The Richwood Report

I use nothing but the best ingredients. My cookies are always baked fresh. I price cookies so that you cannot make them at home for any less. And I still give cookies away.

Who said that? It was Debbie Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies and she is telling the truth about what took her from startup to over $250 million in annual sales from 600 stores around the world. We can all learn from success, no matter what kind of success. Quality and good customer relations work in any business.

The more people tried to convince Rose that a cookie business would never work, the more she dug in her heels. After all, hadn’t she spent the better part of her life perfecting this recipe? And didn’t friends, family, and her husband’s clients devour her cookies by the plateful, even as they dismissed her dream? Even Randy Fields was among the naysayers. Still, he gave Rose his support and together they were rejected by numerous banks before finally getting a loan to open a store.

By noon on her first day of business — August 18, 1977, at Debbi’s Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto, California — Rose had not made a single sale. So she went out on the street and started giving her cookies away, and soon people were coming in to buy them. "Randy had made a bet that I couldn’t make $50 in sales that first day, but I did," says Rose. "What emerged from that was setting goals in increments. If goals are within reach, they don’t look so daunting." That methodology eventually helped her predict customer count and revenue, and allocate staffing. "It’s all tied to a very simple principle that’s called hour-by-hour management," she says, "and today colleges use it as a case study in business efficiency."

Not only did she give cookies away the first day of business, today cookies in the stores are given to charity if they are not sold in two hours. Employees can take home free cookies, creating good will within the company. The cookies are so good people keep buying more. Read more about her life and business here and here.