War Hero, Entrepreneur, Grandfather
Allow Me To Introduce You
I want to take a moment to introduce you to a man that has been most influential in my life and my business, my grandfather, Louis Kolinsky.
Everyone has a grandfather, I was lucky enough to have him.
Soldier, Survivor, Superhero
Most of you never met my grandfather, but I wish you had the honor and privilege to. Grandpa Lou was born of the Greatest Generation growing up in New York City — a scrappy young man, who joined the U.S. Army Air Corps on the eve of World War II.
Deployed from Fort Totten, grandpa served in the Pacific Theatre. He was captured in the Philippines. One month after his capture (and having survived torture for stepping up to protect his C.O.), he survived the famed Bataan Death March. Eventually, he was transported via the Japanese hell ship Lima Maru to work as a Prisoner of War in the Yokohama prison camp.
He and the men in his camp were liberated at the end of the war in 1945. He returned home to start his civilian life, his family, and his business.
Businessman: What They Used To Call Entrepreneurs
As a kid, I have vivid memories of sitting quietly and drawing at the desk adjacent to his. He had a green business phone with multiple lines, a home office, and a secretary and bookkeeper, my grandmother Anna. Grandpa was the true definition of what we today call an entrepreneur.
It was lost on me at the time, but I have since come to realize that grandpa started an E-commerce business — minus the internet, of course.
A customer would give him a call. He’d make an appointment to deliver their merchandise — everything from household furnishings to jewelry, and clothing, to Console TVs, to Hi-Fis. (That’s what they used to be called back in the day.)
Before Visa, Mastercard, and AMEX
Banks didn’t get in the credit card game until 1958. OK, technically Diners Club started in 1950, but it was mostly for food and entertainment. Grandpa had a Diners Club card and an American Express card, both well before Bank of America rolled out their BankAmericard nationwide in 1966, the year before I was born.
He was one of the fortunate people that could qualify for and get credit from the banks. Not everyone could. Grandpa set up his business to help those people.
Grandpa came back from the war a different person. Sure he was a hardened military man who’d seen unspeakable things during the war, earned a coveted Silver Star (the third-highest military decoration for valor in combat) but his heart was that of a softie. Grandpa cared about people and satisfying their needs.
In true entrepreneurial fashion, he uncovered a challenge, created a solution, handled objections, and closed lots of deals.
Grandpa Was A Baller
I didn’t know it at the time but grandpa was a baller. I thought it was normal to roll with $5,000 to $30,000 in cash on a daily basis. I thought doing business in all 5 boroughs meant that he needed a concealed carry permit. I went on sales calls, payment collection visits (no, not the mob movie kind) — these were customers who genuinely loved my grandfather. He’d been serving their families for decades by the time I was old enough to understand his business. They thought Mr. Kolinsky was their source for everything they wanted and needed, plus he financed them directly and they were given payment books.
Grandpa grew a thriving business, one that included a printing press for brochures and catalogs in his basement. I got to run the noisy Pitney Bowes 5600 mailing machine and process all the catalogs to get mailed out across the city. He and I would make trips to the Main Street, Flushing Post Office to bulk drop his catalogs. I knew his spring catalog was going to drive all the business he needed through the dog days of summer. I loved having my hands in this part of the business. I learned what hustle looked like — hustle with balance.
Yes, work had a start time of 7 AM most days, but grandpa was almost always home for lunch at the Hilltop Diner, and never walked in the door past 4 PM. Work ended when his shoes came off and his slippers went on.
The best thing about my living situation was the proximity to my grandparent’s home. They were 5 houses away and around the corner. I was never more than shouting distance from their backyard, so I could always see if grandma had a better dinner option than we did at home. She usually did.
Educated Under The Stars And Streetlights
As if ritualistic in nature, every night after dinner, grandpa would retire to the solitude of his backyard and look up at the stars… and streetlights. Hey, it’s Queens, N.Y.
He and I would talk for hours about life.
Some nights the conversation leaned into my shitty grades and dislike for school. He understood me and encouraged me to just get through it. I tried, grandpa. I tried.
Many nights the conversation turned in a dark direction and grandpa would open up about the war. Opening up meant a thirty to sixty second sound bite that I’d file away, compound, and build into a more complete picture as the years went on.
My favorite conversations, however, were the ones about business. I wanted to know EVERYTHING I could about how he started, built, ran, and grew his business. Today we call that scaling — back then, we just called it “growing a business.”
I learned about interest rates and how to charge for goods and services, the basics of business, for sure. But I learned the most valuable lesson late one spring night in 1982. Timing would have it that I had a sleepover at grandma and grandpa’s house this particular Friday night. I stayed out back with grandpa extra late so we could have our talk under the stars until Johnny Carson came on at 11:30 PM. He never missed Carson.
As we talked about the week, he shared a story of a customer he worked with since the early 1950’s, a customer for thirty years now. Talk about brand loyalty!
Mrs. Robinson (Leticia if I recall her first name), a longtime customer in the Bronx, had lost her husband earlier in the week to a heart attack. Grandpa went on to tell me that the Robinson family had been very good to our family over the years, and had introduced many more customers to his business…customers that added to our families’ good fortune. I recall a deep sadness on his face.
He said “Kenny, my customers are family to me” he went on to tell me how you should always take care of family in a time of need, and that you need to make certain they are provided for, cared for, and aren’t burdened with life’s little nuisances in their time of despair.
What he did next has shaped how I run my business.
It’s Not All Transactional
The next morning, a Saturday, grandpa had breakfast at the kitchen table. He had his usual Cream of Wheat, a glass of OJ and a couple of cups of Chock-Full-Of-Nuts coffee. I can still smell the aroma of that tin can coffee.
That morning I got in his blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 and we made our way to the Bronx. My grandfather stopped for flowers on the way and had an envelope tucked in his double knit polyester suit coat.
We pulled up at an unfamiliar home and parked. He gathered himself a moment or two, something I’d never seen him do in all the sales calls I made with him. We walked to the door and were greeted by an older woman whose face wore her sadness.
”Leticia,” he said, “I’m so sorry for your loss”. He proceeded to hand her the flowers and she, in turn, thanked him and invited us in. He thanked her for her kindness and said that wasn’t necessary. Without skipping a beat he reached into his suit jacket and retrieved the envelope in his pocket. He handed it to her and requested she take a moment to open it.
In that envelope was a paid-in-full notice for whatever they had open on their account. To this day I don’t know how much money they owed him but he just let it go. Like that, they owed him nothing.
Mrs. Robinson stood there crying and thanked my grandfather for treating them so well over the years. She hugged him, blessed him, and we left.
As we headed back to Queens the car was eerily quiet, the only sound was the road and the beautiful music of WPAT on the car radio. That’s what they called it, but it was sleepy elevator music to me.
We arrived back at their home just after one, grandma was waiting to go to lunch. Grandpa told her we had just visited Mrs. Robinson and asked her to zero out her balance and close her ledger before we went to the diner. She did, and just like that, I learned how to treat a customer.
Decisions Come Easy When I Use The Lou Filter
Recently I had noticed a trend in my business, Ad Zombies. Several clients canceled their service with us but could not or rather were not able to clearly articulate why. Until I received an email from a client overseas. The email read:
“I wish the guys who wrote the content of your website or wrote the ads for Ad Zombies, created ads for clients too, but that can't be possible in the real world.”
Wow! It was as if someone punched me in the gut and also confirmed for me what I had been feeling but could not put my finger on.
When I started Ad Zombies, you couldn't tell the difference between my voice and the voice of Ad Zombies. All of our copy had a certain flair, a flavor. That flavor was mine.
So I did what I knew best. I applied the Lou Filter. I asked what my grandfather would do were he running this business? I knew the answer in an instant and put myself back in the driver seat at the Chief Creative Officer or CCO of my business. Grandpa’s wisdom always comes through when I need it. Within days we started to see a positive shift in sales, client retention, and happiness. Yes, client happiness became palpable. I received dozens of messages and emails confirming I had made the right move…although It was less me, and more grandpa. His experiences in business have shaped mine in ways I can’t begin to articulate. He’s my hero.
The Final Chapter
In his later years, he and grandma decided to sell their Queens, N.Y. home and move to Arizona, where my wife and I had already made ours.
Just as they had cared for and nurtured my childhood, we were able to care for them in their sunset years, living mostly harmoniously under one roof. I say mostly because there was that one time grandpa decided to heat up leftovers in the microwave, not realizing you can’t put a foil-covered tray in there. The light show was spectacular, the microwave didn’t fare too well, though.
I was blessed to have several more good years with both of my grandparents… More so to have dozens of great conversations in the backyard with grandpa. Those conversations never got old.
I Miss Him Daily
Grandpa Lou passed away, May 15, 2002, at the age of 86. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about him.
There isn’t a day in my business where I don’t ask myself, what would grandpa do?