While many San Antonians in their early 20s are just graduating from college, landing a stable job, and moving out of their parents’ homes, young business entrepreneur Barron Perales owns and operates his own business and owns a home. A recent graduate of UTSA with a degree in Finance and Marketing, Perales already has a few invaluable years of successful business under his belt.
Perales grew up in a close–knit family of business owners who were determined to help each other become prosperous. Both his mother and father owned companies and encouraged Perales to learn the basics of business. From a young age, Perales figured out that to get the things he wanted in life, he would have to sell his ideas.
Along with his professional success, Perales has been recognized by several prestigious business organizations. He was one of only six students to be recognized by the Minority Business Development Agency asa rising minority entrepreneur, and he was later selected by the Emerging Business Leaders Summit, which acknowledges the achievements of students interested in entrepreneurship.
As a sophomore in college, Perales began taking steps to gain valuable business experience by completing an internship with Ford Motor Company, which offers an entrepreneurship program. Shortly thereafter, his mother helped him purchase ITEX, a bartering franchise that had little success in San Antonio before he took over.
As an ITEX broker, Perales essentially serves as a middle man between businesses buying and selling services and products from one another. Instead of businesses directly trading products and services, trading through ITEX allows companies to earn ITEX dollars from the goods or services they provide. Businesses then have the opportunity to spend the ITEX dollars with any company in the ITEX network rather than being limited to trade only with the company for which they provided services.
Early on, Perales dedicated himself to revamping his ITEX franchise with a strong focus on customer service. Spending little time away from his office for the first couple of years, the savvy businessman strove to keep his clients happy by writing their advertisements and spreading positive word of mouth about ITEX throughout San Antonio.
His efforts paid off, and he increased business by $350,000 in his first year and achieved a new record for the San Antonio–based ITEX franchise by generating more than $3 million in transactions by his second year. These successful numbers earned Perales Rookie of Year in 2006 and the Three Million Dollar Award in 2007.
Though he is one of the youngest brokers with ITEX, Perales’ superb performance earned his business the Circle of Excellence Award with ITEX. This award is the second highest award given by ITEX and is reserved for the top 10 percent of ITEX franchises throughout the country.
When he’s not at the office, Perales enjoys networking events and helping the community through organizations like Habitat for Humanity. Improving the community through utilizing his successful business experience is Perales’ main goal for the future. He would like to see businesses across the city come together to make positive differences throughout San Antonio.
Influential minority leaders Henry Cisneros and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez helped motivate Perales to pursue a living and encouraged him to strive for what he wanted in life. Perales hopes to one day inspire young people throughout San Antonio as his role models have inspired him.
At the ripe age of 24, Perales is motivated and looks forward to his future in the business field. He is optimistic and plans to continue providing high–quality customer service at ITEX.
“I know I will go much farther than this,” Perales said. “My company is scalable, and I’m confident that it will continue to grow.”
Young people like Perales are what the San Antonio business industry needs to grow and make steps toward improving the community.
