We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alan Bertaux a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alan, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

After losing my wife to breast cancer, I didn’t want to do the business we had been doing together anymore. After grieving for about a year and an half, I got married again and started thinking about what kind of business I’d like to get into. After searching high and low for about a year, I finally zeroed in on a picture frame shop that was for sale. I didn’t know anything about framing, but the price was right and it seemed like that was something which could be fun to get into. I bought the business in 1992, which came with one of the employees. The employee taught my new wife and I the ropes.

Within a year of taking over that business, I realized that there was not enough money, running one such shop. So I decided to start another one in a different part of the city, and another one, and another one. Eventually, within 3 years, I had five stores in the Baltimore area.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is alan bertaux, I’m the owner of Framin’ Place, a custom picture frame shop in Baltimore.

Prior to being in the picture framing business, I had started a business helping find companies get established in America. My wife and I did that for about 10 years and we successfully launched about a dozen European firms in the US. However, as a result of my wife’s passing due to breast cancer, I decided to abandon this line of business. About a year and a half later I got married again. For a while, I didn’t know what kind of business to do, but eventually I bought a small picture frame shop from a lady who was retiring to Florida.

The business came with an employee who taught my new wife and I all we needed to know to run this business. After a year or so I acquired another frame shop and eventually had five shops in the Baltimore area.

With regard to Advertising, I tried a number of venues, door hangers, newspaper ads, radio and TV commercials, trade shows emails, etc. After a couple of years, I was able to find that radio was the best way to advertise, particularly after we won several times the “best of Baltimore” accolade from Baltimore magazine.

One of the toughest moments in this business was when I lost my manager of 20 years. His passing was a real personal shock as we had become good friends, and also a professional shock as he had been extremely instrumental in growing this business. Fortunately, a year or so before his deadly illness, he had hard a gifted lady who became my new manager.

Alan Bertaux
[email protected]

Also, you will find below a number of artwork pieces which we have framed :

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Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?

After my second wife passed away, I looked high and low for a different business that I could start. I tried a joint venture, looked into franchisees, but eventually decided to buy a small picture frame shop whose owner was retiring. This was the beginning of my owning five such businesses in the Baltimore area. When I decided to move permanently to Delaware, I sold four of those shops to my former managers, and retained one of them, which I still have, and will likely sell to my present manager.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

I had done fairly well in my previous business, so I didn’t have to go to a bank to get going on that one, or acquire additional locations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Framin.com
• Other: I was burned with some social media some years ago, and I decided never to get involved with those things again.

Image Credits

These are personal photographs, which require no external credit.