From Spit 'n' Shine Boy To Boston Chicken and Beyond.
"No business, no problems. No problems, no business. Problems are opportunities for solutions." With that mantra, George A. Naddaff punctuates virtually every one of his stories. And there are so many stories. Now 77, Naddaff has run, launched, or taken national more than half a dozen companies. He's best known for Boston Chicken, whose shares soared 143 percent in a record-breaking IPO in 1993, the year after he sold it. (The company filed Chapter 11 in 1998 and changed hands twice more.) Naddaff's other ventures have included two day care companies, a business brokerage franchise, and, his latest baby, UFood Grill, a restaurant chain for the health conscious. "Cut my veins and salesmanship pops out," says Naddaff. "I love to sell what I believe in."
I was born in Boston, in 1930. My father came here from Lebanon and owned a grocery store. He gave people credit. The Depression came; they couldn't pay, and he went out of business. Then my dad worked in a shoe factory. The glue from the shoes did something to his skin that made him look like the Elephant Man. His hands enlarged. His face enlarged. He was out of work.
To earn money, my brothers and I shined shoes. My dad built me a shine kit. I'd wander to downtown Boston--the Combat Zone back then. It was full of sailors. I'd give them a spit shine and charge a dime. They'd give me 25 cents. I'd rummage around in my pockets pretending to look for change: "Gee, I knew I had some." The customer would get frustrated and say, "Keep the change." That was my first business technique.
My mother would give me a quarter from my earnings, and I'd go to the movies. My friends saw I had money and asked, "George, can you teach me how to shine?" I showed them the spit shine and the change trick. I didn't make any money--I was just helping my friends. Little did I know I was starting to think like a franchiser.
I found out you could make more money selling newspapers. Every morning an orange truck would appear on one corner of Tremont Street. Thirty kids would be waiting. The guy would hand out papers, and they'd all run down the street to the barrooms. A trolley line ran the length of Tremont. I would jump on and hang off the back with the newspapers under one arm--very dangerous, but I didn't have to pay. The trolley would take me to the end of the line, and I'd work my way backward, selling at bars the other kids hadn't been to yet.
At 13, I worked as a baker's helper in a restaurant. I mopped floors, washed pots. One day the manager--Red Litkoff--said, "One of the soda jerks didn't show up. You're working the counter today." Working the soda fountain meant engaging with customers. Old ladies would come from Beacon Hill for tea and crumpets. I'd take special care of them, and they'd leave 10 cents under the plate. It was a license to steal. I said, "From now on, this is my turf. Front of the house." At age 16 and a half, I became fountain manager. I was magnificent. Red used me wherever he needed me. I filled in for the short order cook. I worked with the waitresses. I learned about the mealtime rush; how to deal with customers; how to work for a tip. I was learning the food business.
School and I did not work out. So at age 17 and a half, I joined the Army. I got out in 1950. The first week home, my father says, "You'd better start thinking about college." I said, "Dad, I'm not going to college." He said, "Your brothers went to college, and your sister went to college." I still said no. "Then you'll get a job," he said. It was Sunday. I got The Boston Globe classifieds. I saw an ad that was made for me. "Wanted--Man With Car." I had a 1936 Pontiac. Man. Car. Boom.
Monday morning, I put on my tie and slicked back my hair. The address was a storefront no bigger than this office. There was a guy behind the desk. Hymie Braverman. He had a cigar in his mouth with the juice running down the side. He showed me baby furniture. A highchair that turned into a carriage that turned into a stroller that turned into a bassinet. Manufactured by a Jewish family that was chased out of Austria by the Nazis. The company was called Stroll-O-Chair, and Hymie had the Boston dealership. He said, "What do you think?" I said, "It's incredible. I want the job." He said, "You've got to put down $75 as a deposit." I said, "I'll come back tomorrow with the money." I told my father I needed $75 for a job. He said, "Why should you pay for a job?" I said, "You sell, you get a commission." He didn't understand "commission." I explained. His face got so red. When he first came to this country, my father sold imported handmade lace door-to-door. He had to lug these two big black cases from the South End to Beacon Street. He said, "No son of mine is going to sell door-to-door." I conned my mother out of the $75.
The next day I gave Hymie the money. I said, "What do I do now?" He gave me the equipment and an order pad. Then he said, "Get the hell out of here. Go and find babies." I put the stuff in my 1936 Pontiac. Then I sat in the car for a half hour, sweating. I thought, "What did I do? I took money from my mother. Find babies. Oh, God. Babies." I'm sweating and looking at this stuff in the back seat. "Babies… Diapers!" I came back the next day with a bunch of sales. Hymie said, "How did you do that?" I said, "I went to the South End where we used to play. I remembered there were diapers hanging from lines in the alleys behind the houses. I figured out where those lines were from the end of the street: third house, top floor. Fourth house, second floor. I went around the front, rang the doorbell, and yelled up, 'Hi. Are you the lady who just had the baby?' And she would say, 'Yes.' And I would say, 'I've got something for the baby!' " A great pitch! "And she'd say, 'Come on up.' And that was it."
I became national sales manager for Stroll-O-Chair, together with Aaron Spencer, now the chairman emeritus of Uno's. I trained thousands of salespeople in the art of walk-knock-talk-sell. I taught people not to listen to the word no but also never to interrupt. You need to know the objections so you can counteract them. Objections are like steppingstones across a brook. You have to step on each one to get to the other side.
Aaron and I were promised a piece of that company. But after 17 years, it became painfully clear they wouldn't give it to us. So we left. One of our dearest friends was an attorney who owned three Kentucky Fried Chicken units in western Massachusetts. He said, "You guys could make more money selling chicken." So we went down to Louisville and came back with a master license for greater Boston.
