Our motto is `Serving Satisfied Customers.'
HATTIE: `Serving Satisfied Customers.'
RICHARD: That's right.
HATTIE: When did you come up with that motto?
RICHARD: When we first started.
HATTIE: So that was way ahead of the big customer service craze that's going on right now.
RICHARD: That's right. That's right. In other words, a satisfied customer always gives you future business.
HATTIE: Tell me about some of the big obstacles to the growth, some of the lessons that someone who's thinking about starting a business today needs to learn.
RICHARD: Well, now, we did not get this big until I decided to turn it over to young blood, which was my three children, David, Howard and Diane.
HATTIE: Right. And your father said,`OK, kids, I'm out of here. You do it.'
DIANE (Richard's Daughter): Right. He just kind of like, life hit him in the face and he said that he was taking a permanent retirement. And he said, `Take over.'
RICHARD: They are responsible for the growth, not me, because I've retired out of it and they own it lock, stock and barrel.
HATTIE: (Voiceover) David was 19 when his mother died and his father asked him to take charge of the business.
When you and your brother and sister took over the business, your father was doing about a half a million in sales. And he said he had one little hut for general administration, and now you've got all these people, over $5 million (in annual sales) ...