The serial entrepreneur: with seven businesses to her credit, professional speaker and consultant Debbie Allen says all it really takes to conquer the business world is guts - People

Pool & Spa News, July 25, 2003 by AmyJo Brown

Nineteen-year-old Debbie Allen had just graduated from high school and had no plans for getting a job. She just didn't like being told what to do, and the idea of working for someone else was unappealing.

So she told her father she wanted to invest in his car rental and ministorage business.

"I told him I didn't just want to get a paycheck; I wanted to own part of the business," she said. "I think he was surprised." But he let her buy into it, and that decision launched Allen into an inspiring success story.

A self-described "serial entrepreneur," she has built up and sold six businesses since her early 20s. She's now running her seventh: Debbie Allen & Associates, a Scottsdale, Ariz., consulting firm for marketing and sales.

"I have a time clock that goes off in my head every 14 years or so telling me to change careers," she said.

In the 30 years she's been in the working world, Allen has never applied for a job and has never gone back to school. Instead, she placed herself in real-life business situations from the time she was young.

"My parents were very entrepreneurial," she said. "My father had [the car rental and ministorage] businesses, and then my mom [opened] a hair salon. That was my first job, 'the job from hell'--I was a shampoo girl. Then my mom had a ladies' clothing store."

When Allen's mother decided to move out of state and sell her store, Allen bought it, despite the fact that she was making "a lot of money" in her father's business. Her mother's store, on the other hand, had been losing revenue six years in a row.

Trying to find a way to turn the store around, Allen read everything about retailing she could get her hands on, met monthly with retailing mentors and talked extensively with her customers. She ended up completely redoing the store's look and overhauling its inventory.

As she tried new things to make it all work, she said she learned quickly from her mistakes and then never made them again. Within six months of purchasing the store, she was opening a second. Within three years, she had built both stores into multimillion-dollar operations. Then she sold them. "I loved the retail business, but I really didn't want to be in it any more," she said.

Allen now offers marketing advice to the lawn, garden, pool and spa industry, among others. She has presented seminars to businesses in eight different countries, most recently returning from a trip to South Africa.

In addition to speaking, Allen has written three books based on her experiences. One of them, Confessions of Shameless Self Promoters, made the Amazon.com best-seller list after she appeared on the Howard Stern radio show to promote it.

She described her speaking style, as well as her business advice, as "edgy," and she encourages people to establish "gutsy goals."

Allen has certainly proven that it works for her, and her entrepreneurial time clock is ticking. What she is planning next is a secret. But Allen hints that it might have something to do with shameless confessions and dating.

ShowTime

Who: Debbie Allen.

What: "Create Your Dream Team: How to Hire, Train and Retain Employees"

Where: 2003 International Pool & Spa Expo, New Orleans.

When: Thursday, Nov. 6, 4-6 p.m.

Attendees will learn how to creatively recruit more qualified applicants, develop training programs that focus their teams toward success and be coaches who develop sales stars.