With Love and Quiches (27 page)

Today, we all hold equal positions on the executive committee at the top with a few of our other key employees. Even so, on rare occasions I still allow myself to throw my weight around and get two votes. But I have learned that I
can
be outvoted, and I am okay with that. We have managed, for the most part, to work it all out. We are fortunate in that we not only love each other, more importantly, we actually
like
each other, which is very helpful when we are fiercely going head to head, which happens very often in a business as complex as ours. We have to try
very
hard to coexist effectively in the office.

No
business is easy. We’ve had our share of battles, and some of them have been rather explosive. But we find a way past them. I might add that it is always a good idea to have a third neutral party in the room as a referee of the combatants. This is
very
good advice.

The people you spend your life with greatly influence your path. We are a close-knit family who find ourselves in business together, a difficult proposition in any circumstance, and we have had to find a way to live with it. Family businesses come with their own unique set of challenges.
We will ourselves to keep the personal out of it, to focus on the end game.
It was a process and took quite a while; we are still at it.

The sacrifices I have made have allowed my children to follow their own destiny, to put their stamp on Love & Quiches Gourmet and the direction the company will take going forward. So my husband and I have learned to step back, to let go, to allow the organization and its high-performance teams to do their jobs without being micromanaged.

In any organization—whether private or not, whether operating
during periods of a difficult economy or vibrant growth—there
will
be disagreements, both among the family members and among others in the organization at all levels.
Clearly defined areas of responsibility and job functions help keep this to a minimum, especially when it comes to family members
. Communication, mutual respect, and coordination are key. And
not
just for the four of us.

As we all know, change is inevitable as the needs of our target markets evolve, and we realize that as a family-run private business we have the advantage of flexibility, with fewer layers at the top for important decisions. This is yet another example of setting aside the personal and moving quickly to seize an opportunity. Our employees appreciate this distinction. Our longevity depends upon keeping both our customers and our employees happy.

Sometimes, as our personnel numbers expanded, the togetherness grew a little too literal as the office space correspondingly got smaller and smaller. I still have the corner office, but now Irwin and I share it, sitting opposite one another across a partners desk. And it is not only us; sometimes, I am embarrassed to admit, if visitors need some private office time, we must seat them in a chair opposite the bathrooms with their laptops in their laps! More office space is on the agenda.

The statistics are disheartening for family-owned businesses; only about a third survive beyond the founding generation, and only 12 percent make it into the third.
This
family business will try to beat those odds. We have a willingness to change and remain relevant that has been demonstrated throughout this book. Family members have to earn their positions both now and for future generations, and we are open to seek outside help when needed.

Forming our formal board of advisors, discussed earlier, was an important move for us. Because family businesses tend to make emotional decisions, we knew that the time had come to seek crucial input from outsiders, each of whom brings their business experience and
unemotional
advice to the table.

We have always done a lot together as a family, and we still do.
We can’t seem to get away from each other. And even though we work together—often
more
than enough for family members—we
also
spend a fair amount of time out of the office during holidays, at the beach, while out for a meal, and so on. Away from the office, we try to refrain from discussing business as much as possible. Realistically, especially during this digital age, this isn’t always possible; sometimes issues or decisions cannot wait, especially in a business of our size. We understand that and accept it, but if it
can
wait until Monday, we certainly let it do so.

Whatever the hardships of working with family might be, I’ve found those hardships outweighed by the gratification of being close to my husband, my children, and now my six grandchildren.

I think a fit end to this chapter is a poem my granddaughter Sari—now fourteen and always creative—wrote when she was eleven:

Sugar dust and flour spots,
Rest upon our big, gray pots,
A hair net to keep our tresses attached,
And white chef gear just to match,
The smell of brownies in the air,
And chocolate cake with devotion and care,
Blondie crumbs on our glove,
And our pretty quiche,
That’s made with love,
Love and Quiches is the place that’s best,
Because we’re better than the rest,
So eat our brownies,
Treats and more,
Then like us you’ll be sweet,
Just down to the core.
—Sari Axelrod, age 11

Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.
—Mary Kay Ash

T
here was absolutely nothing in my upbringing to prepare me for the fact that I would eventually find myself in a leadership position and that people would wait and want to hear what I had to say or what I thought. As you all now know, building my business from just one quiche to where we are today was not what was supposed to happen, given where I came from and the playlist that was set out for me. Nevertheless, here I find myself; I have met and exceeded goals that I never knew would be mine. It is ironic that I ended up in the dessert business, considering that my real passion for cooking and food hadn’t initially been for baking at all. It shows how random these things can be. An opportunity presents itself, and you either go with it or you don’t. I chose to go with it.

The only personal role model I had was my beautiful friend Phyllis. She died much too young, but Phyllis always knew what she wanted and went after it. She decided against having children (she happily used mine instead) when that option was frowned upon, and she had been on track to become superintendent of schools in a large district on Long Island. We were very close friends who could discuss anything and everything without passing judgment, yet we always had fun together.

There was an entire genre of male chauvinist pop songs in the 1950s and 1960s. Phyllis’s and my favorite was “Wives and Lovers,” sung by Frank Sinatra, in which he advises the little woman to fix her makeup, comb her hair, and take nothing for granted just because she has a ring on her finger; that girls in the office will go after her man; no curlers or he’ll be gone; always run into his arms the moment he comes home; and other equally hilarious and sexist advice!

Every time we heard that song, we would
howl
with laughter while our husbands looked on, perplexed. I must have known even then that this would not be my role for too much longer. And I know Phyllis would have
loved
to learn about this book.

Although I started out not quite as a “lady who lunches,” I was nevertheless one who attended charity luncheons, wore wide-brimmed hats, and dressed to kill at these events. That was my milieu. For most women of my generation, marriage and then children was a given, automatic. In that era, female entrepreneurs were a fairly uncommon phenomenon. There was Estée Lauder, of course, but that was a
very
long shot.

But then I blindly plunged into this business, surprising even myself. I wasn’t the
only
woman who worked. Many women were real estate brokers, owned clothing shops, worked in the arts, or were teachers, nurses, and so forth. Manufacturing, however, was largely a man’s game. On my level, I was a pioneer, albeit an inadvertent one. On the rare occasion when I found a half hour to run out and meet a friend for a quick lunch, people used to stare and point at me, but I never cared. My community of acquaintances may have been a bit
critical, maybe even a little jealous. But my close friends were
always
my cheerleading department, encouraging me to keep going in spite of the obstacles in my path.

At the start of this narrative, I admitted that my single credential was that I loved to cook and had a passion for anything and everything connected to food: not a very promising background for entering the highly competitive manufacturing arena. I had had no exposure to the corporate or business world. As the business grew and became more corporate, and our customer base became more corporate, I had to learn to navigate that world as if I was born into it.

I didn’t know any better—but once I got started, I
did
know that I had this tiger by the tail and wasn’t going to let go.
I could do this!
After that, everything I learned about business I learned by doing. Mine is a story about learning on the job, about developing a fierce determination to try my luck at something new—and get lucky in the process. I am still learning.

There is no such thing as a straight line to the top.
I would not take no for an answer, yet I recognized that I was in for a long and often bumpy ride. My friend Jack, the equipment dealer who in the early days sold me my freezers and became one of my mentors, asked me more than once if I thought I could take it. Of course I would answer “yes!” to which he always replied, “But, can you
really
take it?” I painfully learned over and over again during the following decades what he had meant and was trying to tell me.

My path in business has been full of twists and turns. I liken it to my cooking style. When I cook, I just keep making adjustments: a little more wine or stock or olive oil … salt, pepper, herbs, and so on until the flavor is just right. I use my instincts here just as I have learned to do in business: what ingredients to add and how much vs. what to do next and when. It’s a skill learned from experience that has served me well. My advice is not to be afraid to veer a little to the left or to the right. Use my cooking as a metaphor for your career path; take the road to wherever it leads you. Dare to be a little bit different.

Through it all, I have
never
lost my passion. On some level, each phase of our development—both the good
and
the bad, as well as planning how to overcome the latter—has been filled with excitement.

One would think my life has been all about food pretty much 24/7, but there
has
been some balance. Everyone needs some balance in his or her life. I played a lot of tennis—advanced
singles
tennis—and always loved it, except that I am now paying the price: my knees hurt, my shoulders hurt, and so do my wrists. When it became apparent that it was all over, I gave it up. I was sure that I would die if I had to give up my tennis, but I didn’t die. I’m still here, just like Love and Quiches. These days I walk
a lot
. I keep it moving all the time.

My next grand passion, almost up there with food, is reading. We own and have read so many books that we ran out of shelves to keep them on, especially since we now live in an apartment. I am grateful for my e-reader, although at first I was sure that I could never get used to not feeling the comforting heft of a real book in my hands. When traveling, we used to carry a separate bag with us containing thirty pounds of books. Now I can walk around with a hundred books downloaded onto my Kindle. I also make sure to read the
New York Times
cover to cover every day; however, I am constantly a day behind. I can
never
seem to catch up on that day, but I never miss a page. Theater and the movies come next in my list of passions; I drag Irwin to see at least one every weekend, and sometimes two. As a New Yorker, I have a lot of choices. And I never, ever tire of dining out. Turning off the pressure in these ways renews me.

As the decades flew by, I developed a new persona. I became unafraid of my own style; I never again followed trends. If I like something, I will wear it for twenty years. I never wear platform shoes, and I only wear one color, black, because it’s easier. Irwin says I dress like a widow. I don’t shop unless I absolutely have to, and I never shop in a
department store (too complicated). But food is another story. I don’t mind shopping for hours to find the perfect melon or cheese. Food is still first on the list.

I have had a recurring dream for decades, and the theme is always the same: trying to get from one place to another. I can’t quite get there, or if I do, I arrive with the parts not quite in the right place. It may be as simple as forgetting my dress shoes when attending a wedding and not being able to go back for them because there isn’t enough time, or because there’s too much traffic because of a baseball game, or a concert, or the president being in town. Sometimes the raincoat is inevitably in the wrong place during a storm.

Most of the time, however, the obstacle in my dream is
much
more dramatic: mountains, floods, torrential rains, mudslides, a bridge that is out. No matter how hard I try, I cannot quite get from one side of the chasm to the other. Or perhaps I don’t have the correct address for the place I am trying to reach and there is no turning back to get it. I find myself hopelessly off course.

They’re not quite nightmares, but they’re unsettling nevertheless. And so it goes.

Building a business from scratch, from just an idea, is much the same. For me it has been a forty-year climb to get to a plateau high on the mountain, a place where I could stand without fear of falling. Along the way there have been hundreds of obstacles thrown in my path: recessions, competition, commodity spikes, blunders, flat tires, you name it. But I kept climbing because I had no other choice. It was too late to back down; there was too much baggage; I had bet the farm.