American Dream Achieved
IBA, as a fifty-year old business brokerage firm serving the entrepreneurial community of the Pacific Northwest, has been uniquely positioned since before the American Bicentennial celebration of 1976 to witness and hear the stories of thousands of people who have lived the American dream through entrepreneurship creating beloved businesses by employees, customers, and communities while finding personal fulfillment and financial prosperity through execution of their ideas, hard work, perseverance, and ability. In an effort to share these stories heard throughout the years by our team of business brokers, who are commonly regarded as the “best listeners” in the M&A industry, IBA has retained highly regarded writer, Nesha Ruther, to tell their stories. It is our goal to share one story a month. It is our hope that you will find the stories as inspirational and motivational as they are to us and the buyers who bought the businesses in IBA facilitated transactions in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. The following story comes from internal at IBA and features IBAs Managing Broker for the state of Oregon, Stephen Cohen, and his wife, Susie. IBA is blessed to have many successful entrepreneurs among its team of business sale intermediaries and corporate management. Guidance that comes from a place of knowledge is valued. However, professional counsel from a party with relevant academic knowledge and field experience is superior.
The Story of Stephen Cohen (IBA’s Managing Broker for Oregon)
By Nesha Ruther
Stephen and Susie Cohen met as teenage counselors at a summer camp in upstate New York. They immediately felt strongly about one another but went their separate ways at the end of the summer. “We were 19 and 17, in a committed relationship, and madly in puppy love for the two summers we worked together,” they say about that time in their relationship.
In their late 20s, they reconnected. “I was living in Seattle, and she was living in New York,” Stephen says. “She visited me, and we still had the spark. She took a leap of faith and moved to Seattle not knowing where it would go.” The leap of faith paid off, and the pair are now in their 27th year of marriage.
One of the driving forces that united them was a commitment to personal growth. When the pair was engaged, they joined a program called Couples Coaching Couples. “It’s a community, peer-to-peer coaching organization,” Stephen says. “Every single thing we’ve accomplished from our businesses to the ability to work together and communicate effectively all comes from the concept of being willing to grow and look in the mirror.”
Couples Coaching Couples emphasizes collaboration over winning, a philosophy that has deeply impacted both Stephen and Susie’s marriage and business ventures. “You can either be right, or you can be happy,” Susie says. “Every time I’m proving something to be right, what I need to do is let it go and move on, work it out as a couple.”
This practice ties directly into Stephen’s professional background as well. “I wanted to use what I’d learned in Couples Coaching Couples as a profession. You use the principles of effective communication a lot in business, especially in partnerships,” he says. After graduating from Vassar, he got his master’s degree in Organizational Development.
After getting his degree, Stephen began helping a friend of his open a business in retail. On the side, he did bookkeeping for other entrepreneurs. These opportunities gave him valuable experience working alongside small business owners.
One day, Susie found a piece of mail in the to-be-recycled pile. It was from the Little Gym Franchise, a nationwide kid’s gymnastics, and motor skill development program. It piqued both of their interests, as camp counselors they had loved spending time with kids and helping them grow. Stephen and Susie decided to open a Little Gym in Seattle.
The pair had a strong sense of what their respective strengths were, allowing them each to take on the parts of the business they were best equipped to handle. “I was on the front end, selling and teaching, and he did the operational stuff,” Susie says.
Susie had spent many years working in fashion, she thrived when it came to connecting with customers and finding creative solutions. Stephen relied on his previous bookkeeping gig to manage the financials and applied his own principles of organizational development to the business. Their shared passion and varying areas of expertise gave their business a strong foundation to succeed.
“It was hands down the most rewarding thing I have ever done,” Stephen says of the experience. “It allowed me to grow personally and professionally and was a really beautiful time.”
Their first Little Gym was so successful, that the pair ended up purchasing and operating two more. “It was about changing kids’ lives,” Susie says. “It was a really special place.”
The Little Gym customers were not the only kids impacted by the unique environment Susie and Stephen created, their own children grew up in and around Little Gym and received the benefits. “It was wonderful because we were raising our kids with this Little Gym curriculum,” Susie says. “It’s not just teaching kids gymnastics, it’s about social and emotional confidence.”
A Little Gym class would involve music and movement, allowing the kids to focus on different skills and aspects of growth in a way that still felt fun and informal. While the curriculum was consistent across all Little Gym franchises, Susie and her staff found ways of making it unique to them. “Everyone’s personality makes the program their own,” she says. “It’s about how you connect with the kids, whoever was teaching the class definitely had their own flavor.”
Another thing that made their Little Gym so successful was its impact on the community. Not only were they impacting the lives of their young clientele, but they also intentionally hired high school and college-age students looking for their first job. This structure allowed Stephen and Susie to mentor a generation of local young people. “It’s all about connecting with people in different ways,” Susie says.
In addition to the support of the local community, Susie and Stephen formed close relationships with other Little Gym owners, who were always open to sharing strategies and ideas. “The Little Gym community was amazing,” Stephen says. “I have never had more than one or two original ideas, but boy was I good at listening to other owners. They told me what they were doing, things as simple as creating interview questionnaires [for potential candidates]. They really reached out and shared their resources so we all could amass a kind of database.”
In return, Stephen used his background in Organizational Development to help his fellow franchisees. “Little Gym International saw that I had this skillset of coaching and let me create a custom peer-to-peer coaching program to help other owners that were struggling,” he says. “I created deep thinking exercises and ways to help people identify what was stopping them from growing their businesses.”
Like any business, there were challenges. The nature of the Little Gym business model meant there was always the risk of children getting scrapes and bruises, and the concerned and occasionally angry parents that resulted. Additionally, being in retail meant employees could be flakey and unreliable. “It’s hard to find good, responsible, reliable people,” Stephen says. “We would have people calling in and canceling their shift at the last minute. Just keeping everything working was a challenge because there were a lot of moving parts.”
In moments of stress or tension, Susie and Stephen relied upon the skills they had learned in Couples Coaching Couples and reminded themselves that for the business to succeed, they had to focus on working together, not beating one another. “A lot of people had one Little Gym, but there was only a handful who had three or more,” Susie says. “It comes down to the staff, and the staff had to have confidence in us as a couple. Who you are as a couple in the world, and how people experience you. Do they have a natural affinity towards you as a couple? A lot of our staff was young, and they would say, ‘Wow I’d like you guys to be my parents.’ It made them want to stick around and be a part of this culture that we created.”
The strength of Stephen and Susie’s business also comes from the fact that they don’t distinguish between their work relationship and their personal one. Any business decisions were made the same way they decided who was going to pick up the kids or whose turn it was to do the dishes; listening to one another and aiming to be happy rather than to be right.
After 13 years, three Little Gyms, and countless children impacted, the pair decided that it was time to exit. “At first, I didn’t want to [sell the Little Gyms],” Susie says, “I loved the business, I loved the person I was doing business with, so I didn’t want this to end. But we trust each other, and, in the end, it was time. It’s a lot of work and it’s very laborious in every way.”
Stephen began looking into business brokers and came across Gregory Kovsky and IBA. “I had interviewed a few different brokers, but Gregory and I became very tight. I have such respect for him. We were able to build a relationship that became about so much more than selling the business,” Stephen says.
That relationship would carry Stephen into his next venture, working as a business broker for IBA. In some ways, working as a business broker would be Stephen’s most challenging job yet. For someone who loves completing tasks and finite decisions, the long and often drawn-out process of brokering the sale of a business was challenging. “It’s not about completing tasks, it’s not about perfection,” he says. “You really have to trust your gut and focus on the moment rather than being attached to the outcome. You need to have a strong sense of where the client is at in order to move the deal forward.”
As a business broker, Stephen is helping entrepreneurs navigate what can be a highly emotional transition. The broker has to be able to live in the moment and make intuitive decisions based on an ever-changing situation. This was challenging for Stephen who approaches every situation with a high level of pragmatism. “I sold my business in a very unemotional way,” he says. “I went into [IBA] and assumed people were like me, as it turned out they’re not always. So, I had to learn to be more sensitive and really communicate, but it’s been an exciting challenge.”
While learning new skills and ways of being has made him a better broker, so too has Stephen’s skill for bookkeeping, which he continues to rely on. “It starts and ends with the numbers,” he says. “When the CPA starts asking questions, I can understand what they are asking and why, that really helps,” he says.
This skill becomes particularly valuable when choosing whether or not to take on a business. “I only sell businesses that I would buy,” he says. “The numbers have to be clear; it has to be clear what they do.” In a fast-paced world, Stephen values the often overlooked but incredibly important businesses that perform tangible tasks. “I’ve sold plumbing companies, a preschool, a company that repaints parking lots, an office furniture company, good, solid companies that make sense.”
One of Stephen’s favorite businesses sold was Goddard Preschool. Not only did it share similarities with Little Gym in terms of child development, but it was also part of a larger franchise. “That one was particularly life-changing,” he says. “The buyers were this really nice couple and they had five kids. The husband worked at a movie theatre and the wife had some early childhood education experience. They weren’t necessarily set up to be on a great financial path for themselves, but the husband’s father stepped up and co-signed the loan for his son. You could just look at it and tell it was going to be life-changing for their family. I knew they would be great running the business together.”
Another business, also in childhood development, focused on continued training for a particularly overworked and underappreciated group: special education teachers. “The owner was a special education teacher herself and saw a real need. She created a whole private seminar company to provide these teachers with training. The gentleman that bought it had a son with special needs and saw first-hand how teachers didn’t have the support they needed. That was a really nice transition story.”
One important facet Stephen considers when selling a business is the individual personalities of the owner and the buyer. “These two people have to make a connection,” he says. “The person selling has to look at [the buyer] and say, ‘I believe they will take it over and give it some energy’” The same way a matchmaker vets ideal suitors, Stephen sees his job as making sure the buyers are a good match for the seller.
Towards the end of owning The Little Gym, Susie had begun selling high-end clothing with a friend out of her home. This then led to a side business of organizing and styling women’s closets. This led to Susie connecting with the owners of a high-end luxury resale store in Seattle called The Refind Closet. “I was at the Refind all the time because I was obsessed with the store, and the owners were like, ‘Would you want to work here?’” Susie recalls. “I said I would work one or two days a week max, six days a week later and eventually I was taking over the store.”
Susie, along with her business partner Jeannine, offered to buy out the previous owners and take over the Refind Closet full-time.
Refind Closet has allowed Susie to not only work in an industry she loves but continue to exercise her creative and entrepreneurial muscles. One example of her creative problem-solving skills is in how the business has used social media to market itself. “We have a huge following on Instagram. We do a tremendous amount of social media [advertising] and have been able to build a really great marketing and sales team,” Susie says.
“She’s making it seem smaller than it is,” Stephen adds affectionally. “They’ve created an online shopping station where people tune in to see [Susie and Jeannine’s] partnership and energy. Local people are literally obsessed, they are always coming into the store to see Susie.”
This shopping station has manifested itself as shopping shows that Refind Closet hosts and streams online five days a week. This method allows them to show off their merchandise and connect with their audience, all while customers can purchase clothes in real time. “We do two ready-to-wear live shows where we have models wearing the clothes. On Wednesdays, we do an accessory live. On Thursdays, we do a sale, and Fridays we do handbags, it’s created absolute insanity,” Susie admits. “People love to shop and so we ship all over the country. It’s a new way to shop for luxury resale clothing.”
Like everything Susie and Stephen do, Refind Closet, too, has become a family venture. “I got involved by valuing the business,” Stephen says. “I saw an opportunity to invest in Susie, and it was the greatest investment ever.” In addition to working at IBA, Stephen now serves as Refind Closet’s bookkeeper and helps cultivate business strategies alongside Susie and Jeannine.
“He does whatever is needed,” Susie says proudly. “We like having him around and it’s fun to run the business as a couple, it really is.”
As it was with Little Gym, Stephen’s pragmatism was a perfect natural balance to Susie’s passion and enthusiasm. “Whether she makes $10 a week or $10,000, she would behave the exact same way,” Stephen says of his wife. “She’s not thinking about the numbers, she’s thinking about making connections and finding new solutions. So, I think they like knowing that there is somebody watching the numbers.”
While every long-lasting marriage is a tremendous feat of collaboration and compromise, Susie and Stephen bring new meaning to marriage as both husband and wife and successful business partners. “As I’m talking to you, it reminds me of how everything we’ve done throughout our marriage, we’ve done as a couple, which is pretty cool,” Susie says with a smile.
“We ran Little Gym for 13 years and it was solid, we made a living, but we didn’t know what the next thing was going to be,” Stephen says. “But we stayed together and focused on ourselves, being happy and being with our kids, and then another opportunity came our way with Refind Closet and we were willing to take it. Sometimes luck, wisdom, and energy all intersect and that’s what happened.”
Despite their success, for Stephen and Susie, the American Dream has always been about family. “We have two unbelievable, amazing children, we have a great marriage, and we have a beautiful community. The business is the icing on the cake for me,” Susie says. “It was never about having a crazy successful business, and we have a very successful business, but it’s the icing on the cake. That to me is the American Dream.”
Epilogue: Stephen & Susie Cohen sold their interest in the Refind Closet. The exit has facilitated the ability to travel more internationally and spend time in the Coachella Valley of California during the wet, gray winters of the Pacific Northwest.
Nesha Ruther
Nesha Ruther is a writer and editor from Takoma Park, Maryland. She received her BA in English Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she received a full tuition scholarship through the First Wave program based on academic and creative merits. She was a 2016 Young Arts winner in spoken word, a 2016 winner of the DC Commission of the Arts Larry Neal Writing Award, a 2017 winner of the Mochila Review Writing Award, which was judged by Nikki Giovanni, a 2020 winner of the University of Wisconsin’s Eudora Welty Fiction Thesis Award, and a 2022 Tin House Winter Workshop Participant. She has been commissioned to write and perform for the National Education Association, and has had work published in NarrativeNortheast, Angles Literary Magazine, Beltway Quarterly and more. She currently lives in Cincinnati Ohio, is a Lead Writer at Bond & Grace, and a co-host for the podcast Lit Talk (https://www.bondandgrace.com/the-lit-talk-podcast).