Book Publishing Company, Clint Lee Diploma Company, Griffin Envelope, Zellerbach Paper Company, Unisource. What do these companies have in common? 1.) I worked for them, and 2.) They no longer exist. And I swear that I personally had nothing to do with #2. The business of printing and paper went through a sea change that lasted decades, and I was there for most of it. Attrition, absorption, mergers, businesses winking out. It was a tumultuous time.
Here’s the good thing about working through that: You come to understand that not much lasts in this world, including us, and change is inevitable so you might as well embrace it as best you can. It also makes you deeply
appreciate any longevity that still exists out there. My cousin’s jewelry store in Quincy, Illinois is in its 112th year and 4th generation. Our first sale of a business was a printer that’s now been around for 116 years.
This is top-of-mind because I just read an article about some of the oldest continuously operated stores in the world, including the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania which opened in 1745, and the oldest bicycle store, located in London, established in 1860 and on its 5th generation. They opened a second location in 2011, and the owner said, “We have a slow roll-out program: One store every 150 years.” The list goes on: a butcher shop established in 1515, a restaurant mentioned in a document from the year 803, a hotel in Japan founded in 705 that’s been run by the same family for 52 generations. In this day and age, these numbers are astonishing.
Here’s the other reason why longevity is on my mind: I refreshed a listing yesterday with a new image and additional copy. When I tried to save the info and make it live, a dialogue box said it would not accept an Established Date that was prior to 1925. But this company began in 1920. Intellectually, I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The successful sale of a business is not going to depend on this number, but on other ones that are included in Profit & Loss Statements and tax returns. I doubted that any buyer would storm out of a meeting saying, “You deliberately held this from me! I thought this business was five years younger!” But I couldn’t let it go. This company had started in 1920, dammit, and I wanted to give them that. They deserved it.
So I sent a complaint to BizBuySell and received several quick and concerned responses as they search for a work-around, proving that a company of a mere 27 years gets it when they receive a complaint from a company of a mere 20 years like us.
Cheers!
Pat Detmer
February 22, 2023