"One Day, Somebody's Going to Give It to Us"
How Faith & Perseverance Led a Man to Business Ownership
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Having a college degree isn't the only path to entrepreneurship. Today, we share how a Latino made his small business dream happen. Juan Lugo also shares tips for starting your business in the Tip Jar section.
EVERYTHING CHANGED
Things always have a way of working out for Juan Lugo.
When Lugo started moving up as a carpet installer, he bought a truck. “I bought a really ugly 1982 van. A blue van, a stinky one.”
But after he sold the old blue van, Lugo set his sights on a much fancier one.
INDUSTRY: Flooring
STARTED BUSINESS: 2016
LATINO/HISPANIC CONNECTION:
Born in Venezuela
Mother is from Venezuela
Father is from Venezuela
EDUCATION:
High School - Venezuela
DREAM JOB AS A KID: “Entrepreneur. I always wanted to have a business. I didn’t know which one.”
BIGGEST GOAL YET: Juan Lugo is hoping his second flooring store will do well. Eventually, “I want to make something like a Home Depot… Like Home Depot for flooring.”
Juan learning the business back in 2002
BUT I LOVE IT
“I bought a new, beautiful… almost $50,000 truck.”
He was criticized.
“Are you crazy?”
He would answer, “Yeah, I’m crazy. But I love it!”
Lugo says, with the new truck, sales increased by about 50%. Sure, his overhead was higher. But it was worth it for him.
“As soon as I bought the truck, everything changed.”
He believes the truck gave him credibility. With the nice truck, clients didn’t assume he was poor and might take off with their money – something he says he would never have done in the first place.
"WE'LL LET YOU KNOW"
Then there was the time he and his wife, Elizabeth, tried to find space to rent for their flooring business.
They kept getting rejected because prospective landlords didn’t think he was making enough money. They’d also filed for bankruptcy and lost their home around 2008 with the market crash.
“That was really challenging… As soon as they [landlords] [would] ask for bank statements, they [would] say, oh, we’ll let you know."
"And nobody let me know.”
In other words, his applications for a commercial space kept getting rejected over and over again. It started weighing on him.
"When you get rejected too much, you start feeling down."
But he told himself, "Keep trying. One day, somebody’s going to give it to us."
THE OFFER HE NEVER EXPECTED
And then, one day, they met a landlord who changed their lives.
Lugo told the landlord a little bit about his background. He told him he knew the flooring business and knew he could do better by opening his own store.
The man asked him how much Lugo wanted to pay for a unit. Lugo told him.
The man then said, “I’m going to give you one for that price and the other one for half the price.”
Lugo couldn’t believe it.
In the middle of construction at Juan's Winter Garden business
YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WANT TO WORK
“I almost cried. And then he [the landlord] put his hand on my shoulder and he said, ‘You know, dude, I’m a guy that [has] a lot of money. And I know how big it is having a lot of money’ and not having money. ‘I know how it is when people want to work and when they don’t want to work. And you look like you want to work, so I want to help you out.”
Lugo ended up with two units for “really, really low rent.”
HELP FROM ABOVE
Lugo says there’s only one answer: God.
Even when he was a kid, he says God helped him out.
“I was praying. Lord, give me strength. You know, I don’t like school too much. So help me out. Help me figure things out.”
Lugo says he knew school wasn’t for him.
HOT DOG CART TO HOTEL PROJECT
But he always had the drive to work hard. From selling his gold ring to buy a hot dog cart to sell hot dogs in his grandmother’s driveway in Orlando at the age of 18 to wanting to make extra money at a hotel project for his boss around 19 years old.
That boss offered to pay him $100 for every hotel room where he installed flooring. Lugo skipped lunch, killing himself to do three rooms a day for $300 a day. By the end of the week, he’d finished 15 rooms.
“So Friday, when he was supposed to pay me, I was really excited. I’m like, 'Oh, I’m going to make $1500.'” Lugo figured, after a few weeks of work, he’d have enough money to buy himself a car.
Instead, the boss stiffed him at the end of the first week.
He told Lugo he could only pay him $350 because Lugo didn’t have a social security number at the time.
Lugo vowed to never work for that man again, even though that employer called him up the following Monday and offered to pay him a little more to return.
Lugo would find a way to become his own boss.
THE BOSS
Juan Lugo's flooring business in Ocoee
That chance meeting with the landlord who gave him the cut-rate deal changed things.
It allowed Lugo to open his own flooring store in Ocoee. Just last month, he was able to open a new flooring store in Winter Garden.
Lugo doesn’t call it luck. He calls it “a blessing.”
Juan Lugo's business - Winter Garden
“I like to do my own thing. Be my own boss.”
He says he regrets not attending college. But, in a way, he doesn’t.
He reasons, if he would’ve gone to college, “Right now, I probably would be working for a company,” instead of being his own boss.
Of course, besides God, Juan Lugo does have another “boss” – his wife, Elizabeth.
He says, “My wife will always be the boss.”
Juan says, "My wife will always be the boss" - Elizabeth Lugo
THE TIP JAR (tips passed out courtesy of Juan Lugo)
STARTING OUT:
“Pray a lot.”
“Believe in yourself.”
“Present yourself in the most professional way possible.”
“Don’t be cocky…That’s an issue. I mean, you can be good. But [you’re] always going to have somebody that’s better than you. Learn from the people that know more.”
STEEPED IN SKILLS (mid-career): Juan Lugo cautions that entrepreneurship is not for everybody. You may think what works for one person will work for you.
But…
“Everybody is different… Sometimes, it’s not what you really want. It’s not really what will make you happy.”
“You’re going to make a little more money. But it’s a big responsibility.”
“If you really want to do it, just try to learn as much as possible and [be] courage[eous].”
STARTING OVER: “Don’t have a place [office space] right away – because that’s overhead that you don’t need.”
“It’s a transition… I never let go of one thing right away. I pass like Tarzan… Before I left one [job], I got the other one."
I’LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN:
“I wouldn’t change anything I’ve done. Because whatever I did, or whatever I’ve done, if it wasn’t good, it [taught] me something.”
“People like me who have never been in school, I, basically, had to learn by mistake. So each mistake is making me better each day. The more mistakes that I make, the better businessperson I’ll be. Because I’ll be fixing all the mistakes.”
BEST ADVICE FROM “LA CASA”/BEST “HOUSE” ADVICE: This advice comes from Lugo’s parents. First, his father:
“He said, ‘Push it. Push it till you make it.’”
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE: Lugo says his father is a master negotiator.
“He can go buy a million-dollar building with no money. He’ll sit down there and look at people and go, ‘Ok, we’re going to negotiate.”
And that was even if his father had no money.
He would just say, “Well, we’re still going to negotiate.”
His mom:
“No hables mal de nadie.”
TRANSLATION: Never talk bad about anybody.
NO NEED TO GO IT ALONE
HELP ON THE OUTSIDE...because we can all use a helping hand:
PINTEREST BASICS
Think Pinterest might be a great platform for your business or service, but you aren't sure where to start or don't know much about how it could actually work to your advantage?
This SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) course will teach you the nuts and bolts of the platform. You'll also learn how to get noticed, increase traffic and make money on Pinterest. Here's the link to register:
https://orlando.score.org/event/pinterest-101-basics-make-you-money-1
PINTEREST 101: The Basics that Make You Money
Thursday, January 6, 2022
5:30 p.m. EST - 7:30 p.m. EST
Virtual Webinar
FREE
WORKING ON THE INSIDE...because we know our culture has a hard time asking for help:
GOING BACK TO SCHOOL - SCHOLARSHIPS
Whether you chose not to go to college, dropped out, or if you just want to pursue more education, definitely consider it. Scholarships will definitely help lighten the financial load.
Since I'm a fan of learning of any kind, I thought that listing some scholarship opportunities for Latinos might spark some ideas of what kind of education you might want to pursue in 2022.
The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has this nifty list of nine scholarships. Check it out:
https://www.ushcc.com/scholarship-opportunities.html
INSPIRATION BEHIND THIS ISSUE:
From the get-go, Juan Lugo made it clear to me that he was going to discuss God in his interview. And he told me, if that was going to be a problem, then he couldn’t do the interview.
I’d never had anyone tell me that.
I don’t accept conditions for interviews. I don’t allow people I interview to “review” the article beforehand, either. Serious journalists don’t.
But I also don’t cut out religion, if that’s a genuine part of who that person is. Just like I wouldn’t cut it out if he said Judaism or the Muslim faith, instead of speaking out about his Christian faith.
This newsletter is about being authentic - authentic about who a person is, what they believe worked and didn't work in their lives and in their quest to become an entrepreneur.
Being religious is something that’s important to many people who are of Latino descent.
This newsletter tries to show the inspiration, motivation and driving forces behind entrepreneurship in the Latino community. And it’s different for every Latino.
To understand what makes us tick or makes up our value system, we shouldn’t discount influences like religion. And I don’t.
And that’s why I wanted to share Lugo’s entrepreneurial journey and the role he believes his love of God played in where he is today.
Juan with his youngest daughter
Juan with his eldest child
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