A good night's sleep on a $4K mattress pointed a former BigLaw attorney to a new job in sales
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Life as a mergers and acquistions attorney for Foley & Larder wasn’t for him, Greg Yatooma realized while still a young man.
But, despite the car-selling experience that put him through law school, he didn’t initially focus on going back into sales when he left the law firm’s Detroit office in 2009. That epiphany resulted from a good night’s sleep on a $4,000 mattress.
A friend who works for the manufacturer sold Yatooma the mattress for $900, after it had been used as a floor sample at a trade show. When Yatooma awakened the next morning, he was a believer in the product. Purchases for family members soon led to a new business, and he now sells closeout and clearance name-brand mattresses from four bricks-and-mortar locations in the Detroit area, reports Crain’s Detroit Business. An earlier Crain’s Detroit Business article provides more details.
Yatooma is proud of his work at Foley & Lardner and says his legal experience is useful to him in business. But his mattress-selling career is the right fit for him, and he tries to make coming to his stores as much fun for customers as it is for him.
“Our closing table is a foosball table; we have basketball nets, televisions and iPads in the stores,” he tells Crain’s. “I couldn’t ask for a better gig. Best of all, I come to work in shorts.”
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