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Carol L. Schroeder www.orangetreeimports.com 
Publisher: WileyInterviewed By: Zanne Marie Gray 7/30/2002 Q. While your book is geared towards those wishing to open a retail store, it is full of excellent information for any entrepreneur. Have you considered writing a book for a broader market of business owners? A. The dream of opening a shop someday is much more universal than I had thought, so my book has turned out to have a surprisingly wide readership (especially among women). But I would love to have the opportunity to expand on some of my ideas about providing meaningful employment, giving back to the community, and using a small business as an outlet for creative expression. It's actually a dream of mine to someday write a self-help book, so perhaps I could approach that genre from a business angle. Whatever I write, I'd still like it to have humor and heart. Too many business books are sure cures for insomnia! Q.You have been the virtual mentor of countless numbers of hopeful entrepreneurs. Who have you considered your mentors and why? A. In the early stages of developing our shop, we developed an advisory team with banker Barbara Conley and accountant Randy Grobe. They've gone beyond their traditional roles to give us advice and encouragement for almost three decades. Encouragement is as important as advice, I think, especially to women in business. I'd also want to credit a single lecture we heard many years ago by a University of Wisconsin Extension professor named Gar Stock. He talked about a management system called Participative Democracy, in which employees all have a say in hiring and other workplace decisions. They also share responsibility for specific areas of the business, in our case merchandise departments. Gar Stock's theory helped us learn to delegate real authority to our employees, and our shop has benefited enormously by fully utilizing the skills and talents of our staff. The employees have also benefited from this system, feeling more involved and appreciated than they might in the more traditional "top-down" retail store management approach. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to share this theory with other business people in Specialty Shop Retailing. Q. During your 26 years in business you've faced many challenges and changes. What do you consider to be the smartest thing you've ever done and why? A. Every small business faces expansion questions, if it survives past the early start-up years. We have expanded twice at the same location, and both moves have paid off in the long run. (It helped that we purchased the buildings our shop is in early on.) But the biggest expansion question was whether to have branches or children. Despite the dedication that my husband Dean and I felt towards the success of our shop, we opted for parenthood, and it's a decision we've never regretted. Orange Tree Imports became a family business in the best sense of the word, with Erik and Katrina growing up working in the shop and thinking of the staff as part of their "village." Q.What was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it? A. Well, I did predict that the Pet Rock would never sell, and refused to order any for Orange Tree Imports. That seemed like a big mistake at the time, but Pet Rocks are long gone and we're still here! On a more serious note, I'd say that I have often held onto merchandise too long in the hopes that some day soon I'll have a customer who will just love it. There is a saying in retail that your shouldn't let items in your stock become old friends, because they tie up dollars and shelf space that could be devoted to exciting new items that might sell faster. We started using a system of dated price tags a few years ago, so now I can't ignore the fact that some merchandise has had its chance to sell, and needs to be marked down. Many of us go into retailing because we love what we're selling, so it is sometimes hard to admit a buying mistake and put items on clearance. Happily in retail we have that option, so mistakes are rarely remembered for long. There are always new designs or categories waiting in the wings. New merchandise, new customers, new employees combine with staple merchandise, repeat customers and long-term staff members to make retailing an ever-changing and exciting field.
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