Air Force Vet Makes Time Her Business

We’re highlighting small businesses from around the country as nominated by you, our readers. If your favorite small business is using Twitter to communicate with customers, let us know about it @fbsmallbiz with the hashtag #mysbc, and it may be featured as an upcoming Small Business of the Day.

Small Business of the Day: Cool Clock Shop

Who: Christine Gentry, 34, @coolclockshop

What: Modern, traditional and contemporary clocks and home decor

When: April 2011

How: Gentry, who is medically retired from the Air Force after serving as a combat engineer, wanted to find a business she could run from her home. Gentry's aunt, an interior designer, owned several Websites featuring home décor -- Cool Clock Shop being one of them -- and Gentry bought the business from her in 2011.

Being a small business, Gentry said she likes to set herself apart from big-box competitors by limiting what is available to her customers.

"A lot of sites throw anything and everything on there, and customers become overwhelmed really quickly," she said. "We hand-select everything on our site, I personally know every item we have up there."

Where: Liverpool, NY

Biggest lesson learned from a customer: "My biggest lesson has been how much customers appreciate good service," Gentry said. "Above all else, they appreciate having someone on the phone answering their questions, responding to e-mails within two or three hours of sending them. The Internet has gotten so big, that so many stores out there are impersonal."

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