Meet Janet Howe | Antique mall owner in her 5th life

We had the good fortune of connecting with Janet Howe and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Janet, do you have any habits that you feel contribute to your effectiveness?
Discipline sounds like a simple answer. But you have to have the discipline to work every day, be on time and stay calm in order to solve problems.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
As a former professional tennis player, where you win or lose, it’s good having your own business so you can be the boss. My advice, after 20 years as an antique mall owner, is to surround yourself with professional dealers. Find the best employees who are friendly and efficient.
Acknowledge your customers, provide clean bathrooms, give out treats, let them take items home to try them, be nice to their children, let people charge items that are less than $10, ie, be fan friendly.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
St Petersburg has tremendous museums, the Dali and a western, a glass and Fine Arts museums and the famous Sunken Gardens.. There are tons of restaurants and bars because a branch of South Florida University is right downtown. We have the Rays baseball team at Tropicana field. My antique shop is in the Grand Central District , which is filled with individual boutiques, art galleries. There is a trolley that can take people from the downtown area, past Tropicana field, through Grand Central all the way to the beach on the Gulf of Mexico.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My mother and her parents were instrumental in my success in life. They were all athletic and competitive. My grandparents paid for my first tennis lessons and took me to tournaments and I went on to become a professional tennis later. Then, much later in life, I bought an antique business but the unscrupulous seller tried to put me out of business. My competitive mother was determined that I was going to stay in business ( “get dressed up, go to the auctions, buy merch, show you’re still in business!”) and then I purchased a building for my business which was a great decision.