The Company Next Door
In this show I have the opportunity to sit down with hundreds of small business owners and help tell their story. We spend less time talking about profits and revenue and more time about how the business came to be, what got them started, why do they do what they do, and what keeps them going. This show is focused on small businesses in Utah but I may one day branch out to other states.
The Company Next Door
Ryan Begin: KG Showroom (Ormond Beach, FL)
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Ete AhPing
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Season 3
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Episode 12
Meet Ryan Bégin, co-owner of KG Showroom, located in Ormond Beach, FL. Ryan and his father, Laval, own and operate KG, a brick and mortar showroom and online retail store where "you'll find a large selection of quality brands for the kitchen and bath and dedicated showroom specialists to help coordinate your projects."
The Story
- Growing up around the extended-family businesses. (The Bégins are coming up on 50 years in the kitchen and bath industry.) (4:10, 12:05)
- Architecture school at UF. (17:51)
- From Modern Age to Kitchen Gallery: The late 80s economy and changing from factory to storefront (24:08)
- Trading architecture for international economics (25:56)
- Looking towards the expat life in China (27:19)
- An important epiphany: “And then it dawned on me, I didn't want to do that.” (28:09)
- Commission sales: “seeing how risk affects your daily life” (30:24)
- A bookkeeper goes MIA. “She had bled our family financially dry.” (31:59)
- Finding “the place I felt I could help the most…” (42:47)
- A “short term” position change (43:44)
- From business boom to The Great Recession (47:26)
- Taking it personally: digging out of the business’ debt for 3 years (44:15)
- Becoming an owner (48:23)
Ideas and Insights
- Connect to the community: look back, not just forward (5:40)
- The trend: people want “real” again (6:20)
- Is automation a threat? What COVID taught us. (7:45)
- When technology helps: fax machines for everyone! (10:57)
- Information and access control: two-way protection (38:50)
- Not the typical entrepreneur: a methodical style (20:14)
- “If you’re willing to do something well”: the money will come, the business will come. (21:30)
- Frank Lloyd Wright: a business owner as conductor (22:34)
- The employee culture of “you don’t want to get caught” doesn’t work. (41:51)
- The “undying hope” of the entrepreneur: “There’s never a “no” in my future.” (49:37)
- One “huge hurdle”: incorporating technology (50:50)
- Trusting your gut: The ultimate tool for learning and growth (53:59)
- The review process is critical: “what decisions have we made here? What am I doing? And what am I not doing?” (59:25)
- Own the consequences. (1:03:10)
- Success: "knowing that you’re on the right path." (1:06:00)
Miscellaneous Fun Stuff
- Ormond Beach: birthplace of speed (not the movie), and playground of Hudson Hornet (1:20)
- “I thought I was going to be a meteorologist. I laugh about it now but–. I wanted to study meteors.” (15:11)
- “‘Does anyone know what that's called?’ I said, it's a heat low. And he said, ‘Who said that?’ And that was my that was my claim–that was my day of fame right there.” (18:12)
- “Sometimes…I want to go off on a homestead and build furniture.” (102:59)
- “I’m gonna bring her [sourdough] starter with a field of wheat around me.” (1:12:33)