Close to two years ago, Victor Seyedin broke new ground by purchasing and
installing the first operating Solvair machine at his in Evanston, IL.
Make no mistake about it, Victor did it because he wanted to be a pioneer for
the drycleaning industry - even though he had only been a plant owner since the turn of the century.
Prior to that, he had been a wildly successful video rental store owner for well
over decade, battling Blockbuster head-to-head in various cities at numerous
locations, always finding a way to somehow be the victor.
Yet, long before he imprinted his footsteps on two different professional
industries, Victor was a young Iranian immigrant who traveled to America in
search of a college education. Unfortunately, he did not know any English
whatsoever at the time.
He was the last of four brothers to make the trek to the U.S. He felt quite
nervous when he first arrived at JFK in 1972 and his contact did not show up to
greet him.
His brother told him to keep plenty of money on hand and he also gave him a
piece of paper with the words "I need to make a collect call" just in case Victor found himself lost and alone.
When a woman tried to help, he could not understand a single word she said. He
gave her the sheet of paper and she responded by making a gesture with her
fingers to inquire if he had money for a payphone.
"I think it cost a dime at the time, but I didn't know what the heck a dime was," Victor recalled.
Instead,
he gave her a hundred dollar bill and she was happy to help, which
wasn't at all like the vision he had of the Big Apple. He had been told
locals would mug you at gunpoint for five bucks if you weren't careful.
"She was very nice," he laughed. "She even gave me the rest of my money back."
Back home in Mashad, Victor's father had been a successful farmer, but by 1972, he could not offer any
financial help to Victor while he pursued an economics degree in River Falls,
WI.
Victor was mostly on his own and his lack of English proved to be a hindrance.
Originally, he studied 18 hours a day to keep up. Still needing money, he
became a bus boy because the job didn't require much English.
"Soon,
somebody from another fancy restaurant saw my work performance. He
asked me if I could work for him as a bartender," Victor explained.
"Believe it or not, my hobby back home was not to go out and drink and
party. I didn't know any drinks, any names of beers, scotch, bourbon..."
It felt like he had to learn a whole other language there, as well. When one
customer asked for a "scotch and charged water" (also known as soda), Victor told him that there was no charge for water. It
was free.
Despite
the occasional setbacks, he worked hard, earned his bachelor's degree
and became quite successful as a bartender at the fancy Lowell Inn in
nearby Stillwater, MN. In fact, Victor was so grateful for the
opportunity that he continued to work there in the summer even when he
pursued an MBA in northern Colorado.
Fortunately for Victor, he never received his MBA. With one final exam left to
pass in order to earn it, he chose to deliberately fail.
"I flunked myself because if I would have passed, my immigration status would
have expired," he said. "I gave myself additional time so I could hire a couple of attorneys. I did get
my residency and my citizenship after that."
After spending five years organizing the finances for Antares in Minnesota,
Victor started a video rental company with his brothers and other investors in
the Grand Rapids area. They started with a small 700 sq. ft. store and
differentiated themselves by offering more movies and superior service than
local competitors.
Victor and his co-investors's investment continued to grow. In 1987, they stocked 1,400 movies that took in
$200,000 in annual revenues. The 2,400-sq.-ft. facility offered parking for a
dozen cars.
"After
a year and a half, I had expanded to 6,700 square feet, 24,000 movies,
a 100-car parking lot and $1.3 million in revenues," he noted. "That's
where we really became popular in the video industry and then
Blockbuster came into the market."
While
the other investors were terrified of going up against the country's
biggest video rental chain at that time, Victor refused to give in to
fear.
"If you have common sense and logic to do what you believe, and you have a
passion for what you do, fear will be the biggest enemy of your success," he said.
As Victor's video rental business continued to expand its scope, Blockbuster retaliated
with many strategies. They tried opening up stores across the street. They
launched expensive ad campaigns that flooded local TV, radio and newspapers.
They lowered prices. They even tried to buy out Victor and his partners, but
the offers were far too low.
"I always have this philosophy - and I will never change it - that a deal is only good if it's good for both sides," he said.
Sticking to his business strategies was the key. For example, pretty much
everybody thought Victor was crazy to buy 70 copies of Dirty Dancing to rent in
one store - a typical store might buy a half dozen.
"That
was insane for the proportion of movies there were to rent," he
recalled. "But, you know how many customers I got? I made more money
from Dirty Dancing than any other movie, to be honest with you."
By 1993, Victor and his partners had decided they were ready to go their own
ways. Blockbuster ended up paying well over $9 million for 17 stores.
Victor
headed to Milwaukee next to start anew. He opened 23 more video stores
and eventually earned a prestigious award for "Best Retailer in the
U.S. and Canada" in the small business category. The success was nice,
but he began seeing the writing on the wall.
"The
technology for that industry was changing so rapidly," he recalled. "I
didn't know what would happen tomorrow, but I wanted to get involved in
something different."
Victor purchased Lake City Cleaners in Highland Park in 2000. Five years later,
he bought out Perfecto Cleaners, adding stores in Chicago, Evanston and Lake
Forest. While his revenue tripled in the first few years, Victor did have to
overcome a drycleaning learning curve.
"We
pushed hard. We made some mistakes, but we learned," he said. "I am an
entrepreneur and entrepreneurs are not perfect. I am not one of those
people whose father raised me in drycleaning to know about every single
part of the drycleaning business, but I am interested and learning as I
go."
One
way he's managed to do that is to associate himself with America's Best
Cleaners so he can learn drycleaning secrets from the experts.
Early on, Victor also applied lessons he had learned from the video rental
industry, such as: there is no substitute for excellent customer service.
In
fact, one of the ways he was able to offset Blockbuster's big marketing
campaigns was combining creativity with a strong understanding of what
made his customers happy.
When White Men Can't Jump first came out for rental, Victor used a shrewd marketing gimmick that
proved to be a big hit.
"In the stores across the streets from Blockbusters, we had basketball hoops and
told our customers to come and shoot a basket. If you scored, you'd get a free movie. It created excitement."
These days, Victor is creating excitement for drycleaning. By serving as the
initial site for Solvair, he has been featured prominently in numerous news
stories from many print and TV outlets. He chose the technology because he
wanted his plant to be known for production quality and environmental
friendliness.
"It's
not perfect, so to speak. It's got its own issues," he noted. "But,
when you put the regular garments in the Solvair, it takes out about
90% of the stains when it cleans. It's a product that you need to learn
about, but once you learn about it, it will produce a quality product
that no other machine can do. Period. I will never go back to any other
way."
The technology has garnered a lot of interest from drycleaners throughout the
United States and beyond. In fact, the machine was largely the reason that
Gibson's Couture Cleaners recently merged with Lake City.
Having
been in the industry less than a decade, Victor recognizes that he
isn't an expert on drycleaning methods of the past, but he believes he
has his hand on the pulse of its future.
"There
are a lot of people in this city, in this country, who like to be
environmentally friendly," he said. "Lake City Cleaners was not known
in downtown Chicago. David Gibson told me recently when he merged his
company with mine: 'You were nowhere four years ago. And now, every
damn building I go to I see more bags of yours than anything else.'"
Victor
has worked hard to get his company's name known and believes that
positive word-of-mouth far exceeds the amount of money he's put up to
make Lake City better, faster and greener. That is why he hasn't
regretted investing money even amidst the current recession.
"You
must invest money today for tomorrow," he said. "You must always see
the light at the end of the tunnel and focus on it. Yes, the road has
bumps - and, hopefully all of us can get over those bumps - and the
economy will come back and we'll all be better off."
