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Charlie Cooper, Rent-It Company

 

                                               Charlie Cooper 
Words of Wisdom
 
 
  
 

 

 

 

  • The main thing anybody going into business needs is to have enough cash to get started. People try to start on a shoestring, and that’s fine. I admire people like that, but your business is not going to start making money the day you open. You have to get established and satisfy a lot of people. Then you gradually get going.
 
 
  • You’ve got to have some capital. You can’t go into business on borrowed money. If the business doesn’t really go, then you are broke. 
 
 
 
  • Pay attention to your financial side. Pay your bills and get a good credit rating. If you ever get the reputation for not paying your bills, it will hurt you in business.
 
 
  • If you get a banker that you do business with, and you do it right, he’ll learn to trust you and take chances



 

 

ELS Mentor Interview
Charlie Cooper
Former owner of Rent-It Company, Established in 1953
 
 
 
Date:  September 2009
Location:  Alexandria
Interviewer: Gary Perkins – Felix Mathews  
 
 
Felix: “Tell us a little bit about your background, where you were born and raised.”
 
“I was born and raised on a dairy farm, in the middle of the depression, in Boyce, about four miles out of Alexandria. During the depression, a dairy farm meant you had to milk four cows by hand before you went to school. It was rough, but we made the best of it. 
 
“There were five kids in my family. How my Dad was able, in the middle of the depression, to send four kids to college, I still don’t know, but he did it. I wanted to be an aviator and fly airplanes, so I didn’t go to college. When I was 18, World War II came along. You had to be 19 to apply to be a pilot in the war, so I signed up, went in the Air Force and became an Air Force pilot. I ran a B-24 crew. A B-24 is a four-engine bomber plane. We headed to Europe, where they were still fighting World War II.
 
“As soon as I went to Europe, that war ended and the government sent me to the Pacific as a B-29 pilot. I stayed in the Air Force and finally got promoted to SAC Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. This was the first time in my ten-year Air Force career that I didn’t have a flight crew. I was humbled when, in 1952, I received the Soldiers Medal for Heroism, the Highest Award Given During Peacetime. After that, I ended up with a desk job, which I really didn’t like. In the meantime, I got married and had two small children.”
 
Gary: “Did you meet your wife in Nebraska?”
 
“No. When I graduated from pilot school in Texas, I came home on a seven-day leave.  Charles Masters was a good friend, and on Sunday afternoon, he said, ‘Charlie, I have to go pick up my girlfriend at the Baptist Hospital. She’s a nurse and gets off at three o’clock. Come go with me.’ So, I went with him to pick her up. The cutest little brunette Cajun gal was with her, and she asked if we could drop her off at home. I thought to myself, ‘Honey, I’ll drop you anywhere.’ So, needless to say we fell in love, and, rather than break her heart—why, we got married.”
 
Gary:   “You must have been much more handsome in those days.”
 
“Well, I was a lot younger. I’m 85 now, so we’ve been married 63 years.”
 
Gary: “What was her maiden name?”
 
“Naquin, she’s a Naquin from Lafayette. Her Dad was a big contractor down there, built a lot of schools.”
 
Gary: “You were only home for seven days. How did you get married?”
 
“We fell in love. I came home two or three months later, and we got married on a weekend. I didn’t even have a car back in those days. Now, everybody’s got cars for the kids.”
 
Gary: “Was she a nurse at that time?”
 
“She was a nurse with a little white cap. She was a pretty little thing. Back in those days, nurses wore white uniforms, white shoes and a white cap. Now you see them and they’ve got blue jeans on.”
 
Gary: “But she did go to Nebraska with you when you got stationed there?”
 
“Oh yeah, she stayed with me. I was stationed in New Mexico when we got married, and she went with me. I ended up in Spokane, Washington, where I spent most of my time. After ten years, I decided I wanted to get out of the Air Force, but I had no civilian job experience. I hadn’t been to college, I didn’t like my desk job, and all I knew how to do was fly an airplane.
 
“Anyway, we decided to go ahead and get out. I came back to Louisiana with no civilian experience and not a lot of money. I could have been a farmer on my dad’s farm, but that wasn’t too exciting. My wife worked as an RN.
 
“I finally set up my first little rental store in Alexandria. When I was stationed in Omaha, Nebraska, they were just forming a chain of ‘Rent-It’ stores. It’s not like those we have now. Today, we have big, heavy contractors’ equipment. Back then, you rented floor polishers, vacuum cleaners, rollaway beds, and stuff like that.
 
“My dad owned that service station on the corner of Bolton and Kelly. Fuzzy’s Drive Inn used to be across the street, but I had one lot on Kelly Street. I built a duplex store, a 20’x50’ foot building, and my wife’s daddy was the contractor. He came up and helped me, and I hired some bricklayers. I mixed the mortar. After we built the store, I rented one side out to a cleaners.”
 
Felix: “Was this the first Rent It Company in Alexandria that you were aware of?”
 
“It was one of the first in the state. We didn’t have all these contractors that rent equipment now.”
 
Felix: “But you got the idea out of Nebraska.”
 
“Right, in Nebraska. That’s when we didn’t even have lawnmowers, and they were starting these Rent-It stores, where they rented lawnmowers. It was a reel-type power mower, so we would go down and rent it, for like a dollar or something. I got to know the guy that owned that store. I almost bought a franchise from them, but he talked me out of it.
 
“I got to know him, told him what I was going to do, and he helped me a draw up a lease, and how much to charge, and build an inventory. 
 
“When I came down here, that was the only kind of business I knew about, so we started the first store. Once we got it open, sometimes I would sit there and maybe rent two or three things a day. At the same time, Eddie Hornstra had the Seven-Eleven stores, but they called them the “Pic-N-Pac” stores then. 
 
“Back then, that was a new concept. He’d go around and build the stores, and ended up building about ten of them. In the meantime, I was going into the rental business and people would say, ‘There are two crazy guys in town. One of them is building a Rent-It store that you can rent junk from, and the other guy is opening a store that will be open at seven o’clock in the morning. You can buy a bottle of beer at seven o’clock in the morning and he’s going to stay open until eleven o’clock at night. They’re both crazy—won’t last six months.’
 
“As Eddie Hornstra built these stores, he’d have his grand opening on Sunday afternoons. He built one of them a year. There were ten of them, and he made a fortune. I would go up to these grand openings and I’d say, ‘Eddie, you’re crazy. You’re going to be broke in six months.’”
 
Gary: “Where did you get the money for the inventory?”
 
“When I built the first building, I had a little money saved up from the Air Force. I was a Captain on flight pay, and I was making good money back then, $750 a month. There was no way in the world you could spend all that money. We came back, got the store opened, and it was slow. My wife was an R.N., so she worked at the Baptist Hospital back then.
 
“I opened that store with $6,000 worth of inventory. I had borrowed a little bit of money from my daddy.”
 
Gary: “Which was lot of money in those days!”
 
“It was a lot of money. As we rented stuff , the rental business gradually caught on. We started renting a lot of little stuff, like TV sets. Alexandria just got the TV station here, and most people did not own a TV set. Oh, man, during World Series time, they played the World Series in the daytime, so we would rent twenty or thirty TVs.
 
“In four or five years, we built the store over on Monroe Street, on that corner where Palace Grocery was. We cut two or three of those big oak trees for $600 each, and left one, which I had taken down later on. 
 
“Then we started getting into contractors’ equipment. Ditch diggers were some of the first items we got, then concrete mixers, and scaffolding. After that, things started going pretty good. 
 
“I went to the bank and borrowed $10,000 from Guaranty Bank. My daddy always said, ‘If you can’t pay cash for it, you don’t need it.’ When I started to open my store, everybody asked for three credit references. I said, ‘I don’t have any credit references; I pay cash.’ 
 
"I finally got some credit established.  I tell everybody that the main thing anybody going into business needs is to have enough cash to get started, because you don’t start out making money in business. You have to get established and satisfy a lot of people. Then you gradually get going.”
 
Felix: “You have to have some capital.”
 
“Yes, you got to have some capital. You can’t go into business on borrowed money like I see some of these people do. If the business doesn’t really go, then they are broke. 
 
“Next thing I did was to build a strip center. Then I started buying rent houses. I probably made as much money in the rent house business as I did in the Rent-It Company. We built this strip center and had it all rented. Then we built the Pineville Rent-It store, and later on, we built the one out on the Lake Charles Highway. 
 
“In the meantime, Cliff Miller got in the rental business, plus somebody else. Pete Shackleford had the ditch witch deal, and he started renting his ditch diggers. After the houses, I built some apartments out on Enterprise Road. I ended up with 42 rental units, which was a big deal back then.”
 
Felix: “How long was it before you made a profit when you first began the business?”
 
“Well, starting off we didn’t have much business.”
 
Felix: “Did you have any bookkeeping system or any accounting?”
 
“No. Three or four months after I went into the business, I went somewhere to a party, and a guy said, ‘Oh, it’s the twentieth of the month. I need to pay the sales tax.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about, sales tax?’
 
“He said, ‘Aren’t you collecting sales tax?’ I replied that nobody told me about collecting sales tax. Back then, somebody would go into business, and nobody came around and told you about those kinds of things, unless you could afford to hire a bookkeeping service, which most folks couldn’t afford.”
 
Gary: “How did you get out of that? Did you go to the sales tax office?”
 
“I went to the sales tax office. I said. ‘I am opening a little business out here. I have a license.’ They were real nice and said I needed to collect two percent, or whatever it was back then, and mail it in by the 20th of the month. I guess you still have to do that.”
 
Felix: “Was there anybody there at that time that could give you any business advice?”
 
“Not really. Now everybody has a good thing going, because if a big company puts another store in Alexandria, they already have a system. However, for somebody that’s putting in an individual private enterprise, I don’t know of anyone who goes around and tells them what they are supposed to do. Of course, if they are accountants or something like that, they know what to do.”
 
“Kirk: Didn’t you go down with Charbonet, Dad ….”
 
“Yes, the main thing was that the rental industry was so new, nobody knew anything. I set up the first store in Louisiana, here in Alexandria. Then they set one up in New Orleans, and then one in Baton Rouge. On Sunday’s we’d have little rental conventions and we’d get together and compare notes, mostly how much rental rates were and types of equipment.
 
“Then we started renting chainsaws. Some guy was renting them for two or three dollars a day. Well, they’d tear up about $10 worth of chain, so that’s how we gained a lot of information in the rental business. Now you have all these big construction equipment rental companies, and it’s a real science.”
 
Gary: “So, anytime something new, like tillers, came in I guess you would rent whatever was new. How would you find new products?”
 
“Just from people asking for them. In the spring, when gardens came around, everybody would come to town and rent tillers. The main thing back then was we stayed open six days a week. Saturday we stayed open until 5:30 p.m. On Sunday, buddies would call and say, ‘Charlie, I need a lawnmower today. I went and played golf yesterday. Would you mind my coming and getting one?’ I told them I’d be right down to get them one.
 
“When the air compressors for J & M Poultry would break at four o’clock in the morning, who would they call? Charlie Cooper.  I’d get out of bed, go get them an air compressor, and take it down there to them. They rented air compressors for years.
 
“Of course, in the meantime, after Miller got in the business, we ended up buying him out and then selling back to him.”
 
Gary: “You bought the business from him and then sold it back to him?”
 
“Yes.  Cliff had gotten old and his wife’s family had the Hendrick’s Bucket Company; they made buckets for the draglines. Then they wanted out, and six months later, Cliff’s son wanted to get back in the business. I let them have it back.”
 
“In the meantime, Kirk came along and took over the five stores.  He eventually sold them out a piece at a time. ”
 
Gary: “Who did you sell them to?”
 
Kirk: “I sold them to Rental Service Corporation.”
 
Gary: “Where were they from?”
 
Kirk: “It’s a national company, out of Scottsdale, Arizona.”
 
Gary: “And then you opened up your rental party place?”
 
Kirk: “We opened that up twelve to fifteen years ago.”
 
“I built that building. Tommy Antoon had a deal with Dominos Pizza, and a vacant lot. I bought the vacant lot, but Tommy made me also buy the Domino’s Pizza building. We had a real good long-term lease on that. 
 
“When I wanted to retire, about ten or fifteen years ago, we built that store on MacArthur. We had Dominos next to it, and tried to make that a party goods store. That was before we had party goods at all the stores. 
 
“I remember that on Kelly Street, we used to have hospital beds and wheelchairs. That was a big item back then. For party goods, we had punch bowls and a bunch of other items. I never did carry much of it because the contractor business had a lot of dirt, and the party goods had to be spotless. We did party goods, and it got big enough to where we could afford the store. Now that’s a big business. We had the first jumping things in town. They cost five or six hundred dollars back then, and now they cost five or six thousand dollars.”
 
Felix: “So many of our entrepreneurs that we work with think they are facing problems that no one else ever faced. Can you recall any major obstacles that you had to face in the past, or maybe even failures to a certain extent, and how you overcame them? Did you use that as an opportunity?”
 
“I don’t know. I guess I got a little greedy, because I kept buying these rent houses. As you rented stuff, a lot of times we would have a good month at the rental business, gross three or four thousand dollars, and we wouldn’t have any money because we bought two more welders, or two more of this or that.
 
“That’s the only way you increase your inventory. Sometimes, if you have five welders you rent, after you rent those five, then five more people want welders.  I remember many a time my wife and I used to drive to New Orleans to Woodard Wright and pick up a Lincoln Welder. We would get down there about seven or eight o’clock a.m. to pick up a Lincoln Welder for $900. Now, those things are four or five thousand dollars.
 
“We’d come back here or drop it off down in Oakdale. One time, somebody in Oakdale called, needed a welder, and we didn’t have any. They were a pretty good account and I didn’t want to lose them, so I went and bought a welder and I got it there the next morning. That impressed the hell out of them and they stayed a good customer.  
 
“I finally started closing at twelve o’clock on Saturdays so I could go home and listen to the LSU game.  Well, this particular Saturday, I rushed home, took a shower, and got ready to turn the TV on. I got a call from Mrs. Casper Kramer, who wanted to know if there was any way she could get a wheelchair for her aunt, who just came in. She needed to pick her up at the airport. I’d been at the store just an hour previously, but she didn’t know that. 
 
“I told her I’d be glad to. I got a wheelchair and delivered it. Of course, my family knew the Kramer’s.  Two days later, I look at my front door and there was a bottle of Jack Daniels out there. She sent that.”
 
Gary: “Who did you bank with back then?”
 
“I started off with Guaranty Bank; my sister, Dorothy Smith, worked there. She used to answer the telephone down in the basement. As I got along, I borrowed $10,000 from Guaranty Bank.”
 
Kirk: “When you bought those air compressors, remember when you bought seven Genbach air compressors, and you were the only one in the area…”
 
“We had started using this German-made air compressor. If you bought eight of them, you got more of a discount. I was really kind of blowing and going. Then, when I got ready to build the strip center, I borrowed a little money from Guaranty Bank. I’d already bought three houses along here at $15,000 a piece, and the land was right across A&P Grocery Store, that so I thought it would be a good place to put a strip center. 
 
“I told the bank I was going to need to borrow about $100,000. I paid for the three houses, but I didn’t have $100,000. Tim Bloch, my realtor, quoted me a price with the interest rate at 6¾%, and Guaranty Bank was going to finance it. 
 
“I was dealing with contractors then, so, before I could let the contract, to be sure I got what I needed, I put it out for bids, and had a bond, and all that stuff. I finally got it let at around $103,000.  I went to get the $103,000 and my banker said, ‘I hate to tell you, but interest rates went up to 7½%.’ I said, ‘I have this letter where you quoted me that you would loan me $100,000 at 6 ¾%.’
 
“He replied, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work.’
 
“I said okay, so I figured that was the first screw up in my life, and the deal went through because I had to have the money. Not long after that, the opposite worked. I borrowed some money, they quoted me a price, and then interest rates went down. 
 
“Bill Hammond was at Guaranty back then. Then they had this other guy that came in as President. They were going to charge like 12 or 13% interest, because that’s when the rates were high, and that was what they had quoted. So, I got mad, and went across the street to Rapides Bank.
 
“I had told Roane Hathorn, with Rapides Bank, ‘If I ever get mad, even though my sister works at Guaranty, then I’m coming over here.’
 
“He said, ‘Come on up and let’s drink some coffee.’ I owed about a million at the time, and we set up the deal. Later, I was elected to the Board of Directors for Rapides Bank.
 
Gary: “Did you have a hard time convincing your wife when you were borrowing money? Did Mrs. Cooper agree?”
 
“She never really questioned me. She was a dedicated nurse, but she’s one of these women who’d say, 'Honey, I am about to run out of money.’ Well, I would cash a four or five hundred dollar check, and put it in the account she used, but as far as being involved in the accounting, it was no secret, but she never was interested enough.”
 
Gary: “A lot of young entrepreneurs have a hard time. They are trying to borrow money and their spouses are nervous.”
 
“Well, I see now that your credit rating is a big deal. If you are going into business, you can’t depend that you are going to make all this money every month. Years ago, you could discount your bills on the tenth of the month by 2%. On the tenth of the month, I took every bill, went to the bank, and borrowed $10,000 so I could discount all my bills. Then, at the end of the month, I’ d have the money to pay it back. That was a big deal. Now you talk about it, and people have never heard of that.”
 
Kirk: “How about your paycheck, you holding your paycheck?”
 
“We didn’t get much of a paycheck back then. Yes, I would hold my paycheck.” 
 
Felix: “Looking back over the years, what advice can you give entrepreneurs today?”
 
“I’m not qualified.”
 
Felix: “No, but surely you have some thoughts on it. If you had to do things differently what would you do?”
 
“The main thing I would say is pay your bills and get a good credit rating. You go to a party or something and they will say, ‘Hey, have you all seen Joe Blow?’
 
“I’d say, yes, I know old Joe Blow; he doesn’t pay his bills. That would be the first thing, and it would be all over town, and then you’d talk to somebody and he’d say, ‘He pays his bills, do business with him.’ If you ever get that mark ‘You don’t pay your bills,’ it will hurt you in business.’”
 
Gary: “People don’t realize how important their reputation is.”
 
“And the same thing goes for a banker. If you get a banker that you do business with, and you do it right, he’ll learn to trust you and take chances. A couple of times at Rapides, I borrowed some money on land that my family was involved with, and I had to get them out. I don’t think I would have loaned myself the money.  At the time, I don’t know, I owed a couple million dollars.”
 
Felix: “If you were sitting in the banker’s chair, you wouldn’t.”
 
“Right, I wouldn’t have loaned myself money.”
 
Felix: “Credit score is a big factor in borrowing money, and you’re right.  If you don’t have a certain credit criteria, they won’t even talk to you. You are saying pay attention to your financial side.”
 
“Going into business, be sure you have enough money to get started. People try to start on a shoestring, and that’s fine. I admire people like that, but your business is not going to start making money the day you open.”
 
Felix: “When did you first develop an accounting system where you knew exactly the money you were making, whether you were making a profit or not. Was that valuable to you at some point?”
 
“Yes, Ed Blackwood or Chuck Buckley helped me way back there. The fact is, the first two or three years when the rental business started really growing, I didn’t have an accounting system set up. I got audited, and when I did, I went to see Chuck Buckley.  I had to pay a penalty, but then Chuck Buckley did my accounting after that.”
 
Felix: “Did you ever do any marketing or advertising, or was your advertising by word of mouth?”
 
“That was kind of a hard deal too. When you first start in business, especially the rental business, it’s so new a concept, you don’t have any money. You can’t really afford to do advertising, and then, after you get going or when you can afford advertising, you have your business established. I always say that for advertising, it’s hard to spend a $100 when you can’t see $100 effect from it.”
 
Gary: “I can remember Rent-It Company ads. I can remember seeing them.”
 
“Oh, yes, we ran ads. We did display advertising when we had a couple of grand openings.”
 
Felix: “You took advantage of  opportunities.”
 
“I sold all those rent houses. I put them together in a package, and sold them to Greg Trotter. I financed them all for him, and he’s as happy as he can be.” 
 
Felix: “Thank you for this interview and for participating in ELS as one of our mentor group. We really appreciate it.”
 
“I hope I’ve shared something that somebody might gain. There’s a definite need for the mentor group program. I’ll be glad to help any of the ELS entrepreneurs.”

 

 

 

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