A 'Dumb' Pupil Makes a Fortune From Furniture!

Small Businesses Ideas 001

Name: Terri Bowersock.
Nationality: American.
Age: At 22 opened her first store.

'Foolish' small business idea: Selling second-hand furniture back to the general public.

Start-up Capital: Borrowed $2,000 from grandmother.

How small business idea was Launched: Opened a store in Mesa, Arizona - Terri's Consign and Design Furnishings Store. Her mother's living room furniture and her own bedroom furniture was her entire stock in the shop.

Sales: Although it took 2 weeks to make her first sale, by the end of the second year, sales were $4,000 a month and rising. 10 years later she opened her second store. Now, there are seven stores in the Phoenix area, and also another six franchise stores.

Earnings: Terri's Consign and Design Furnishings now has 167 employees and annual revenues of $16million.

Terri Bowersock is dyslexic, but she refused to use that as an excuse to hinder her from making millions of dollars. Her fifth-grade teacher told her she was as dumb as a cue ball, but being dyslexic, doesn't mean she's stupid.

Although she managed to graduate, her reading ability was third-grade level, which meant she was unable to fill-in a job application. So, she landed up doing poorly paid jobs. She washed windows and then sold sandwiches at a golf course. But eventually, she landed a job in a consignment shop, and figured, she could get other people's furniture, display it in a store and sell it.

Borrowing $2,000 from her grandmother, and displaying her mother's living room furniture and her own bedroom furniture, Terri opened her first shop. In 1997, Terri was named as one of Avon's Women of Enterprise. She has also been featured in an 'Outstanding Dyslexics' Calendar.

Terri gets other people to handle her contracts, because she can't read them, and also to balance her check book. She has two main beliefs: always be straight and honest with your customers - that way they return again and again, and don't let any handicap, problem or difficulty put you off. Terri hasn't allowed any obstacles to stand in her way and now she's a millionaire.

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These 'Small Businesses Ideas' pages have been adapted from S. Goldsmith's course-work with full permissions granted (and paid for!) All of these pages are subject to strict copyright rules. Unless you want to be sued by a multi-millionaire, don't copy any single piece of this material for any reason.