by Gregory Ericksen, Ernst & Young LLP

On a rainy October afternoon, a suburban housewife in River Forest, Illinois, was driving her Plymouth Volare loaded down with kitchenware to a friend's home in nearby Elmhurst. She was alone, there being no room for anyone else in a car crammed with six crates of products she planned to demonstrate and - hope against hope - sell at a friend's home. A troubled expression on Doris Christopher's face reflected the What am I doing? conversation she was having with herself. She had selling jitters.

"I was filled with uncertainty. I remember thinking as I was driving along that this was the most unlikely situation I'd ever gotten myself into. All the way out to my friend Ruth's house, I still remember what I was thinking. 'How could I ever have thought this would work. What a harebrained scheme this is. I will never do this again.' But I had to go ahead because Ruth had people coming to her house and she'd invited them at my request. I couldn't go back home. I had to show up."

Doris didn't feel any better when she reached her friend's home and started to unload her wares in the rain. As was typical then (1980), the family room where she was going to present her demonstration was in the basement, and it turned out that the stairs were too narrow for her crates. So, she had to maneuver down the steps sideways and then proceeded to unload the crates, too tense to even look at the assembled women. She concentrated on arranging the items in as attractive a way as possible before turning to face the group.

"There were about 15 people sitting there and Ruth introduced me. I thought to myself, 'Well, the sooner I get started, the sooner it will be over and I won't have to do this again.' So I started talking. What happened was exciting to me as a former home economics teacher. The group was listening with rapt attention. One of the things I enjoyed about teaching was getting people's attention and here they weren't whispering to each other and I didn't have to say, 'Sit up in the back row.' They were listening, really listening. The next thing was they asked to pass things around. I thought, 'My gosh! They're even helping!'

"I was telling them about the products I brought along and demonstrating them. In those days, frozen pizza had become a standard item so I used a pizza to demonstrate baking stones, which truthfully were one of the most amazing things I've ever used in the kitchen. You put any food on these stones and you get superior results. I did a frozen pizza on a baking stone and added some fresh veggies - which was unusual in those days. I used some of the tools I brought to cut them up. Then I prepared a vegetable tray with some fancy little garnishes and a dip in the center. As I looked around the room, I realized that I had their full attention. Then people asked me to pass around the kitchen tools so they could get a close look at them. By the end of the evening, they had purchased nearly $175 worth of kitchenware. I never expected to sell that much--I was thrilled. But the most important thing that happened is that four of the women asked me to present demonstrations in their homes."

Three hours later - back in the Volare - Doris Christopher was talking to herself again, this time in a totally different mood. Though she might not have said so at the time, an entrepreneur was born.

"The drive back home was very different from the drive out there. I was on Cloud Nine. Two of the four people who offered to arrange demonstrations were complete strangers. They had never laid eyes on me. They happened to be neighbors of Ruth. What a vote of confidence! I can honestly say business just grew from that point forward The women at the demonstration had wonderful kitchens, but they didn't have a place to go for advice about the stuff in their kitchen drawers and they didn't have any sense about where to get the right working tools for their kitchens. They were hungry for tools that would make it easy to do what they were doing every day."

The reluctant outing and its mini success have mushroomed into more that 15,000 in-home demonstrations every week by Doris Christopher's sales force of 42,000 kitchen consultants (as they are called) in all 50 states. They present and produce kitchen shows, which are generating kitchenware sales that are approaching $500 million for what is now nationally know as The Pampered Chef, Ltd. The company's motto speaks for itself: "The Kitchen Store That Comes to Your Door." The kitchen consultants offer 130 products, 90 of them exclusive to The Pampered Chef, all of them selected for high quality with an eye on multipurpose. One customer favorite: a barbecue tool that flips burgers, pierces sausages, slices meat, opens bottles, and checks meats to see if they're cooked.

"One of the key elements in success is having a passion for what you do. My love of my work fuels the resilience to overcome obstacles, supports my dedication to remain true to my original vision and maintains my determination to succeed."

A classic example of a made-in-the-U.S. entrepreneurial triumph with all the trimmings, The Pampered Chef is rooted not in technology, but in tradition. It started out when one mother (Doris Christopher) confronted the familiar women's dilemma of career versus family, with a determination to give family top priority. Determined to remain a stay-at-home mother, she was sending her two little daughters off to school, which freed her to look for some way to use her professional training - in her case as a home economist. She was not sure how. She went through a process shared by all entrepreneurs in one way or another in searching for a business enterprise, with the added requirement of wanting to stick close to home, husband, and children. The possibility of opening a store didn't appeal to her as she considered what it took" finding the right location, furnishing it, stocking it, hiring staff and, after all that investment of time and effort, you "have to sit there and wait for customers to come to you." Not for her.

"The business I chose really did start as a very, very small fledgling concept, which I intended to pursue part-time. My goal was a business that would not interfere with my family priorities, something that would require about 20 hours a week. I remember thinking about it in the months before my second daughter, Kelley, would go into kindergarten. Julie, our older daughter, was already in the third grade.

"I didn't want to do something that I couldn't do well. I thought about catering because I love to cook. Given that caterers provide their services on weekends and holidays, that would not fit in with my priority of being at home with my family. I tried to think about other things that would combine my particular abilities and knowledge with the family lifestyle I wanted and came up with the idea of cooking demonstrations with an inherently interesting message to deliver.

"I remembered how often I was amazed when I volunteered to help friends at their get-togethers only to find that they lacked appropriate kitchen tools. My idea was to demonstrate tools with food so that people could try them out to see if they would work for them before they did any buying. Basically, it was a show-and-tell idea. When I started thinking over the idea of in-house parties, my husband, Jay, was very helpful in dialoguing with me on how to make our kitchen shows unique and exciting. He helped me realize that I could do things in whatever way I thought was best in terms of my goal - to satisfy the hunger for information.

"At a Pampered Chef kitchen show, our consultants pair real food with the tools that prepare it, giving the customer an on-site demonstration of how a product works. Our customers also benefit from a "try-before-you-buy" experience. The recipes are prepared by the kitchen consultant at the show. Guests also learn meal preparation / cooking ideas, tips and techniques during the demonstration, regardless of whether or not they make a purchase. Each of our products comes with specific use and care information, along with recipes developed by our test kitchen. This helps ensure the customer's satisfaction with the product.

"The other thing about our kitchen shows is that they don't involve a major commitment, as it would be the case if people sign up for a cooking class. All they have to do is say yes to an evening of refreshments and conversation with friends. One evening, not a series of lessons. And they come away feeling very satisfied with what they saw and learned. From the very beginning, a line we used on the kitchen show invitation says, "If you love to cook or hate to cook, we have something for you." It intrigued people whether they love or hate to cook. The reality is that they do cook.

"I was taking simple ideas. That's always been our focus. We have never aimed at haute cuisine. We like things very basic. They have to be simple and fast and produce dramatic results. When people see that they can produce the same results and accomplish it with the tools we offer, that becomes a winning combination.

"The interesting thing about the business was that it was so exciting from the very beginning that I had to struggle to keep it in its place. The investment of my time in the business paid off in emotional rewards immediately. But we were not a financial success overnight because the business had no cash. I started off with $3,000 borrowed on a life insurance policy and the business has never had another cash infusion. In the beginning, I identified 25 to 30 products that I could not live without in my kitchen and looked for the exact same product or comparable (or better quality) product that I could demonstrate and sell. Naturally, as I looked around I found other products that were intriguing and useful. They became incorporated into the line."

When Doris went shopping for an inventory, she headed for Chicago's Merchandise Mart, which at the time was a major hub of wholesale showrooms for all types of products. For her, it was a "needle-in-a-haystack" experience over the course of six trips from her suburban home as she went through myriad showrooms in search of the right kitchen tools, always mindful that her total budget was only $3,000, including what it cost to print calling cards and stationery. Whenever she found what she wanted, she was concerned that the wholesaler would not take her seriously and dismiss her as a suburban housewife trying to buy wholesale for her own kitchen. But she persevered, helped by briefings from a friend who worked in the Mart and introduced her to the basics of wholesale buying: minimum quantity, lowest opening order (usually $100 at that time). She had to order by the dozen and pay cash, because she had no line of credit.

"I was surprised every time they took an order because I thought they'd think I was just someone wanting the stuff at half price. But the one thing that was clear in every transaction was that as long as I paid cash up front they were ready to sell. I was so eager and naïve that if they asked about what I was doing, I laid it all out. I was happy to have them listen. These wholesalers and distributors who were accustomed to dealing with large orders with much bigger numbers found what I wanted to do quite amusing. Very quickly, though, after about three orders, they were willing to extend a very small amount of credit. One salesman for a supplier I was using once called on me at home. Years later, he recalled to me his initial reaction: 'I kept asking myself, 'Why am I wasting my time her?'

'What really catapulted me into action was that as I started building inventory, I had to go out and sell some of it in order to have any money to buy more. What I did was re-order as I made sales. Jay and I would spend Sunday nights in the basement, checking the inventory and often we'd re-order on a weekly basis. In the first months, I demonstrated, sold and delivered. We had to bag all the orders and the entire family would make all the deliveries on Saturday. Jay would take off in one direction with his car and I would take off in the other with my car. I was happy doing it, but it became a bit much. Jay said to me. 'We really have to ship UPS.' I remember thinking that we could no longer use the wonderful little bags we were using to pack things. They were charming and everyone loved them. But we had to make the decision to ship UPS. Obviously our little delivery system was both taxing and inefficient. That decision was a major turning point and put us on the road where we are now - shipping millions of kitchen products."

In the spring after her October debut, Doris really went into business, though still on a very modest basis. She always knew that a one-woman enterprise can only go so far, that she needed the multiplier effect of other people demonstrating and selling, but was just as happy the way things were going. It took a May 1981 encounter with an enthusiastic listener to move awareness toward action. The woman asked a simple but challenging question, 'Would you like somebody else to do this with you? I think I might be interested.'

"I told her that I'd have to think about it. I knew that eventually it would be wonderful to have other people join me in the business and that was what I needed. But I didn't know whether I had enough margin in the business to pay her and I didn't know how the inventory was going to work. When I was the only one doing the Kitchen Shows, I'd check the inventory on my shelf and only take along items for demonstration that I could supply. I knew I would have to work on how I handled inventory when other people were involved in the demonstrations and sales. When I got home, after I thought it through there was no doubt in my mind. The next day I phoned her and said, 'Let's talk and figure things out.' She was the first kitchen consultant to join me in the business. By the end of 1981, I had 12, all of them recruited at demonstrations."

Doris was on her way. She established a commission arrangement that was based on two things: what she learned about other companies' practices and what she thought was fair for the work done. It was a process of trial and error. In the first year, she fine-tuned the commission rate two or three times. About five years into the business, she established the commission arrangement that remains the same today. It varies according to sales and, subsequently, according to the number of consultants someone recruits. When people start with the company, they earn a 20 percent commission on sales. The rate goes to 22 percent after passing $15,000 in career sales and goes higher as an individual rises in management ranks.

At first, Doris held monthly sales meetings in her home where she provided training in how to make effective presentations, demonstrated recipes, talked about the products the company was selling, and introduced new ones. Everyone joined in by exchanging experiences, asking questions, and sharing information. She even launched the company's first sales contest for the top performer. A microwave oven was the prize. She was operating out of common sense and instinct and, then, like many another entrepreneur who expanded, she turned to a trade association to find out how the pros did things.

"I could see that the group was motivated by recognition of their achievements. I was operating out of sheer instinct. I didn't know much about direct selling and, in fact, wouldn't even have called it direct selling. We called what we did kitchen shows, although technically they are home parties. At that time, I really wasn't following closely what other companies did. Later, in 1986, I joined the Direct Selling Association (DSA), which is the nation's premier direct selling trade association. At that point, I started getting lessons at the hands of the masters. It gave me ideas on which to reflect so I could determine how we could tailor programs that would work for us and our particular company culture. I certainly have learned a lot from DSA and have used what I've learned as standards for what we do."

Meanwhile, back in the basement of the Christopher home, wife and husband were staying on top of what - in retrospect - was a just-in-time inventory with a homemade system. A handwritten list itemized such kitchen tools as cake tester (144 in stock); 10-inch whisk, French scraper, oil slick, and spreader (72 of each): spatter shield (48); thermometer, tea infuser, gravy strainer (12 of each). The company's inventory, which once piled up in the Christopher's basement, now fills over 660,000 square feet of warehouse space. Outgoing products require 9 UPS trucks on an average day (18 on peak days) as more than 3,000 orders a day (8,000 o peak days) are sent to customers. More than 100 "pickers" fill boxes with individual orders taken by the company's kitchen consultants.

As the company developed, a number of factors powered its success, starting with Doris Christopher's expertise and experience. After earning a home economics degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, she taught high school home economics and then worked for the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service. As a home economist, she knows what a kitchen needs. As a good cook herself, she knows what it takes to make a good meal.

When back-to-career time came, Doris identified her imperatives as a combination of ambition and responsibilities - both family and social. Down the road, this shaped company's culture and also served the company's business goals. As an entrepreneur, she needed to offer quality products that appeal to women like her and her friends. Someone in it just for the money would be tempted to cut corners, but that would violate Doris's self-image and her professional commitment. Without ambition, she wouldn't have worked so hard, once the business got rolling.

"Since I wanted to help provide what we wanted for our family, the ambition part was very clear, but I didn't want to do something just to bring in some income. I wanted to use my talents to do something with a purpose. I was not interested in biding my time in a job. So both ambition and a sense of responsibility were there. One of the key elements in success is having a passion for what you do. My love of my work fuels the resilience to overcome obstacles, supports my dedication to remain true to my original vision and maintains my determination to succeed.

"I began the Pampered Chef as a flexible job opportunity that balanced my love of cooking with a strong will to keep my family as a top priority. In the beginning, I was able to set my own hours and remain completely in control of how much time I spent on the business each day. As the business began to grow beyond my expectations, I struggled with the multitude of demands placed on my time. I believe this is true of everyone who juggles a variety of priorities.

"I work with a lot of women and the thing I see in women is a real sense of nurturing. I know that's what I've done with this business. I've nurtured it. I'm very emotionally attached to this business in a way I don't think many men would be attached to a business. In the beginning, I was a pretty unsophisticated business person. I didn't use business jargon. I didn't know the latest management terms on how to run a business. But at the same time, I realized that it would be very bad for the company if I didn't pay attention to the business indicators."

Doris cities the role of her husband, Jay Christopher, as a significant factor in the company's early growth. Together, husband and wife complemented each other in mentality and in know-how. Jay provided much-needed marketing and management expertise. When the company's growth became explosive, he came on board as vice president of operations in 1987 to supervise product ordering, warehouse, and distribution while Doris focused on working with the growing number of kitchen consultants, which by the end of 1989 had reached 700. Doris recalls how they tried to " do it all" in the company's early years. In hindsight, she is convinced that they should have 'brought additional management and expertise to the company earlier.'

"My husband and I have an interesting partnership. We are very very different. In the first years of the business, I deferred to his advice. Jay is much more of an entrepreneur than I am. I'm a nurturer. All along the way, he has been a major part of this business with his energy, drive and encouragement. Many times, he has pushed me when I needed a nudge. He has always been very involved in providing financial advice and has been particularly important in long-range planning. He brings to The Pampered Chef extensive business experience that has been gathered from 30 years in marketing and operation positions. He currently serves as the executive vice president of corporate development and in this role acts as a mentor and consultant for the company. Meanwhile, he operates his own business consulting firm."

The Pampered Chef personifies Doris's commitment to the family and her view of dining together as a pillar of family life, with the kitchen as its foundation. While her two daughters were in grammar school, she managed to blend career and family at a time when she was heavily involved in building the business. She worked in her office (at home), doing paperwork, picking out new products and talking to her kitchen consultants. When the girls came home from school, Doris stopped working and switched over to "our time" when her daughters changed their clothes, ate a snack, and joined her in the kitchen to talk about their day and help as Doris started preparing dinner. She remembers it as a "chance to share some time in a relaxed way as we put the evening meal together."

Even though Doris spent many evenings presenting kitchen shows, the family had at lease one all-hands-on-deck dinner during the week and always on the weekend in keeping with her bedrock belief. "When families share a meal, the bonds that hold the family together grow stronger." She always regarded food as a source of extra nourishment: "Food provides a basis for excellent family communication and interaction. If the activity in the kitchen doesn't draw the family in, the food certainly will. Our mission encourages family values."

As the company grew, Doris was transformed from a shopper whom wholesalers indulged to a force in the kitchenware industry all the way back to the design stage. She and her design team keep looking for ways to improve what's out there and to develop products that are exclusive to the company. Innovation is part of her entrepreneuring and key to staying competitive. She came out with the Super Scraper series, whose ingenious design is widely imitated: a spatula head that won't fall off during mixing: silicone construction, rather than rubber, to avoid disintegration and staining: heat-safe to 450 degrees. The result is a scraper that can be used both for mixing batter and cooking in pans over the stove. Her Easy Accent Decorator, which is used for frosting cakes, filling donuts, and creating hors d'oeuvres, has a larger barrel than other decorators on the market, Its one-piece inner construction stands up to stiff frosting, and its soft, comfortable grip allows for one-handed use. She cites these as examples of "making things better rather than cheaper" and of still offering her products at competitive prices.

"Product ideas come to us in a number of ways. A major source of ideas is our customers and kitchen consultants. They'll say that they need something or want something or ask us why we don't have a particular product. We are constantly checking with our sales people, our hostesses and our customers about what they want. We're always looking for the best product we can offer. Manufacturers will come to us with an idea for a product and ask what we think of it. Based on our research with our customers and our hostesses, we'll say that we will take it or we might ask them to change it to fit our requirements. We're keyed to the functional, durable, easier to use, to have more features. There certainly are times when we've been less successful than expected with products we offer, but usually our gut instinct is pretty good in identifying a winner."

The Pampered Chef experienced continuous growth by sticking close to Doris's undiluted mission of "providing absolutely excellent products that create meals that bring the family together around the table." By her own recollection, there wasn't time to reflect on what was happening: "We just had time to do what had to be done." Revenues kept increasing: $10,00 in her first three months, $50,000 in the first full year, $200,000 in the third year, than revenues in the millions with sales increasing 400 percent between 1989 and 1993.

The growth was fueled by the soaring numbers of kitchen consultants from hundreds to thousands thanks in part to nationwide publicity. In 1990, The Pampered Chef was featured in an article published by Woman's Day that provided nationwide exposure. The publicity enhanced the company's image, won attention, and attracted both consultants and customers to the products and the business opportunities offered by the company.



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