Going High When They Go Low

I had the great privilege this past weekend—Memorial Day weekend—of helping out at my old business, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office. As many of you know, I sold the business on January 1^st of this year, but have continued helping as needed here and there for the past few months during an ownership transition period.

Since I founded the business in 2011, we’ve had a carrier franchise store on our same city block. That store and mine opened the same week, surprising each other, and our relationship has been…interesting…ever since. I’ve never viewed them as competition, as their model is total different than ours and the market is so great that we can each have ample space to do our own thing and grow alongside each other.

The original owners of that business were sometimes okay do deal with. They were often nice to my face, but on the back end we heard lots of scary stories from former team members of theirs, and we also did quite a bit of secret shopping and calling to find out that they were not kind in how they referred to our business, often telling people who inquired over the phone that they had to go elsewhere for the services we provided right around the corner. It was shady, but we took it as flattery because they were so obviously threatened by our presence. To be fair, there were six other independent shipping stores in the area at the time and five of the six ended up shuttering within a few years of us opening our doors—the sixth closing during the pandemic—so we must have been doing something right to gain market share! We did our thing and grew steadily in our lane.

That left just the carrier franchise store and us in town as retail shipping options, aside from the FedEx Office a few miles away and a few other non-threatening things like the Staples UPS counter and others. The carrier franchise store in our neighborhood was sold to new owners a few years ago and the new regime has been much more contentious and aggressive than the previous owners. They do business entirely differently than we do and their model is incredibly transactional while ours was always relationship-based. We wanted people to come back again and again and tell their friends, while they seemingly tried to get as much out of people on one visit as possible without caring if they returned or not. I don’t want to be so negative here, but this is something we heard over and over and over again by guests coming to our store with horror stories of how they were mistreated, disrespected, and gouged.

The old owners of the carrier franchise store were not the most organized or clean, but with the new owners that store looks like a bomb went off inside. It’s complete chaos with stuff piled everywhere—total disorganization. So, we’ve never ever thought of them as any sort of threat. Most people go there and leave immediately, then come to us raving about how much cleaner, neater, and kinder our store and staff are.

Under my ownership, we did our best, despite the animosity that was returned, to be respectful and good neighbors. I ran the neighborhood small business association for years and advocated for all businesses in our neighborhood, theirs included, and we sent people to their business multiple times per day with shipments that could only be processed there because of their exclusivity agreements with the carrier for whom they were a franchise store. We tried our best to be kind, even when they were often not; the new owners of my former business have kept the same mindset and have done their best to be respectful, good neighbors to that carrier franchise store as well.

All of this is to set the stage for what happened this past weekend while I was helping out…

There’s a 30-minute loading zone in front of Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office, which I advocated for for years at City Hall and which we were so grateful for when it arrived. Consequently, I also advocated for a loading zone in front of the carrier franchise store around the corner, and they also received one. (You’re welcome, store!) It’s awesome when it works, but often it is filled up with people parking in it for much longer than 30 minutes as people know our city has a very small-staffed traffic enforcement department and an underfunded and understaffed police department, so chances of getting ticketed are very low. Nevertheless, our staff was always very aware of its importance and we tried to set an example of only using it for loading and unloading as it is intended and not for parking.

As our busiest weekend of the year—Cornell graduation weekend when all of the students move out en masse—falls on Memorial Day weekend, the loading zone is a bear. People park in it for days on end, knowing they won’t get ticketed, and it blocks access to our business during the time we need it the most for incoming and outgoing trucks for all of the hundreds of shipments and storage boxes we move in and out daily. This last weekend, during that confusion, there was a white BMW SUV parked in front of our store in the loading zone all weekend, solid. We called the police multiple times, but they never came. Then, on Monday, the busiest day of the year when we were going absolutely crazy, we looked out to find the carrier franchise store owner sitting in said white BMW SUV, sleeping! Yes, sleeping! So, the new owner of my store knocked on his window, woke him up, and asked him to please move because it’s not a parking spot and he was blocking our business. In response, the carrier franchise store owner barked back and told him “Don’t touch my car.” So, I went out and told the man how incredibly gross and disrespectful it was to be parked there, sleeping, and obviously intentionally right in front of our business to block access. It really was disgusting.

The cops never showed up, but the man eventually moved his car. It just completely blew us away. In a world where good-neighborliness is so important and needed, this piece of work has chosen aggressive contentiousness and blatant dishonesty as his modus operandi. It’s so sad—truly heartbreaking.

Because the new owner of my former business is a good soul and shares my mentality of Michelle Obama-ing the situation, going high when others go low, he will do his best to just let it go, keep doing his thing, and keep growing and blooming as he’s been so good at so far. In fact, on that Monday when the carrier franchise store owner had time to nap and play petty games trying to block our business from operating, our store broke every record we had—all time sales, all time customer count, and Memorial Day records all in one. Reading reviews online from the day, Uncle Marty's got only five-star positives while they got only one-star negatives. So, I guess that just goes to show how doing business the right way, being kind, and not letting other people’s nonsense affect you too much really is the key to success.

I shared a quote in my weekly Wednesday Wisdom social media message today that really sums it up, from an unknown author: “A flower does not think about competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”

So, bloom, my friends. Be kind. Do good by others. Build your neighbors up. Give them space and, even if they get in yours, take the high road. Karma is real and you want to be on its good side.

 

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Marty Johnson is the Communication and Vision Coach at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, and an editor, producing the mail and business center industry's leading magazine, MBC Today. In 2023, he sold his popular and growing brand, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office, and retired from shopkeeper life to focus on writing and coaching. Subscribe to his Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty. #AskUncleMarty

 

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This article was co-published on the AYM High Consultants blog and on askunclemarty.com on May 29, 2024.

Foxwood Cottage

I named my home "Foxwood Cottage." It's nothing fancy—a small white painted brick home just outside the Ithaca, New York city limits in the Town of Dryden. I purchased it in 2018 so I could live closer to my business after spending my first seven years in business commuting an hour each way, six days a week.

Foxwood Cottage was built in 1950 and I'm quite sure the previous owners hadn't updated or decorated it much since they purchased it in 1960. All of the interior walls were obnoxious shades of what I can only describe as "electric pastel" blues, purples, pinks, and greens. The flooring was worn and dated, the garage was full of junk, and there was a mysterious red shed out back that was locked tight, which my coworkers soon nefariously nicknamed the "murder shed," because we had no idea what was inside it. (When we eventually broke into it, we made a big social media deal about it, similar to when Geraldo opened Al Capone's vaults, and also similarly with the let-down that there was nothing at all exciting inside.) The home had a lot of potential, but needed a lot of work.

 Over the years, I did what I could. But, as many of you can relate to, funds weren't abundant because I was reinvesting much of what I made back into my business, and, as a small business owner, time was even less abundant. I'm also not at all handy. Yes, I can build an intricate sculpture, crate, or display out of cardboard—blindfolded—but anything requiring a hammer or a saw is way beyond my skillset. So, much of what I did I had to hire out in small portions—a new roof through a contractor, a handyperson for small jobs, and even some young and hungry team members who did some interior painting for a few bucks and a pizza party.

If you've been following my story, you may know that I sold my business, Uncle Marty's Shipping Office, a few months ago. My then-manager was excited to take over ownership and I needed to move on to new and exciting opportunities in consulting, writing, and my growing editing business. Plus, the thought of semi-retiring at 44-years-old was very enticing (and, let me tell you, so far it's everything I dreamed it could be!) My next chapter will be in Delaware, closer to family whose needs for someone to be close by are increasing. So, once the business sale was finalized, my next move was to get Foxwood Cottage ready to list so I could make my move.

I reached out to Kelly, the Realtor® who sold me Foxwood Cottage in 2018 and someone who has become a dear friend of mine over the years. She has been incredibly kind and patient with me as I've taken her on many a wild goose chase while warehouse shopping to meet the growing storage needs of my business for the storage service we provide to our market, land shopping with the idea of putting up storage units to expand our storage offerings, and just a year or so ago my musings with moving into a condo. None of that panned out, as I ended up renting warehouse space and forgoing the condo and storage unit ideas, but nonetheless Kelly put up with all of the many, many searches and property visits I asked her to help with.

Kelly is an absolute pro. In the five-plus years I've known her, she's been featured on House Hunters whenever HGTV comes to the Ithaca area and needs a rockstar Realtor®, as well as taking over her whole real estate office and growing an incredible team under her leadership. And, even though Foxwood Cottage is small beans in the market she now works in, she was incredibly excited and gracious to take on my listing personally.

Kelly gave me great advice on timing, strategy, and what to do / what not to do to get Foxwood Cottage ready to list. She allowed me to write the copy (as a writer / editor who has obsessive compulsive tendencies, she knew I'd prefer to do that myself...with her guidance) and hired an incredibly talented photographer and videographer to do professional home photos. About 20 years ago, while living in New York City and doing visuals, display, and window design for the flagship Banana Republic store in Rockefeller Center, I also moonlighted as a high-end apartment stager, joining a team who would go into multi-million dollar apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn, pulling appropriate furniture and décor from a staging warehouse and making the properties appealing to potential buyers. We always wanted to make them warm, depersonalized from the belongings that were previously inside them, and staged so that anyone could see themselves eating a meal or relaxing by the fireplace. So, I had a good idea of what needed to be done to Foxwood Cottage to get it ready: all personal photos came down, the table was set with wine glasses and fancy napkins, the main TV got moved from the living room to a cozy viewing nook in the sunroom, a gym area that I didn’t use nearly enough got expanded and polished, beds were impeccably made with towels in the guest rooms to allow viewers to imagine rental possibilities at Foxwood Cottage, toilet paper was folded into a hotel-like triangle at its end, all area rugs were washed and fluffed, the pantry and fridge were purged, fresh fruit was arranged in a bowl, the rusty mailbox pole got a fresh coat of paint, fresh flowers and a spring wreath graced the outside, and, of course, a tray of fresh pastries with tea napkins awaited all of the open house guests as they entered.

The listing went active last week. And today, less than four days on the market, Kelly presented me with seven offers; I accepted a cash offer at 20% above listing price! All being well, we'll close in early July and then at the end of August or early September my new townhome in Delaware will be finished and I can move in. In the interim, I'll be traveling, staying with family, and enjoying this new normal that I've come to embrace over the past five months of being retail store-free.

Why share all of this with you? It's because I want to drive home what can be possible with setting intentions, planning, staging, and trusting an expert for the things that you don't know about. If I hadn't seen the potential in Foxwood Cottage, made smart improvements without overinvesting, listened to my top-notch Realtor®, and timed the sale just right, I wouldn't have gotten so many offers. There are homes on my street that have been on the market for months, just sitting there, not staged, overpriced, and basically just kind of drab and unappealing. But not Foxwood Cottage. Foxwood Cottage was ready—an attractive, thoughtful, well-timed listing years in the making with the best team behind it.

I've been having a lot of discussions with clients and colleagues lately about exit strategy. Many are curious about how I sold my business and what I did to prepare. It's not something that will often happen by accident, but something that must be constantly thought of and worked toward. Just like with investing in a home and doing updates with the end goal of resale top-of-mind, so too is the case with a business. Systems, team member empowerment, lists, manuals, policies, and so much more add so much value to a business for when the time comes to eventually sell it. And isn't that the end goal of all of us who are or have been small business owners?

If you haven't yet, start working on your business and not so much in your business, as we hear so often touted at industry events. Start putting systems in place. Write things down. Make them pretty. Make the business attractive to a potential buyer. Market with intention. Brand with intention. Create a team that takes things off of your plate and is trusted to take on duties to grow clients, manage systems, and streamline processes. Trust them! Ask them to help you think about everything through fresh ideas and perspectives. Lean on their other-generation experience and mindsets to understand how to meet new markets and appeal to new people.

Anything is possible if you are intentional and goal-oriented. Don't leave it to chance. Yes, we hear about people who get very lucky when offers come in off the street to buy them out, but if you're serious about wanting to sell your business someday then start now with making smart choices to set it up for success. You can do it. I promise.

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Marty Johnson is the Communication and Vision Coach at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, and an editor, producing the mail and business center industry's leading magazine, MBC Today. In 2023, he sold his popular and growing brand, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office, and retired from shopkeeper life to focus on writing and coaching. Subscribe to his Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty. #AskUncleMarty

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This article was co-published on askunclemarty.com and on the aymhigh.com blog on May 9, 2024. It was originally written on May 1.