What made you want to be an entrepreneur after working for other companies?

You succeeded in creating a very recognizable brand. What strategies can you share about how to create and develop a brand?
The most important thing is consistency. Along with that consistency comes the willingness to be in it, to create it, and expect that what you're going to do is long term. Building a brand takes a long, long time and I think it's hard for a lot of businesses to think in terms of:

Okay, I'm going to build this really strong, credible foundation. It may take me ten years to do it but then I'm really going to have something.

It's very hard for all of us, really, who want instant gratification. To think to yourself: 

Okay, I'm going to build an image and it may be a year or two before someone comes back or I may affect someone's life today. I may not be able to get the reward back from that for five years, but I'm okay with that because I'm really in this for the long, long haul.

I think the concept you have to have going in is that you're willing to look at this as a very long-term, consistent commitment.

Many entrepreneurs face the decision of whether to grow and when to grow, and choosing the right time. On the basis of your experience, how do you determine when, where, and how to expand?
I'm probably not the best at that. I'm very conservative. But when you can see that your customers and your employees are  starting to become stifled or you're not able to deliver the best customer service that you can because of whatever limitations you've put on it, it's all driven by your employees and your customers. I'll give you an example. When I started the Subaru business I couldn't afford air conditioning in the showroom. One day I was sitting here and this man pulled up in a pickup truck. He walked in and he said:

Kitty, I bought a Subaru from you because you had the best price, you were so kind, and everything was upfront, but I just perspired the whole time I was buying it. I'm in the air conditioning business and I have an air conditioning compressor in the back of my truck out here. My cost is $500. I'm dropping it off at the curb here and you're writing me a check for $500 right now-and get somebody to install the thing.

It was a good laugh. And I installed it. But that's a perfect example of a customer really dictating what I needed to do.

You must have a high quality management team in order to run an organization like yours. Can you share some of your experience or suggestions on employee development or training?
There's so much to that we could talk about, but one thing I do is so simple and I think everyone should do this. First of all, any person that is going to come in contact with my customers has to be interviewed by me and approved by me. I don't necessarily do the first or second interview on the person, but if you are an employee that wants to work at Van Bortel and you are going to have any contact with a consumer, you have got to go through an interview with me. The main criteria that I have when I interview someone is whether or not that person would be kind hearted enough and sensitive enough that I, personally, would like to spend time with them. I feel that if I like them, then they're probably okay. I'm beginning to think as time goes on, that great customer service skills are not learned, they're almost innate.

What advice would you give someone who is just starting a business?
I think the best advice I could give someone, just from my own experience is to worry about your reputation first and worry about the money far down the road. Just worry about keeping your reputation because without a really strong, great reputation your business isn't going to grow. It's very hard when you first start, because you don't have any money so you're looking at every dollar. But you have to realize that sometimes you have to take a lot of steps backwards before you are able to go forward again.

What legacy do you want to leave and what advice would you give to young women who are interested in a non-traditional career? 
The legacy I want to leave is that every person I passed along the way--I tried to do my best to help them. It's the idea that the more you give the more you actually get back in the long run. It may take a while but it really is a great philosophy in life to have-not only in business, but for life in general.

It's important for women to remain women and not try to act like men. Just be confident in who they are themselves. Just push forward without being overly aggressive. I graduated from an all-women's college and it was a very nurturing environment for me, so I graduated feeling as though I could do anything.

For my first job I applied to a Ford dealership that said it couldn't hire me because all the male salespeople would quit. That was in 1975. I had a lot of confidence. None of these guys had college degrees and the fact they would quit was strictly because they didn't want to work side-by-side with a woman as a salesperson. So, I asked the owner Well can I at least meet these guys? He said, You can meet them if you want to. So, I sat with every one of these guys and talked to them and made it clear that I wasn't a threat, that I just really wanted to sell cars. The owner called me the next night and said Well; you've talked to everyone, so now I'm going to take a vote. I said okay and they voted me in.

BSM

 

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