Lessons from my father, small town pharmacist and entrepreneur

My father passed away recently. His passing - not surprisingly - brought a time of reflection.

One thing is crystal clear - I learned more about small business and retailing from working for my dad than most people learn in four years of college.

Paul Owen, registered pharmacist, landed in the small town of North, S.C. in 1964. He bought an existing independent drug store called R&J Drugs, serving the town’s 1,000 residents.

The drug store was small, but in addition to the pharmacy, it managed to squeeze in a soda fountain, jewelry (think Timex watches) and a cosmetic counter. If you needed a prescription, over-the-counter drugs, school supplies, gifts, records and tapes, penny candy or tobacco, R&J was the place to go.

Lesson #1 - Location Matters

You can find North in central South Carolina at the intersection of Highway 321 and 178. It’s 35 miles south of the state capital Columbia and 20 miles from the county seat of Orangeburg. When Doc (as he became known) moved to North, the age of the chain drug store was just beginning. CVS had been founded a year before. The first Walmart opened in Arkansas just two years earlier and its expansion plans were a decade in the future. As for the likes of Amazon, well, Jeff Bezos was just a baby.

In those days, North was a thriving small town. I can still see each store along the East side of Main Street: Robinson’s Grocery, R&J Drugs, Dr. Nance’s office, Inabinet’s Barber Shop (with a pool room in the back), Etheridge Hardware with its pot-bellied stove, North Furniture, Derrick’s Hardware.

And that was just one side of the railroad tracks. Across the tracks on the West side of Main Street was another grocery store and a competing pharmacy.

R&J was on the busy side of the tracks.

#2 Understand the Power of Brand

I once asked my dad why he never changed the name of the store to Owen Drugs. He replied simply that people didn’t like a lot of change and that business was already successful. Why mess with a winning formula?

The legal name of the drug store was “Service Drugs Inc. doing business as R&J Drugs.”

Everybody just knew it as R&J.

#3 - Be there for your customers

The drugstore opened at 9am. Sharp. My dad was usually there by 8 a.m., making sure everything was in order. In the early days, he kept the store open to 9 p.m. during weekdays and as late as 10 p.m. on weekends.

He was always available. I can remember numerous occasions when he would get up at 3am to fill an emergency prescription. He even disappeared before my sister’s wedding to take care of a customer.

During the big snowstorm of 1973 when South Carolina was blanketed with two feet of snow in three days, Doc was sick. So he sent me down to open the store. I was 12 years old.

The people of North knew they could count on Dr. Paul in an emergency.

We were taught to greet customers by name, ask about their families and engage in small talk. Know who was a Gamecock fan and who was a Clemson fan. Who is a Baptist, a Methodist or a Pentecostal. This stuff was important in small Southern towns.

And it may have been the 1960s and 70s in the South, but all customers - black and white - were to be treated the same. There was no segregation at R&J. All were welcome.?

My dad also became the first merchant in North to hire an African American as a clerk. But that’s another story for another day.

#4 - Keep your store clean and tidy

My first job, at age 11, was taking out the trash at the store. After I got promoted to clerk/soda jerk, I learned quickly that the last job of the night was to dust the shelves and vacuum the store. Merchandise was to be kept orderly and positioned at the front of the shelves so that customers could see the items and reach them easily.?

The soda fountain had to be cleaned constantly and be sparkling by closing time.

#5 - Don’t forget the holidays

Doc took the holidays as seriously as Macy’s. We decorated for the seasons, spraying canned “snow” on the front windows during Christmas and creating holiday displays. Within two days after Christmas, the lights and tinsel were down and the gigantic Valentine’s pegboard heart was up, stocked with Whitman’s chocolates. There were sidewalk sales in the spring and autumn. Spooky Halloween jack o’lanterns and festive Thanksgiving decorations.

#6 - Have trusted business partners

My mother was the unsung hero of the drug store. She worked as the bookkeeper. And her accounts were meticulous. Although she had a small office in the back of the store, she also kept an “adding machine” on our home dining room table. Many a time, I was asked to help find a tiny imbalance in the books. Accounts receivable and payable would always have to be in balance before Maxine Owen could sleep.

My dad finally took on another pharmacist after years of working seven days a week. Doc brought in a young, local man - Bernard - as a co-owner of the business, That allowed my dad to finally get some days off and work on his golf game (which was pretty dang good).

And let’s not forget about the rest of the family. My older brother and two younger sisters all worked at the drugstore throughout their high school and college years. It was a classic family business.

#7 Know when to expand and modernize

With his business growing, Doc made a bold move in the 1970s. The old grocery store located next door had closed, and my dad decided to expand the footprint of R&J. He leased the space, knocked out the adjoining wall and renovated everything. New carpet. New displays. Better lighting. Improved signage. He took a 1950s era store and brought it firmly into the 1970s. And it paid off.

Doc also looked for other opportunities in North. He briefly opened a clothing store, trying to fill a gap after the local dry goods store closed. As more people in the town started working in Orangeburg and Columbia, he opened a daycare center. Neither business was as successful as R&J, but one thing’s for sure - he did it right.

#8 Embrace technological change

In the 1980s, my brother went to work for NCR just as small businesses were beginning to experiment with computing. Through a series of extraordinary circumstances, R&J Drugs became one of the first independent pharmacies to computerize its prescription business. No longer would Doc have to hunt and peck on his typewriter to fill out prescription labels. Instead, he could keep stock of his drugs, have an electronic record of each patient, and have the computer printer spit out the labels.?

This was revolutionary in the mid-1980s - especially in the town of North, S.C.

Doc’s embrace of technology went further than computerizing his pharmacy. He was an early adopter for electronically monitoring and ordering his over-the-counter inventory. Through the early use of databases, he was able to understand how many bottles of aspirin, cold medicines and other OTC medications he needed to have on hand for his customers.

#8 Hold on to traditions

Yes, Doc did embrace technology. But he also understood the importance of tradition. And at R&J, there was nothing more traditional than our soda fountain.

Even though the soda fountain was not a huge money maker, it was a draw. People would drive from miles around to have an ice cream, a milkshake, banana split, a chocolate sundae or even an ice cream soda. Once they were in the store, you could usually count on them to spend a few extra dollars.

I realize that my dad was not perfect. He could get prickly when he was busy. He didn’t take enough time off in the first 10 years of owning the drugstore. He missed too many family vacations when I was a kid. But man, he loved running R&J Drugs.

One last note. As I read through the hundreds of messages paying tribute to my father on social media, one theme was repeated over and over. “He gave me my first job.”

Turns out I wasn’t the only person to receive a great business education from Paul Owen.