"Entrepreneurial Spirit" - Mary Ellen Sheets at Business InSight

Entrepreneurial Spirit

Mary Ellen Sheets

Founder, Two Men & a Truck

The History of

1980 – 1983 Okemos High School graduates Brig Melanie Jon

1981 – The first truck

1985 – 1986 $350 truck Brand new truck

1987 – The first Lansing office

1988 – Pee Wee

1990 – The Kalamazoo street office

1991 – The first “real” fleet

1992 – The first “real” franchise office on Michigan Avenue

1993 – The Michigan Avenue basement

1993 – The broken leg

1996 – 1998 The box outlet

1998 – The new home office in Okemos

1999 – The National Enquirer

2001 – The 100th franchise in Mesa, AZ

2001 – The new building groundbreaking

2002 – The new home office

2002 – Truckie is born!

2003 – Bill Edwards our International Coordinator

2004 – The groundbreaking for new home office wings

2004 – The building addition

The training house and truck

Technology lab

The PROSHOP

2005 - Cover of Franchising World

The first in Canada 2005

2006

Dublin, Ireland 2007

Moving Forward

Going green

2008 Board of Directors

Lessons Learned Lesson #1 - Even if you are shy, you can do public speaking if you do it enough. Lesson #2 - Always give back to your community. Lesson # 3 - The Customer ALWAYS comes first! Lesson #4 - Love what you do - Life is not a dress rehearsal. Lesson # 5 - Don’t listen to negative comments.

Lesson # 6 - Even if you are broke, let people know you WILL pay them back. Keep in contact with them. Send as much as you can afford every month. Lesson #7 - Always say YES! to any opportunity, as you don’t know where it will lead you. Lesson #8 - Don’t lose your focus. Lesson #9 - Take lots of pictures! You will be so glad some day you did. Lesson #10 - If you want to do something bad enough, you can make it happen. Even if you can only do a little each day - do something and when you look back, you will see you have accomplished a lot! Lessons Learned…