I sell mannequins

My elder brother and I bought a small department store several years ago. At the time it was hardly making sales and would have gone out of business had we not gotten involved. Today we own three stores and despite the ruff economic times, things are going very well.

Although I would like to attribute the success of our stores to skill and talent not to mention aptitude and acumen, the truth, and I say this in a rare moment of humility, is that we got lucky. This is not to say that it could have happened to anyone, it did involve risk and careful calculation but on the whole we got lucky. Here is our story.

When we came in to the store originally on the recommendation of a friend of my brothers at the law firm we did not really know how to run a business. We just had some money saved and wanted to try to do something with it. Anyway the store as we found it was nearly empty. There were some boxes in the basement with out of fashion clothing, some old looking mannequins and a few shelves and dressers.

Our idea was to try to sell the junk and then hire a construction company to get the place presentable then we would decide what to do with it. It’s not that we did not have an idea what we were going to do with the place. We were thinking restaurant or maybe renting it out.

Anyway I put some of the stuff on line and put up some signs around town. At the time I did not think I would be able to sell anything but figured I should at least try.

To my utter amazement I sold all six mannequins within an hour!!!! They were nothing special, two female mannequins and four male and they were not even in good condition.

I told my brother and like the crazy person he is decided to buy some mannequins and see if he could sell them at a profit on line.

He found that many people were selling and even more were buying. And the demand between the two is how we now have three stores, or rather show rooms. And no we do not sell clothing or own a restaurant; we sell mannequins, and a lot of them to!