Bookstore Sells Success Stories : Hopeful Buyers Snap Up How-To Business Books

SAN DIEGO —  In a bleak storefront bookstore on one of El Cajon Boulevard’s many fast food strips, Harold Oakley’s customers dream of freedom and independence.

Though they use such terms, their dreams are more practical than grandiose. They want freedom, not from oppression but from “the boss”; independence, not in a political sense but in a financial one.

So they troop into the Entrepreneur Book Store to scan 250 titles suggesting the kinds of small businesses that Oakley’s research department believes hold the keys to freedom from wage-slavery. They are books, manuals really, with unlikely titles like “Restaurant Grease Collecting,” “Shrimp Peddling,” “Flame-Broiled Chicken,” “Herb Farming,” “Sweats-Only Apparel Store” and, of course, “Parking Lot Striping and Maintenance Service.”

Want to Be in Control

And they reveal their American dreams to Oakley, the bookstore’s pleasant, low-key manager who harbors dreams of starting a small business of his own. “The drive is to be your own boss, basically,” he said. “A lot of people tire quickly of working for someone else. As long as they make a decent living, it doesn’t have to be super-profitable. As long as they’re in control. That’s what’s important.”

“Face it,” said Shannon Matranga, who has opened a successful National City mail services business with the help of one of the manuals, “if you work for somebody else all your life, you’re working to make them money. I can work being a secretary for $4.50, $5, $6 an hour and never get ahead.

“I’ve been working full time since I’m 15. I’ve been working for other people for 20 years.”

Oakley’s bookstore is one of 27 opened during the past year in 17 states and Canada by the Entrepreneur Group Inc., the firm that publishes Entrepreneur magazine. The 14-year-old Los Angeles-based monthly, which claims a nationwide circulation of 200,000, taps into the American ownership yen with a glossy collection of small business success stories, how-to information and trend predictions written in a cheerleading style.

(The company is perhaps better-known for the extracurricular activities of its founder, Chase Revel, who was convicted of two bank robberies in the 1960s, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 1973, and last year was twice arrested for possessing the materials for making pipe bombs.

(Revel’s association with the firm ended in 1982, when it filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of federal bankruptcy laws, according to current chief executive officer Barry Rupp. Rupp’s firm purchased Revel’s remaining shares of stock in the company in December, Rupp said.)

The company’s big money makers are its thick, plastic-wrapped manuals, which contain detailed information on how to open a small business, gathered by the magazine’s department of trend-spotters and researchers. As potentially lucrative small business fields develop, the staff researches a sample of firms across the country and turns out new volumes.

Each of the 250 titles contains a cover page advising prospective owners of the business’s expected profits, cash investment, risk factors, growth curve, stability and potential for absentee ownership.

Inside are reams of information on marketing and location, facilities, equipment, inventory, licenses and taxes, advertising and promotion and operations--a preview of small business life for the low, low price of $45 to $75. Special supplementary manuals advise customers about such important areas as “Legal Aspects of Small Business” and “Raising Money.”

Taking a Shot

“The ‘80s is really the age of the entrepreneurs,” said Steve Oakley, Harold’s brother and national sales manager for Entrepreneur magazine. (Steve is part-owner of the store his brother manages). “People are getting out there and taking the shot. It is risky, but people have found that working for someone else can also be very risky. They’re not guaranteed any financial security at all.”

Perhaps that’s why Entrepreneur magazine sells about 100,000 of its small business manuals by mail each year, despite the fact that 61,232 U.S. businesses, 98% of them small businesses, failed last year, according to John Anderson, editor of the newsletter “Dun and Bradstreet Looks at Business.” In the same year, 251,597 new businesses were started, Anderson said.

In less than a year, the 27 new stores have increased manual sales by 30,000 to 40,000 volumes, Steve Oakley said.

The Oakleys do not believe they are preying on these hopes and dreams. To the contrary, they claim that many small business failures are caused by a lack of knowledge of the task ahead, and for a small price they are providing their customers with a dose of small business reality.

“Nothing in life is guaranteed,” Harold said. “It depends on the individual also. You can buy an established business and fail also because you don’t know what to do. So, no, you don’t prey on their dreams. You’re just spurring them on.”

Harold’s tiny storefront shares the ground floor of an office building near Park Boulevard with a travel agency. All its contents are displayed on three bookshelves. On a small table are “subliminal persuasion” motivational tapes on “fear of failure,” “how to make a decision” and “self-confidence imaging.” Harold works behind a large counter before a window covered by water-stained curtains.

Business is only fair, he said. “We’re still trying to crack the San Diego market. San Diego is harder to get established (in) than most other cities.”

About 120 fortune-seekers arrive each month to scan titles such as “Sculpted Candle-Making,” “Pizzeria,” “Roommate Finding Service” and “Liquor Store.” Typically, they are blue-collar or lower-management men between the ages of 25 and 45, who have recently decided they are willing to put in more sweat and time working for themselves than for someone else.

“The guy,” Steve Oakley said, “who has worked for General Motors for 15 to 20 years and found out he is not going to get the gold watch.”

Fulfilling the Dream

About 35% are women with the same ambitions, women like Jodi Gibson of Jamul, who arrived one afternoon last week with her two young children to look at the manual on doughnut shops.

“I started out being interested in a cafe,” she said, “and I still am. But after reading through (the manual), I realize it’s not something I can do quickly. So the doughnut shop is something I can put together quickly.”

Behind the doughnuts, and even the cafe, is Gibson’s larger dream. “I’m convinced that I really want to be independent of a system,” she said. “I want to carry the risks myself and feel the satisfaction of doing it myself.”

A member of the store’s “Entrepreneur’s Club,” Gibson has paid $298 for the right to borrow any of the 250 manuals. She has been through about 10--including “Janitorial Service” (no potential for absentee ownership), “Coin Laundry” (requires a major capital investment), “Salad Bar” and “Sandwich Shop”--but remains undaunted by small business failure rates. With her area of the county expanding so rapidly, Gibson is determined not to miss this opportunity.

“I lived in Orange County for 15 years and I sat and watched it fill up,” she said. “I would say, ‘You know what they need on this corner? A doughnut shop.’ And six months later, there would be a doughnut shop. ‘You know what they need on this corner? A restaurant.’ And six months later, there would be a restaurant.

“I’m tired of sitting and watching everything go by. It’s stupid. I’m now in an area that’s Orange County all over again. I’m not going to watch it go by again,” she said. She is so convinced that small businesses are the keys to her family’s future that she is considering setting up her son in one of Oakley’s less-popular businesses: golf ball retrieval.

Looking up from the manual he is scanning, general contractor Joe Tufillaro says, “I’m planning to start a tire store, and even with 10 years of business experience, it gives you a whole lot of information.” Three years ago, Tufillaro consulted the manuals before opening another business that proved successful.

The tire store manual shows him prices on new and used equipment and the relative merits of 4-horsepower compared to 9-horsepower compressors. “It’s stuff like this that would take a guy months (to learn), calling everybody, finding out what the prices are,” he said.

Harold Oakley has dreams of his own. An ex-Marine, he wants to open a firm that caters to San Diego’s large military community, preferably some kind of entertainment or recreational concern. Managing San Diego’s smallest bookstore is just a temporary assignment, he said.

“Everyone has dreams,” he said. “But it’s up to the individual whether he wants to continue to dream or to act on his dreams.”