Harry's defined by service, not technology

When Gary Foote's grandfather launched Harry's Business Machines Inc.

in Reno 75 years ago, he worked on typewriters.

His grandson's staff works with computer systems.

But the changes in technology haven't capsized Harry's Business Machines, Gary Foote says, because the company's niche isn't defined by the equipment it services.

Instead, he said a few days ago, the company defines itself by its relationships with its customers, and its managers have put a lot of time into thinking through the way that relationships are built.

A customer relationship, he said, is woven one strand at a time, and it's woven more tightly as customers and business owners learn to trust one another.

When an existing customer refers a friend to Harry's Business Machines, for instance, Foote sees evidence that the customer trusts the firm.

He also sees an opportunity to further weave the relationship of trust by responding quickly to the referral.

"In so many instances, whether it is a large or a small business, not every opportunity is taken to continue to weave relationships," he said.

"There are too many times when people take out the scissors and cut those relationships."

Trusting relationships need the active participation of both parties.

"We've tried to be overly realistic about what we can promise," Foote said.

If a service job is promised for three days and delivered in two, the customer is wowed.

By the same token, Foote said, customers build good relationships when they set realistic time frames for work to be completed and don't present every job as a crisis.

The weaving of good relationships has helped Harry's Business Machines thrive even though its location at 323 West St.

a downtown store it's occupied since 1949 is hardly the center of retail activity in Reno.

A full 80 percent of the company's customers never come to its store.

The location may have been a blessing, Foote said, because it forced the company to focus on service rather than retail sales.

And that, in turn, kept Harry's Business Machines from tangling with the big-box office supply retailers when they came to town.

"We don't stock a single computer," Foote said.

"It's going to be moldy cheese in two weeks."

Instead, only about 10 percent of the company's business comes from retail sales time and attendance equipment, ID cards, networking gear.

The rest is service business.

But despite the company's roots, none of the 13 employees of Harry's Business Machines these days handles repair of typewriters.

That's farmed out to a specialist.

The ability to stay abreast of changing markets has been part of the company ever since it was founded by Harry Foote.

After growing up in Virginia City, he came to Reno in the 1920s and went to work for a typewriter company that served the whole state.

In San Francisco for his honeymoon in 1928, Foote received a telegraph telling him he was fired.

He responded by launching his own company.

From manual typewriters and adding machines, the company made logical transitions into electric typewriters, adding machines and office equipment.

His son, Gordon, and grandson, Gary, oversaw the move into technologybased equipment.

But the elder Foote, who died in 1971, looked far afield for business opportunities.

For instance, his grandson says, Foote sold home appliances right after World War II, when returning veterans were setting up households.