The Next Corner..Oh Me Oh My!!

Well, Sweet Tooth is becoming a nationally recognized store.  After 20+ years it has finally happened...a national gift publication has noticed that in Tulsa we can do some interesting and fun things with a gift store.
The March issue of GiftBeat magazine is featuring a story about Sweet Tooth, me and Jeff.  We haven't seen it yet, but we were interviewed over speaker phone a few weeks ago by the editor, Joyce and to tell you the truth, it was a great conversation.
She asked us how we went from owning laundromats to owning a gift store.  The truth is we never really thought anything odd about that.  My sister and brother-in-law owned the laundries with us.  One day we just decided that we should try being business owners...although we all had other jobs.
One thing led to another and we found ourselves owning 2 laundromats, a dry cleaners with 2 pick up stations and...odd man out....Sweet Tooth Candy & Gift Co.
We were fearless....that comes from not knowing any difference.  I also think it comes from my sister and I growing up with a immigrant father who set the example for us of starting out with nothing but ambition and owning his own company.
I suppose we wanted to be a little bit like our Dad.
Fortunately our husbands went along with us.  We established procedures and policies.  We felt like a team, which included employees we trusted and helped along the way.  Our belief in customer service came from thinking how we would like to be treated when we shopped or used a service...and then we applied our beliefs to our 2 businesses.
It is actually a fairly simple philosophy...the "do unto others....." belief that when you treat others well, they will give back the same.
The laundromats are no longer under our ownership and my sister and brother-in-law are on to another business; however I think all of us still operate with the same attitude.
It is a lot of fun to think that what we had to say to the editor of GiftBeat will be read by other retailers in other places.  And in a way it is a bit of a fantasy. 
It just goes to show us that we never know what is around the next corner.