A Shining Example of Entrepreneurship.

In a vast hall at the Palais des Congres, a man in a red bow tie, a white baseball cap and a black vest is leaning over the feet of an executive from Virginia. Dave Petrillo’s shoes, once an elegant burgundy in color, are showing unmistakable sign of wear and tear. Harry Klein, “Le Petit Cireur” is determined to restore them to their original grandeur.

He wipes and waxes, smooths and scrubs, scours and polishes. And as the scuffed shoes gradually begin to look like they visited some fountain of leathery youth, Klein talks. He tells a joke about a priest and a little Jewish boy, he flatters his customer: ” This guy likes a classy shoe, You probably have a pair at home, more like a cognac brown do you?” (Indeed Petrillo does).

More importantly, Harry Klein repeatedly drops the name of his present client, FISHER INTERNATIONAL. An exhibitor at the pulp and paper trade show EXfor 2007. Not that Klein knows a thing about Fisher Logic Optimizer TM or any other products of the multinational information services firm. That does not matter.

What matters is that with his distinctive garb, his ready patter and his innate shrewdness-not to mention what Petrillo calls his “engaging personality”- Klein increases the traffic around the Fisher booth.

For five-ten minutes, he’ll pamper both the ego and the feet of his customers. He’ll sing Charles Aznavour songs to them. He’ll make them forget the daily grind and feel, for a few moments, special.

“He’s the greatest” gushes Sandy Perkins, an associate product manager for Fisher International. “He brings us a larger audience. And I don’t have to look too pushy.”

Harry Klein has been turning on the charm and the elbow grease at trade shows and golf tournaments around Montreal since 2005. Every Monday, he and his chrome art deco chair can be found in the attorney’s lounge of the law firm Stikeman Elliott. He shined shoes at the World Congress of Sexology and the World Congress of Gastroenterology. (The sexologist were lousy customers; they didn’t care much about their feet).

To make it as a shoe shiner, you need a blend of flair, enthusiasm, and endurance. At the pulp and paper show, Klein worked eight hours each day without a break.He has a reperatoir of 30 jokes in both official languages (French,English)- none of them he hastens to say are sexist or demeaning. Women as well as men make use of his services.

Before reinventing himself as “Le Petit Cireur”, Klein trained in theater in John Abbott college, worked in radio in Northern Ontario, and spent many years in telemarketing. He has the forceful persuasive voice of someone who is used to phoning strangers out of the blue. It is a neccesary skill for his current business. “I have to pitch this whole new concept of ‘look good, feel good’.” He explains, “Thank God I’m Harry Klein or I wouldn’t get anywhere with these pitches.”

“Its been tough,” he admits,” Crawling to the top from the very bottom” “Working as a shoe shiner you have to try quite hard to get respect.”
He has dreams of climbing still higher. “Men’s beauty care in North America is a business worth billions of dollars” he says. ” Finally, men are getting shampooed, pedicured and manicured. And the business that’s comming up right behind is the shoe shine business.”

Not that you’d know it from the handfulof regular shiners in downtown Montreal, who in Kleins opinion show way too little drive and way too much grumpiness. He sees them not as scraping a living , but squandering an opportunity .

Harry Klein now owns 30 professional chairs, with a custom built model in nickel plated steel soon to arrive from Alberta.

If his dreams come true, each of the cities big commercial buildings will have “Petits Cireurs” in the next few years. ” I just love making people happy,” Klein says,” I’m a happy guy myself, God gave me the gift of making people laugh. Plus, I like the whole idea of building a business. What could be better than being paid for something that you really enjoy doing ? Success is a wonderful thing, nothing beats it.”

Filed under: Shoe Shine Stand

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