Even enjoy the hard parts

Austin, Texas:   Here is a study of the American dream.  It isn't always perfect, but it works and works well. It is about people like David Arnold who started selling watches on weekends to supplement his income.

David Arnold was a high school coach. The trunk of the family car was always filled with samples. He and his wife would go just about anywhere in Texas to find a new drugstore to carry his brand of time. When we taped this story, David had 65 employees and $50 million in annual sales. To create this American dream story, David did a lot of things right.

First, he took the leap; he sharpened his focus; and he made his avocation his vocation.  Then, he was always shooting for a slightly better way. Because he knew that he would set his sites on highest levels of achievement; he named this new business, The King Company.

Next, he focused on his team. Team players. And his weight-lifting center was only a metaphor for his goal of building the strengths of each person on that team. David then focused on getting people on base. Know your stuff! And, before long, each of his people began helping others to get on base. They began scoring. They began winning. Each day. Small victories.

To continue learning from David, let us look at ways he applied the most sophisticated technologies to the business of ordering, warehousing, selling, shipping and financial transaction processing (collecting on accounts receivable within minutes not 30-60 days). The watch industry is one of the oldest, but here we learn about some of the newest business practices to create profits and a foundation for the future.