Keeping the family business going a priority at Pettus Workplace Solutions
Ensuring continuity can be a challenge for small businesses, where parents often sell or close shop as children leave for greener pastures. That is particularly true for office supply companies, many of which shutter before seeing the second generation, said Josh Pettus, president of Pettus Workplace Solutions in Little Rock.
When his parents, Lynn and Amanda Pettus, founded the business in 1989, there were 26 independent office product dealers in Little Rock, he said. Now he is hard-pressed to think of another shop like Pettus that is still around.
“We are selling commodity products, so it’s not always appealing, necessarily, to the younger generation,” he said, “but it always was to me, so I was happy to come back and carry on the Pettus name.”
His father worked on the manufacturing side of the industry in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and came home to Little Rock to be closer to family after Josh was born. The couple opened Pettus when Josh was about 6 months old.
Josh remembers his parents writing invoices by hand at the dining table during the evenings in the early 1990s. They worked hard, he said, but they always made time to attend his baseball games and other activities.
He started working at the business during the summer when he was 14 years old.
“I started working in the warehouse and installing furniture and doing whatever, and I remember when I turned 16, I was super-excited because I could drive a delivery van and go make deliveries,” he said. “That was a fun summer.”
When he went off to college at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, however, he did not plan to return to the family business. A finance major, he originally planned to pursue investment banking. Then, after talking to his parents while he was home for the holidays his senior year, he changed his mind.
“Ultimately, my parents, they obviously had to work very hard, and we still do today, but they provided a great life for our family, and I’m married and have kids, and I wanted to do the same, you know, rather than just selling to a national corporation,” he said. “I wanted to keep the business local and help out our employees and the community.”
He graduated on a Saturday, packed up his apartment in Fayetteville and came home that Sunday, and came to work at Pettus that Monday. He started in business development as a sales representative and transitioned into his current leadership role in about 2020. Meanwhile, his father moved to part time and now spends several days a week golfing.
“Honestly, we work well together,” Josh said. “I don’t know that every family can say that, but it was a very easy transition. I had really started to take on some of the responsibilities, I guess, before that anyway, so it was an easy transition for us.”
Josh also has two cousins who work at Pettus — general manager Eric Pettus and accountant Justin Cupit — and his wife, Audra Pettus, is director of design. Josh said family ownership helps set Pettus apart from big-box competitors such as Staples, Office Depot and Amazon.
“If a client needs an answer to a question, they can literally call me or shoot me an email, and I can make a decision in one minute and get that problem solved,” he said, “versus our competitors, you may not get an answer at all, so it’s a big advantage out there in the marketplace for sure.”
Josh and Audra have three daughters: Paisley, 14, Lennon, 7, and Rowen, 3. While he hopes at least one of them will take an interest in the family business, he said he understands if they choose to go a different direction.
“My parents never pressured me into it, and I won’t do that to them either, but it would be great if one of them or all of them wanted to join the business when they get a little older,” he said. “They’re having fun being teenagers and elementary kids right now, so they haven’t thought much about the office furniture and office products industry yet, but maybe one day.”
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