Winning strategy

On Berry Fowler’s 31st birthday, his mother gave him a book titled “Ten Young Millionaires.”

Fowler, an art teacher, read the book over Christmas break, got inspired, and within a few years joined the ranks of millionaires, having launched, franchised and sold his Sylvan Learning Centers.

He has since earned, spent and lost millions more.

Two decades ago, Fowler and his family moved to Spokane, where he continues to start businesses and help others do likewise.

His most recent endeavor is Fowler International Academy of Professional Coaching.

“It’s a life-coaching program mostly,” he said, “with 700 to 1,000 online students a year. I also offer a self-directed course in business coaching which I teach through videos.”

During a recent interview, Fowler discussed what it takes to succeed in business today, and what he has learned from failures.

S-R: Where did you grow up?

Fowler: Dallas and Tulsa.

S-R: What were your interests?

Fowler: Art and sports. If you hang around Texas, you’re a football player. They start scouting you in fourth grade.

S-R: What career did you envision for yourself?

Fowler: When I graduated from high school, I thought about going into product design. I moved to the Bay Area for college, but was a terrible student. I didn’t read very well, and coming from conservative Oklahoma to crazy San Francisco in 1965 was like changing planets. Lots of fun distractions. I enrolled and dropped out of college six times. Eventually I graduated with a teaching degree and taught art in junior high for five years. I loved it.

S-R: Anything else?

Fowler: I started doing portraits and caricatures for tourists in the summer. Eventually I owned two art concessions, with artists working for me. I made twice as much in the summer as I did teaching the rest of the year.

S-R: What inspired your Sylvan Learning Centers idea?

Fowler: I read “Ten Young Millionaires,” about guys like Ross Perot who came up with unique business plans and were millionaires by age 40. At the time, my fellow teachers were frustrated with budget cuts and bureaucracy, and kids were slipping through the cracks – not learning to read. And I thought, I know exactly how I can stay in education, make a lot of money and make everybody happy. I’ll enlist good teachers who are eager for an alternative way to stay in education.

S-R: What distinguished Sylvan Learning Centers from conventional education?

Fowler: I developed a system people could follow to teach kids to read, starting with diagnostic testing.

S-R: But you’d never taught reading. You taught art, right?

Fowler: Yes. But I taught kids how to read and write through my art classes, because 25 to 30 percent couldn’t read to grade level.

S-R: How long did you own Sylvan Learning Centers?

Fowler: Almost six years.

S-R: And you sold it for …?

Fowler: Five million bucks … five-point-three, actually.

S-R: That was a lot of money back then.

Fowler: You would think so, wouldn’t you?

S-R: What did you do?

Fowler: I stayed on for a year and a half as chairman, then took time off to play. I had a waterfront house on Mercer Island with five boats, including a 50-foot motor yacht. Then we bought a place in Maui, and I played golf every day. After five years, my wife was about ready to shoot me, and I was worried my brain was atrophying. So we moved back to Seattle, and I bought a mom-and-pop gymnastics program in Bellevue called The Little Gym. It was a wonderful early learning experience for kids. I franchised that, and sold it three years later.

S-R: What next?

Fowler: We moved to Spokane because my wife grew up here, it’s a great place to raise kids, her parents were here, and her brother had been diagnosed with terminal melanoma.

S-R: What was your next endeavor?

Fowler: I started a company called the Thousand Points of Knowledge, where I taught investors how to put together a package for tutoring kids in reading and math. The plan was to partner with YMCAs and other nonprofits to set up learning centers. That didn’t work out.

S-R: And you wrote a book?

Fowler: Yes. “Return From Krypton: Rational steps to entrepreneurial success.” I wrote it for people starting a business or whose business has plateaued, and people who want to position their business for sale.

S-R: What advice did you offer?

Fowler: First, if you have a deep desire to be entrepreneurial, don’t let anybody talk you out of it. And know where you want to end up – what that company will look like when you’ve achieved success – so you have something you can hold on to and defend. Once you have your plan mapped out and know the action items you need to take, take them. It’s pretty simple stuff. And it’s exactly the same core as my coaching course, whether the focus is life, relationships or business.

S-R: What did Krypton have to do with the advice?

Fowler: That was the name of my 50-foot powerboat, but a terrible name for a book. Barnes and Noble asked me to do an autograph signing in Fort Lauderdale, and I was so excited. They put up some nice posters, and a table with stacks of my book. Nobody showed up for two hours. Then right when I was about to give up, this guy runs into the store …

S-R: And he’s a Superman fan?

Fowler: Exactly! (laugh) He’s looking for a new Superman book.

S-R: What do entrepreneurs need to succeed today?

Fowler: First of all, courage to take the first step. When I decided to start Sylvan, I told my principal, my family, my friends. What surprised me was how many people tried to talk me out of it.

S-R: What else does it take?

Fowler: Focus, capital and perseverance.

S-R: Who make the best coaches?

Fowler: Baby boomers are perfect. We have some experience, and are less prone to be judgmental than when we were younger. It’s a wonderful fourth-quarter career.

S-R: Is now a good time to start a business?

Fowler: Absolutely. Now may be better than ever before, because you can leverage your business so easily with today’s technology.

S-R: What have you learned during your 35-year business career?

Fowler: That I have two talents: I can draw and paint really well, and I can get really smart people sucked into stuff I’m doing. That talent – to get people motivated and excited – has taken me a long way.

S-R: Your website quotes Success magazine as stating, “Everything Berry Fowler touches turns to gold.” Is that true?

Fowler: Of course not.

S-R: Tell me about a failure, and what you learned from it?

Fowler: Do you want me to talk about real estate first? (laugh) Because I have friends who still say, “Berry, if you’re going to buy in my market, give me a heads-up so I can get out of it before you buy.” I have the worst real estate luck. I’ve also had business startups that didn’t work.

S-R: What did you learn?

Fowler: That there are no shortcuts, even if you think you’re really smart. And I’ve learned that it’s much better to invest in myself than in somebody else’s business that I have no control of. I don’t even invest in stocks like I did after I sold Sylvan, because I’m not good at that. I’m much better if I’m involved.

S-R: Will you ever retire?

Fowler: No. I’ve tried it a couple of times, and it doesn’t work for me.