December 11, 2004

Renting an Office, December, 1971

I have thought about this many times. It's interesting that when I was younger, it was a long time ago. As I have gotten older, it is almost like yesterday. It was exactly 34 years ago I took the first commission from a sale and rented an office in Santa Clara, California. It was a two room office and I subleased the second office to an attorney, then a vendor who's main office was in Oakland, then a part-time secretary, finally buying out the lease of the next door office, a pool supply company who wanted to move and I made it worthwhile by paying his first month rent plus a few hundred dollars to help him move.It was daring in its day.

I remember the days we only had “gumbo” soup in the closet. We would visit friends for dinner as they had no idea of our condition, and I used the credit cards for milk and baby food. I had been out of work for nine months, actually doing all the odd jobs I could to bring in money, and I can tell you I was determined to make money and never be broke again.

The move to an office was daring in its day in December, 1971. You see our Christmas tree in San Bruno was given to us by friends, the Griffiths, and my parents, friends, and relatives supplied most of the gifts to our kids, one and two years old at the time. I put all the family money into opening a small office, near the San Jose airport ( today it is less than a half block walk to the airport parking lot where you can catch the parking lot bus for free to the airport itself.)

I brought my old desk and typewriter from home. My late wife and I went to Levitz and with a Levitz finance, picked out a sofa, two chairs, and coffee table. It was a very big deal in those days. I told her I would buy her a house because I was going to make a lot of money in equipment leasing. She had wanted a house since we got married in 1968. It was the most important thing to her, she said. She was an accountant (she did Harrah's daily P&L when she lived in Nevada, delivering it to him in person every morning). She always managed our money, and rarely did I ever even know what was in the bank account. As a side note, she never spent anything without talking to me first. In the old days, women did that.

I had been driving my old 1961 Porsche S-90, which needed a paint job, working out of an answering service. No cell telephones in those days. No car telephones in those days. I couldn't even afford a copier for the first year, as I remember, and then the first one was a “wet copies.” No Federal Express, as I would drive the application to the leasing company in San Rafael, San Francisco, or San Mateo. Most often, with a full set of financials, too.

I had started in September walking from Belmont, San Mateo, to finally South San Jose, California, all the industrial parks first ( if I had a deal that funded I delivered the check to the vendor and walked that industrial park.) I had tried the telephone, but found more success in meeting with the owner of the company. I wore a suit and tie in those days. I was selling money I told them when I walked in. I can't remember anyone ever kicking me out or even being rude. Of course, I didn't get to see the person making the decision on the first visit, although sometimes it worked. But I got a business card and started a telephone follow up systems with 3x5 cards along with a master sheet, one of the vendors who I met along the way showed me how he trained his salesmen to make calls.

I worked trade shows, auctions, and even spoke at all the service clubs in two counties who wanted to hear about leasing ( most of the questions at the time concerned vehicles, as equipment leasing was not very well known at the time.) The owner of the building and I became very good friends ( he later died of lung cancer from smoking cigarettes as did my late wife.) He let me use his UPS shipping, even showed up one late Christmas eve to give me a high power bulb that had burnt out so I could video my kids Christmas discovering presents under the tree in the morning---you needed high powered lights in those days to shoot indoors and he was in the microfilm business. I called him and he never gave it a second thought to meet at his office so I could use my video camera with a connection to the VHS recorder. He was that kind of guy. )

The first year and a half, I took the train back and forth, leaving my old car in the train parking lot. It was safe in those days, old and battered. I parked it around the block so when I walked the industrial park, or signed leases, no one ever saw what I drove.

Often my late wife did not pick me up at the train station as the babies may have been asleep, or it was raining and she didn't want to pack them in the car, so I would eight blocks home. I did this for a year and a half, saving money for a house, and eventually we moved to an apartment in Santa Clara, California, where we even bought a television set ( we never had one while we were first married.). I also had become president of the chamber of commerce, primarily because I brought in the most members, had this idea to establish a convention bureau financed by a hotel tax, and after going through three managers, convinced the board to appoint the secretary as manager---she just retired after 30 years in the position, and they named the convention center after her.)

I did very well, actually being able to buy a house in 1974 in Los Gatos, California. We moved up three times to finally a 26 acre estate. So you can see that investment into renting an office turned out to be a wise one.