Despite Bad Economy, Bristol Businessman Is Still Cleaning Up

Bobby Griffin Shares Ideas, Work Ethic Behind His Business

“You’ve got to have hope. Without that, you don’t have anything.“
Bobby Griffin,
Bristol businessman

BRISTOL, Va. – Hope.
It’s as valuable as a dollar to a man with none. It’s as hearty as food for the hungry. Hope opens doors to possibility.
Bobby Griffin should have been a failure. The Bristol, Va., native quit school in the ninth grade. He also has attention deficit disorder (ADD), a learning disability.
“My teacher said to go home,” Griffin said, “that I would never amount to anything.”
And yet, he had hope.
“Business is booming,” said the man who patented and has for 47 years sold disposable paper floor mats for cars.
And how many mats has he sold? “Millions,” Griffin said, fingers laced comfortably across his black leather jacketed chest, smiling.
On a recent cold day, Griffin sat in his office and spoke of today’s hard times, lessons learned from yesterday and looked into tomorrow as with a compass. That’s Griffin for you. He moves as if a tornado, an ever-evolving whirlwind.
For instance, in November, the founder of Bobby F. Griffin Inc., acquired Jasper, Ga.-based R.G. Hein and Associates, Inc. A longtime fierce competitor, the acquisition of the company underlines an essential element of Griffin’s business philosophy – sensible growth.
“He [the owner] wanted his customers to be serviced with a good product,” Griffin said. “It has increased our business considerably.”
America’s economy was sinking at the time. Griffin could have stood still, braced for the storm and like many fellow businessmen tried to make it through. “Our business was flat because of the automobile business,” he said.
And then around that time, Griffin scored a huge sale.
“Just a few months ago, I had our largest order I’ve ever had, 325,000 mats – a truckload,” he said. “Our business is up.”
Simply put, Griffin will not allow the business he founded and that’s now run by his son, Danny Griffin, to stagnate.

“If you can create a need for something, that’s what it’s all about.”
“I’m always looking for different things.”

MATS MAN
Old-timers may recall Bobby Griffin’s Texaco gas station from the 1950s. He bought it when he returned from the Korean War, round about 1956, as best he can recall.
“I was only about 24 years old,” he said.
And yet, even then he knew there was more business to be discovered. He found more while vacationing in Sarasota, Fla., with his wife, Frieda, in 1961 or so. He decided to look at a new car on a lot, a sandlot.
“A fellow came up and said, ‘Don’t get in the car.’ We were standing there, and he put a piece of cardboard in the floorboard. He didn’t want any sand to get inside,” Griffin said.
Bingo! Eureka! Holy moly! Whichever description, they all work.
“I came back to Bristol and started making floor mats,” he said. “First, I would go to grocery stores and get their boxes to make them.”
Eventually, he located a now-defunct business in Elizabethton, Tenn., to make floor mats per his design – his patented design.
“I’d sell them to banks, and they would give them to auto dealers to stimulate sales and loans,” Griffin said. “Now, we sell them to car dealers, chemical companies, oil companies.”
Jim Boatner, service manager at Jim Cogdill Dodge in Knoxville, Tenn., said he buys about 12,000 floor mats per year from Griffin. Now, those little mats may seem inconsequential.
“You think about a $40,000 vehicle rolling up in here and getting grease on the carpet,” Boatner said. “No one wants that. There are cheaper mats than his, but his are like plastic. Even water won’t get through them.”
Which explains why Boatner has bought from Griffin for about 20 years. It also highlights in part why Griffin maintains success.

“Good service, personal service, good products will keep you in business.”
“You can’t build a good business without good people.“

SECRETS TO SUCCESS
Rust gathers on those who sit still. Griffin moves. He’s up and exercising by 7 in the morning, at work in his home office by 8, drives to his office on Island Road by noon and typically ends his day with a late-evening walk.
Not bad for a man of 76.
“Success doesn’t come easy,” he said. “I would work 18 hours a day [in the early days]. I was determined to make something of my life. Today, I work 14.”
Griffin built his life much as a thoughtful carpenter would a house. One hope at a time atop a sound foundation of immovable integrity, a firm plan and sweat-on-the-brow work ethic provided the spine of Griffin’s success story.
“I was speaking to some students in a school and asked how many of them wanted to be millionaires. All their hands went up,” Griffin said, followed by a short pause. “Then I asked how many of them want to work 18-hour days. None of their hands went up.”
Spindly as a stalk of straw, that’s the chance of success without hard work attached.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out,” he said.
Hard work dates back to Griffin’s childhood. He was born into hard times, during the Great Depression in 1932 to Charles and Lona Griffin.
“I’m the youngest of eight children,” Griffin said. “My father only made it through the fifth grade, and my mother was deaf. He always taught me to work hard and be honest.”
Then, as with many a child during the era, Griffin went to work.
“I carried papers at 9 years old, the Bristol Herald Courier,” Griffin said. “I had to get up at four o’clock in the morning to get the papers.”
Griffin’s work ethic stayed with him. In time, he added more building blocks that figured into his success.
Inspirational in a time in need of inspiration, Griffin’s story highlights that which a person can achieve. Even amid economic downturns and plain old bad times, he buckled down and overcame.
“You’re going to feel like your back is against the wall sometimes. I’ve been knocked sidewise,” Griffin said. “You just get up and get going.”

“No one ever made a success in eight hours a day. I guarantee you.”
“When you get knocked down you don’t stay down because you got knocked down. You stay down because you didn’t get up. You’re going to get knocked down. Get back up.”

GOOD CREDIT VERSUS BAD CREDIT
Golden ideas may prove as worthless as a rock in the road without an infusion of capital. When Griffin’s idea for paper car mats struck him, he may as well have left it there in that car lot in Florida without money with which to fund his idea.
So, he sought a loan.
“A fellow at Dominion Bank helped me,” Griffin said. “He loaned me the money to start the floor mats.”
Important. But then, the banker added a few cents of valuable advice. “He said, ‘Bobby, now the bank will loan you that money. Don’t default.’ ”
The point?
“People need to protect their credit,” Griffin said.
Otherwise, no matter how bright a person’s eureka idea is, banks simply will not provide capital to those deemed poor risks.
But what of those who are facing hard to debilitating times now?
“It’s very important to not overextend yourself,” Griffin said.
Brace for rainy days, which as Griffin can testify, which most if not all people will encounter more than once in a lifetime. Prepare, he said.
“We hold on to our money,” he said. “Now that we’re going through some tough times, we are weathering the storm because we didn’t buy $4 million homes or Rolls Royce cars.”
Indeed. While shelves inside Griffin’s office contain dozens of die-cast metal models of shiny cars and trucks, a look outside the window emphatically underlines his point.
There sat Griffin’s 2001 Chrysler minivan.
“It has 171,000 miles on it,” he said. “My wife has one with over 110,000 miles on it.”

“Watch your spending. Be conservative.”
“You get out on a limb too far and somebody will cut if off.”

REINVEST
Now, Griffin could buy a new Cadillac or a racy Corvette each year if he so desired. Instead, he reinvests.
“I’d buy a building,” he said. “We have about 200 warehouses, 15 condominiums. It’s important to reinvest.”
Buy low. Be patient. And in time, Griffin said, a person can make money.
“Rental property is long-term,” he said. “But when you get up in years, then you have income. It’s a buyer’s market today.”
Find good employees.
“You can’t build a good business without good people,” Griffin said. “No way I could keep my hand in all the businesses without them.”
Diversify. Take Griffin’s coin-operated car wash business. He could have stood pat when his car mats took off, but instead, he branched out while being mindful to not overextend.
“I put the first one in during the early 1970s,” Griffin said. “It was Magic Wand. One was on Euclid Avenue, one was on the Bluff City Highway and one on Virginia Avenue.”
Successful businesses. And yet, he maintained a low overhead while he also worked to expand the business.
“Then, I bought the factory that made the car wash equipment,” Griffin said. “It was in Oklahoma City, and I brought it to Bristol.”
Now, here’s the kicker.
“I sold it for several million dollars,” Griffin said.
He does not brag. Instead, the point made is that vital elements of the American spirit are hard work in concert with ingenuity and a head-down and radar-up approach to business.
“You’ve got to have hope,” Griffin said. “Without that, you don’t have anything.”

“When you make money, invest it.”
“There is no quick money.”

JOY FOUNDATION
Hope. That word reaches with care from Griffin’s business side to his philanthropic side.
When he can, Griffin helps foster education via his Joy Foundation. While he does not fund the educations of hundreds of college-bound students, he helps those he can when he can.
“We’re putting a boy through school at Liberty University,” he said. “We put a boy from Ethiopia through King College.”
But why, particularly in hard economic times, help others to help themselves? Griffin said it’s really pretty simple.
“You’ll never see a hearse going down the road with a load of money in it,” Griffin said. “You can’t take it with you.”
Griffin paused. An anniversary photo of he and his wife Frieda rests on a table. Married 51 years and counting. Dozens of family photos grace his large desk and bookcases.
Rare for him, but for a few seconds Griffin paused to reflect. He looked up, leaned in and made solid eye contact.
“God gave me this life, and He blessed me, and I want to help others,” Griffin said. “I hope somebody reads this and says, ‘There’s a ninth grade dropout who made it, and I can make it, too.’ ”

SERIES BEGINS: Editor’s note: When the stock market crashed in 1929 and ignited America’s Great Depression, banks failed, and businesses spiraled out of business. Personal savings evaporated. Unemployment soared.
Amid the rubble of ruin, some businesses actually thrived. They hunkered down, grabbed hold to their bootstraps and persevered during the economic earthquake. So it is with that in mind that we present the first in a series of stories of hope and success during these times of tumult.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bobby Griffin is not alone among success stories amid the country’s economic turmoil. Such examples can inspire, help and perhaps offer hope and spur change. We ask those who are succeeding in business small or large to contact us, to help us provide accounts that inspire while also imparting good news amid the current sea of bad news that so envelopes the country and the Mountain Empire. E-mail .

TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at .