People who look at my resume see a physician-scientist and wonder how I learned to run a business. Since founding my first company Proteon Therapeutics in 2001, I have been blessed with several excellent business mentors. But looking further back, I realize now that I first learned about business from my mother. She owned and operated a small antique store while I was growing up. When people think of antique dealers, they often imagine part-timers and hobbyists who enjoy having a store full of beautiful things in a trendy part of the city. Though my mother loves antiques, with a high school diploma and three children to feed, clothe, and put through school, she needed to turn a profit at the store to pay the monthly bills. To her, this was serious business.

During my childhood and adolescence I spent many weekends in her store, working and watching. Sometimes, when I knew she was going out on a buying trip, I would skip school to go with her. It felt like we were on a treasure hunt. When I got older, I started going out on buying trips myself using my own money. Looking back, I realize that I learned some really good lessons.

This informal training lasted about ten years, from when I was around eight years old until I left for college at eighteen. During this time I learned how to negotiate. When my mother spotted something she thought could be resold for a profit she would gather information and try to read the seller. How much do I think they paid for the item? Do they seem eager to sell something today? You would be surprised what people give away with their words, expressions, and movements. Usually my mother would formulate an offer that had room to make a nice profit but was intended to be high enough to engage the seller. A miss too low here and the seller could be offended, making it difficult to do a deal. Then she would bargain from there. My mother was rarely argumentative and if the final price did not suit her then she would politely say no, knowing that there would be other items to buy down the road. On any given day we might visit ten stores and negotiate over five items at each store. At the end of the day we would return home, unpack, and talk about what to do with each item and how much it might sell for. I probably went on an average of two buying trip a month and probably saw more than 10,000 negotiated purchases. With that kind of experience a person gets pretty good at figuring out what things are worth.

Another thing I learned on our buying trips was the power of asymmetrical information during a transaction. If a buyer knows that a table is a Gustav Stickley and the seller does not, then the buyer is well positioned to turn a profit. It pays to do your homework in the antiques business and to stay current on emerging trends. It also pays to be able to see what a neglected or damaged item could be if given proper care and placed in the right context. If you know that a pile of boards at an auction is actually a complete Diamond Dye cabinet waiting to be put back together then you can do well. To this day I really enjoy finding “diamonds in the rough” and making something great out of them.

During this time I also learned how to sell things. I learned that the sale of an item starts long before a potential buyer enters the store. First, you have to work to make the asset more attractive. Often this requires cleaning, repairing and refinishing items and moving them around in the store and I am sure my mother appreciated having a twelve-year old boy with a lot of energy around to help. Other times what is really needed is to place the item in the right context. For example, if you buy a cabinet full of worn mail slots from a hundred year-old post office and place it in your store with wine bottles in the mail slots then you can do well.

When a potential buyer is interested, there is an art to closing a deal on favorable terms. First, you need a good “elevator pitch” with three or four sentences about what the item is, what makes it special, and maybe a little history about it. Second, you need to read the buyer’s level of desire. In an antique store nobody pays full price, so the difference between a healthy 50% profit and a minimally acceptable 25% profit can come down to where you stop lowering the price. Reading the buyer can help in getting that right. Finally, if the buyer’s price is too low you have to get comfortable saying no and waiting for another buyer to come along.

A final thing I learned during this time is the importance of building and sustaining relationships. In the antique business you often end up visiting the same sellers time after time and repeat buyers keep your inventory turning over and your profits up. If you are honest in your dealings, treat people fairly, and are generally agreeable and trustworthy, then you can sustain these buyer and seller relationships over a long career.

There may be a lot more zeros in my deals now, but I still use the lessons I learned at Gable’s Antiques every day.

I would like to acknowledge and thank Michael O’Shaughnessy for reviewing this post and providing helpful comments and edits.