Advanced: "You get detached as you get large," Christopher says. When the company's test kitchen -- the core of TPC -- was located in one building and half its employees were in another, "a lot of people didn't even know it was there." Her goal was to "gather people under one roof to feel we're one team that works together." In June 1994, at last, she moved everyone, warehouse workers and office staff, into a single edifice. "I guarantee that everyone who works here now knows where the test kitchen is.
"In the early days, when we had 15 employees, we'd put up banners and have pizza when we had a good year, and I was very open about our numbers. As we grow we struggle to keep that excitement and enthusiasm, tempered with what has to be less disclosure. We have competitors now and have to be more discreet."
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8. Inventory Control
101: When Christopher was solo, inventory control was rudimentary. "I'd look at the shelf and say, 'I started with 12 of those, and I still have 11. As soon as I'm finished with this dozen I'll dump it." Another advantage of lone proprietorship: she didn't have to worry about somebody else's sales inadvertently creating back orders. Her solution to an out-of-stock condition: "If I didn't have enough of something on the shelf, I just wouldn't show it that evening.
"In the first warehouse, which was my house, we didn't have much space, so products were arranged wherever they fit. Nothing was in order. The women who packed the orders would go out with a list and pick two of this and three of that -- as much as their arms could carry. They'd take the pile, put it on the counter, look through the list again, and continue to another corner."
Advanced: After four years in the cellar, Christopher bought a nearby building and restructured TPC's inventory system. To speed the warehousing process, she outfitted her pickers with shopping carts.
Not far behind a 30-day pace, inventory turnover is slowed somewhat by Christopher's insistence that every new product, even an obvious lemon, stay in the line at least a year. The rule stems from the requirement that salespeople purchase a sample of each item they show. "I don't want them to spend money and then have us tell them we made a bad decision," she explains.
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9. Cost Control
101: TPC's first furnishings were secondhand. "It's how we internally capitalized the business," Christopher says. "We never allowed ourselves to be extravagant."
Advanced: In 1985 Christopher invested in videos for sales training and new-product introductions. "At the time," she recalls, "I was looking at $15,000 to produce a half-hour videotape professionally. There was no way the company could afford that." So she turned to her field people for talent and shot the videos in-house. "The tapes weren't always pretty," she concedes, "but they got the message across." And she saved 80%. "While other companies were struggling to budget for one videotape," says Christopher, "we were able to do five." Workers don't buy the videotapes; rather, they're encouraged to borrow them. "A person who elects to come into this business does so on a very small investment," Christopher says. "If you spend $100 for a sales kit, you're not about to spend another $45 for a videotape."
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10. Letting Go
101: "When you have a business in your home, you tend to work all hours," Christopher says. "I'd work during the day and then do a kitchen show at night. I'd come home when everybody was asleep, so I'd go down to the basement and get back to my desk. When you hit 80 hours an alarm goes off, and you say, 'This is too much, there's no balance in life.'
"We waited too long to develop a top-level management team. We took too much on ourselves," admits Christopher, whose husband, a marketing executive, came over to TPC to serve as full-time executive vice-president from 1987 to 1992. "At the end of 1992 we said, 'This is too heavy, we can't continue -- the business is growing like crazy.' So we started bringing in key individuals."
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11. Systems Development
101: "We had an order form that had all the products, and we just lined them up in the warehouse according to that order."
Advanced: Last April TPC went on-line with a minicomputer-driven pick-and-pack system that makes warehouse rounds via overhead conveyors. The pickers from Christopher's shopping-cart days run it.
Before they reach $200 million in sales, many direct sellers establish regional distribution centers. Not Christopher. "There are reasons to, but my conservative nature says I don't want to be out of product in the Northeast when I have tons of it sitting in the Southwest. We pride ourselves on not having many out-of-stocks or back orders, and we accomplish that through centralized shipping." The disadvantage: "It takes longer."
Another remnant from Christopher's beginner's bootstrapping course: TPC's 20,000 kitchen consultants still mail in their orders; days later, clerks at headquarters open them by hand. Christopher says she's working to improve the process.
Gaudeamus igitur. n
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