My passion for small business started at an early age.
My father was an entrepreneur (although they didn’t use that word in those days) Despite the fact that he had a family to support, he quit his job and opened a business in the detached garage of our home. There was no Internet or email. Not even a separate phone line. I remember he strung a clothesline from the house to the garage with a cowbell so my mother could ring him when he got a call on the house phone. A cowbell!
I grew up seeing first hand the ebb and flow of business ownership. The good and the bad. The celebrations and the despair. Somehow, it fascinated rather than frightened me.
So I opened my first business, an advertising agency, in my mid-twenties. Later, I founded and published a newspaper. Though I’ve had some amazing experiences in the corporate world, my heart was always in doing it my own way.
Learning the value of mistakes
During those early years of business ownership, I can safely say I made every mistake in the book. I probably invented a few as well.
Somehow, I realized then that mistakes were just part of the program. So I made it my goal never to make the same mistake twice, a lesson I imparted to my team and one I try very hard to explain to my retail clients today. You can’t achieve success without failure. It’s just a stepping stone.
As time went on, my fascination with business increased. I was always deeply interested in how my clients ran their business; how they made their money and created enterprise. I have always adored learning about what they did and how they did it from the inside out. Helping them reach their goals became my niche and ultimately helped me meet my own business goals as well.
A Change
I came to work with retail and restaurants through the back door, so to speak. Through most of my career, I focused on the business –to- business side and when a colleague suggested I move over to retail and restaurant I was intrigued but unsure. Was there a way to take the principles I successfully used in the business-to-business world and apply them to retail?
Angel has enjoyed a career in advertising and publishing, both as a business owner and corporate executive. For a decade prior to founding Tenant Mentorship, she was an executive with American City Business Journals, the largest publisher of metropolitan business journals in the country. Before that she founded and ran a successful advertising agency and a nationwide newspaper for executive women. She is the recipient of over 200 local, regional and national awards for creative excellence and business, including the U.S. Small Business Administration Women's Business Advocate Award, the Small Business Person of the Year, Broward Council of Chambers and the Glass Ceiling Award from the National Association of Women Business Owners.
I decided to give it a try and my company, Tenant Mentorship was born, featuring a new and unique platform designed to quickly and efficiently assess struggling independent retailers, identify their real issues and create realistic programs to get them whole
The catch? Well, there were two. The first was we had to see results in 90 days. The second was, the turnaround had to be accomplished without spending any money because in most cases, there was simply none available.
What a learning experience and what a revelation! I learned how to help mom and pop business with their real problems, quickly and with an unprecedented success rate. So when I’m done, my clients have found their true north and are facing the right direction to achieve success.