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Louis Okun probably wasn't cut out to be an accountant.
But until about five years ago he was working, successfully but none too happily, as a CPA outside Washington, D.C.
"I just decided that I didn't want to do that anymore," Okun said. "So I walked into work one day and said, "I'm going to move to Florida and open a car lot.' They all laughed at me."
If his fellow number-crunchers could see Okun now, they probably wouldn't be laughing. Okun owns and operates All Swedish & European Automotive, with locations in Tampa, Gainesville and Orlando. He also owns more than 500 Volvos.
Maybe he would be making more money and maybe he wouldn't be working as hard if he had kept his old job. But he has never felt the slightest twinge of regret.
"To me, it's not about the money," he said. "It's about living a good life."
Okun, who had been a car fanatic all his life, opened his dealership in 1999 at 6025 E Broadway Ave. in Tampa. It's a seedy neighborhood at best. The only other prominent merchants in the area are crack cocaine dealers.
But Okun managed to carve out a niche business by specializing in Volvos and Saabs, by having a detailed knowledge that few other people match, and by being singularly devoted to customer service.
"The first thing I did was, I bought one of each model and took every one completely apart and put it back together again," he said.
The Volvo dealerships have an interest in selling new cars to people with lots of money, Okun said. And though his clientele includes a lot of doctors and lawyers, he also deals with a lot of people who have 20-year-old Volvos that they want to keep driving as long as possible.
One way they do that is to try to do repairs themselves. Okun doesn't do repairs, but he sells new, used and rebuilt parts. And he'll gladly take the time to educate anyone - whether it's a loyal customer or a total stranger - on exactly how to make repairs at home.
"If you understand something completely, you can explain it to anyone in 20 minutes or less," he said. "We don't sell parts, we sell knowledge. And knowledge is power."
Often, he can talk himself out of a sale. A customer may come to him wanting to buy a replacement part; instead, Okun will tell him how to fix the existing part.
That doesn't sound like good business practice. But it's obviously paid off. Okun has three locations around Florida now, and is about to open a fourth in Melbourne. He also has a lot in Pasco County where he stores about 500 Volvos. He renovates some and uses others for parts. He'll also build custom Volvos, mixing and matching parts from his stock.
Taking the time to give car owners free step-by-step instructions on repairs is an unconventional way of doing business, Okun admits. But it has paid off in customer loyalty and amazing word-of-mouth advertising.
"It's a weird way of doing things, isn't it?" he said. "But we have the philosophy that if you treat people right, it'll pay off in the end. You take five minutes to help someone fix his car, and his family buys four cars from you. You do the math."
Okun himself sounds a little surprised at how quickly and widely his business has grown. He has never advertised, except for maintaining a Web site, but he fields calls from Volvo owners all over the country who need a hard-to-find part or some repair advice.
And just because he treats people right doesn't mean they necessarily do the same. His Web site (allswedish.biz) features a Hall of Shame with stories of people who have ripped him off. He prosecutes them vigorously.
He used to have a problem with car thieves until he came up with a unique solution. He bought a 300ZX and removed the engine and transmission, locked the hood and parked the car outside his lot. The next day, it was obvious that someone, or a group of someones, had spent several hours trying to steal the car, obviously to no avail.
"They never figured out that it didn't have an engine," he said. "They haven't bothered me since then."