When my father went into business for himself 35 years ago, he knew nothing about niche marketing and would have been surprised to learn that he was a bootstrapping entrepreneur.

All my father knew is that he didn't want to work in a factory like his Russian immigrant parents. He tried office work but disliked office politics. When he married my mother, my father went to work with his new father-in-law in his dry cleaning business. Observing that the dry cleaning solvents were dumped at the end of the cleaning process, my father found a way to remove the impurities from the solvents and recycle them. He bought a small building and set up a one-man operation that reclaimed used solvents, purifying and reselling them to dry cleaners. The work was hot and dirty.

Over the years my father built up a strong customer base. His customers looked forward to seeing him and began to ask him if he could get them the hangers, tickets, plastic and other supplies they needed. My father began to stock and supply these items and eventually moved out of the solvent recycling business. As a dry cleaning supplier, my father had a customer base of stores in Brooklyn and Queens, NY. He occasionally hired neighborhood kids to help him with deliveries, but maintained personal contact with his customers, advising them about business and personal matters.

Dad was a natural at customer service. His business grew through Word-of-Mouth. Since most dry cleaners had their own territory of local customers, they didn't mind giving out my father's name to competitors. My father passed savings along to customers. He extended credit when customers were experiencing difficult times. He was available for his customers day and night. When he worked on weekends he often took my sister and me along with him on deliveries.

My father established warm relationships with his customers. He empathized with their setbacks and celebrated their victories; he remembered their birthdays and anniversaries. When my dad decided to retire a few years ago, he sold his shop, inventory and customer list to a large dry cleaning supplier. His customers were bewildered and disappointed by the big, modern supplier. The representatives were brusque and impersonal and the customers felt no loyalty and began to drift away, The firm panicked and tried to lure the customers back with special offers and incentives. Eventually they realized that the customers missed my father's personal touch. The firm entreated my father to come out of retirement and work one day a week. His job is to call his customers and schmooze with them about their lives while taking their orders. He occasionally makes small deliveries to obstinate customers who insist on face-to-face contact.

My father exhibited entrepreneurial instincts, managing to create a business and move on to an allied industry when the time was ripe. He blended his personal and business life and established deep, enduring relationships with customers. If that's not the definition of an entrepreneur, then I don't know what is.

Source: www.gmarketing.com

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