We were lucky to catch up with Bob Lingle recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Bob, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I’ve always enjoyed the art of storytelling.
Although I struggled with reading when I was young (I had to go to summer school for reading after second grade), I quickly became an avid reader, to the extent that by fifth grade my teacher would give me books to read to see if the rest of the class might enjoy them.
When I was in high school I fell in love with video production, and went to college for TV/Film Production. While in college I went from working on short films, to producing documentaries. After college I worked on projects in the Western New York area, but never enough for it to be a career. But I didn’t want to give up on the idea of finding and telling stories.
After a winding path that took me from studying to become a Pastor at the Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, NY, to renting cars in downtown Buffalo, NY, I eventually found myself as a bookseller for Barnes & Noble while trying to figure out what my next step would be.
While figuring out my next step, I realized that I loved selling books (I also fell in love with another bookseller, who is now my wife). I loved finding and sharing stories with other people. My path as a bookseller took me from Barnes & Noble, to managing college bookstores with Follett, and now owning my own bookstore.
I’ve owned Good Neighbor Bookstore since 2018, and despite everything else going on in the world. It’s been the best years of my life. My three kids have the opportunity to grow up in a bookstore. And collectively we have learned about the power and importance of community, and having a place where we’ve curated stories for people to enjoy, to learn from, to foster empathy, and maybe even change their life.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
The best way to tell you about me, is to tell you about August of 2016.
In March of 2016 my wife and I welcomed our second child into the world – along with the joys of having a new baby, we were also planning ahead for the reality that we just doubled the cost of daycare.
On August 1, I put in a 30-day notice that I would be leaving my position as Store Manager for the Medaille College Bookstore. I would be taking on the full-time position of stay-at-home dad.
About a week after I put in my notice, my wife received a job offer to teach at her alma mater… about 90 minutes away from our current house. Because I was preparing for my new role as stay-at-home dad, we decided that it didn’t really matter where “home” was and we started making plans to move.
About a week after that, my 95 year-old grandfather died. The day of my grandfather’s funeral, my dad died.
And then we moved.
In many ways I’m still dealing with the weight of all of this. But the biggest takeaway from it was, life is unpredictable and short. So do the things.
When the opportunity came up to buy an existing bookstore in our community, I did the thing. I bought a bookstore. And I also received a promotion. I went from a stay-at-home dad to a kids-at-work dad.
Navigating a business, raising children, figuring out how to run a business during all of the obstacles of COVID, welcoming a third child into the world in 2020, and all of the other things, would likely not be possible for me to emotionally handle, had I not already experienced August of 2016.
Over the last nearly six years of owning the store, I’ve worked on making it my own. In 2020 we moved the store up the street, in 2022 we rebranded the store from Off the Beaten Path Bookstore to Good Neighbor Bookstore – to better reflect the energy we wanted to put into the community.
Because of the growth we’ve had online, mostly thanks to TikTok, we’ve been able to grow our customer base beyond our small town. At the end of 2022, we launched a new website, GoodNeighborBooks.com to allow our customer to buy directly from us, no matter where they are in the country.
Looking to next year, I will be launching a re-formatted virtual author event series. It will have long form interviews on our YouTube page, and clips of interviews shared on our other social media channels. Our past author events have allowed us to connect with a variety of writers and discussion topics.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Communication – Working as a one=person business, having a background in communications (BS from SUNY Fredonia in Communication: TV/Digital Film & MA from St Bonaventure University in Integrated Marketing Communications) allowed me to have the skills to promote my business successfully and cost effectively. Being able to have earned media as opposed to paid media, through effective public relations, put my store in a position to gain awareness throughout the community – without spending anything to do it.
Customer Service – I have worked in customer service positions since high school. My first job was a cashier year at a gas station. Throughout all of the jobs I’ve had, I’ve always tried to go above and beyond for every customer. Part of that is because it really bothers me if I feel like I’ve upset someone in some way. But being able to build connections with customers is the greatest key to my store’s success and continued growth. People want to come back, and they want to bring their friends and family because of the experience I’ve worked hard to provide them.
Creativity/Flexibility – As a small business owner you have to be flexible, and if COVID has taught us anything, it’s that we have to be REALLY flexible and creatively problem-solve. I like to save articles that our store was featured in. My favorite headline to look at is “Bookseller Sets Goals For 2020.” The article came out in January 2020. Little did I know what was coming. All of my goals for 2020 would be pushed to 2022-2023, and my new goals for 2020 were to not get sick, and to not go out of business.
The best advice I can give is to have a plan, and plan on your plans changing.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Lose Well by Chris Gethard.
As a person who struggles with depression and anxiety, I’ve been drawn to the work of a comedian who shares that struggle, Chris Gethard.
I read Gethard’s book in the Fall of 2018, and have continued to make use of a couple of great takeaways.
In the book Gethard describes a scene from his teen years, when one of his brother’s “loser” friends puts on a battle of the bands show in a church basement. And the show was kind of awesome. It made Chris start to ask himself the question, “What if we could?” What is something that you want to do – and what would success look like? What if you could?!
Gethard also asks himself the questions, “Why this? Why here? Why now?” If he can’t clearly answer those questions he either refines the idea until he can, or sets it aside.
As I’ve spent the last six years running a business, I’ve taken these questions, answered them, and have done some remarkable things. (for example, Saving a Village-wide Christmas event, Relocating the store, Rebranding the store, Launching a new website, etc)
Whenever an idea strikes – What if I could?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.goodneighborbooks.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/goodneighborbooks
- Facebook: facebook.com/goodneighborbooks
- Twitter: twitter.com/goodneighborbks
- Youtube: youtube.com/goodneighborbooks
- Other: tiktok – tiktok.com/@goodneighborbooks
