(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you, thank you.

- [Narrator] It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS and The Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by a grant from USDA Rural Development.

This series was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech University Center for Rural Innovation.

- When starting a new business, it's important to learn from those who have come before taking advantage of history.

Well, in this episode of It's Your Business, we get to know business owners who have literally built their businesses on history, through rare historical books and collectibles, as well as using their historical curriculums to educate students throughout the world.

(upbeat music) If it's rare and collectible, there's a good chance our first guest either has it in his store, or can tell you exactly where to find it.

Lewis Matheney knows the importance of remembering the past and loves to fill his store with items that are sure to take you down memory lane.

Let's take a journey through Harper's Rare Books and Collectibles.

(upbeat music) We're here in Cookeville, Tennessee with Lewis Matheney owner of Harper's Rare Books and Collectibles, Lewis, welcome to the show.

- Thank you, I'm so glad to be on the show, it's exciting.

- So, first things first, what is your business?

What is Harper's Rare Books?

- Well, Harper's Rare Books I would say is the result of my lifelong love of books that started with the fact that I could read at age three.

And in Tennessee, in the 1960s, they really didn't know what to do with a kid who could read at three.

And I was also a bundle of energy.

Always have been, always will be I suspect.

And so my aunt, who was my surrogate mom, very smartly placed me in a lot of activities that kept my energy being burned off.

And one of those was that I had the opportunity to start as a volunteer at the library and not even our present location.

One prior to that 10 hours a week at age 10, I was working at the library.

So that was a great outlet for me.

And along the way, just I've been an avid reader and a collector books.

And then there was a bookstore in the Northeast that I bought out some years ago.

And at the time it wasn't the time to reopen it and the location wasn't correct.

But in coming back to a Cookeville my hometown, this was the exact right time and the exact right location for it.

So that's the backstory on it, you might say, yeah.

- So clearly you sell books, but you have a lot of other things too.

Tell us a little bit more about what you sell.

- Well, the part of and collectibles is also based on the fact that I've been a collector of a lot of collectibles over the years, and it varies greatly.

And I'm a real neat freak.

So I can't stand a lot of clutter in my house, but I, so I've always had extra storage space.

Wherever I live, I have to have about 2,600 square feet of storage to keep those collectibles in storage.

But for example, some of the collectibles that we have include this collection of these mid-century 1960s peanuts, piggy banks, as they were called.

And they're the characters from the Peanut strip, including Charlene Brown and Snoopy, and they're highly collectible and kind the hard to find.

And there's sort of been this resurgence and an interest in all things mid-century when it comes to antiques and collectibles, we're seeing the demise of the collectors of early 20th century, Victorian stuff, that kind of stuff you really can't give away, but we have a little mix of that in here.

It's a little bit of everything.

So it's 2,600 square feet of things that we're bringing out for which we just happen to have space.

So there'll be a lot more coming in as we move along.

I don't expect that I'll be done selling this stuff before the next 10 years are up.

- Well, there's certainly a demand for it.

And what I find really interesting is you're selling physical books.

I notice that you've got a vinyl collection here, and what's really interesting to me is that even though we're in this digital age of kindles and streaming downloads, people still want books.

They want vinyl.

Those have stood the test of time.

- Yeah.

- Why do you think that is?

- It's just that very generation comes up with this idea that there's something from the past that they wanna bring into the future, but on their own.

And I've studied the trends with vinyl for years.

And there were spurts here along the way and somewhere in the mid 90s.

So what we're seeing now are teens and twins and preteens, all coming to their parents, explaining to their parents in a way we've discovered this new form of listening to music.

And if parents are smart and they want their kids interacting more together, they don't say to them, oh, that was our generation.

So, and the kids all at explain it saying that there's this communal experience, the art is bigger.

The photographs are bigger, the lyrics are there.

We pass the album around and mom and dad, you actually have to get up.

And there's one side and you change it to another side and it's a tactile, communal experience.

So reading is the same thing.

Suddenly there's not, it's just not a trend or a fed anymore.

It's just a main stream way of living that's just starting to grow and starting to bloom now.

- You talked a little bit about your history.

Let's talk about starting the business.

How did you actually get here in Cookeville and how did you start the business?

Without getting too sort of philosophical, I would say that provided, I'm always guiding my life with love and truth first toward myself and then to other, everything just falls into place.

I'm 60 now and at 30, when those weird coincidences, as I saw them were happening, I called them weird.

And now at 60, I just say, that's how my life goes.

So, it's really that COVID in many ways brought about this great opportunity.

I looked at it from the beginning or early on and said, we can either call this a plague or we can call it an opportunity and I was here.

I was going to open a museum here because I'm a preserver of local history based on the old drive-in movie theater that my father ran in the 60s.

And with COVID hit, we just realized a small, nonprofit would probably not make it at all during COVID.

And so then the word then, which I've been using a lot after COVID's pivot.

I just pivoted, I remained fluid and stayed open to opportunities as they come toward me.

I also spend a lot of time asking advice of people that I know have valuable advice to give me and listening to it.

- So you've got a support network.

Does that include local business owners?

What does that look like?

- I've always felt like as a person who has a lot of civic pride, that I have a responsibility to speak to what we used to call civic duty.

So very often I just jump in and what I'll say to other businesses is what may I do to help you?

And that might sound sort of like an idealistic notion or that I'm giving too much.

But the reality is I've always known that something will come back to me or in the moment something comes to me.

So it's really, especially with small businesses with artists as an artist, I can tell you it's very important that we create a support network and that we lend each other, this mutual support, and this town has just been amazing for me.

- Well, speaking of support, what is it that small businesses, particularly in rural areas need to survive?

- The ability to pivot and to stay fluid.

Again, that's something that COVID made all the more apparent, I think that's the idea is t's a great thing to have a vision or a dream.

As an artist, artists very often have a vision or a dream for what they want to be as an artist, but very often they drop the word working, so it's that small businesses very often, I've seen before people have an idea or a dream, but then they don't really know how to couch that in the form of a business.

And I know that sounds a little silly to say, it's that obvious, but it's not always that obvious, your dream or your vision can be so explosive and you can be so enamored and in love with it.

And all of that, that you forget that you have to take every single step that any business would take.

This is what a combination of books and antiques and vintage clothing and art and music.

Those are all passions of mine, but took a lot of footwork to get the numbers right.

- [Michael] Well, speaking of that what are some challenges that you've experienced as a small business owner?

How did you overcome them?

- The challenges presently to me are unfortunately the entrenchment of everybody on social media in a way that they think is a reality and I'll grant you that it is a reality for some people, but the negativity, unfortunately, but for me, I've always been one to turn a negative into a positive, and I've looked at several Facebook pages along the way that have to do with local business and local government.

And one of those is a page that our city mayor has that has to do with things going on in Cookeville and development.

And it's odd to me that the moment our great mayor, Ricky Shelton, who's done this amazing job of keeping Cookeville one of the most thriving, what is known as a micropolitan regions in the country will post something positive.

We have improved a road from this block to this block.

And I think to myself, it's amazing to me, that 300 comments in people are complaining about every other road in town and the stores that we don't have, what we don't have, what we don't have, what we don't have.

And for me, it's really simple.

There's just a negative space there.

There's a vacuum.

And all I do is step into that vacuum or that space and turn that negativity into something positive.

Look, that's my point of view.

I can't say that that can or will work for everybody, but I've worked hard over the years to make that my reality.

- Well, speaking of the mayor and other local leadership, policy makers, what would you tell them?

What advice would they need to hear about what they can do to help small rural businesses?

- Just listen, very often I've been in management for some years.

And in my 30s, I was a manager of one of the largest gyms in New York City and had a staff of 20 personal trainers that worked with me.

I myself was a personal trainer for years as well.

And I would always talk about the art of active listening.

And I don't have to be the one to tell Ricky Shelton or Randy Porter, any of our civic leaders, that they have a great deal of empathy for their entire community.

And that's one of the things that's kept this city thriving.

- What's the future hold for Harper's Rare Books and Collectibles?

- Oh, I, well, certainly an increase of sales online.

We've been doing this.

We've been open more or less since around August.

And we had been doing some sales online.

And one of the things that we had always planned from the beginning was, again, as that guy who loves pulling people together, community, small businesses, helping each other, I had always intended to have, for example, pet adoptions here in the store.

And that was a part of the planning phase before the store opened.

So a lot more community mind events taking place here at the store while more of our sales will be increased online.

And those are the simple two right now.

And then connecting this back to New York City where I've lived for many years in one form or another.

- Well Louis, I wanna thank you so much for being on the show.

You certainly inspired me, and I can tell that you inspire many others.

So again, thank you.

- And thank you for the inspiration yourself.

Just being on the show is great inspiration to me.

(upbeat music) - There's a well known saying those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Well, Ray and Charlene Notgrass are doing their part to ensure that no one has an excuse to forget the past, creating flexible educational tools for any homeschool student to learn all about our incredible history.

(upbeat music) We're here in Gainesboro, Tennessee with Ray and Charlene Notgrass of Notgrass history.

Ray, Charlene, welcome to the show.

- Thank you.

- Thanks, Michael.

- So first off, let's get into the basics, who are Ray and Charlene and what is Notgrass History?

- I'll go back to high school.

When I was in high school, my junior year, American history teacher and American literature teacher combined efforts.

And we had a team taught class.

So as we were studying American history, we'd be studying literature from that period.

And I was enamored and went on to major in history at MTSU, got a master's at UK, decided to go on ministry and got a master's in New Testament studies and was in ministry for 22 years.

We started homeschooling during that time in 1990, in 99, I wanted to make a professional change.

And so, Charlene and I and our son started the business and the door opened for us to write history curriculum for home schoolers.

I wanted to do it the way I was taught, combining history and literature and adding in Bible as well.

- So y'all got the love, the passion.

- We do.

- The training for history.

What was that one point in time you said, I'm gonna do this and then how did you do that?

- We knew we wanted a homeschool business.

We wanted to serve homeschooling families.

And so, at first we had written some Bible curriculum over the years for the churches where Ray was working.

We also picked out classic literature books we thought we're good for families.

And we started going to homeschool conventions and selling those things.

But at the very first one, it was in Nashville.

A mother came up to our booth and said, "I wish somebody would write a Tennessee history."

And Ray had majored in American history, had a master's in it.

My degree's in political science with an emphasis in urban planning.

And so that afternoon, after this lady had asked this question, we just kind of looked at each other and said, we could do that.

And having no clue what all that would entail.

So we spent the whole next year writing a Tennessee history and living off his retirement that we had from his first career, but it had three components.

It was 150 lessons of Tennessee history with a Bible verse at the end of every lesson.

It had a workbook, 150 pages of worksheets for the kids.

And it had a field trip guide to every site in Tennessee, science, historic, everything.

We extensively, our son extensively researched that.

So, it was exploring Tennessee.

Well after that, and Ray started working at Tech teaching adjunct American history.

He came to me one day and he said, "I'd like to write an American history.

I don't know if anybody would buy it.

I'd like to write it the way I learned it in high school."

And I said, "Go for it."

And so he wrote, "Exploring America."

We'd had no idea at the time that it would go beyond that.

And when people started using "Exploring America" they started saying, well, when are you gonna write world history?

So we worked on world history.

- So you wrote the original book, the ball gets rolling.

Let's fast forward to now.

You've had a lot of growth and expansion, walk me through as entrepreneurs, how have you all dealt with that?

- We are blessed to have really good people working with us.

That makes a huge difference.

People who have been willing to adapt, we used to do lots of homeschool conventions all across the country that kind of shut down.

Those folks shifted over to customer service and order fulfillment.

They've filled those holes very well.

COVID did a lot for our company in that people started homeschooling in greater numbers and we've tried to respond to that, to help people navigate that change.

People homeschool for all kinds of reasons, but that's been an adaptation that we've had to do.

And it's been good for us.

- One of the ways we've worked to grow our business is by supporting the families we serve.

So we do a lot of the videos.

We do, I write a blog of encouragement for homeschooling mothers, because homeschooling is, as everybody knows a huge commitment and a scary thing for a lot of people to do.

And so, we care about them.

We want to help them keep doing what they've started to do.

- What do rural businesses, particularly in this region, what do they need to survive?

- They gotta have internet, good, reliable internet.

We do a lot with social media.

We have a full-time videographer.

We have someone that we hired fairly recently from the corporate world.

She knows social media like the back of her hand.

And so, that has given us a great presence in the way people shop, the way people learn.

And that's been a big help.

- You mentioned a moment ago that homeschooling can be scary and that you really help to provide a support network.

Many of our viewers would probably say that entrepreneurship and owning a business is scary too, and therefore need a support network.

Do you all have a support network?

And what does that look like?

- We are members of the Chamber of Commerce, the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce.

And we have found that a very encouraging group to be part of, it's exciting to hear about what other businesses are doing.

Also, our son founded a homeschool trade association and he sort is the president of that.

So we have, well before COVID we had once a year conventions for that, but now we have fairly frequent zoom meetings with other people who are in homeschool businesses.

Most states have a state homeschooling association.

So the trade association has reached out to them to, I know the last meeting, the head of the Virginia Homeschool Association was at the meeting.

So you can be in a rural setting and now with zoom and all of that, you can just be so connected.

- So in thinking of about that same potential small business owner, that has an idea, maybe much like yourself, but is either scared or just hasn't really crossed that fence just yet.

What advice would you give to them?

- Hire good people that helps, we found it helpful to form a corporation.

And I think it's helpful to have a clear chain of command of who's responsible for what and who follows through and that sort of thing.

There are lots of books to read and lots of resources that people can look to.

I would encourage educating yourself.

You'll get a lot of good ideas.

You'll get a lot that won't apply to you, but it'll get the juices flowing.

So if you're really open to learning, I think you can find the information and the support that you need.

- This has been sad and maybe overstated, but we do what we're passionate about.

And I think that makes a huge difference.

If you don't start a restaurant, if you don't love to cook, and don't start a history business, if you don't love history.

And I know that sounds trite, but it has been very, very important in our business.

- Well, look into the future, what does that hold for Notgrass history?

- In terms of writing, we have three more years of curriculum we want to write.

And each one of those projects will be a year or two in completion.

In addition, we continually try to improve our products, our publications with newer pictures, including information that has occurred since the last addition came out, writing history is not once and done.

We want to keep it, bringing it up to where we are in history.

And so, there are lots of projects that we want to do.

- Well, Ray, Charlene, thank you so much for being on the show.

I've really enjoyed our conversation today.

- Thanks so much, Michael.

- We have too, thanks Michael.

(upbeat music) - So, I'm Chris Devore.

I have a business called Third Assist Hockey Company and my business is an e-commerce business where I sell outdoor, centered in vintage hockey gear.

One of the things that I learned early on is that you have your specialties and you have other things that you are not great at.

So, I mean, for example, you have to be good at accounting.

You gotta know your legal side, you have to be on the creative side, marketing, all those different features of which I've realized I'm pretty decent at some of them and in other ones I need help.

So the that's one of the reasons that I reached out being a hockey business, especially a pond hockey business, it's not necessarily a pond hockey hotbed here in Tennessee.

So I moved here two years ago.

So one of the first things that I did is there were resources from where I came and that was in Maine for young entrepreneurs.

And I wondered if there was something similar here around Cookeville.

So I was able to, when I started doing searching, I just did a quick Google search and right away, The Biz Foundry popped up.

So I contacted the Biz Foundry, told them what I was doing.

And they said, yeah, we can probably help you out, come in and chat.

So the first person I met was Jeff.

And so, Jeff asked me about my business, wanted to know where I was at, what the next steps I was taking were.

And so he was able to introduce me to some of the resources Biz Foundry have, but also other connections here in the community.

And so, through Jeff introduced me to some actual machinery that they own and his connections here in the community.

I was able to kind of take those next steps.

One of the projects that I was working on was handcrafted hockey sticks.

So no one else makes wooden hockey sticks that are one hand finished also that you can customize to whatever you're trying to make.

And so up until this point, I would had a certain way that I was making these hockey sticks and I had a potential order of 300 hockey sticks.

And of course, this is me, this is a side hustle.

I had to figure out how to do this in an efficient manner.

And he threw out the idea and it was one of the ones that I was exploring of and graving.

And so over at the Biz Foundry, they have a laser engraver of which it's a machine, which I wouldn't have just bought and spent $20,000 on a machine.

So he introduced me to that idea and introduced me to Josh over there, who knew how to run the machine, put a hockey stick in, it made a pretty cool product.

And through that process, I actually sent a sample to the potential customer.

They loved it.

And I was able to get a pretty big stick order, which boosted the business.

So after working with Jeff, I think I worked my way into the network a little bit.

And a few people reached out to me, which was great.

So it just took reaching out to one person and then the rest of the resources started to come my direction.

So all it took was that first step.

And then from there, Andrea reached out to me with the business resource collective.

And from there other resources came about such as photography and graphic design.

And I've been able to use those again, two skills, which I would not say that I possess and take those skills and apply them to my business.

So for anyone who's thinking about trying to use these resources, but is hesitant to do so.

Oh, I'd say just go for it.

I think one of the things I learned early on was take action.

Like I think about, I think a little too much about taking action and it's really just shoot an email, make a phone call.

What's the worst that can happen.

I mean, you're gonna get, you're gonna get resources.

You're gonna make new connections and you're gonna be able to figure out other opportunities that can potentially expand your business.

So that's the way I've always looked at it.

And I've had, I think originally I was a little hesitant, but once I started making, asking those questions and started shooting those emails, it was easy.

I saw that it worked for me and continued on.

So the resources I was able to find here in town between The Biz Foundry, the Business Resource Collective, the Business Development Center between those three, I've been able to take business kind of the next step, which has been awesome.

It's only been two years since I've been here in town and it's getting to the point that it has grown substantially.

So for anyone who is potentially thinking about it or knows that they're like me, that they're lacking in certain areas in terms of their skills, I would reach out to the business resource collective for anyone who's interested to get started up or has questions like I did reach out to the business resource collective at brcollective.org.

- Thanks for tuning in to It's Your Business.

For more information on today's topics, please visit the WCTE website to learn more about free small business resources and expert assistance, visit the Business Resource Collective website.

Until next time, I'm Michael Aikens.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by a grant from USDA rural development.

This series was produced to under an agreement with Tennessee Tech University Center for Rural Innovation.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you, thank you.