Book tells 'R.C. Willey Story'
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 6, 2009
SALT LAKE CITY — When an ailing Rufus Call Willey handed his young son-in-law the keys to the R.C. Willey appliance store in Syracuse, Utah, 55 years ago, Bill Child was staring at the same kind of credit crunch many retailers face today.
R.C. Willey had too much debt, not enough income and an abundance of credit customers past due on their payments.
That's the predicament described in detail in Jeff Benedict's new book, “How to Build a Business Warren Buffett Would Buy: The R.C. Willey Story,” coming to bookstores in May from publisher Shadow Mountain ($19.95 hardcover).
Somehow Child, now 77, righted the ship, chipped away at the debt until it was paid off, hired the IRS agent who was auditing the store and built a business that Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffet described as a “jewel of an operation.” Buffett purchased the retailer in 1995 in a stock deal valued at $175 million.
Benedict takes readers on a trip back to R.C. Willey's beginning in the 1930s, when Rufus Call Willey, known as RC, was selling refrigerators from the back of his pickup truck, and then from a cinderblock garage/store behind the family home in rural Syracuse.
But the story is mostly about the role of Child, who worked in his father-in-law's store nights and Saturdays while attending college. Child never dreamed of a career in retail. But on the day he graduated from college (with a teaching contract in hand), RC asked Child to do a favor and take care of the store while he headed to California “to rest and get rid of these ulcers.”
RC's illness turned out to be cancer. He died in September 1954 without ever returning to the store, leaving behind a business on the verge of bankruptcy and heavily in debt, with past due invoices and taxes.
“He'd been living well beyond his means,” Child said in an interview about the book, which he collaborated on with author Benedict. It was the type of financial pinch many in the industry face now. But Child said the company had a great reputation and loyal customer base “and that's what saved us.”
Child, still chairman of R.C. Willey, said he will not take profits from the book. A percentage of the profits will be donated to charities.
He'll be at the High Point Market this month to shop for furniture and sell a few books.
For more information and to read the first chapter online, go to /article/191145-New_book_tells_The_R_C_Willey_Story_.php.
