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Life After the Riots
FORMWest, Nov. 1992
Distributor Bahman Kianmahd Has Rebuilt His Company
BY JEFFREY HANSEN
As Bahman Kianmahd and his wife Susan watched TV news coverage of the Los Angeles riots last April, they saw his store-front business literally going up in smoke. Susan, then five months pregnant with their second child, exclaimed, "That's our store!"
Not wanting the emotional distress to threaten her well-being and that of the unborn child, Kianmahd, 35, made a quick decision. "I lied to her," recalls Kianmahd, president of Hollywood Stationery and Printing in Los Angeles. "I said, 'Oh, no. That's the store across the street from us.' I wanted to wait until the next morning, at least, then break it to her gently. It was one of those situations where you have to quickly set your priorities and decide what's really important ... a store you can replace, but not a life."
Because Kianmahd lost all of his customer records in the fire, it took some extraordinary measures to get going again. The fire was acutely painful because Kianmahd had cultivated some prime accounts-Paramount Studios, Walt Disney Studios, the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Unified School District, yet he hit the ground running.
"There were a lot of quick decisions," he says. "The first thing I did was get all my calls forwarded to my car phone. So, for the first two days I worked out of my car. Then I got a little place on the second floor of a shop down the street."
The Cost of Rebuilding
"Believe me, I spent some money on that car phone, $200-$300," he says. "Then we had to start to reconstruct all our files, our vendors, customers, all our resources. We had nothing; it was a complete blackout."Until the business got back up to speed, Kianmahd found himself referring some customers to other forms distributors. He shrugs: "It was the right thing to do. But I had to ask myself, 'What is important right now?' If you set your priorities properly and go with it, then it'll work.
"Look, if you know you are going to lose three out of 20 clients, then it becomes a matter of which ones I'll pick to lose. And you know you're going to have to downsize, so it's a matter of which part you'll focus on." There was an immediacy to every problem confronting Kianmahd during that period, which required him to adjust his thinking from looking at short (one year) and long-term (five year) goals. All that went out the window.
"For four months, everything was 'right now,'" he says. "Quick decisions. What's the priority right now? How do I minimize my losses? For example, some of my L.A. County accounts I had to let go, because I couldn't handle them. I've got them back now, but it took four months."
Every cloud has a silver lining. Four months after the riots, Kianmahd relocated down the street and negotiated a 60 percent reduction in his lease. He's still working on N. Vermont Ave., now infamous because of news reports during the rioting.
Is he living any differently since the riots? "I don't think it will happen again," he says. "If you over-react to a thing like that, let it affect your life, then that's just another kind of a loss you suffer spiritually. At the same time, some good came of it because I learned more about our market and where our concentration should be-more on the commercial accounts and less on the storefront operation."
Moving Ahead
The worst is over for Kianmahd, but the drive to succeed is obvious. He is fast on his feet and can switch gears as fast as he needs to. He has had a lot of practice adjusting to changing circumstances-mostly out of necessity.Kianmahd and his family emigrated 14 years ago to escape the Iranian revolution, hurriedly packing their bags, dodging police enforcing curfews and catching one of the last flights out. He was fortunate to be fluent in English, thinking that his biggest problems ahead would be adjusting to American culture and finishing his master's degree in manufacturing engineering at UCLA.
Little did he know that after he bought an existing neighborhood stationery store-expanding over two years to include forms and office supplies-that he would find himself watching it burn to the ground on TV.
"The best decision I made was to downscale the size of the store," he says. "My worst decision? Maybe it was the way I did some things. Sometimes I tell myself I could have moved a little faster. I don't concentrate on what's past, because I expect a lot from myself to start with. But when I reach the end, I always let myself feel satisfied."
Kianmahd is one of those people who will work with customers-even when they have a muddled idea of scope, cost factors and deadlines-because people remember being treated well.
"Look, some businessmen think it's such a big market that they can turn a quick buck, forget about the customer, and get away with it. For them, the real problem is not a matter of burning their bridges; they don't build any."
Jeffrey Hansen is a Los Angeles writer.