As the owner of a small business, Mary Carol Flynn knows that some businesses are fortunate enough to make it while many others wither and die. When she took over her ex-husband’s business a little more than thirty years ago, Flynn did not consider failure an option.
Flynn said, “It’s funny because people look at it (the business) as being a success. I had three kids to support. If I had failed, what was I going to show them?”
Her Oak Lawn company, TBK Promotions, Inc., sells promotional products – merchandise emblazoned with a company’s logo – to clients that include financial services firms manufacturing, higher education and service industry
to name a few.
Flynn, then 51, took over the business in April 1989 from her ex-husband. The company at that time was called The Idea People, Inc., and she kept that name until October 1990.
In 1990 when she began, TBK operated out of Flynn’s home. In addition to Flynn, the company has three full-time employees and four part-time workers, and has annual sales of about $600,000,
Flynn, who had worked with her husband in the business, described it as “struggling” at the time she took over. Needing a quick infusion of capital to kick-start the business, Flynn borrowed $20,000 from her brother.
“Back in 1989 we didn’t even have a fax machine,” Flynn recalled.
She made arrangements with suppliers to keep merchandise coming in while the company gained its financial footing. Flynn said she and her employees pulled together to keep the business afloat.
“I was fortunate to have good people around me,” Flynn said. “They wanted me to succeed.”
The only business training she had was what she had learned working with her husband. She had graduated from Fontbonne University in St. Louis several years earlier with a bachelor’s of science degree in speech pathology.
“I have always been a pretty good money manager,” Flynn said. “My mother and father taught me that.”
Flynn said she felt the company needed a new identity and tried to come up with a new name. Her accountant suggested incorporating the names of her three sons – Tom, Brian and Kevin – in the new name.
“They’re in birth order so as not to give any indication of favoritism, “Flynn said.
Kevin, then 22, was brought on to help bring TBK into the digital world. Tom, then 27, and Brian, then 25, worked for
other companies.
Through the Women’s Business Development Center in Chicago, TBK was certified about two years ago as a female-owned business enterprise.
Rather than simply being an order filler, asking clients to pick out items from catalogs of promotional products, Flynn said she examines what the client’s promotional goals are.
“I find out more about what the client does and who they are trying to reach,” she said. “Knowing the market they are aiming for helps in choosing the item that will best serve their purpose.”
In 1997, with employees working in the garage and sharing space in the basement with the furnace, TBK had grown to the point where Flynn’s home could no longer accommodate the business.
“It was great when the boys were growing up,” Flynn said of operating TBK out of her home. “There was always somebody at home. But now we’re wall-to-wall and we’re looking to move out.”
In 2001, TBK moved to their first office, the moved again in 2006 and 2015.
In 2019, when COVID-19 hit, TBK’s cloud-based connected workflow allowed them to easily make a change and the team is now operating 100% remote.
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