From appliances to ice cream to YouTube, Dynamic Entrepreneur honoree stays busy in Selma

By RANDY CAPPS

Like many successful business owners, Michael Sneed’s path to success wasn’t a straight line. Even the destination wasn’t quite where he thought he would wind up when he left North Carolina A&T with an engineering degree.

But, in true entrepreneurial spirit, Sneed used his gifts, adapted and made it all work. For those efforts, he’s earned the 2021 Johnston Now Honors Dynamic Entrepreneur Award.

“Fifteen or 20 years ago, being an entrepreneur was almost a bad word,” he said of winning the honor. “If you told somebody that you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you were looked at like you couldn’t cut it in corporate America. I’d like for more kids to look into entrepreneurship. College is always a good way to go, but with the cost of college now, the amount of jobs that let you pay that money back is lower. We need to look more into entrepreneurship for kids, and let them tap into their creative and artistic sides. I ask kids all the time that come into the ice cream parlor, ‘What’s your dream?’ Then I find out that a lot of kids don’t dream anymore. Things don’t have to be so organized. Let kids go out, explore and make mistakes. That’s how we learn in entrepreneurship, making mistakes. You’re not going to learn business and not make mistakes.”

A native of Stovall, Sneed left North Carolina A&T with an engineering degree. But he picked up a few skills along the way that would come in handy for him later.

“While I was in college, I worked at Sears as a repairman,” he said. “All my friends told me that, if all you’re going to do is repair appliances, you might as well quit (college). And I was like, ‘Once I graduate, I’m never going to fix another washing machine or dryer.’”

Another business axiom is to never say never, as Sneed was about to find out.

He was working for Nortel when it went under in 2001, and despite an exhaustive search where he offered to intern for free with companies to prove himself, he was at an impasse. But, he found the way forward just a few steps from his front door.

“I started talking to the skilled tradesmen out at Flowers Plantation, and they were mad that they hadn’t had a day off in a couple of years,” he said. “The more I talked to them, I found out they were making more money doing plumbing and electrical than I was as an engineer.

“I had signed up to take the electrical contractor’s test, but I got the entrepreneur bug at that time. My wife and I go over to Food Lion, and I’m saying that I’m going to start my own business. I’m tired of corporate America. And I grab a small business magazine and I open it up. At the very top of the list of small businesses to start was appliance repair. And the light bulb went off. Here it is, I’ve been laid off almost a year, and I’m going around begging companies to work for them for free. My family, friends and neighbors are calling me to fix their appliances, and I wasn’t charging them.

“My wife and I went to Office Max, bought a stack of yellow paper and had them print everything I could fix and a phone number. On Sunday mornings, we’d go around and find a neighborhood. I’d ride around on the back of the truck and put flyers on mailboxes. By the time we got home, the voicemail would be filled up, and I’d have enough work to get through the week.”

The business that would eventually become Appliance Boot Camp was born. Not only will Sneed keep your appliances in good working order, but he also teaches people how to start their own appliance repair business. His YouTube channel boasts more than 6,700 subscribers, and his videos have been viewed almost 650,000 times.

Teaching the classes also helps him stay up to date on the latest technology in the increasingly computer-driven machines on which he works.

“They went from more mechanical to more digital,” he said. “It’s kind of like your cars. You used to go to your mechanic and tell him you had something wrong with your car. He’d get out the 9/16 and tell you to open your hood. Now, you go to your mechanic and tell him you have something wrong with your car, and he gets a computer and plugs it in. Appliances are nothing but big computers now.”

Keeping them running is a recession-proof business, too.

“I tell people that appliance repair is the jujitsu of small businesses,” he said. “It’s like Royce Gracie, who came into the UFC when we were looking at Taekwando and people doing flips, and just laid on the ground and put people in choke holds. Appliance repair is like that. It’s not sexy ... but appliance repair is that business that puts other businesses in choke holds. Even though we’re in a pandemic, we’re considered essential. People are going out and buying $300 or $400 worth of food, so their refrigerator has to work harder to cool it off. So, the refrigerator might have more problems. People were going out to eat every Friday and Saturday night, but now they have to cook more. So the ranges and stuff are having more problems.”

Sneed’s entrepreneurship runs even deeper, with Old Fashioned Ice Cream, also located in Selma.

“I have a son with special needs,” he said. “I needed something for him to do once he graduated from high school. He had a lot of interest in the culinary field. I thought about doing shaved ice. I was looking for something repetitious that he could do that didn’t have a lot of variables. In the search for shaved ice (opportunities), I found that it was seasonal. I thought about ice cream, and at the time, we were driving to Raleigh on the weekends for ice cream and donuts. I decided to make a place here where people could come and get ice cream.”

Sneed lives in Clayton with his wife, Norma, and has three children: Shayonna, Maykla and Mike. As for what advice he would offer to aspiring entrepreneurs?

“Look and see what skill sets you have first,” he said. “Business is hard. Working for someone else is bad, but if you start a business that you hate, you’re going to really hate to get up and go do it every day. Find something within yourself that you can do. Go look for a mentor. Somebody who has done that business before, and, if you can, buy their business plan and follow their blueprint.

“Or come check out Appliance Boot Camp. I can teach you how to start your own business.”