'Foolish' small business idea: Selling second-hand furniture back to the general public.
Start-up Capital: Borrowed $2,000 from her 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 Terri Bowersock 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 $16 million.
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 graduated, her reading skills were at a third-grade level, which made it difficult for her to complete job applications. As a result, she ended up in low-paying jobs, washing windows and later selling sandwiches at a golf course. However, she eventually found work in a consignment shop and had an idea: she could collect furniture from others, 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 Bowersock 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 Bowersock hasn't allowed any obstacles to stand in her way and now she's a millionaire.