Everyone thinks I'm a human version of a bulldog. I'm pretty direct and when I latch on to something, they compare it to a bulldog's fangs around a throat. I don't let go and I don't give up. I follow every action to its logical end. Many think I'm the luckiest son of a bitch in the world when all I really am is prepared.
In everything I do, I make sure I'm as ready as possible to make it a pleasant ending for me. I'm more of a wolf in a bulldog's skin, because I sniff around things from every angle I can think of to ascertain any weaknesses in the business or person. Never underestimate the value of research. Personally or professionally, I exhaust every avenue available to me before I decide on a plan of action. It's one of the many reasons I have a successful business. If I have a new vendor or new customer, I find out all there is about them and don't take anything at face value.
They may look good on paper but if I dig deeper, I may find out they're right in the middle of an ugly divorce where their company may be compromised, or maybe they declared bankruptcy three years ago in another state. Some may be involved in affairs with either sex and not be particularly discreet, or associate with people of questionable character who may negatively impact their business, in turn, impacting mine.
I'm sort of like a venture capitalist, which can be a kind of term for legal loan-shark, if you wanted to get nasty about it. I've accumulated a little money over my life and managed to increase it substantially by investing wisely with people in whom I had a high degree of confidence. I'm not infallible. Some things don't work out, but my success ratio is about 80%, so I'm able to absorb a loss and move on. Often, it's a learning experience that gives me better insight into the next deal.
Widely diversified, I have a finger in a lot of things. I had a friend who was a hell of a trainer with several degrees in physical therapy and sports medicine. She was very good at what she did, but she had no business sense at all. When she approached me about opening her own business, I researched it with my usual fanaticism and dragged her along. She learned a great deal in a short time about how her industry worked and in the end, we agreed it was a viable opportunity so I set her up. I owned 60% starting out but wasn't actively involved, except for the business aspects, and there was a standard buyout clause I put in every contract that allows the minority owner to buy me out over a five to ten year term. There's also a clause in the contract that if the business starts failing, I step in, analyze the data and decide whether to take over management or shut it down. I've had to do that three times, and I took it as a personal affront every time.
I had invested in an advertising agency early on, and it was very, very, successful. They were approached by some heavy hitters who wanted to buy them out and have them work for their organization. Bob and Jan called me for help and we went over the offer. It was attractive, but I showed them that as their reputation grew they could be bigger than the company trying to buy them out in fifteen years. They declined the offer and over the years it's been very profitable to me. I still own 20% through the structured buyout program we'd agreed to, and in four years they'd be completely independent.
My usual practice was to use who I had worked with earlier to help make my newer investments successful. Bob did a carefully crafted campaign for Jodie's rehabilitation clinic, and in two years she franchised and now has offices in every Southern state and parts of the Midwest. I own just a bit of each one because she insisted it made her feel safer.
The guy who started me down the path I was on was an old-time wheeler-dealer who liked to fly under the radar. Over his lifetime he probably paid about twenty per cent of the taxes he really owed and got away with it. I wasn't quite that brave, and my deals were pretty straightforward and transparent. Besides, with the advent of computers it was a lot harder to slip anything by the tax man. It was the reason Great uncle Harry avoided technology like the plague.
There had been a scandal at an accounting firm in my town. It seems no one was watching them watch other peoples' money and they had taken advantage, to the tune of twelve million. They got caught and the owners went to jail. The money was never found.
It piqued my interest, so I bought the business for a song. The old owners were desperate to pay their lawyers, so they didn't profit from it. I kept three of the junior accountants who weren't involved and built the business slowly. Their core business came from making sure the companies I invested in were on the straight and narrow and provided expert advice when they needed it, and usually, they meant me. I had changed the name and the guys I had were good, managing to get about 25% of their old customers who hadn't been stolen from back so it was starting to show a pretty decent increase in revenue stream.
I offered the three originals a buyout deal that they jumped all over: six per cent a year for ten years. They had seven more years to go.
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By then, I was 32 and pretty happy with all aspects of my life but one. I was lonely. I dated a good bit but had never found 'the one'. Harry's wife had gotten tired of his many affairs and had raped him in the divorce. Seems she knew a good bit more about his business than he thought. When she got done with him, the I.R.S. came knocking. The only thing that kept him from jail was me. It was a near thing, but he had to pay an estimated amount of two hundred and fourteen thousand in penalties and taxes. If he could do that, they'd let him off with three years of probation. He had the money but couldn't explain where it came from, so I loaned it to him. That put me under the microscope, but my transparent ways paid off. Harry was paying me back at a pre-agreed rate from his salary as one of my warehouse managers, plus twice the amount under the table. He'd be out of my debt by the time the probation was over.
My great-aunt was acting out of anger and pain, but it made me appreciate the need to get things out in the open should I ever find a woman I loved enough to marry. A prenuptial was a given, and I would make sure there were some pretty stringent penalties in the case of infidelity from either spouse. I'd even talked to my lawyer about it and he gave me the groundwork, with the details to be worked out when the time came.
An only child of parents who never had any deep family ties, I was pretty much alone in the world. It made me want a family, a large family, pretty badly. I wanted a minimum of three children and if one of them came with the mother I'd consider it a bonus. I was young, not unattractive and had enough money to make the dates high-end. There had been two pretty serious relationships in my life. One was going along fine and she was hinting for a commitment when I explained the prenup she'd have to sign. She balked, saying we were in love and would be together forever. When that didn't work, she turned into a shrew of an epic magnitude. We just gradually drifted apart.
Six months later she married an up and coming businessman who came from old money. Six months later they were in divorce court, and she was trying to squeeze every dime possible out of him. She partially succeeded, getting almost everything he'd accumulated, but the family money was locked up in a trust and there was no way she could get to it. He almost lost his little company until I stepped in. Three years later he's worth far more than he was when he was married, is engaged to a very nice young lady with a child from a previous marriage who seemed to love him more than her mother, and they were house shopping. I set it up with one of the two real estate offices in which I had an interest.
In the same time frame his first wife had married and divorced twice more, getting very little out of each failed marriage. I saw her at lunch one day and she blamed me for everything. I just grinned. "I'm not the cause of all your problems, honey. Just the big ones. All the rest is on you."
It was bullshit, of course, but she believed it.
*****
I had gotten frustrated looking for love, so I backed off. Love ran into me in the hallway of the advertising agency. I was a pretty big guy and she was a waif of a woman. I found out later she was five foot even and weighed ninety pounds when I met her. After I helped her up, admiring her legs, I apologized and introduced myself.
"Hi. I'm Roy. A pleasure to run into you."
