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

Eric, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mission for my business right now is just ensuring my family is secured during these hard times. My family used to run restaurants and we have also moved around a lot too. Seeing my parents get older and expenses for restaurants get higher. The small amount of profit vs the high expenses was just not worth it anymore. Our restaurant was also in a very bad area and it was hard for me to hear my mom telling me about a customer coming in verbally abusing her with racist comments. On top of the fact were a part of string of robberies where these robbers attacked and robbed 13 asian restaurants. After experiencing all these awful moments while working with my parents and then having a gun pointed in my face, I knew that I had to get my family out of the restaurant industry. I understand that my parents immigrated here with limited education and for us to have a better life. That was their mission, my mission is to find a way to let them have a peaceful rest of their life for bringing me here.

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

I was presented this opportunity from a friend of my parents and it was an opportunity I wanted to take because it meant a potential out of the restaurant industry that many asian families continue to struggle with today.

My business mainly focuses on selling scratch and dent house hold appliances and I know that doesn’t sound enticing. However, I’ve learned that my many years of playing video games has taught me how to barter efficiently with my many customers. In our current economy, prices is increasing for everything meanwhile minimum wage has been the same in GA since 2009. My aim is to be able to barter with customers to find a price point that makes both parties happy. It has been challenging to figure out a median price point for the current demographic but I believe that is what sets me apart from other businesses in this industry.

I am proud I have made it as far as I have in such a short time being open. I want everyone to know that when you shop at my store, you are treated as family not as another customer walking through the doors. You won’t get mediocre service given to you by a minimum wage employee (no offense to them and I understand why they aren’t giving 100% for a company that does not care about its employees). Comfortability and Trust is what I value my business practices on.

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

Yes! I helped my parents sell their last restaurant and if there’s anything I can definitely recommend is get EVERYTHING in writing. We lost out on a sale because I wanted to put my faith in the lady we were selling to and that she would honor everything she said. However, months went by and she kept dragging us along with lots of excuses and lies. Just to basically bait me into the final weeks of our store closing date that she was not going to pay the amount she originally offered. Luckily, I did not sign anything before hand so I told her this is no deal then and she’s a terrible person for pulling this on my family last minute.

I was foolish enough to put my faith in someone but at the end of the day no matter how good someone sounds, make sure you get everything in writing and in a sales contract.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Currently, customers come to my store based on our reviews from our great customer service. We go above and beyond to help customers when they are in need. Even with the items under warranty, we advise all customers to call us to see if we can fix anything for them free of charge.

I also believe in just doing good things in general will help get your business out there. We had a lady come in very frantic because she had broken her mom’s oxygen tank. I got my tools immeditealy and had her walk me through what I needed to do. I fixed it up and they were very thankful. They came back and gave me a thank you card with 100 dollars in it and they bought a washer and dryer from me (at a discount of course).

It helps build comfortability and the consumer sees that. Word of mouth goes a long way in the appliance industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: a4lathens.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/a4lathensga
• Other: Google: Appliances 4 Less Athens