Because business isn’t just about what you know, it’s about who you know.
Arye Grunzweig of Elite Central Vacuum
Arye got into his successful business in a very unusual way. It was given to him. And even more interesting, not by a rich uncle, but by a gentile he had recently met! Arye, who left his job not long before, needed a job to support his growing family.
Ralph had served the Brooklyn Jewish community for many years with his central vacuum company. In 2001 he was already 75 years old and wanted to retire. He offered Arye to train as his assistant.
“He asked me if I was handy,” Arye reminisces with a laugh. “I told him I think so.” Arye began to work for him two days a week but at a very low rate. “I found out later that he barely charged his customers! He would come to do the job, but when he saw the big families with a lot of kids he would feel bad charging them and he would tell them to forget about payment! So of course he thought ten dollars an hour was decent pay!” Ralph specifically wanted to give over his business and “special customers”, to someone from the community.
After doing this for a while Arye realized part-time work wasn’t paying enough of the bills and began to look around for other opportunities. Ralph told him to hold off, be patient and the business would be his soon. Arye told him he needed to ask his Rebbe’s advice. Surprisingly, the Rebbe told him to stick with the vacuum business even though he had other promising offers on the table.
Not long after, with Ralph’s training and help, Arye was ready to go out on his own. “That’s when Ralph broke it to me that he had a pension from his Army days and since he loved the Jewish community he didn’t have the heart to charge much for his services! He told me to break it to them gently that I had a family to support and I needed to get paid,” he recalls “He was right about his customers, though, they’re the nicest clientele to work with!”
Central vacuums are not an industry you’d normally associate with emergencies, like plumbing or roofing. But Arye has another opinion on that. “Balebustes are majorly dependent on their vacuums. They rely on it more than another cleaning tool. It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity. So it’s an emergency when it breaks!”
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