by Patti Connor
Staff Writer
Susan Burns likes to run. That’s a good thing. Four years ago, Burns, a long-time employee of Barnett Bank, decided to go out on her own. Intrigued by what she’d heard from a colleague, Burns decided to try her hand at operating a franchise.
She affixed her name to a Mail Boxes Etc. center on Hendricks Avenue, seven blocks from her home in San Marco. (A friend from Barnett partnered with her, purchasing a center on University Boulevard.)
She’s been running ever since.
That’s not to say all Burns’ hard work has gone unrecognized. At the annual convention of Mail Boxes Etc. in Las Vegas in June, she was named “Entrepreneur of the Year.” She was selected from more than 4,500 Mail Box Etc. franchisees worldwide.
“It was very exciting to find out I’d won while I was actually there at the convention,” she said.
For Burns, the fact that this was the first year she had been able to attend the convention made winning even more significant. For the last several years, until she sold it last spring, she had been doing double duty, running, along with the San Marco location, the location on University Boulevard after buying out her former partner, who because of an illness in the family, was no longer able to be involved.
That, in fact, was part of what garnered the nomination for her.
“Susan unexpectedly became a single owner of multiple centers,” said Ken Gordon, who along with Joni Dalgar, the area franchisees for Northeast Florida, nominated Burns. The award also was given in recognition of Burns’ establishment of an advertising association encompassing store owners in Clay County, the beaches and Jacksonville.
“By adding to the national advertising that was already in place, we wanted to saturate the market so that when you think about shipping, for whatever occasion it may be, we’re who you think of,” said Burns, a graduate of The Bolles School and Vanderbilt University.
Apparently, her efforts paid off.
“We weren’t sure what would happen after Sept. 11, but as it turns out, our business really wasn’t affected. Part of that, I think, is that a lot of people were shipping notes and gifts, particularly during the holiday season, as a way of staying in close touch with their families. Of course, people were also less willing to travel,” she said
She also is one of two certified trainers in Jacksonville.
“Once someone has paid their money and signed a contract, they come to the store for a week of intensive training. Then they spend two weeks at the corporate office in San Diego, where they learn every aspect of the company, from products to pricing, to the background of the company, sales techniques and what’s expected of them from a merchandising standpoint. After that, they return to the store for another week.
“A lot of people don’t realize it,” she said, “but packing things can be pretty intense. For example, if you’re shipping someone’s grandmother’s crystal, you need to look at it just as if you were sending a treasured possession of your own.”
She is frequently asked if she misses the banking business.
“What with ATM’s and all, you need to mail things more frequently than you need to go to the bank. So actually, I see a lot more people I know in here, than I did at the bank. Also, even though at the bank I was lucky enough to have a lot of control, there was always somebody who had to approve what I do. Here, I make my own decisions,” she said.
Every morning she gets up and runs, before business gets busy.
“I try to run between three and five hours every day. I’ll be running the half marathon on Thanksgiving Day. The good thing about that is, on Thanksgiving you can eat anything you want,” she said.