doing what you love priceless even at minimum wage

Written by: Teresa Bohannon

Article Overview: It has been said that if you find something to do that you love, you will never have to work a day as long as you live, and I believe that with all my heart. Why, do I believe that is true, because I have been lucky enough to find that twice in my life--once offline and now online--and to watch as my oldest son found it too. Someone said that I seemed a bit prejudiced in favor on online business, but let me you that is simply not the case at all. My favorite business of all was actually my brick and mortar used bookstore. It probably never paid me much more than minimum wage considering the hours I put in, and sometimes not even that much, but it was the absolute perfect business for me...at least until the Internet came along.

Doing what you love priceless even at minimum wage

It has been said that if you find something to do that you love, you will never have to work a day as long as you live, and I believe that with all my heart. Why, do I believe that is true, because I've been lucky enough to find that twice in my life--once offline and now online--and to watch as my oldest son found it too. Someone said that I seemed a bit prejudiced in favor on online businesses, but let me you that is not the case at all. My favorite business of all was actually my brick and mortar used bookstore. It probably never paid me much more than minimum wage considering the hours I put in, and sometimes not even that much, but it was the absolute perfect business for me...at least until the Internet came along.

I have owned my own business for more than 20 years of my life, and for the most part I've loved every minute of every day. Two businesses I owned entirely myself, and in a third, I was a full partner...something I will never do again as long as I live.

My first business was a used book store down the street from our local university and Veteran's hospital. I started it with some help from my mom at the ripe old age of 23. As a voracious reader, a large part of the start-up inventory came from my own collection of books that I had been amassing over the years. Not the good ones, mind you, just the ones I could bear to part with. Others were specifically purchased at yard sales and flea markets over a six month period of time. My Mom loaned me the first month's rent, and my husband and my Dad built the bookcases for me. I never even owned a cash register, just a cigar box and an adding machine. I did not even own my first computer until almost nine years later.

It was open six days a week from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, except for Sundays and Holidays, and except for the afternoon that I hung a "Gone Fishing" sign on the front door to go see The Empire Strikes Back, I never voluntarily missed a single day. Professionally speaking, it was the happiest time of my life.

I was doing what I loved most in the world...buying, selling, trading, reading and writing books. My husband always accused me of adopting strays (people, not animals) and as I look back he was right about that. Every lost soul of all ages for 50 miles around or more, who loved books and reading, sooner or later found their way to my little shop. Lots of them became regulars, and I do not just mean regular customers, I mean--bring your lunch, make yourself at home behind the counter, help wait on the customers--friends and family. I started out with a huge collection of science fiction and fantasy novels, and added old and new comic books too, so lots of my regulars were kids and their parents. One of my favorites was a poor little rich boy whose Mom was attending college down the street. The had a little apartment in the neighborhood within walking distance and she was busy all the time so he practically lived at my store. Several of the college kids also made my store their home away from home, and there were one or two elderly men and women that loved nothing more than to stop by, trade their romance novels and westerns in, and sit and visit awhile.

I loved almost every minute of it for nearly five years. It probably never paid me much more than minimum wage considering the hours I put in and the overhead costs, and sometimes not even that much, but it was the absolute perfect business for me. It was always a shoestring operation, and probably always would have been so. I seldom did any advertising beyond the occasional classified ad notifying the world of my existence; but I did write a book reviews column for a local entertainment newspaper in exchange for some ad space each month. I rented my little storefront from a candy wholesaler, so every couple of months or so, I would buy a big box of gourmet chocolates or something and have a drawing. I did not require a purchase in order to enter the drawing, just that you stop by the store and personally put your name in the hat, so to speak. You would be surprised how much traffic that generated, and it is something I use successfully today in my online business as well.

The biggest problem I had was inexperience and learning the ropes. I was taken advantage of more than once by a veteran book trader in my early days as a store owner. It was not long before I had to stop buying books altogether, and woud just trade two for one. I found that tons of people were willing to come in and sell me the most shoddy and worthless, falling-apart-at-the-seams paperbacks by the box load if I would buy them. I also found that they would come in and trade two junky old no-name romance novels for one of my hot new releases that I could easily sell for cash, so eventually I had to even start being more particular about what I would take in trade as well. But...for the most part, I found that people were honest and would treat you fairly if you gave them half a chance.

Then I found out I was expecting my first child. It was a one woman operation and, for the life of me, I could not figure out how to keep my store open and be mother to a newborn at the same time. So...I sold my little store and reluctantly walked away. The lady who bought my store was a real sweetheart, but she was a retired college professor and did not want to fool with the comic books, so she sold them off, lock, stock and barrel the first month. Less than a year later, she decided she did not particularly like being tied down to the bookstore either, so she sold all of the books to a dealer in another town and closed the doors.

If there had been an Internet and an Ebay at that time, I probably would have shifted things around a bit and I would probably still have my beloved little bookstore even today. I have thought about it many times, and worked it all out in my head. It would have taken branching out more into the collectible comics, and moving more into collectible books and hardbacks but it could have been done. It would also have required finding a new location better suited to having my babies on-site--where I could care for them myself and watch them grow--because realistically I never could have afforded daycare on minimum wage, but it could have been achieved.

Does that sound like a pipe-dream of could have been and never was? Probably; but my point is this, if you want your own business and you want it badly enough--whether online or offline--and if you are willing to make it on a shoestring, and work lots of long hours for minimum wage, and you want it badly enough, (Yes, I know I repeated myself.) you will find a way to make it happen...just as I eventually found my way online.

I miss my little bookstore to this very day; but I love my Internet business even more. Not only do I get to spend much of my time doing the things I love most--reading, writing, researching and product creation--but it also allows me the freedom that a book and mortar business never could. It has seen me safely through long hours of thesis writing, the terror of being an unemployed, single mom with two young boys depending on you to take care of them, the demands of working two jobs, the day to day realities of full-time executive employment, and both personal and professional crisis... and it has never really failed me yet. Yes, I truly love my little Internet business, and when all is said and done, doing what you love is priceless.

If you do not believe me, just ask my oldest son--the one whose impending birth created the need for me to sell my bookstore. I have often wondered if everything I was feeling at the time transferred to him in utero.

At age twelve he started teaching himself Capoeira after seeing it in the movie Only The Strong and then researching it on our brand new Internet. At his request, Capoeira how-to books and video tapes from Brazil were under the Christmas tree that year. At age 14 he started teaching the little kids for free outside the school library. At age 18 he opened--using money he had saved by delivering pizzas and posing as an artist's model at the college--his own Brazilian Martial Arts Academy in the large back room of a brand new Internet Cafe that wanted to develop extra foot traffic. At age 23 he started fighting mixed martial arts as a cheap way to advertise his Academy. At age 25, by way of self-promotion, he added Jello® wrestling exhibitions, guest stints teaching modern dance classes and teaching grappling to the local ROTC to his repertoire. And of course, as a child of the Internet age, he also uses MySpace, Facebook and YouTube for advertising and promotion. At age 26 he is still going strong, six or more days a week in his beloved business. During all of this time he has haphazardly worked on a degree in teaching just to please his grandparents and me. Like his mother before him, he probably does not make much more than minimum wage, and he adopts every human stray that comes along, but he's happy and he has absolutely no intention of ever giving up his beloved business.


It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
*****
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

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Article Tags: adding machine, book store, bookcases, brick and mortar, cash register, cigar box, collection of books, first computer, flea markets, local university, minimum wage, nine years, own business, period of time, s hospital, single day, six days, veteran, voracious reader, years of my life



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