The Zasha Woman

Diamonds Match Stick Leather Jewelry

2007-11-20T01:45:00.000-08:00

The Diamonds Match Stick Leather Bracelet is a shining example of the latest trends in modern Jewelry. Using Computer Aided Design (CAD) this exquisite piece is able to bridge the gap between designer jewelry and affordable jewelry. The signature jewelry includes completely interchangeable complimentary pieces: earring hoops and earring charms, necklaces, rings and bracelets. Jewelry needs to be as flexible as today’s woman needs to be. With the hoop and charm concept, one can effortlessly create limitless looks by adding, combining and stacking charms, and continue to add style and value to one's wardrobe. The hoops can be worn alone or with any of the interchangeable charms - add a simple charm for day or office, and a dramatic charm for a night on the town!

Read more about this at http://www.prleap.com/pr/95593/ .

How to care for your jewelry...

2007-08-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Gems and precious metals are gifts of nature, which need special care. Even though a gem may be millions of years old, once mined and worn, it is exposed to conditions and chemicals that can damage it.
The harder the gem, the less vulnerable it is to potential damage. A diamond, for example, is the hardest gem known to man, and that's one reason why "it is forever."
Hardness is based on a gem-trade standard called the Mohs Scale, developed in the early 19th century. The scale is structured so that material rated at each higher number can scratch substances with lower numbers. Diamonds are rated the highest, at 10; rubies and sapphires are Mohs 9; emeralds and topaz, 8; and garnets, tourmalines and quartz, 7. Anything softer than a 7 can be scratched, including opal, turquoise, lapis lazuli, coral, pearl.
Gold, silver, and platinum are only Mohs 2-1/2 to 4, which means that they require special care when wearing, storing, or cleaning.
Here are some Do's and Don'ts:
DON'T wear fine jewelry when doing housework or gardening.
DON'T heap your jewelry into one drawer. Remember a diamond ring can scratch that pearl necklace. Keep them separate and ideally wrapped in velvet, paper, or silk.
DO check for loose stones frequently by gently tapping the piece with your finger near your ear.
DO get pearls restrung every two years or annually with frequent use.
DO clean fine jewelry often to maintain its sparkle and beauty. Do not use toothpaste as its abrasives can damage softer gems and metals. All fine jewelry can be safely cleaned by soaking for 10 minutes in warm soapy water (using a non-detergent soap). Use a soft brush on harder gems to loosen any dirt around the prongs. To reduce greasy build-up on diamond jewelry, dip it in plain alcohol or vodka before soaking.

Birthstones...

2007-08-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

Birthstones are gemstones that are associated with the month in which you were born. Each month has a different stone. Those of you lucky enough to be born in April have a diamond as your birthstone. The way it works is if you wear your birthstone during the month that you were born, you will get the most benefit… Personally, I think that diamonds make you lucky no matter when you wear them!

Here is a list of birthstones that correspond with the months of the year…

January – Garnet
February – Amethyst
March – Aquamarine
April – Diamond
May – Emerald
June – Pearl, Moonstone
July – Ruby
August – Peridot
September – Sapphire
October – Opal, Tourmaline
November – Yellow Topaz, Citrine

December - Topaz, Turquoise

2007-08-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

Heather Graham is such an inspiration to girls today. She is elegant, classy and knows how to dress! Fortunately, Heather Graham was on our top list of celebrities who we wanted to be wearing Zasha jewelry. She was given one of our favorite pieces... our Zasha Peace Sign necklace. To take a peek at this fabulous piece, click on http://www.zasha.com/p01464-yl-zc4.html

Fashonista Famke

2007-08-15T15:37:00.001-07:00

Famke Janssen has a presence and look that makes her look sexy, chic and classy. I loved her part in X-Men and I love her old modeling editorials even more! She has a way of always looking polished by adding the right accessories. Recently I saw her wearing a yellow gold peace sign necklace like this Zasha one and decided I had to have one for myself. I think it is fair to say that Famke has mastered the art of class and simplicity.

2007-08-14T10:17:00.001-07:00

Oops.. She did it again. WHAT IS BRITNEY SPEARS THINKING?? She needs to find a stylist ASAP. Whoever told her that going out in ripped nylons and short shorts was cool needs to take a look in the mirror and get a serious reality check. What ever happened to the little girl with such a big voice and so much talent?? This is starting to look like Michael Jackson behavior... She should seriously try wearing cute jeans, a t-shirt and a simple necklace I know thats what id want my mom wearing.

Katie & Tom... Now that's hot.

2007-08-14T09:45:00.001-07:00

Katie Holmes has sure come a long way since Dawson's Creek. Check out her new style... That girl looks awesome... Remember all of that crazy stuff written about her? She did a complete 180. Now, "that is hot"... She leaves Paris and Britney and Lindsay in the proverbial dust... Just one more thing... Imagine how great that dress would look with a ruby drop pendant?? You go girl...

Less is More

2007-08-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

Debra Messing star of NBC’s Will and Grace is hilarious. At a recent event in Hollywood she showed up wearing an adorable dress with way too much jewelry. Not only did she wear large hoop earrings but she wore multiple rings and several large bangles. My advice for Debra would be to try wearing a bracelet with more simplicity like Zasha's square diamond pave bracelet and to take some fashion tips from gay co-star Will and learn that sometimes less is more.

Sunglasses do not replace jewelry or food Ms. Beckham

2007-08-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

I love David Beckham and I think wife Victoria has one of the cutest wardrobes ever! But I think the lack of fat on her body is affecting her reasoning… I constantly see her being photographed in the cutest outfits ever but she’s never wearing any jewelry. She always wears a hideous pair of plastic over sized sunglasses. I think she could complete her look with a chic gold and diamond cross necklace like this one at Zasha.com Come on Victoria throw out the sunglasses, wear some jewelry and gain some weight.

Diamonds and A Girl’s Best Friend…

2007-06-25T15:36:00.001-07:00

When Jude Steele, co-founder and co-principal of JudeFrances felt that her boyfriend, Derek was ready to pop the question, who better to turn to for a fabulous engagement ring design than her best friend and business partner Frances Gadbois? “It was just the natural thing to do,” says Jude about asking Frances to design her engagement ring. “No one knows me better than Frances, except for Derek of course, and since I am going to be wearing the ring for the rest of my life, I wanted it to be absolutely perfect.”

Derek agrees. When asked how he felt about Frances designing the ring, he replied, “Frances is the expert and I wouldn’t have it any other way”.

JudeFrances is truly an inspirational story about two women who had a vision, goals, determination and a few strokes of luck and managed to turn their jewelry line into a multi-million dollar company in just five short, but very busy years. Although they admit that they are as different as white and yellow gold, when Jude and Frances met at a charity dinner in 2002, they instantly knew that they would become fast friends and would be ideal business partners. The JudeFrances partnership is truly a match made in heaven. While Frances oversees operations and design for JudeFrances, Jude leads sales and marketing. Their talents are wonderfully complimentary. Their close friendship makes working together even better… “We are there for each other through thick and thin. Not a day goes by when we don’t talk.” says Jude.

So with the upcoming nuptials pending, how are Jude and Frances spending most of their time? Just as they always have… Juggling the demands of their families and careers… “It’s not always easy,” says Frances, “but making our families number one is part of our definition of success.” Next up for the dynamic duo? The JudeFrances
Bridal Collection.

JudeFrances
Kristyn Beausoleil
kristyn@judefrances.com
Tel: (949) 553-8860
Fax: (949) 553-8861
http://www.judefrances.com

Chapter 14-Serendipity

2007-06-20T20:54:00.001-07:00

I ASKED FRANCES AND JUDE if I could write the last chapter of their on-going success story because I knew they would never toot their own horns as much as they deserved.
The summer of 2005 has just passed and this book is almost written. So far, Jude and Frances have nearly doubled their sales each of their three short years in business. My prediction is they will continue to grow and succeed at an even brisker rate.
As you’ve heard, they are both terrific goal setters. As part of those goals, they have committed themselves to enter the next phase of JudeFrances Jewelry, which will involve developing their “brand.”
I don’t use the word “committed” lightly, because that is really what these two women are all about. Frances often uses the word “goal” for commitment. What that really means is she and Jude are committed to a specific outcome in everything they undertake. If Frances says, “I’m committed to a sales figure of $6.5 million,” that is more than a goal—it is what she and Jude will achieve. They will turn that goal into a reality by creating that which is not yet evident.
The funny thing about their success is that these two women didn’t go to college; they didn’t know much about the jewelry busi¬ness when they started; and as they’ve said several times, they still don’t have a business plan.
When I was an executive with St. John’s Knits, our corporate culture—like so many other successful businesses—was designed around setting and measuring goals. Essentially, by so doing, you create something out of nothing but a vision.
All of this has been written about in business schools since there were business schools, but the key, that is sometimes over¬looked, is after you are committed, you must get all of your people on board, sharing the same vision.
That is why I went to work for JudeFrances: I shared their vision, as do all their employees, friends, and family. That is because the one talent these ladies possess is their ability to “line up the universe behind them.”
In other words, they have a gift for energizing others around them with their vision and their dreams. Once others see it, under¬stand it, and embrace it, their energy comes back to them tenfold. Good people who share your vision want nothing but the best for you.
What is the key, then, to lining up the universe behind your dream? A specific commitment on your part. That is what Frances and Jude do every day. They set a goal or goals stated so specifically and believed in so strongly (before there is evidence), that no one, most importantly themselves, can misunderstand their intentions.
When you commit, or set a goal, it is not sufficient to say, “I want to be successful, or I want to be rich, or I want to be famous, or I want to be the best.” Give me specifics: How rich? How much money do you want in your bank account this time next year— exactly? A million, ten million, how much? And by what date, and what will you do “specifically” to reach that goal? It isn’t sufficient to say, “I will work hard.” How hard? In what ways? How often? Where and when?
When you see that goal clearly, as clearly as if it were already a reality, then it already is. When you share that with others, you begin to enlist a force field of good energy, which will help carry you to your outcome.
I also asked these two entrepreneurs if I could write this last chapter because it involves the next logical step in their growth— the branding of the JudeFrances name, something with which I’m very familiar.
In the marketing world, branding is everything. In order to compete effectively, your company’s name and image must be at the forefront of your potential customers minds at all times and, of course, you want that image to communicate quickly and clearly what you stand for: quality, honesty, fun, reliability, whatever.
What do you think of when you hear the words Coca Cola: tasty, fun, youth, energy? Once that image is established, then your company can branch out and create new products, not just jewelry, or at least not just 18 carat gold jewelry, but silver jewelry, maybe a line of fun women’s watches. In short, extend the reach of your brand, increasing sales and continuing on the path to steady growth. Maybe one day, you even go public, but you can’t reach any of those goals without a solid identity or brand recognition.
Enter “Shebonics.”
What in the world is Shebonics, you might be asking yourself? Shebonics is a word that was coined by a woman that Frances, Jude, and I met just a few months ago, and she is actually the reason they wrote this book.
When it became apparent to everyone earlier this year that JudeFrances had to begin to develop a brand identity, we began tossing ideas around, but in the end, as is Frances and Jude’s smart way of doing things, we decided to bring in an expert—a person who did nothing but branding.
Also, as is always their way, they wanted to talk to someone who was referred by a happy client or another successful business. When we let it be known that we were looking for a person with these kinds of credentials, we were given the name Maude Glazer (not her real name). She had literally created some of the countries best known and most loved brands ranging from retail chains to some of the Fortune 500s. In other words, she’d taken a business entity that was showing promise, had good products and/or serv¬ices, and grown them into legends—not an easy feat.
The entire experience of interviewing her turned into a scene out of an old Greta Garbo movie. I was responsible for setting up the entire thing. When I contacted her and told her what we wanted to do, she said, “Of course. Of course, that is what I do.” And then she insisted on meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.
So far, so good. Though the Peninsula is very expensive, I fig¬ured some drinks and hors d’oeuvres would suffice; we would pick her brain for an hour and a half and that would be all we needed to perhaps take the next step. However, when she insisted that we pay her expenses, we figured, okay, yes, we can certainly pick up her air¬fare and lunch. No big deal, so I set a meeting at the Peninsula.
I was the first to arrive because the girls were in L.A. at a show. Maude wanted to meet in the bar and so I went into the Club Bar, the darkest room I’ve ever been in during daylight hours.
Feeling my way around the room on the backs of the chairs, waiting for my eyes to adjust, I finally found an empty seat and took it. Within minutes, in walks our branding expert. Scratch that. She wasn’t walking; she was making a grand entrance. Her bright orange/red hair was piled on her head in a bouffant nearly 10-inches high, which when coupled with her five-inch patent leather shoes, made her look like an Amazon. The fact that she had a full-length leopard skin coat draped over her didn’t help any, either, but the piece de resistance were her Gucci sunglasses—so dark, it would be difficult to see through them standing on La Cienega Boulevard at high noon, let alone in this cave.
With each elongated stride, her spotted coat would sway left and right, and I thought, The only thing missing is the black onyx cigarette holder complete with a six-inch long Benson & Hedges.
I stood up and said, “Hello. Are you Maude?” She said yes and before she could sit down, Jude and Frances came through the entry, spotted me, and came over.
I made the introductions and as we were about to be seated, Maude says, “Oh, dahlings, I can’t do it in here. We must go out¬side. Let’s go upstairs to the pool and the cabanas.”
Can’t do it? What is she going to do, conduct a séance?
Before we could agree, off she went, that coat swaying back and forth. Once upstairs, we saw that there were about 10 of these small tent-cabanas, all of them closed. She immediately started to open one, then another, not knowing if anyone was in them or not, until she found one to her liking.
“Here, dahlings. This one is perfect,” she directed.
Inside were four chairs, a small table, and a long chaise lounge chair, which she immediately took up a pose in, stretching herself out with one arm languishing over one arm of the chair, the other coming to her mouth with the cigarette, still with the dark glasses on.
We dutifully took up our places in the straight-back chairs, pulled out our steno pads and pens, and readied ourselves, like stu¬dents in first grade.
“Dahlings. I see this as a feminine product,” she said.
Humh, good start. It is jewelry for women.
“I think we really need to play up the feminine angle,” she continued.
Hummmh?
“You know, it’s really all about “Shebonics,” she said with a grand sweeping gesture of the cigarette.
The three of us looked at each other without saying a word, yet saying, “Huh? What in the hell is Shebonics?”
“Yes, that’s it, Shebonics. You know, when I meet new clients, what I like to do is get my head around the product, massage the thing a bit mentally, and then retreat to my cave in Phoenix. That’s what I call my penthouse. I just stay in my cave until I ‘birth’ the idea.”
Frances and I couldn’t stand it any longer, we just started cracking up. Then I looked over at Jude who was dead serious. She was scribbling down notes as if Moses had just descended from the Mount with the tablets. When we saw that, we really started laughing. Then Maude, who clearly was not finding the humor, used her long index finger and her two-inch long fire engine red nail to tug ever so slightly at her sunglasses, revealing just a hint of her eyes and a mild look of disdain.
All the way home we howled, but we hadn’t entirely given up on her. I decided we should at least call some of her references to check up on her. Maybe she was just one of those eccentric geniuses—after all, she had supposedly “made” one of the country’s most famous restaurants, among other notable achievements.
I started calling the next day. The first reference I called was the restaurant chain, speaking to one of the people in Human Resources; I asked what they thought of her.
“Well, she’s a very uh, interesting individual, isn’t she?” he said. “Has she birthed any ideas yet?” he continued, and I could have sworn I heard a small chuckle.
A few more calls with pretty much identical results convinced me to drop the Shebonics idea.
About 10 days later, we got a bill from Maude. It was for $2,500—for expenses. Little did we know that she not only wanted to meet at the Peninsula—she had stayed there—for two nights. One for us, and one for another client of hers. In addition, she’d flown first class. And then there were the honor bar charges.
The one thing we did gain from that interview was the idea to write a book. Maude had said, “You simply must write a book. That is what everyone is doing.” And so, here it is. The girls have birthed their book.
As it turned out, Frances and Jude already had the beginnings of a branding effort—the whole green apples thing. It’s small, but it’s a start. Eventually, they will add new lines of merchandise and they will grow their reputation. They will continue to go to Europe to find the fresh ideas that haven’t made it here yet and, eventually, they will go international.
Today, their line of jewelry consists of more than 350 pieces, always new, always fresh, always collectible. And from their first sale to a single Tassels store, up through being available in 29 Manheim’s stores, to today—just three years after they began in the attic above the garage—they are in more than 140 retail outlets in the U.S.
It’s hard to imagine all the changes and all the success that these two have gone through in such a short time. It just goes to show you what you can do when you just go for it.
Finally, two quick notes: Remember Brian, the manufacturer who told Frances to stick with interior design? Today, he is one of their biggest fans and, of course, is still happily producing their jewelry. In fact, they are now his biggest clients.
In addition, Jude and Frances were nominated for the Entrepreneur of The Year Award by the Orange County Business Journal, and they are asked to speak every year at the USC Marshall School of Business—not bad for two girls who never even went to college.
Update: In the spring of 2006, Frances and Jude’s business con¬tinues to boom. The girls, as imaginative as ever, came out with a whole new line of jewelry. The Silver Line launched to great suc¬cess and acceptance, and now Neiman Marcus and other upscale retailers are offering it.
Will their creativity wane? I don’t think so; I’ve seen sketches flying around the office for jewelry designed especially for men. “Hey,” Jude said, “they deserve something nice in spite of them¬selves.”
With this Ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.
The Romans had a name for it, Vena Amoris, literally “vein of love.” The ancients believed that a vein ran directly from the heart to the third finger of the left hand. Today, because of that belief, we traditionally place the wedding band, our ring of love, on the middle finger, the ring finger, of the bride.
Oh! how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding ring!
In times gone by, wedding rings made of bone, hemp, or wood symbolized the endless circle and eternal nature of love and mar¬riage. Gold and silver wedding jewelry was rarely given, and then only by the wealthy. A man of riches would give his bride a ring made of these precious metals to prove that he trusted her with his treasure.
And finally, the American humorist, George Ade, once said, “If it weren’t for the presents, an elopement would be preferable.”
You know where this is leading: Jude and Frances are at it again. They’re making a move into the bridal jewelry business!
“Why not?” Jude asked Frances, after sketching a few designs.
“Why not indeed,” Frances replied, knowing that 80 percent of the jewelry business is bridal related. “We’ve been successful tapping into only 20 percent of the market. Imagine what we can do when we have a line in the 80 percent segment.”
Jude smiled. “In other words, just go for it. Right?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”

Chapter 13-Heels of Success

2007-06-20T20:53:00.002-07:00

FOLLOWING RIGHT ON THE HEELS of the Venetian show and Guido incident, we set up at the JCK Show at the Sands Convention Center, near the Venetian.
The only problem was that Jude didn’t actually book us a booth; she couldn’t because there was a 10-year waiting list. Instead, she convinced a friend who had a large booth to share. We didn’t actually share the 20-foot space; he gave us a table about two-feet square at the back of his booth, for which we were very grateful.
His extensive array of gorgeous jewelry dwarfed our line, but we were happy. Since sharing a booth was strictly forbidden, we were flying under the radar—no signs, no flyers, and no promo¬tions. We just kept a low profile. Yet, even at that, hidden in the back, without even a sign, we grossed a half million dollars in sales.
The Manheim’s people tempered the elation over our success at the Sands when they asked us what our Fall line would look like. Did we have anything new?
It was nearly the end of July. And much like the first time we shipped to Doris, we realized she still hadn’t told us what to send.
In standard industry practice, the buyer dictates which items you are offering that she wants in the stores, using your line sheets and phone conversations to arrive at a final decision—hopefully more than two weeks prior to shipping.
Also standard practice, all products in the Fall line must arrive at Manheim’s no later than August 15th for sale in September. All I could think of was Marley, our fairy godmother in Shipping, and all Jude could think about was the possibility of missing an entire season. Neither of us was looking forward to arriving in Orange County the next day looking forward to the prospects of more 18 hour days readying the line for shipment.
I called Doris when we got back to our room and told her that all the buyers at JCK loved our line and we’d done very well, but just what did she want us to send her for this next shipment?
As always, in her scattered, but nevertheless effective style, she simply said, “Do what you think is best, but I must have $30,000 worth for each store by August 15th. And this time, use Fed Ex.”
Coming off a $500,000 showing at the Sands, Doris had just ordered another $150,000 worth of merchandise to our sales. We were ecstatic, but there was still the very difficult job of filling the orders.
It was time to hire another person. We were desperate for help in operations and I wound up finding exactly what we was looking for in my own backyard literally.
Cleopatra, or Cleo as we call her, was living in our garage apartment. She is an astounding young musician who was in the United States on a full scholarship to USC and playing for the Orange County Symphony Orchestra.
My husband, who sits on the board, was attending a Symphony meeting when the director mentioned that a student needed a place to stay while studying music. Rich volunteered our home and Cleo moved in the next day. Cleo continued her studies and became a wonderful addition to our family and a second daughter to me.
When I knew I needed help, I wanted someone I could trust and had to look no further than Cleo. When I asked if she would join us, she was thrilled with the opportunity and came to work immediately.
About a year and half later I realized that Cleo, Lorraine, Jude and I could not do all that was required to run our growing busi¬ness. Everyone was working at maximum levels and again it was time to hire another person. Cleo’s work ethic mirrored ours, so it was natural for me to ask her if she knew anyone who was looking for work. As it turned out, Cleo’s brother, who is also an out¬standing musician, had a girlfriend who was looking for work. Upon meeting Camillia, I knew immediately that she too would be the perfect fit for our business. She started in September of 2004.
Rounding out our team is Ioana, also a friend of Cleo and Camillia’s who started that same December. She has been the per¬fect fit for us. Finally, Jude and I had a brilliant team assembled to take our growing company to the next level.
At this point, we had Loraine handling accounting, Barbara handling national sales, Cleo, Camilla and Iona—an eclectic, cre¬ative, and efficient team that was also family. Fast on the heels of the second Las Vegas show, we had managed to pull some very thick strings and got a booth of our own at the second JA Show of the year in New York, held in July. By then, Jude had unraveled the secrets of prime positioning. There was a portion of the show designated as the “Designer Section” and, of course, it was more expensive than our spot by the bathroom in January. This was truly a coup.
For a change, this trip from Orange County was uneventful. Our children were out of school for the summer and were either in camp or were staying with my husband Rich.
We were anxious at the thought of having such a strategic posi¬tion at such an illustrious showcase. Anyone who was anyone in the retail jewelry business would be there looking for new and unique ideas and products.
By now, Jude was hitting her stride in her marketing efforts and she had put together a great press kit to announce our “arrival” and presence at the august occasion. Ron, Jude’s friend and assistant from her photography days, took a great picture of the two of us sitting on top of a giant green apple, and then super¬imposed the Manhattan skyline in the background. We sent it to all the press that covered the show as well as some of the more promi¬nent attendees/buyers. The mailing was a huge hit, which just continued to solidify what we hoped would eventually be part of our plan to brand our image—everything would be green and black, always using the apples as a prop. It had the makings of all successful marketing; it was unique and memorable and it set us apart from all the look-alike advertising in the industry. And believe it or not, we won the prestigious Golden Apple Award for innovations in jewelry marketing.
The show was to run from Sunday morning until Wednesday afternoon, but because of the rules and laws governing labor union personnel, no one was allowed in the Javitz Center to begin set up before 1:00 Sunday afternoon. All exhibitors were supposed to be out of the building no later than 8:00 that night.
By this time, we’d grown savvy about shipping our product line ahead and not trying to carry everything on the plane. Besides, our line was much larger now and it needed to be sent in a trunk. In addition, union personnel are the only ones allowed to bring the products into the Center. They deliver shipments to the booths, at which point the exhibitors are free to unpack, add decorations and promotional materials—in short, set up.
Jude and I got to our area promptly at 1:00 to find nothing, which at first was no big thing. There were over 200 booths in the Center and we knew it would take time for everyone to get their merchandise.
However, after waiting two hours without a hint of when our trunk would show up, we began to get concerned. Jude went to the delivery area to inquire while I sat at the booth and tapped my fin¬gers. When she returned, she was considerably more concerned than when she’d left.
With furrowed eyebrows and biting her lip, she related her findings. According to the union guys, most of the merchandise had been delivered already, and there were only a couple more booths to go.
We managed to remain positive until about 5:00, when we finally went into full-blown panic. It was obvious our trunk had been lost somewhere, and in it, more than $50,000 worth of our jewelry. More importantly, we’d already paid for the booth and all the pre-show marketing—all nonrefundable expenses with airline fares and hotel charges on top of that.
All that night we lay awake, half panicked that our trunk would never arrive. Finally, I fell asleep at 4:00 a.m., resolved that whatever was about to happen would happen for some reason. When the alarm sounded at 5:30, I felt as if I was in a coma, barely able to raise my head off the pillow. I’m sure that Jude felt the same.
We dressed quickly, gulped some coffee, and were downstairs within 10 minutes, in the cab, and off to the Center. Exhibitors were allowed to come in at 6:30, so when the doors opened we ran as fast as we could to our booth.
No trunk.
My heart fell down into my stomach. We just sat on the two foldout chairs, our heads in hand. However, the doors didn’t open to the buyers until 9:30, so all was lost—not yet.
Finally, at 9:00 a.m., a man in a pair of dirty overalls came down the aisle with a solitary trunk on a dolly. We crossed our fin¬gers and prayed he would stop at booth number 181.
“You JudeFrances?” he asked.
“Yes. Yes,” we chimed together.
“Well, I think we’ve found your trunk.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said, as I knelt down and planted a big slobbery kiss on the top of the heavy box.
Behind me, Jude was doing an Irish jig around the inside of our booth, holding her fists high in the air in joy.
“No ma’am. This isn’t your trunk. I just said, I thought we might have found it—in New Jersey. It might have been sent on the wrong shipment.”
All the air left my body as I slumped to the floor and Jude stopped dancing.
“We’ll keep an eye out, though. If it is in New Jersey, I’ll come back and let you know,” he said, and off he went pushing someone else’s merchandise.
By the time the buyers began filing in, we had lost all hope and were about to pack up our sign, flyers, and table coverings, when the same man came back, still pushing what looked like the same trunk.

New York Trade Show
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry. This is your trunk. They did find one in New Jersey, but it was supposed to be delivered to someone called Francis. Somehow, the office got it all screwed up.
“The bill of lading on this one is wrong, too. It says, J. Fran and it says booth 818 instead of 181. I’m really sorry, ma’am. Have a nice day,” he said as he pushed the cart into our booth.
While buyers were already filing in, we began to frantically set up our displays. If everything happens for a reason, the only reason I can conceive of for this latest adventure/lesson, was to teach us patience.
We finished the weekend selling $500,000 worth of jewelry.
With each new person we hired, we continued to follow our one Human Resources dictum: Surround yourself with people who have the talents or the desires that you don’t. By the time we’d hired Barbara in sales, it was painfully obvious that we would never grow to the next level without more help.
There are nearly 4,000 retailers in the United States who sell our type of jewelry, all of whom were potential clients. You can’t reach them all with one or two people. Barbara gave us a huge shot of credibility and she opened doors we might never have even known existed, let alone knocked on.
My husband Rich had been on the board of directors of a phe¬nomenal local company called St. John’s Knits. He introduced us to Susan Bush, a human dynamo who was an executive there in charge of more than 500 people. She had forgotten more about running a business and managing people than Jude and I would ever learn, but that didn’t keep me from inviting her to join our company on a consulting basis. We didn’t even have a title for her but I knew we needed her experience, enthusiasm, and business acumen if we were to take it to the next level.
Susan kindly accepted our offer, leaving behind a fabulous job that was paying her far more than we could. There were now seven of us at JudeFrances Jewelry.
At the end of that summer, our generous, if scattered bene¬factor once again came through. Doris had managed to secure a full-page ad in the Manheim’s designer’s catalogue. That space alone was worth $30,000, but it turned out to be a mixed blessing. We were given absolutely no say in the design, or even what pieces to use. That was all dictated by the company and, as it turned out, when Doris finally did leave Manheim’s, her replacement billed us for the space.
All in all, though, it had been a fantastic year. We closed out December of 2004 having sold nearly $5.4 million worth of jewelry.

Chapter 12-Rascal Redux

2007-06-20T20:53:00.001-07:00

REMEMBER RASCAL? When last we heard about our furry rodent he’d survived the $700 surgery and the plastic cone.
One morning, the day that Frances and I were scheduled to fly to Dallas again, I heard Ruby screaming, “Mommy! Mommy! Rascal’s disappeared into the wall. He’s going to get lost. We’ll never find him.”
Kendall, who is two years older than Ruby, and very street wise for her age, said, “Mom, he’s going to crawl up there and die and then he’ll stink up the whole house.”
Obviously, Kendall wasn’t as attached to Rascal as Ruby was. To Ruby, he was a friend. To me, he was rapidly becoming an investment.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s think this through logically. What can we do to lure Rascal back out?”
“I know. Let’s get some of those yogurt balls he loves so much and we’ll put them by the hole and when he comes out, I’ll grab him,” Ruby offered.
Humh…very good idea.
So we put two yogurt balls, the blueberry flavored ones he loved, in front of the hole and tried not to stare for fear we’d scare Rascal back. We then adjourned to the dining room and waited. I left the girls there and went upstairs to pack. Our flight was leaving in four hours.
When I returned, Rascal had retrieved the treats, and slipped back into his new hiding place. By the time we noticed, another hour had passed and so I told Ruby that we’d have to take a more proactive stance—I would take a large butcher knife and saw a bigger hole around the opening in the drywall, thinking I could then just reach in and grab him.
Unfortunately, the hole I cut was just next to a stud, so I couldn’t reach him. Then Ruby started to cry, and knowing I needed reinforcements, I called Frances to come over and help assess the situation, telling her I was afraid I was going to be late, and how we couldn’t leave with such an emergency transpiring.
By the time Frances arrived, we were down to two hours.
“What am I going to do, Frances?”
“I’ve got it. Unless you put the food further back away from the wall, he isn’t going to have to reach out much. So, let’s put his treats about four feet out. Then we’ve all got to go into another room so he doesn’t know we’re here.”
“Yeah, but then how are we gonna know when he comes out so we can grab him?” I asked.
“Well, aw... I know. We’ll use the baby monitor.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“We’ll put the baby monitor speaker down near the cabinet and then we’ll put the receiver in the living room with us, and when we hear him come out, we’ll quick, come in, and nab him. Hurry now. Get the monitor. We cannot miss this flight.” Frances said.
I ran upstairs and got the two monitors and did as she told me. The four of us went into the living room and sat huddled around the receiver waiting for the telltale pitter-patter of little feet. Nothing.
Another hour passed and we gave Ruby the job of keeping her ear close to the monitor while we made last minute cell phone calls. We had only an hour left.
“You know what? I’m just going to tiptoe in there to check and see if he’s eaten any of the goodies,” I said. Sure enough, the yogurt balls were gone. When I told Frances what a dumb idea I thought she’d had—after all, how much noise does a hamster make—Ruby broke out in tears again.
Well, there was no way we were going to miss our flight on account of a hamster. I didn’t want Ruby to be upset, so I decided she would be in charge of catching Rascal while we were away on a short, two day trip in the hopes that having a mission would calm her. She relished the assignment.
Fortunately, I was packed, which gave me just enough time to run to the pet store and buy a humane cage. I brought it back, showed Ruby and the sitter who was staying with the kids that weekend how to use it, and Frances and I were off.
There followed at least 10 Rascal sightings that Ruby was kind enough to report one by one via cell phone. Whenever I see my home number light up in caller ID, I always answer. With three children, you never know what’s going to be happening next.
The first call came when we were in a meeting with Doris and some top executives from Manheim’s. Now, you have to picture this staid boardroom with these executives, Doris, me, and Frances sitting in large imposing high-back, black leather chairs, talking very seriously about upcoming orders, marketing strategies, and whatnot, when the Chinese Dance ring tone blares out of my purse.
“Hi, honey. What’s up?” I said, knowing it was Ruby.
“Mommy, we saw him! We saw him! He was behind the toilet upstairs,” she said, very excited.
“Behind the toilet?” I blurted. “Did you catch him?”
All heads turn to me. I smile. I can hear Frances tapping her foot under the table.
“No, Mommy. He got away.”
“Okay, honey. Well, you just keep trying to catch him and I’ll be home tomorrow night.” I flipped the phone closed and smiled again.
Within 10 minutes, the chime was going off again, but by now, our meeting was over and we were in the hall. This resulted in hourly reports of Rascal sightings from the bathroom, the dining room, the kitchen and back.
By the time I returned home, Rascal was still on the lam and then Frances had another great idea.
“Jude, why don’t we just go buy another hamster that looks like Rascal and put him in the cage? Ruby will never know.”
“That’s a great idea!” I said. So the following morning, Frances and I took a picture that Ruby had taken of Rascal and went to the pet store to find a clone. Most of them looked very similar, but we found one that was just right. We put him in the cage when Ruby was outside playing.
When Ruby came in, she was ecstatic. She grabbed the hefty hamster and gave him a big hug while Frances and I held our col¬lective breaths to see if she was going to be able to tell that it wasn’t Rascal.
All was well and we went back to our normal routines until one morning, about a week later, while Rascal #2 was running on the treadmill in his cage, Ruby yelled, “Mom! Mom! Rascal’s found a friend.”
What?
When I went into the dining room, sitting there as sassy as you please was Rascal #1 sniffing at the intruder that was in his home. Turns out Rascal #2 was a female. Why didn’t we think of that in the first place?
Upshot?
We almost missed a very important flight because of a hamster.
I paid $125 for a humane cage, and it cost me $250 for a handyman to repair the drywall where I’d carved out a three foot wide hole.
But all in all, it turned out well. We used the humane cage to put Rascal #1 in until we could slowly introduce him to his new girlfriend, and they could share one cage. And, most importantly, Ruby was happy and her mother hadn’t let her down.
Aw, the little memories in life. There are so many things that go on with our business; the frantic dashing for airplanes, the lost IDs, the incessant cell phone calls, the successes we enjoy in our business, the failures…but the ones that I remember most are always about my children and the things they are going through as I watch them grow up.
Frances mentioned that our work energizes us, and it does. I know she would agree if I added here, that our children also ener¬gize us. That’s not to pretend they don’t wear us out mentally, emotionally and physically as well because, let’s face it, kids do that too.
However, there are times when, as the old TV program proved, Kids Say The Darndest Things. After we’d been on several whirlwind business trips and Frances and I had both shared our elation and our successes and tried to explain why we weren’t always there for them, Colt, my oldest, came into the living room one night as I was holding a cold compress to my head. He was 11 at the time.
It was nearly midnight and Frances and I had just finished another 15- hour day. I was exhausted, I couldn’t sleep.
“Mom,” he said.
“Hi, sweetie. You should be in bed. What’s up?”
“Yeah, I know. I couldn’t sleep, either.”
“Well then, how did your day go?”
“Fine. You know what, Mom? I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Sure, sweetie,” I said, pulling myself up and preparing for something bad.
“Well, I just wanted you to know that I’m really proud of you and I love you.”
With that he bent over and gave me a huge hug, turned, and went back to bed like a young guardian angel. I was breathless for a second. Colt had always been kind and thoughtful, even as a pre¬schooler, so it wasn’t out of character for him to make that gesture. Still, it was a surprise—a very pleasant one.
And then the tears started.
Talk about getting energized.
By April of 2003, we had nearly a full line of designs. People were calling it “edgy but elegant.” One magazine reviewer wrote: “JudeFrances Jewelry is progressive enough to appeal to the modern woman’s ambitious independent side, yet delicate enough to express her romantic feminine side.”
Wow! The writer had captured exactly what Frances and I had been trying to create, though we had summed it up with the word “fun.” We knew in our hearts that no one has to buy jewelry; it isn't exactly a survival staple.
However, being marketing savvy, I explained to Frances that the psychology of buying jewelry was much more sophisticated than just having fun. The right piece can actually make you feel more independent, elegant, or ambitious.
The funny thing is, when we started designing in the very beginning, we didn't give much thought to such lofty Madison Avenue psychological factors.
Then, just when Frances and I thought we had our audience nailed as the “every woman,” who should walk into our trunk show but the most powerful woman in the world—or at least one of the most influential—the big “O”, Oprah.
Frances and I were at one of the Manheim’s trunk shows when I spotted her. I was so excited I just started stammering to Frances, “Oh my gaw-w-w-d. Look, it’s Oprah,” I said in a high-pitched, excited voice that I’m so grateful she couldn’t hear. Frances stopped what she was doing and began gawking as well. There she was in the flesh and then she started walking toward us.
“Oh, these are fun,” she said picking up a pair of hoops.
I have to admit, although I’ve always wanted to meet the woman who, in my mind, is the empress of self-reliance and the goddess of our philosophy of Just Go for It, the first thing that crossed my mind, being the marketing person that I am, was expo¬sure, sales, sales, sales. If Oprah bought something, and then this was an even bigger stretch—she actually wore it on her show, and then in my dream, she mentioned our company—
we would still be filling orders when all of our kids had grad¬uated from college.
The second thing that came to mind was Danielle McCourt, the woman who charged us $500 for the privilege of being told we’d never make it. You remember, the one who said we were West Coast Wannabes.
I faded into a vision of Frances and me being on TV, inter¬viewed on Oprah’s show. Oprah says, “So, tell us one of your worst experiences…”
“Yes, yes,” I blurted to Oprah as I jerked out of my daydream.
“They are fun, aren’t they? That’s pretty much how we design. We consider ourselves the Ford of the jewelry world, and we pride our¬selves on creating for every woman…” Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my shin where Frances had kicked me. I was babbling like an awe-struck teenager.
“Yes, these are very nice. I love the cross. How much is it?” she asked, and I thought that’s funny; here is the wealthiest woman in the world and she’s shopping retail, just like everyone else.
“That’s $3,000, Ms. Winfrey.” I didn’t feel it was appropriate to call her Oprah, or at least not just yet.
“Oh, I love the Fleur de lis hoops, too, but I don’t have pierced ears. I would like the cross, though, girls,” she said.
I pounced on the opportunity. “Ms. Winfrey…”
“No, dear. Call me Oprah, please.”
“Okay, Oprah. We could make some hoops for you with clips, so you wouldn’t have to pierce your ears.”
“Really? That would be great. Here’s my address and number. Call me when they’re done. Can you send them to me when they’re ready?”
“Of course. Of course.”
Oprah Winfrey was giving me her address and phone number? This was just too good to believe. I looked up to the ceiling and muttered a short thank you to God. In that serendipitous minute, I knew down in my bones that we were going to be hugely suc¬cessful and I could quit worrying about it. I felt a warm flow of peace come over me and just smiled, not just because Oprah was buying some of our pieces, but also because I could just feel it.
We did very well at the event and, of course, Oprah was the coup de grace. Aside from actually buying our jewelry, she’d single handedly attracted a huge crowd around us. When the hoops were done, I called her and had them shipped and then two weeks later, when I had a break, I tuned into her show one afternoon.
“Oh my gaw-w-w-d,” I yelled out to Frances, holding my hand over my mouth. “Frances, come in here. We’re on TV,” I yelled into her office.
“What? What do you mean we’re on TV? They weren’t filming me when I got that ticket, were they?”
“No. No, we’re on Oprah. She’s wearing our charms and the cross. I can’t believe it!” I was so excited I had goose bumps run¬ning down both arms and legs.
“Oh God, you’re right. Look at that. I can’t believe it. Do you think she’ll mention us?” Frances said.
I kept saying, “Come on, O, let’s hear it. Who made the jew¬elry? Come on. Come on.”
I couldn’t believe I was talking to the television as if Oprah would divine my voice and give us a plug. She eventually did men¬tion us and within days we began to get calls about our line. We were astounded, and oh-so-grateful.
That’s when I had a brilliant idea. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. We had a large gold circle pendant with a hug and a kiss in the center of it. We should send one to her. Who better to wear an O around her neck than Oprah? Surely she would remember us. Frances got to work on it the very next day and within two weeks we had the piece. I put a card in with the box with a short note, sent it, and then we waited.
About two weeks later, I got a two-page letter, not a thank you card, but a handwritten letter with the ABC studio return address on it. Just the sight of it took my breath away. As I slowly unfolded it, I had visions of grandeur. I imagined how she would be thanking me and wanting to order hundreds of the Os to hand out to her audience, how she was going to tout JudeFrances Jewelry as the next coming in the accessories world, how….
“Dear Jude and Frances:
Oprah loves your hoops and the cross and if you
haven’t been watching the show, she’s worn them con
¬stantly. The O necklace is just lovely, really. She loves
it. However….”

That was how Oprah’s assistant’s letter started, however…the dreaded word. Whenever anyone says, “However,” you know that what’s about to come next negates anything said before. Just then, I turned and the necklace fell out of the envelope.
“However, she just can’t accept this beautiful gift of yours. Ms. Winfrey makes it a strict policy not to accept gifts. If she likes something, she pays for it. But thank you for your kind thoughts; we all wish the two of you great success and harmony,” she finished.
I handed the letter to Frances. I was a little disappointed, but elated just the same. Here we were corresponding with the most influential woman in the country as if we were buddies. We were glad she found our work appealing and hoped that connection would turn into something very important.
In late May, we had our first opportunity to be in The Luxury Show at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. It was a real stretch coming up with the $25,000 entry fee, but Doris had told us it was not to be missed if we were really going to grow.
She continued to help our careers in the most unexpected ways.
First, she’d given us a free loan. Next, she gave us an exclusive. After that, she provided referrals and information to help us grow and finally, for the time being anyway, she continued to pay for any jewelry we sent that was supposed to be on consignment.
Doris, wherever you are today, may the retail gods smile down on you!
Most of the people who exhibit at The Luxury Show bring in literally millions and millions of dollars worth of precious jewelry, the kind you see hanging around the necks of only celebrities or the wives of celebrities.
Our entire line, the case that we wanted to bring, amounted to a paltry $20,000 worth, and none of it was precious or “fine” as they call it in the trade. Nevertheless, it might as well have been millions because we’d have to pay to have it all made and we still couldn’t afford to have more than one set of everything made at a time for shows. If we lost that, we could kiss the $25,000 entry fee goodbye (non-refundable, of course) as well as an enormous opportunity, not to mention the jewelry.
The first decision was obvious, at least to us. Let’s not take the chance of shipping it, or even carrying it with us on a plane. We were both paranoid about it; so much so, that Frances suggested we drive it there, even though Las Vegas is a hot 6-hour drive.
That’s when Frances came up with the brilliant idea of hiring a bodyguard, which turned out to be perfect, because he came with his own limo.
The bodyguard told us to be ready promptly at 8:00 a.m. the morning of our departure, and though there weren’t any airports involved, we still managed to be late.
While Frances was getting ready, Sophie, her Great Dane— think Marmaduke—got out of the house once again. She’s basically harmless, but if you happen to be walking down the street and see her bounding in your direction, your first thought is to quickly find a tree to climb.
Frances was still in her bathrobe and slippers, about to get dressed, when she noticed the front door open and realized Sophie must have gotten out—freedom is one of Sophie’s fun things to do.
Out the door ran Frances, down the driveway, and around the corner. One slipper had come off and her robe was beginning to come untied when she saw a horde of people milling about.
Apparently, a local boy, the son of a prominent local politician, had been arrested and there were no less than five TV network satellite trucks with all their accompanying crew and newscasters out in front of this neighbor’s house.
With all the cameras running, the newscasters with micro¬phones at the ready, Sophie came bounding through the morass of cables and wires, tail wagging gaily, eight-inch tongue flapping from one side of her face to the other, and Frances chasing after her.
Just about the time Sophie was collared and the two of them were walking back up the driveway, the limo appeared.
If there had ever been any man born to be a bodyguard, Guido Spantoni was him. He could block the sun standing 20 feet from you. He was the largest person I’d ever seen. He bulged with mus¬cles to the point they stretched all the seams in his black suit to the bursting point.
In addition, he had a face only a mother could love. One of his front teeth was solid gold and his eyebrows were as bushy and as thatched as Jamaican beach umbrellas. He was bald, had a long deep scar running down the left side of his face from his eyebrow to his chin, the result he later told us, of a knife fight where he’d killed a guy in a bar in self defense.
“Good choice,” I said to Frances as he offered to open the doors of the limo for us. He’d arrived in a stretch Lincoln Continental that could have accommodated 15 people.
The entire scene was so absurd. Frances and I came strutting down the sidewalk with our bags and the keys to the kingdom— our one little jewelry box with all our samples—as if we were royalty.
The ensuing scene at the Venetian was even more ludicrous. Guido did not use the valet parking at the hotel. Instead, he just brazenly parked the ridiculously long Lincoln right in front of the lobby doors, totally ignoring the valets.
As we sat inside, he promptly came around to the side of the car, opened the doors, asked for the box of jewelry, and then let us out. We followed him, not knowing exactly what to do about the car and our luggage, as he now had fallen into full character as our portable bouncer.
His stature alone would have cleared a path through all those waiting for cabs, but that wasn’t sufficient. He pushed people aside left and right like they were rag dolls. He shouted, “Don’t move. I can see everything. I have 360-degree peripheral vision. You, you there, that little man to the right, I can see you with that funny hat on,” he said, referring to a guy who indeed was standing nearly behind us. I was amazed.
When the valets at the Venetian began to unload our bags, he turned around and said, “Don’t touch those. I’ll be back. Stand away from the car.”
The thing that really made it all so funny, if not embarrassing, was the fact that here was this man about six feet, six inches tall, tipping the scales at a conservative 300 pounds shoving and shouting at people, but the prize he was protecting was only a dainty little box, about 15 inches square—think makeup kit. He had dubbed the box, the football in honor of the presidential nuclear trigger in a briefcase.
While the limo was still idling in front, blocking some of the taxis, we followed Guido inside and then he followed us to the check-in desk. Once we’d secured our keys, he followed us duti¬fully up to our room, made sure we were okay alone with the box and then and only then, did he proceed back downstairs to park the limo himself.

Chapter 11-Forgetting to Remember

2007-06-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

“MOM. HOW COULD YOU forget twice?” Rich moaned into the phone.
“Oh honey. I’m so sorry,” I begged back, “I just got so wrapped up in this order, I completely forgot.”
Unfortunately, I had far too many conversations like that with my son. With the advent of the Manheim’s account, our business was really exploding and there were so many things to accomplish every day. I was so absorbed in it that I would completely forget to pick up the kids from school, or an upcoming recital, or a soccer match—the list is practically endless.
That particular day, I had promised my son Rich I would pick him up after soccer practice at 3:00 sharp. At 2:45, I was totally immersed in some new designs and at the same time I was trying to figure out several screwed up invoices.
I knew from my days as an interior designer, that when you love what you’re doing, you become oblivious to the world around you. That’s the nature of the feeling. It’s very much like when we’re children, playing with dolls or toy soldiers, creating our own world or characters and dialogue, and Mom calls out that it’s time for dinner. But you never hear her and after the third time, she comes storming into the bedroom and berates you for not listening. You simply did not hear her, or anything else going on around you.
Unfortunately, as we grow into adults, we lose that ability to get lost in play. Everything becomes serious and important. However, for those of us who are blessed to be able to make a living at the thing that is play for us, we can still enjoy those feelings and like the grown boys who are paid well to play baseball or football or what¬ever game it is they enjoy—we can have fun doing it.
That’s why I’ve told my two children, and I know Jude has told her three, that one of the most important things in life is to find out what it is you love. My daughter loves animals. She might become a veterinarian, but then again, she might just open her own shelter for the unwanted and take care of them and find them good homes and never make more than a rudimentary living—but she’ll be loving every minute of it.
At any rate, not to make excuses, but that day, and many others, when I told Rich I’d pick him up at three, I meant it. Then, when he called at 3:25 wondering where I was, I was mortified. I’d fallen into the hypnosis of my play. I apologized profusely and told him I’d be there in five minutes. Then I hung up the phone and with every intention of putting up the files and closing the sketch pad, I had to just take one last moment to tweak this one drawing and before I knew it, it was 4:00 and the phone was ringing again.
“Mo-o-o-o-o-o-m!”
And that was on a quiet day.
Jude always tells me not to call her between 3:00 and 5:00 because that’s peak cell phone time, and I don’t mean going over her allotted plan minutes. It’s because the phone becomes an addi¬tional appendage during those hours just after the kids get out of school. It never ends, a constant ringing. Either it’s to pick one of them up, drop two of them off, one of them is going to be late, can this one stay at a friend’s house, where are you, what’s for dinner, and on, and on.
I know most moms know what I’m talking about. We aren’t special because we are raising families and working. Most of the adult population does the same things. It’s an energy thing with Jude and me—maintaining the energy to work long hard days and to give that same level of intensity to our families.
Both of us are naturally high-energy people, so that’s an obvious plus; but we also eat right, exercise and, most of the time, get enough sleep. If your activities involve love or, and passion, as in love for your children, love for your work, then it isn’t difficult to keep your energy levels high. The work is what energizes you.
Now that we’ve told you what wonderful parents we are, let me share some more of our disasters with you.
I used to be ashamed to admit this. Now, I’m just embarrassed. When we were first starting to thrive as a business, there were times when I actually forgot to feed Charlotte and Rich.
Technically, they didn’t go hungry; each of them was old enough to open a can of soup, there were always plenty of snacks in the cupboard, and usually there was a housekeeper or a friend to look after them—but I always took pride in making a home¬cooked meal and having us share dinner together. At least that way, we always had one hour out of the day where I could listen to what they were doing in school, what their day was like, or what they were doing in soccer.
After a while however, and after I’d been forgiven many times by my kids, I just resolved that as a parent and a businesswoman, I was going to suffer guilt. I just had to learn to deal with it because as a mother, I knew it wasn’t going to go away.
There were times, after we’d landed the Manheim’s account that both families sat down together in the living room and filled and wrapped boxes together for Fed Ex shipments. It was, and still is, a very small business enterprise, despite our growing success.
The kids would be wrapping packages and Jude and I would be putting press kits together on the dining room table, while answering phones and fixing dinner for all seven of us.
One incident that has stayed with me, was just such an evening, or rather a weekend that began with that kind of evening. The children had stayed up until midnight with us, wrapping boxes and putting Fed Ex labels on them. We’d finished our press kits and fixed dinner and at about 2:00 a.m., Jude and I collapsed, me in my bed, she on the couch. We had an early morning flight to visit two of the Manheim’s stores over the weekend—one in Dallas, the other in Chicago.
We knew we had to be back by Monday to see my daughter’s performance, her first in a school play. She had the lead and she was petrified. I had promised her that nothing would keep me away—nothing, that’d I’d be right there front row center to boost her confidence and courage. She clung to those words like a sailor thrown overboard in the North Atlantic clings to a life raft.
Our early morning flight from Chicago stopped in Phoenix en route back to Orange County airport and we had to switch planes, but there was a two-hour wait for the second plane. Just before that flight was about to start boarding, I reached into my purse to get my driver’s license and my wallet was gone again.
There was no way I was going to get on a plane without ID, so although I was frantic, I figured it must have fallen out on the previous plane. I asked the ticket agent to call America West in Phoenix where the previous plane was returning. Sure enough, one of the attendants had found it and was kind enough to put it on yet another flight coming to Orange County. The time it took that final plane to return meant it would impossible to get home on time.
When I finally got home, it was past 8:00 and there was Charlotte sitting at the dining room table. The moment I saw her, my heart filled my chest. I dropped my bags and begged for for¬giveness.
“Oh, honey. I am so sorry. So very, very sorry. I lost my wallet,” I began and before I could catch the words and take them back, they’d already flown out of my mouth—irretrievable. What a feeble excuse, I thought.
She turned her head to me slowly and I could see her eyes filled with these enormous tears that were cascading down her cheeks. She simply said, “Again?” Then she turned and ran out of the room.
I will never live long enough to forget that failure. More guilt. Tons and tons of guilt. I wanted to run into my bathroom and cry.
The one good thing that came out of that was my promise not to make promises I couldn’t keep. From that point on, if there was a chance we’d be late or stuck somewhere, which was always a dis¬tinct possibility, I let them know ahead of time. In fact, every time we travel, I tell them that as a matter of course we might not catch a return flight and be home on schedule. That way, they’re not sur¬prised and not so disappointed. I always get a backup in the wings, just in case. I tell them that Mary or the housekeeper, Estelle, is going to pick them up instead of me if I’m late.
I know it sounds simple, but believe me my kids feel much safer and are not as disappointed when they already know the score. If they know what to expect, even if that means Aunt Mary’s coming instead of Mom, they’re okay with it, for the most part. At least, they’re not surprised.
In addition, we began to plan our trips as much as possible around the kids’ schedules instead of the other way around. I don’t mean that we plan business trips around a soccer match, just the really important stuff.
That was the beginning of a whole new relationship with our children. And I realized it was all about respect—respect for their time and feelings as much as for ours.
It wasn’t easy. Part of our exclusive with Manheim’s was our responsibility to visit every one of their stores, where we had our merchandise, twice a year. At the time, that was 20 trips around the country, in addition to the trade shows we attended every year, some more than once.

Chapter 10-The Great Brinks Truck Caper and the Benevolent Buyer

2007-06-20T20:51:00.002-07:00

JANUAR Y 2003 ST AR TED off more like a spiritual Fourth of July. Jude had spent the previous month researching all the trade shows that the retail buyers attended, all of which were very expensive.
She determined that the top two were The JA Show in New York’s Jacob Javitz Center, held in January and July of each year, and the JCK Show held in June in Las Vegas.
Just before the JCK Show there is another, smaller event, not as important, but certainly worth attending, called The Luxury Show at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. In fact, The Luxury and JCK Shows pretty much run concurrently from Tuesday through Sunday.
We decided to shoot for the moon, so we attended them all in 2003, including The JA Show Shows, which are not easy to get into. Jude called everyday and sent numerous baskets of cookies and candy.
The JA Show is one of the largest and most important of the year for the industry. It was our first time and we had no idea what to expect and we were extremely lucky to even get in. There is a 10-year waiting list, but Jude used her charm and persistence to finally talk them into giving us a booth that was a last-minute cancellation.
Unfortunately, that booth, though it cost $10,000, was right by the bathroom, and we were thinking this isn’t exactly in a high traffic area. And so we were worried—worried about whether our promotion would work, and concerned that we’d be too far away from where the real action was, which was the special designer sec¬tion located upstairs, where all the big names were located.
As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about. Being next to the bathroom turned out to be a huge plus, because, guess what? Everyone has to go to the bathroom. On top of that, Jude’s promo¬tion was a giant success. We sold $75,000 worth of merchandise, a mild success. We could have done much worse: Considering the cost of the shows, some of the smaller booths run as much as $25,000, and the booths the major players put up, which can be 30-feet long, run in the hundreds of thousands.
So the JA was certainly worth the effort and we learned a lot. However, the comical part of what is usually just another pratfall for us was, as usual, the getting there. We were flying out of L.A. this time and as usual, even though I claim to be the most organ¬ized person this side of a reference librarian, I lost my cell phone, the one with 10 years worth of contacts safely filed within. The one I can’t live without.
I have to admit, looking back it really wasn’t my lack of orga¬nizational skills as much as the amount of work we put in as we sit in airport lounges.

New York | Our First Trade Show
We would usually shove two of those tiny tables together. On one sat our customary baskets of Buffalo wings, a margarita, and a pile of napkins. On the other were two laptops, a small calcu¬lator, and several files. On the floor at our feet were two open briefcases, usually filled with marketing materials, notes, a map or two, our Palm Pilots, a handful of energy bars, and pictures of our kids. And, in many cases, the ubiquitous box filled with jewelry, usually the size of a shoebox, which I always secured by wrapping my feet around it. I figured if by some very long stretch of the imagination, someone tried to surreptitiously reach under there to grab it, I would most certainly see the perpetrator, if not feel him.
During these long waits, Jude and I would do a wrap up of the show or meeting we’d just been to as well as brainstorm new ideas based on those experiences. In short, we were usually lost in play, with papers falling onto the floor, talking as loudly as we did in our offices, calculating sales figures, all the while oblivious of the time.
On this particular occasion, we were also very excited about our first appearance at the JA Show, so we were celebrating a little. Since we are two pretty congenial types, the bartender took a shine to us and tried to ply us with liquor to get our phone numbers.
They called our flight and we paid the tab and headed off in the general direction of Concourse B. When we got there I reached for my phone to check on the children but I couldn’t find it.
The plane was going to board in about 15 minutes, and once again, I had all the contents of my purse out on the floor. When I still couldn’t find it, I panicked and told Jude, “Wait here. I’ll be right back. I’m pretty sure I left it on the table in the bar,” and with that, I was off, running through the airport, back the quarter of a mile or so to the bar.
I knew that Jude was worried I wouldn’t make it back in time. Ten minutes went by, then 15. I knew they would start calling for the back rows any minute. We were in row 10. When I couldn’t find it at the bar, I had no choice but to start the run back to the gate. When I got closer, Jude was waving at me with both arms, a cell phone in each hand. She’d picked up my phone thinking it was hers.
I wanted to strangle her, but as we fastened our seat belts she made a remark about how we might just have invented the next big diet or inventive exercise regimen. We would make a video and a bloody fortune showing people how they could tone up and trim down using the JudeFrances I-lost-my-cell-phone-but-that’s-okay-because-I-can’t-tell-my-seat-number-from-the-terminal-number aerobics workout, not exactly Jane Fonda, but sure to melt the pounds.
Fortunately, I still managed to make it to my son Rich’s after¬noon soccer game, which was more important than it sounds. At the time, he was a freshman in high school and already he was an accomplished soccer player, having played at the highest level since 3rd grade. His big wish was to go on to play in college and then with the pros.
It had been rumored there would be a college scout in the bleachers that day and I wanted to share that excitement with him.
IN ADDITION TO a decent showing in New York, and with the two successful trunk shows behind us, Doris had signed us up in five of the 29 Manheim stores. Actually, at first she offered us only two, but since we had already met with another high-end retailer in Dallas called Horshack’s, which had been expressing a strong interest in our line, I felt emboldened to have this conversation with Doris.
Doris:Well, Frances. You did well. We are proud to offer you two locations to begin selling your line on an exclusive basis.
Frances:Uh, well, thank you for your confidence, and we are absolutely thrilled about it all. However, in all honesty, we have also met with Horshack’s and they really want our line as well (which was a bald-face lie. They liked it, but hadn’t offered anything).
Doris:Oh. Hummm.
Frances:God, now I’ve gone and screwed it all up. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut?
Doris:Okay, Frances. We’ll give you five stores. But that’s an exclusive, understood?
Frances:Yes-s-s-s-s ma’am! Whew!
Manheim’s first order was for $30,000 worth of jewelry for each store for a grand total of $150,000. If we had been paranoid about our first small Fed Ex shipment to Tassels…well, let’s just say that anxiety paled in comparison, and we only had two weeks to put it all together.
There was only one tiny problem that Doris had overlooked and we didn’t know about. All orders must be shipped to Dallas no later than the 31st of January so that they are on sale by mid-February. Doris called us on the 14th of January to order for all five stores.
Jude and I were scrambling. The deadline was nearly impos¬sible because we didn’t have that much ready-made inventory. So, between me racing into Los Angeles to prod and beg our manufac¬turer, and Jude trying to photograph every single piece for insurance—not to mention taking care of all five of the kids, it was like hell week at the Navy Seal school.
One thing we had learned from a very kind woman who was head of shipping for Manheim’s who had befriended us (for rea¬sons still unknown), was that all the high-end retailers were very, very specific about how they received their merchandise and how it was documented.
My first phone conversation with her went like this:
“Now, honey. Which one are you, Jude or Frances? Ya’ll look identical. Hell, all you California girls look alike (laughs all around). Just kiddin’ honey.”
“Hi, Marley. I’m Frances, the tall one with the English accent.”
“Oh yes darlin’. How could I forget? Well, listen up good now, ya hear?
“Yes, ma’am.”
“When I was the head of shippin’ at Macy’s they did the same thing.”
“What’s that, Marley?”
“Well, if your documents didn’t match your shipment, they’d ding ya.”
“What do you mean, ding ya?”
“I mean they would charge back.”
“Huh?”
“Any time there was a mistake, like the wrong bill of lading, or an invoice was missin’, or a P.O. number was wrong….ding, ding, ding would go the cash register. Each charge-back would be like a sort a financial demerit—$100 a piece to be exact.”
“The shame of it was, some folks actually ended up with higher charge-backs than the amount they were chargin’ for their goods. Just a shame.”
“Oh, thank you, Marley. I’ll be sure we dot all our ts and cross all our is.”
“Sweetie, I think you got that backwards. At any rate, make sure you ship it all by the thirty-first.”
“Yes, ma’am. And thank you for all your help.”
MARLEY WENT ON TO BE our patron saint. We must have called her 20 times a day during those two weeks. Jude and I, and even all the children pitched in to count each piece, which we must have done 10 times, each time with a different count.
Jude took four or five photos of each after we’d finally settled on the count, and then we all put the shipments neatly into special boxes with little compartments. We were at the height of paranoia because this shipment represented every piece we owned, not to mention our entire future with Manheim’s.
It gets worse.
Normally, most vendors ship with Fed Ex and insure their mer¬chandise for more than it’s worth and, of course, then have the piece of mind that the good old Fed Ex tracking number provides, should anything actually get lost.
THA T W ASN’T GOOD ENOUGH for us. We wanted an armored car to take our shipment. That’s right, a Brinks truck. One with all those guards inside with 3-inches of bulletproof glass and a machine-gun turret on top.
I was in charge of shipping so when we were completely satis¬fied we’d satisfied Manheim’s strictest requirements (and had put our jewelry boxes inside a U-Haul box that we put into yet another larger U-Haul box and then used five rolls of duct tape to secure it all), we put it in the trunk of my car, locked it, got inside, locked the doors, rolled up the windows and got on the freeway into L.A.
During the entire ride from Newport Beach into the bowels of downtown Los Angeles, Jude was staring in the rearview mirror and I was looking out all sides of the car for any felonious types who might be following us. Our paranoia had overtaken us, and with good cause—this wasn’t the nice modern, clean, urban envi¬ronment you used to see on L.A. Law. This was the jewelry district, not unlike the garment district a few blocks away—seedy, old, run-down, with plenty of homeless people sleeping under bus benches and off ramp overpasses, others next to piles of wine bot¬tles. And then there were the gang members who loitered on every other corner. There were no nice hotels or restaurants, or police substations in this neighborhood.
God knows why one of the world’s largest armored car com¬panies has an office in this area, I thought.
When we got to the Brinks gates, Jude stayed in the locked car close to their front door and I went inside to find out how to bring our precious cargo in. Looking back over my shoulder, I could see her head bobbing and weaving, her eyes barely visible above the door, looking in each direction over and over again.
I was told to go around to the back to see the intake personnel. I went back out to the car to retrieve Jude and the box and then we both carried it to the back, to the man behind the cage.
He started to hand us the receipt, but neither of us would let loose of the box and when the man reached out to grab it, we still clung on until he said, “Ladies, I can’t ship this for you if you won’t let go of it. Trust us. We’re Brinks. We’re not going to lose your cargo. We’ve never lost anything.”
Of course, in all the consternation, we forgot to insure it after all. But that didn’t occur to us until we got to New York a couple of days later. It was Jude’s birthday and we were going to party in the Big Apple to celebrate both her birthday and our successful first shipment.
Once we got there, we immediately called Marley in Shipping, just to make sure our U-Haul box had arrived as planned on January 30th. It hadn’t. I began to feel small beads of sweat in my palms. Neither of us could sleep all night. In fact—it was lost, not by Manheim’s but by Brinks, the people who never lose anything.
A wave of nausea overcame me when I finally spoke with the man in Brink’s Shipping. It seemed this response to stress was becoming more and more frequent.
Between the frantic calls to Marley, who didn’t help by telling us nothing like this had ever happened, and Brinks, who continued to tell us this was a first, we were both on the phone constantly for the next two days. Eventually, Brinks did find and deliver our ship¬ment, but not before both of us went through more anxiety than I ever want to experience again.
We had both agreed from the very beginning that Doris was a bit scattered, and we confirmed it when about 10 days after the store finally received the shipment we received a check for our invoice.
Our invoice had been for $150,000. With our credit cards maxed out, we breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the Manheim logo in the upper left hand corner of the envelope and the company name JFJ, LLC, in the window, which invariably means a check or a bill.
However, there were two problems. The first one came when I saw the JFJ name and address. As you’ll recall, we never did change that initial stationery that we had so much fun designing and printing, even after being told it would conflict with Jean Francois’ company name and even after we’d started our corpora¬tion and bank account in the name of JudeFrances Jewelry.
I felt a momentary flush of anxiety, but I dismissed it in my fervor to open the envelope and see our first really big check. And it was really big—too big. Jude and I both gasped when we read the amount: $250,000! Manheim’s had overpaid us by $100,000! It was like looking at a winning lotto ticket—that belonged to someone else.
My first thought was: What if Manheim’s thinks we cheated them, or somehow had stolen their money? Had Loraine made the invoice out for this amount? Knowing her I didn’t think that was possible, but after a quick look in the file, I saw that the invoice was indeed for the original $150,000 sale no more, no less.
Within minutes, I was on the phone with Doris telling her about her mistake. She hadn’t seen it that way. She’d intended, with a full heart, to help us. We couldn’t believe it and neither of us were satisfied with her generosity. It just wasn’t right and it made both of us uncomfortable.
I began calling the accounting office in Dallas every day, trying to get someone to listen to me and to get some instructions as to what to do—send back the check and chance waiting a month for the next payment cycle to get the correct amount, or deposit it and then send them a check for the difference.
Believe it or not, no one had an answer and so, ultimately, at Doris’ insistence, we went to the bank with the entire $250,000.
Now, if this were anyone else’s story that would have been the happy ending to a fairy tale—but not so with us.
When I finally went to the bank to deposit the check, the teller wouldn’t take it; neither would the manager. After all, it wasn’t made out to our company: JudeFrances Jewelry. It was made out to our stationery: JFJ, LLC.
I pleaded with the woman, pointing out the similarities.
“See. JFJ. That stands for JudeFrances Jewelry. Get it? JFJ,” I told the manager. “I guess the accountant person was just a little lazy and wrote out our company initials instead of the entire name,” I continued.
She wasn’t buying it and I suppose had it been a thousand dol¬lars or so, they would have let us deposit it with my explanation; but since it was a quarter of a million, she rightfully told us to get one made out to our company.
Here we were with a windfall that we couldn’t touch and the Visa bills were due in a day. Thankfully, we had—and still have— the most fantastic business attorney. Through some legal miracle, he was able to change our business name with the bank within days, and we made the deposit.
There we sat with our newfound fortune. We were safely out of the woods with Manheim’s accounting office, and we had paid all our bills. This was truly a gift from above; it was the one mon¬umental moment that changed our lives.
Even after we’d had our stellar first half-year, no bank would lend us any money. They all wanted a minimum of two years worth of operating statements and taxes. But we’d effectively just secured an unsecured $100,000 loan with no collateral, which also had no pay-back date. Can you imagine? Manheim’s was, effectively, our largest client, investment banker, and benefactor.
That money was our marketing and operating capital for the next 18 months. How did we pay it back? We simply deducted a set amount from each shipment until it was finally used up. If the shipment amounted to $150,000, then we billed them $150,000 minus a $5,000 credit against the overpayment.
Truly amazing.

Chapter 9-The Tax Man Cometh

2007-06-20T20:51:00.001-07:00

AS YOU READ EARLIER, Frances thinks of herself as a highly organized and detail-oriented person. In the beginning of our rela¬tionship, she was very emphatic: “I want to sit down and really organize; you know, I want us to know where our drivers’ licenses and our tickets are at all times. I want to be prepared. We’re going to be on tight schedules most of the time and I don’t want us to fumbling about and making fools of ourselves in airports.”
One of the reasons Frances wanted to be prepared and not fumble around was the fact that we were carrying around a fair amount of money’s worth of jewelry in a very basic box, essentially a makeup kit. For obvious reasons, we didn’t want to let it go with our baggage, so we always clutched the box as if we expected a mugging at any moment.
That said, during a one-day trunk show in Vegas a few weeks after our initial tryout, we met a sales rep from Michele Watches, a popular brand that Manheim already carried, and she was a doll—very helpful and friendly.
AFTER THE SHOW, WE P ACKED up our line and set about getting to the airport. When we stepped outside, it was pouring rain.
There was a line of people 50 deep trying to get taxis, as many of the people at the show were doing the same as us—trying to get home. It seemed interminable as slowly one or two cabs would arrive and whisk off one or two people.
Nearly 40 minutes had passed and we were still huddled under the store awning not far from the curb, and Frances and I were beginning to worry that we’d miss our flight. Just then the Michele rep we’d met came back to us from the front of the line and very kindly offered to share her cab. We were elated.
As we entered the airport and were heading toward the ter¬minal, Frances and I automatically began searching our immense purses for the fare—we both had the same thought simultane-ously—pick up the fare for all three of us—of course.
Frances was sitting up front with the driver and I shared the back seat with the kind woman from Michele. Frances was uptight. I can always tell when she’s uneasy by the way she twists her hair with one hand, and fumbles in her purse with the other. She’d emp¬tied half the contents onto the seat, including her wallet, and I knew, just like me, she didn’t have a dime to her name.
We were mortified. What would we say?
“Jude, do you have any money?” she asked with a mild, pan¬icky look on her face.
I picked at articles in my purse, mostly for effect, because I already knew I didn’t. “Uh, uh, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t worry, girls. I’ll take care of it,” said our benefactor. With that, we both just slumped humiliated, into the seats. A hun¬dred sorrys wouldn’t have soothed our embarrassment.
Traveling to shows requires not only the need for a days worth of clothing, the essential makeup and toiletries, etc., etc., but of course, we had to carry our jewelry line with us, all in one carry¬on bag. And now, we really were late, but we still felt a good run at it would save the day.
So here are these two women, one rather petite, the other rather tall, lugging their enormous purses and a far-too-large rolling bag through the airport at breakneck speed, bumping past people on the escalator, zigging and zagging their way to the ticket counter to get their boarding passes.
When we finally arrived, the kind Michele rep was standing in front of us in line. We nodded and smiled to her as she picked her boarding pass up and headed to the terminal.
We, on the other hand could not find our drivers’ licenses.
As the kind rep approached the escalator, she looked back to see us with our purses and the rolling bag open in front of the ticket counter with most of the contents splayed out on the floor.
We were both on our hands and knees rummaging through the mess and, of course, there were 50 people in line growing increas¬ingly angry. As I looked back up at the escalator, I saw the kind rep rising in the air with a look that simply said, What a couple of ditzes, though she did smile one last time—sort of.
“I thought you were the organized one,” I said to Frances.
“Don’t start.”
Finally, Frances found gold. Somewhere in the morass of her belongings, she discovered both our licenses and money—voila!
Before I could even look at her, she said, “Don’t say a word.”
We’d only survived half our adventure at that point. We still had to make the plane carrying the two heavy purses and the giant rolling case.
Off we went, running again, jumping past people on the esca¬lator, once again zigzagging through the throngs and in a short breathed panic we arrived at the security gate, which of course also had a long line waiting.
Frances was tapping her foot and I was chewing on a nail as we oh-so-slowly approached the X-ray machine. Once through the checkpoint, we raced to the first departure monitor frantically looking for the Orange County America West flight, hoping against all hope that it was still on the tarmac.
“Flight 321 has been delayed,” it read.
“Crap! I couldn’t believe it. After all that, the damned thing was delayed. Oh well, there is nothing left to do but to have a drink,” Frances said, as she turned and started toward the nearest bar without even saying another word to me.
It appeared we had enough time to imbibe one, so we sat in the bar drinking margaritas, which at that point tasted like a bit of heaven, and I pulled out the tickets.
“Which gate is it?” Frances asked.
“Hmm, looks like 36C,” I answered.
After a healthy margarita and a verbal reliving of the entire day, I walked out to the monitor to find the flight was back on— in fact, it was leaving in 15 minutes. Geeze, I thought, we’re still going to miss our flight! Funny how a harmless margarita can dis¬tort time.
Once again, we were off and running. She was carrying our two purses, which are more like large backpacks, and I was coming up the rear with an 80-pound rolling bag—the one that was far too big for the overhead and should hold only about 25 pounds of gear.
It was an aerobic moment to be sure. Actually, it was several aerobic moments until we arrived at the gate where we stood with our mouths open—nobody was there. There were no ticket takers, no passengers waiting reading papers—nobody.
“What the hell?” Frances said. “Jude, are you sure it’s 36C?”
“I’m pretty sure,” I answered, as I thrust my hand into my
purse to retrieve the tickets. “You’re ‘pretty’ sure?” she said. “Oh my gaw-w-w-wd,” I said. “It’s not 36C. It’s 36B. “Jude!” We began running off again in the opposite direction, racing to
the opposite side of the terminal. Half way there, I really thought I was running out of gas, but we managed to make it, just in time to see another completely empty gate—no ticket takers, no travelers.
“Damn! What in the hell is going on? Are we nuts?” Frances said. That’s when I pulled out the tickets again and gave them a more careful look.
Damn! It’s not gate 36B or C. It’s seats 36B and C. Frances is going to kill me.
“Uh, sweetie,” I said gently, “you’re not going to believe this.”
“Oh yes I will.”
“The 36B and C thing?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not the gate, it’s our…”
“Yes, go on, what is it?”
“Uh, uh, it’s our seats.”
“Wow. Are you kidding me? No, wait, don’t answer that,” she

said as she ran off to the monitors once again. “Come on,” she said as she grabbed one of the bags. “We can still make it.” And off I ran behind her.
By the time we finally arrived at the right gate, we’d done close to 2 miles of wind sprints through half the Las Vegas airport. As we were getting closer to the gate, we could hear that our flight number was making the last call.
In full-blown panic, we finally got to the ticket counter where

Las Vegas Trade Show
the agents were packing up and one of them is closing that door that leads down the ramp, and we all know what that means. If the door closes, we’re doomed. Even if for some reason that plane sits there for another half hour—after “the” door closes, we’re not going anywhere.
But we begged the agent as if this was a life or death situation, and she actually relented.
“But hurry,” she said, “Even if you get to the plane, if they close ‘the’ door, you won’t get in.”
We ran down the long ramp, still lugging the enormous bag and purses, and got to the plane just as the attendant was begin¬ning to close the door.
“Wait!” Frances yelled. “Wait!”
The attendant did not look amused and I’m thinking: What’s her problem; we’re here, aren’t we? You haven’t closed “that” damned door yet. So let us in.
Breathing very hard, hair completely askew, blouses half unbuttoned, dripping in sweat, we entered the inner sanctum, which by now, unlike most of the flights we all go on, is hushed— completely silent—not a peep.
I looked down that long aisle, no seats…every face was focused on us in total disgust.
Then our eyes fixed on a woman in the very first seat of first class. Guess who it was? Now she was doing the “tisk, tisk” thing, having lost any semblance of her earlier sympathy.
I can’t even describe the feeling I had as I passed each row of disgruntled expressions, hearing those, by now, familiar stage sighs until we got to the very last row next to the toilets and began the ordeal of trying to put 80-pounds of potatoes into a ten pound bag.
This was just prior to the time when they started making pas¬sengers give up their oversized carry-ons at the door of the plane. Now, of course, they take those bags to check them with the reg¬ular luggage. We may have had something to do with that rule.
When we got to the last row, the overhead bin was still open. However, there was only enough room for a makeup bag. Our rollie was nearly as large as one of the seats. It took both of us to lift it above our shoulders, clunking the head of the very upset man sitting in front of us and soliciting yet more deep sighs.
Once we got the corner of it wedged in, we pushed and pushed until we’d squashed every bag in the compartment to accommo¬date ours. Finally, it took two of the flight attendants to snap the door shut.
All the way home, I had visions of that plastic door popping open and that 80-pound bag hurtling out, injuring someone.
WHEN WE RETURNED FROM VEGAS, I dropped Frances off and headed home. It was late and the children were all in bed. I peeked in on them and then quickly unpacked and fell into bed.
With the exception of the airport fiasco, it had been a great trip.
The next morning, I was up at my usual early hour before everyone else fixing a bowl of fresh fruit and about to sit down, when I saw something very odd out of the corner of my eye. I heard scurrying and the sound of plastic dragging on the wooden floor boards.
What in the world was that? I first thought, speculating that a mouse was making its way from the porch to the kitchen. I got up and slowly walked around the cabinets clutching a piece of rolled up newspaper in one hand.
When I peeked around the corner, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There in the corner was poor Rascal, the hamster, with one of those cones around his neck and head, like the vets put on dogs that have had surgery so they won’t chew on their stitches. He looked so pitiful, yet so hilarious.
I’ve laughed a lot since that morning and often laughed hard, but if I live to be 90, I won’t laugh that much again. He was sitting up on his back haunches, his tiny head peeking out of this minia¬ture RCA-like horn, begging for food. I was in tears and about to pee my pants, when all three children woke up.
My friend that had stayed with the children informed me that the vet had explained that poor Rascal wasn’t out of the woods yet. For the next week, we marveled at the sight of this rodent wan¬dering through the house with a cone over his head. We had litterbox-trained him like many people do with rabbits. The kids doted on him like he was a sibling.
AFTER THE NOVEMBER TRUNK SHOW, we hired our first employee— a bookkeeper named Loraine knowing we were about to take the next step up the ladder. She was a Godsend: a real numbers person who is very kind, sweet, and soft-spoken.
She only worked two days a week, but she made a huge differ¬ence in how we ran our still-fledgling enterprise. She knew everything there was to know about accounting, finance, and busi¬ness, in general—in short, she was another complement to our individual talents. It was only a couple of weeks before we vali¬dated our original premise—always hire people smarter than yourself—or at least with talents you don’t possess.
On a late December afternoon in 2002, our first year in busi¬ness Loraine came in to talk with us.
Living hand to mouth and working like draft horses 15 hours a day had paid off. However, everything we’d made that year went right back into inventory, marketing, and travel and we’d only taken small paychecks for ourselves.
“Well, girls. I’ve got good news and bad. Which do you want first?” Loraine asked.
She stood there with a pair of granny glasses barely resting on the tip of her nose, quietly peeking over them, waiting for our answers.
“The good,” said Frances.
“The bad,” I said.
“The good news is that you made some money. Pretty damned good, I’d say.”
“Wow, profitable in the first year, great” I said.
“What’s the bad news?” Frances asked.
She shook her head. “Well, the bad news is, you owe the IRS. More money than you have in the bank.”
“How can we owe taxes? I don’t get it?” I said. “We must’ve poured thousands back into the business. How about all those marketing write-offs or the travel expenses?”
“I’ve already accounted for those. I’ve accounted for every¬thing that’s a legitimate deduction. You two need to open some retirement accounts to begin with and we need to set you up on a payment plan with the government.” Loraine lectured. From that point on, she started to put the money aside for the taxes.
Fortunately, the IRS took Visa, so we put part of it on Jude’s card and part on mine to placate them, and then commenced paying off the other 95% over time. It took us nearly nine months to pay the previous year’s taxes—just about in time to start on the next year’s bill.
Now, we’re each as patriotic as the next person, but Loraine’s news took a little wind out of our sails. At that moment, it felt like we’d worked for practically nothing. However, being the trooper she is, Loraine quickly reminded us she was on board and would counsel us from that moment on about how to keep every penny we were legally entitled to.
The next week, Frances and I opened a 401k and thanked God that we’d hired her,

Chapter 7-Tryouts for the Big Leagues

2007-06-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

The first week in October, we finally met with Doris in Texas, at the Manheim’s store in Dallas, but not before a migraine almost put Jude out of commission. This time, we actually would have been on time to our meeting with Doris, had the airport bath¬room emergency not occurred.
It might have been Jude’s enthusiasm or even a bit of stress over our first meeting with someone so powerful, but as the plane was about to land, she started complaining of a headache and not just any headache.
We made it to the restroom in the terminal and I spent the next hour applying a cold, wet towel to the back of her neck and to her forehead. Then she started throwing up. I couldn’t remember ever being that helpless, and she had nothing to take for it. We just had to wait it out.
After an hour, it subsided enough for us to find a taxi and make our way to Manheim’s. Doris’ first reaction was a large smile and then congratulatory handshakes.
“I love them,” she said. “I think they’ll be perfect for us.”
I was amazed at how small her office was considering her posi¬tion. It seemed to us that she held the keys to our financial existence and here she was holding court in a tiny 10 foot by 10 foot room, cluttered with boxes of jewelry, file folders, magazines, and old McDonald’s food wrappers. She appeared to be very dis¬organized.
However, visions of sugarplums danced in our heads. We were in, and I was already counting the booty when Doris said, “Of course, we’ll have to try you out first at a couple of trunk shows.”
Huh? I thought tryouts were for major league baseball. And what in the world is a trunk show?
“Oh, I can see you girls are a little mystified,” Doris offered. “A trunk show is where you bring your line into a store and we do a bit of promoting to let people know you’re there and that you have wonderful jewelry, and then we see how it sells and how you do with the people,” she said as she fidgeted with several files on her desk, seemingly in search of something lost.
Well, I supposed that made sense. After all, this was the major leagues for us.
“Once we see how you do in those two shows, we’ll make our decision whether to buy or not. That’s how it works, girls.”
Without escorting us out, or saying goodbye, she turned and began to rummage through more files on her credenza. Every time we saw her after that, she always seemed to be looking for a termi¬nally lost article of some sort.
We were left with the feeling that though promising, we were just two more hungry designers who would give an arm to be accepted into the Manheim family. She was polite but distracted, we thought. Nevertheless, we walked away on clouds.
Our first show was in Dallas because that was the flagship store—where it all started. It was nerve-racking but at the same time thrilling—our first little taste of celebrity. As we came into the jew¬elry department, we noticed right away that the store had produced posters of us and our company logo and hung them on walls around the area—a very nice touch that gave us an immediate boost.
It was the typical Manheim’s store: marble floors polished to a high luster, lots of open space, bright, but reserved, clean as a sur¬gical room filled with the crème de la crème of everything and plenty of things not found “anywhere” else, one of their trademarks.
It was close to opening time as we set up our line, smiled, and sort of milled around, not knowing exactly what to do. I continu¬ally picked up our pieces and pretended to polish them a bit with a cloth, trying to look busy, while Jude checked and rechecked her makeup, and paced. We both felt a bit like street vendors hawking their wares on a deserted street corner. After several hours passed with next to no customers, we began to worry. It was so quiet, we could have had bowling practice down the aisles.
As the day progressed, we sold a few pieces, but that seemed dismal, especially since Doris had told us a little fib. She said that the corporate office expected us to sell $20,000 worth that day— it was pretty much standard, she told us.
By noon, that seemed insurmountable and by two in the after¬noon, it felt downright ridiculous. It was one thing to fail in a store filled with customers, quite another to miss the mark because everyone in Dallas decided to spend the hot afternoon indoors watching the Cowboys on TV.
We panicked. By three in the afternoon, we figured we might have sold a few thousand dollars worth at best. That’s when the idea hit. I’d have our friends help us along a bit. I told Jude to get on her cell phone and start calling everyone we knew in Dallas to come in and buy something, anything—and they did. It was amazing and that’s when the most extraordinary thing happened. When I told one of my best friends about our plight, she said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea. Describe to me your most expen¬sive piece.” It was a $6,000 bracelet.
About 45 minutes later, one of the salesclerks came over to us and said the most remarkable thing had just occurred. A man had called from Newport Beach directly to the jewelry department. The salesgirl had taken his call. He told her that his wife was on a busi¬ness trip in Dallas and had seen a JudeFrances piece she absolutely had to have. The man then went on to describe that piece in per¬fect detail, adding that his wife had left her credit card in her luggage, was on her way to the airport, and asked him if he wouldn’t be a doll by calling the store to purchase it for her, using his card.
We sold the piece and the store shipped it directly to him.
The show turned out to be a monumental success, not just because of our dear friends, whom we give enormous amounts of gratitude, but to the fact that at around four that afternoon, foot traffic suddenly and inexplicably picked up.
Not only did our friends boost our sales, their presence attracted a lot of attention and energy, but by the end of the day, we’d also sold $17,000 worth of jewelry. We should have been ecstatic. Instead, we felt dejected; we hadn’t reached even the average mark of $20,000. That’s when Doris came over and revealed to us that she’d fibbed. They actually only expected us to sell $10,000. We were beside ourselves!
Our next show was in late November, held in Beverly Hills, closer to home. Once again, the store looked like a ghost town. I started to think that maybe we should bring a Parcheesi game on our next visit, to pass the time. However, on this occasion, there was a more plausible answer. It was Monday, the day following the big After Thanksgiving Day sales weekend. Everyone had already blown their wads. We didn’t have a choice. It was once again time to hit the cell phones and, again, our friends came through like troopers. The Manheim’s family immediately took us in when we ended the day with a with a $15,000 showing.
THE ONL Y DRA WBACK W A S that we had to buy the $6,000 bracelet back from our friend’s husband from the Dallas show. As Jude was trying to figure out how to put it on her Visa, we got a call from the buyer, Bill, who said, “Not to worry. Take your time. Pay me when you can.”
God, aren’t friends the best thing in the world?
It took us four months to pay him back. However, he gave the piece back to us right away and we managed to sell it to another friend just before the final payment was due to Bill.

Chapter 8-Don’t Mess with the West Coast Wannabes

2007-06-20T20:48:00.002-07:00

Okay, so we hadn't exactly gotten our money’s worth from Danielle, though it certainly had fired up Frances. Isn’t it funny how some people react to criticism? Instead of crawling under the proverbial rock, it lit a fire under her, a fire that still burned three years later. A fire that I doubted would ever cool to a mere ember.
I took it a little more personal, but not for long. While we were working on our line, getting ready for our meeting with the Manheim’s buyer, I was also busy making the dreaded cold calls, which are what sales people euphemistically refer to as a usually irritating unsolicited pitch to sell something.
Cold calling, or begging, as I like to refer to it, is the bane of every salesperson’s existence. In my case, I was trying to set up appointments with department store buyers to show our creations.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have an open to buy,” the polite but curt buyer said to my plea for a showing.
Huh? Open to buy?
Next call, next answer: “I’m sorry, we don’t have an open to buy.”
I soon figured out this meant they weren’t buying jewelry at the moment, or even the rest of the summer. The stores had already made their financial buying decisions for the year, so they didn’t have an opening to buy anything.
Little did we know that jewelry isn’t sold to the retailers in September, or November, or December, for that matter. All of the buying happens in May and then you ship it from September through December, we learned. And, of course, the smaller stores aren’t going to take on new people and lines—those unlucky entre¬preneurs who don’t already have a proven track record of sales.
This was particularly irksome because our children had just gone back to school. We’d revved up for the sales side of the busi¬ness, which that extra six hours a day would allow us.
I couldn’t even calculate the number of calls I made those weeks, which turned into months. I finally went out and bought a headset with a microphone to keep from getting carpal tunnel and a cauliflower ear.
First, I’d have to call to get the name of the buyer. If I was extremely lucky, I might ask for and get the buyer all in that first call. Most often, that wasn’t the case. The buyer was out to lunch— even though I always avoided calling during that hour, out on vacation, out of the office, or fired and the new buyer wouldn’t be in the office until next week. The answers or excuses were endless.
When I did get the right name, I would begin the day by calling the list of actual buyers I’d acquired from the previous day. Having a name means nothing, because most of the buyers have assistants, who are trained pit-bulls, what we called the gate keepers, whose job it is to defer and deter anyone stupid enough to call thinking they could sell jewelry in September.
Once in a great while, in the beginning, an assistant would pacify me with, “Why don’t you send some pictures of your line,” a suggestion I’m sure resulted in file cabinets filled with un-viewed photographs.
However, being not only a resilient and persistent salesperson, I was still a photographer. Even the slimmest chance that our prod¬ucts would be seen buoyed me, so out came the trusty Nikon, the strobe lights, and several crates of Granny Smith’s green apples. By now, everything we were producing in terms of marketing mate¬rials bore the image of the ubiquitous orbs.
After a weekend’s work, the shots were developed and printed, all glossy, and sent off via Fed Ex to any and all who had asked, and usually the stuff end up on the desk of three assistants.
My highest hope was a return call, though that was a stretch.
I really wasn’t prepared for what actually happened. All the photos were returned. Each did have a “Thank you but we’re not interested” note scribbled in ball-point pen on the back of one of the photos, which, of course leaves a deep depression in the print and ruins the picture.
I started to slump, but pulled myself up straight. In my ridicu¬lously positive way, I decided to look at it as a plus—at least they’d opened the envelopes and someone had seen our line.
After a period, I had to start being more creative, so to follow up my calls, I would send food—lots of it: candy, fresh muffins, homemade cookies—anything to get the buyer’s attention—all of which I’m sure were eaten or mistaken for an anthrax scare, but in any case, produced zero results—at least zero sales. We did get plenty of responses to the food, lots of thank you cards with requests for more of the homemade cookies and muffins, but none of them mentioned the jewelry or our great lime green and black line sheets.
When I’d run out of possibilities, I started calling, who else... our friends.
My newest idea was to throw house parties to help our friends celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, birthdays, and Bas Mitzvahs with our jewelry as gifts. By that time, we had 25 pieces in the line, and not all of them were kites or crosses.
Most of my ideas seemed to work well, although in a limited geographic area. Nevertheless, there were some failures. One of the more memorable marketing efforts was to co-op with a local men’s clothing designer. Donald Richey also known, at that time, as the designer to the stars—mostly well known NFL and NBA players as well as some Hollywood celebrities.
Richey had a brick and mortar operation, but the thing that set it apart was that he had salesmen drive around in luxury cars like Mercedes, Jaguars, and Ferraris, calling on potential clients in their own offices.
Each car was sort of a calling card, not unlike those pink Cadillacs that Mary Kay cosmetic representatives drive around in. And, just like Mary Kay, Donald Richey had his logo prominently displayed in a window as well as on the personalized plates they all sported.
My idea was to piggyback on that notoriety and to eventually supply all the salesmen with samples of our jewelry. For a commis¬sion, the Richey salesmen would suggest our beautiful wares as a great idea for the wife or girlfriend of each particular superstar. After all, they could obviously afford our products.
To my mind, since most of the NFL guys wear more jewelry than their wives, they would already be predisposed to a purchase. And, in the isolated cases where a wife might be a little testy because her husband was spending so much on clothes for himself, then when a given superstar came home with yet another $5,000 suit, he could also offer his beautiful significant other a lovely JudeFrances piece.
Fugetaboutit.
Didn’t work.
We never got out of the starting gate. One of the vice presidents at Richey’s was kind enough to set up a presentation for us, a trunk show at one of their stores. Frances and I came in with our prod¬ucts, set up a small table, and did a bit of a song and dance for five of the top salesmen.
We did manage to keep their attention as we extolled the virtues of our jewelry: how wearing our distinctive yet unpreten¬tious designs would make their girlfriends or wives feel delicate, romantic, and even independent, but I suspect most of the leering wasn’t at our product line.
Maybe the Richey reps didn’t push the line. Maybe the super¬stars thought it was a dumb idea. Doesn’t matter. It was a failure but we never really lost anything but a little time, and I learned another lesson in the business world.
Looking back, we probably should not have thrown the con¬cept “independent” into the benefits we presented to the salesmen—delicate, okay; romantic, great—but not independent.
There were several other failures too numerous to mention here. The point is, I never stopped trying new ideas, and I did grad¬ually get much more selective in my approaches—food always worked the best.
However, we still had the one encouraging opportunity on the horizon, our upcoming meeting with the Manheim’s buyer in Beverly Hills in late September. At least we could actually meet someone in the flesh.
We drove to Beverly Hills with the great anticipation of meeting with Angela, who was a manager and knew everyone at Manheim corporate in Dallas. Our balloons were soon deflated when she said she couldn’t buy anything, but that she did love our line and promised to connect us with a woman named Doris in Dallas, the main Manheim’s jewelry buyer. She ended the brief meeting by handing me Doris’ phone number.
There followed what bordered on the zeal of a stalker, our phone campaign to talk with Doris to set up a meeting. I am not exaggerating when I say that we called nearly every hour of every workday for six weeks, alternating duties. Of course, after the first few days, we stopped leaving messages and when we got her voice mail, we would hang up, hoping to get lucky later that afternoon.
Doris never did call back during those weeks. However, after nearly two months of speed dialing, Frances got lucky one after¬noon and Doris answered. Frances was so stunned, she didn’t know what to say, humming and hawing, trying to think of some¬thing brilliant.
It was Doris who spoke first, apologizing for returning our calls so late and asking that we send photos first, which we did. She quickly replied and our first meeting was set. We were higher than…I won’t say it again.
Between overseeing our manufacturer, double-checking our final products, begging our friends’ husbands to buy for their wives, and getting mentally prepared for our big debut sales oppor¬tunity, there was still the business of running a family, getting the kids off to school, picking them up and dropping them off at base¬ball, hockey or soccer, taking them to the doctor, and all the other typical things moms do.
There are also those unforeseen events that are so funny and absurd, they keep you going with laughter and tend to keep your ship on the right compass setting.
One such incident was our sick hamster. I bring this up because it happened just days before we were ready to go to Dallas to meet Doris. My daughter Ruby brought Rascal, her hamster, into my room and said, “Mommy, what is this bump on Rascal’s belly?”
I said, “I don’t know, dear. Here, hand him to me. Let me see.”
Rascal is rather large for his breed, weighing in at about two pounds because we are constantly feeding him—more often than not, treats.
I rolled him over in my hands and felt around and sure enough, there was a large lump on his belly about the size of a grape. I knew right away something was not right.
“We’re going to have to take Rascal to the vet,” I told Ruby. So off we went. The diagnosis was as definitive as it was quick—a tumor—it had to come out immediately.
“Immediately?” I asked, looking for some sympathy.
“Yes Ms. Steele. We’re very worried about this,” said the young, obviously new doctor.
I looked at him, then at Rascal, as one of those cartoon bub¬bles appeared above my head with lots of dollar signs floating in it. Then I looked at my daughter’s expression and knew I didn’t have a chance.
“Uh, what will that cost?” I asked the young intern, really more concerned about how long Rascal would be in the hospital in recovery, trying to judge the time I’d needed for my Dallas trip.
“Oh, in case there are complications, we can’t be entirely sure however, it generally runs in the three-hundred and fifty-ish range,” he said.
Geeze, the three-hundred-fifty-ish range? The whole hamster cost only 15 bucks and that included his cage, a month’s supply of food, and vitamins, and a handy how-to booklet on teaching them tricks—but my daughter was practically in tears. So I said, “Okay. Do it. Save the hamster.”
The next day, after we had made arrangements for my friend to stay with the children and also pick up the hamster in recovery, Frances and I are sitting in the airport when my cell phone rings.
“Hello, is this Ms. Steele?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Dr. Webster, your hamster’s physician.” That is how

he referred to himself, a hamster physician, God. And I’m thinking,
what in the hell is going on? There can only be two explanations. The patient died. The patient lived. In either case, why would the vet call me on a cell phone?
“What’s up, Doc?” I asked.
“There have been some complications,” he replied.
“Like what?” Long pause.
“The tumor is deeper than we thought.”
“Well, what’ll we do?” It’s a hamster, for God’s sake!
“Well,” he said very seriously, “I always like to do what’s best

for the patient.” As I’m trying to fathom this man and his priorities, I hear the
airport loudspeaker making the last call for our flight. “Well then doctor, do what’s best. How much is it gonna cost?” “Probably closer to seven hundred now,” he said. I had to catch my breath slowly before I could answer. “Oh my
God. Okay, okay. Go ahead and operate. Do you take Visa?” I asked. “Oh, my yes,” the doctor said. And then just before I could hang up, “Uh, Ms. Steele, we can’t guarantee he’ll live.” With that I flipped the phone closed, grabbed Frances, and we made a dash for the plane.
“Geeze.”
“What’s the matter, Jude; forget something?” Frances said as we fastened our seat belts.
“Oh geeze, with all the talk about the hamster surgery, I forgot to call that guy Lloyd.”
“You mean the Geezer?” she asked.
The Geezer was a man that I had just started to date, though I hesitate to call it dating.
He was 25 years older than I and Frances used to tease me that he could’ve been my father, but of course he wasn’t. He was just a nice man who understood that I was a busy person with family and a business. That alone, made him attractive in one way—he was patient. He just had this one…well, maybe he had a couple…this thing about me calling him early if I wasn’t going to make it to a date.
I hadn’t called him before we left the house. I was going to call him after we got to our gate. Now, it was too late, the plane was leaving, and all cell phones had to be turned off.
I should have known better. We had planned to go out to dinner and a play and I knew he’d been counting on it. Even though he liked me a lot, I think he also enjoyed having an attrac¬tive young woman on his arm for those types of events, regardless of whether she had any brains or not.
I hadn’t taken Frances’ advice that I should always let my chil¬dren know what to expect ahead of time. That should have applied to my dates as well.
I’d now be on a plane for 2-1/2 hours, unable to apologize until it was far too late. Eventually, Lloyd quit calling me and I think it all began with that one lapse on my part, not that I didn’t deserve it.
I found myself torn so many times over the issue of dating. It wasn’t just because of the frantic juggling of men, children, and busi¬ness, but because I just didn’t know if I wanted another meaningful relationship—or even needed one to further complicate things.
On the other hand, I enjoy the company of bright, funny, and sincere men—all work and no play, so to speak. When they under¬stood how important my children and my new business were to me and offered great advice, so much the better.
I do remember one man who, on the very first date, after asking what I did, commented that he could never date a woman who made more money than he did. Of course, that was the last time I ever saw him. Can you imagine? And what do you think he did for a living? He was the night manager, a flunky, at a 24-Hour Fitness center, who probably had trouble making the payments on his 1998 Camaro, which I imagine, severely limited his potential dating pool.
That wasn’t always the case. In fact, if you are beginning to date or have been dating for a while, you’ll recognize some of my dates. You might have dated some of them as well. How about Dan? Tell me if you’ve met him.
Dan was a stunningly beautiful man, if I can use that word with the not-so-fair sex. At 6’3”, He was nearly a foot taller than me, which was fine. He was funny and witty and I was smitten with him from nearly the moment we met, which was the result of a collision in the grocery store.
After he kindly helped me put all my groceries back in my bags, he introduced himself, made some incredibly funny observations, which I can’t recall now, and asked me if I’d have dinner with him sometime.
Dinner seemed a bit fast for me. I prefer to meet for coffee or lunch on the first “encounter,” in order to keep it safe. Even more important, it’s great for excuses about how you have to get back to work, yada, yada. However, he just had this great smile and he caught me off guard. As a result, I said yes, and I gave him my office number. I never gave out my home number, nor did I ever let a date come into my house further than the entry hall.
Within two days he called and asked if we could go to Bistango’s, a nice local restaurant. I said “Yes.”
He said, “How about sevenish?”
I said, “Great.”
Later that afternoon, I realized he hadn’t asked for my address and to make it worse, I didn’t have his number—his caller ID showed up as blocked, which is always a bit of an alarm bell to me. So, there was nothing to do but wait for him to call back.
He’d said Friday night. It was Monday. I waited until nearly six on Friday night, about to give up and rent a movie, when the phone finally rang.
“Hello, Jude?”
“Yes.”
“This is Dan. I forgot to give you my address. How silly of me.”
Wait a minute. Why would I need his address? He’s supposed to pick me up around sevenish.
“Uh, Dan. Don’t you mean my address? Aren’t you going to pick me up for dinner?”
“Oh, no. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I need you to pick me up. I can’t drive.”
Immediately, I scanned my memory bank for his image the day of the collision. He didn’t have any broken legs that I could remember. His hands and arms seemed intact. What could possibly keep him from driving?
“Uh, why can’t you drive, Dan?”
“Oh, just a silly thing. I’ve had three DUIs. I won’t have my driver’s license back until July of ’07. You don’t mind, do you?”
Think... quick.
“Uh, uh, well, uh. You know, I can’t do that. Uh, my car’s in the shop.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. When’s it getting out?”
“Uh, uh, I’m not sure. They said it might be totaled. I’ll have to wait and see.”
“Oh, that’s horrible. How did it happen?”
“Uh, err... A drunk driver hit me. I’m surprised you didn’t notice that large black and blue mark on my arm last week when we met.”
Silence.
“Hello, Dan. Are you there?”

Chapter Six-We’re Going to Be Stars

2007-06-20T20:48:00.001-07:00

JUDE MANAGED TO SET the Manheim’s appointment for September, giving us just under two months to prepare. We were flying as high as, well, kites with all the potential that this oppor¬tunity would give us. That was until we linked up with a consultant that Jude had met quite by accident.
The consultant’s name was Danielle McCourt, and she was known, or at least touted herself as, the representative for any and all upcoming stars. As she’d said, designers with truly fresh, unique ideas, who would, of course, under her tutelage and marketing expertise, become the next Donna Karan of jewelry.
Being the planner half of the partnership, I, decided to check this woman out. For all I could tell, she was the one who could give us the keys to the kingdom—the information, the direction and how to get to the right buyers—or at least sell them to us. We couldn’t afford to advertise directly to consumers, but we did have the time and energy to approach the retailers.
Having spoken to her briefly on the phone after my due dili¬gence, we set up a conference call for the following day.
“Dahling,” Danielle said. “Rally, if you’re having a problem with my fee, frankly, you probably shouldn’t be trying to stretch yourself at this time,” she told me in a haughty tone. Prior to that she’d just announced that her consulting fee for such a conversation, a phone conversation—not even face to face—was $500 per hour!
My mind blanked for a moment. “No, no,” I finally said. “It’s not a problem.” We’d just put it on the Visa.
It was set. The conference call would be in three days. I was a little anxious, but I figured if she was getting that much money, she must be good. After checking the Better Business Bureau and a few other sources, I hadn’t found any negative remarks about her work. Thinking back, I should have asked her for some references, people she’d helped before, but at the time, I thought that would be rude.
That Friday, Jude and I met at the office, set up the speaker phone on the conference table, and prepared for the lesson of our marketing lives.
I had three steno pads and about ten pre-sharpened number two pencils by my side. Then, the two of us sat and stared at the speaker resting in the middle of the table, as if God herself was going to voice her opinions at any moment.
Fifteen minutes went by—nothing. Half an hour passed— nothing. Just then, as we were about to be lulled into a nap, the loud ringer went off. As if we were having an audition with David Letterman, we primped and pulled at our blouses, tidied our hair, cleared our voices, and then I pushed the button.
“Hello,” I said in my most businesslike voice. “This is Frances Gadbois. How may I help you?” pretending to be calm and not knowing who it was.
“Hallo, girls. This is Danielle. Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Ms. McCourt, we can hear you just fine,” we chimed in like two girls the first day of first grade, in far too loud voices.
“Right, right then. Are we ready?” she asked.
“Yes, yes,” I said anxiously. “Where do we begin?” I added quickly, wondering if the $500 clock had already started ticking.
“Okay, ladies. Let us begin,” she said, and with that she launched into a 30-minute set of questions, so rapidly we didn’t have time to answer. I just made notes furiously on my pad, hoping to break in at any moment, all the while glancing from my notepad to the clock on the wall. After all, I thought, we don’t want to spend our entire hour listening to questions. We need answers!
After her full 30-minute diatribe was over—one that was mostly devoted to telling us how great she was and listening to all her accomplishments and her opinions about the industry, politics, and even religion—she stopped.
Our chance had arrived.
“Uh, Ms. McCourt, are you there? Are you finished?” I asked.
“Quite, my dear. Do you have any questions?” she asked, as if that would be extra.
“Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact we do have quite a few ques¬tions,” I said. Then we began asking about the shows, how to get into them, how to get to the right buyers, who were the right buyers?
When we were through, we sat poised, pencils in hand, awaiting the word from above. What followed was another lecture in which we both, for want of a better description, got a thorough butt whippin’.
She belittled us for our naiveté, abused us for our lack of expe¬rience or even brainpower, and just plain chastised us for even thinking we could make something out of ourselves in this business.
In addition, she told us that partnerships were a horrible idea.
The final straw, just before I slammed down the phone, was when she said, with a tongue sharp enough to split our hopes like a knife across a warm stick of Land ‘O Lakes, “Dahlings, you two girls are nothing but a couple of L.A. knock-off chicks. West Coast Wannabes. Sorry, girls. Your hour’s up. Ta ta.”
Jude and I sat at the table for nearly ten minutes before we could move. I was grinding my teeth to nubs, clenching my fists under the table, and wondering if anyone had jotted down the license plate of the truck that had just run over us.
“What in the hell was that?” Jude asked.
“I don’t have a clue, but make sure you write Visa a letter when you get the bill. We need to get that charge credited back,” was all I could think to say in my inimitably organized way. Other than that, I was dumbstruck as Jude kept pacing around the room, wringing her hands, and trying to catch her breath.
I was only in that state for a few minutes, though. Screw her was my very next thought, or words to that effect. It just made me that much more determined that we would be successful, hugely successful, and someday I would be able to very discreetly rub something in her face—like maybe an appearance on Oprah.

Chapter Five-The Roosters Crow, But the Hens Lay the Eggs

2007-06-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

NEVER IN MY FORMIDABLE IMAGINA TION would I have thought our trip to Los Angeles that day would ultimately evolve into an exhilarating, growth instilling friendship, let alone a multi¬million dollar business.
We decided in May of 2002 that we needed $9,000 to get the business off the ground. Frances had crunched the numbers, and she’d determined that would cover the costs of stationery and the initial molds and production of our first few pieces, the costs of which we would split evenly.
My finances were precarious. I was still in a partnership with Rachael at Got Rocks?, but the business was beginning to fizzle. Our margins were too small, so even if we’d had a steady clientele, we knew our incomes would always be modest. We began to discuss just shutting it down and moving on to bigger and better things.
At that point, I didn’t have my half, nearly $5,000, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. The next day, I was at a pawnshop in Santa Ana with a lovely diamond ring, among other pieces of my jewelry.
Scene: Interior. Pawnshop Setting. Large
Man Stands Behind Cage of Iron Bars

“But, sir. You don’t understand,” was how I began my side of the negotiations. “My great-grandfather Elias bought this for the woman who was the love of his life.”
The rotund, sweaty man behind the thick steel-barred window just stared at me with his pudgy arms folded across his chest. He didn’t say a word, which, of course, I took to mean he was lis-tening—actually considering my argument.
“They were soul mates. I know you can understand. Great¬grandfather Elias knew that this was the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. I’m sure you understand what I’m saying,” I pleaded.
Since the proprietor wasn’t saying no, and still hadn’t moved, I decided to continue.
“Sir. I know the diamond isn’t very big by today’s standards, but you have to understand that my great-grandfather worked in a mine in Pennsylvania half his adult life, coughing out great plumes of coal dust with every grunt of effort, which was considerable considering he got up at 3:00 a.m. to be able to catch the tram that took him deep into the bowels of the earth where at mid-day reached temperatures over 100 degrees and he lost nearly 10 pounds of body weight every day in sweat and…”
Aha. I was getting through. The large, fat man simply held up his palm to me, like a school crossing guard about to calmly stop a runaway bus.
“Stop,” he said. “Little blonde lady, do you know what the markup on diamonds is?” he asked.
“Well, well, yes, as a matter of fact I do. I am in the jewelry business,” I said, telling only a small white lie.
“Then you know that this little piss-ant of a ring ain’t worth no $5,000. Emotions and sentiment aren’t part of my game. Do you understand?” he asked, pushing the tiny bauble back under the bars at me.
“I’ll give ya $300 for it,” he said and then turned, knowing from his years of experience that I’d either walk out or I’d stay and try for one more round of negotiations. Either way, it was of absolutely no concern to him.
Of course, he was right. The markup on diamonds can be nearly 300%, and the depreciation is immediate. Once you walk out of the store, your wife’s wedding ring is worth about half of what you paid for it, but of course, that’s not why you buy them. You buy them for love, not as collateral for future loans.
Eventually, I did manage to gather up enough of my jewelry and even some family heirlooms to hock and was able to raise my share of our start-up capital—great-grandmother’s ring was part of the mix, but it wasn’t really my great-grandmother’s anyway. It was a present from an ex-boyfriend, a sort of bribe to calm me after one particularly insensitive remark he’d made years ago.
In June, Frances and I went to the JCK Show, which is a major show for jewelry buyers at the Sands Hotel Convention Center in Las Vegas. I was looking for new things to purchase for Got Rocks?, because we still weren’t formally dissolved, and also get¬ting ideas for ourselves.
At that point, we had created a pendant and hoop earrings with three interchangeable charms, not exactly a line but a start.
Right from the beginning, we agreed that everything we cre¬ated had to fulfill four criteria: It had to be high quality, it had to be affordable, it had to be fun, and it had to appeal to women from 16 to 60—a tall order.
We did not want to be defined by novelty, or by excess.
Frances and I wore some of the pieces while we were visiting the show and as we browsed the glass cases, some women came up to us and commented on how much they loved our charm earrings. They wanted to know where we got them. In fact, they were so excited they followed us all around the Center.
It turned out that those women were the owners of a very suc¬cessful store called Tassels and would later become our first client.
Later that month, Rachael and I went our separate ways. Frances, being the financial brains of our nascent company, decided she would take on the task of setting up the bank account, getting the necessary business license, and whatever else was needed to make us legitimate.
For a company name, we decided to use an acronym, a combi¬nation of our names: Jude Frances Jewelry or JFJ. Before Frances ever went off to find an attorney to help us form the business, we were already staying up late at night working on stationery designs, using various typestyles for the initials.
For those of you readers who are intimidated by the thought of starting a business, if you are planning on becoming a sole propri¬etor, or are going at it alone, it’s relatively simple: You obtain a DBA (Doing Business As), start a bank account under that name, and then get a business license from the city.
Our situation was quite different and not nearly so easy.
Our advisor told us to form an LLC, which is a Limited Liability Corporation. That way, our personal assets, such as they were, would not be subject to lawsuits or other liabilities, and there would be certain tax advantages.
With this knowledge, Frances entered the bank one morning, early, ready to fill out a few forms and make our initial deposit of $9,000. I should preface this part by saying that we, as women, were already quite familiar with the proverbial glass ceiling and the discrimination against women in all things business or money. Neither of us wants to harp on it here, because if you are a woman in the workplace, in business, or trying to spend money on any high ticket item that doesn’t resemble jewelry or clothes, then you know what I’m talking about.
Frances’ trip to the bank turned out to be just another of these kinds of challenges. The bank scrutinized her with questions, which wouldn’t have happened if she were a male “Why do you want to start a business?” is just one example. So that I can come and put bundles and bundles of money in your bank, she wanted to say. My God, it’s none of your business why we want to start a business. She wasn’t applying for a job with this man!
There were also problems because I was still not legally divorced. The fact that my divorce was not final created problems for reasons I’ll never know. I suppose it had something to do with liability. Even the fact that Frances was married caused problems— we couldn’t win either way—once again, probably because of liability issues.
The manager actually had the gall to ask her why her husband wasn’t involved—or was he? And she actually thought that had she said yes, the process would have gone much more smoothly. But, like a trooper, Frances bit her lip and dutifully dotted every i and crossed every t.
Several weeks later, we were blessed with a bank account and a nifty LLC certificate to show that we were the sole share-holders—fifty, fifty. Frances owned one share and I owned the other.
All told, the process was far from easy, and eventually required the help of a business attorney who went beyond the call of duty time and time again. But, like nearly everything we were about to do, we just put our heads down and charged in.
That was when Frances first shared her overriding philos-ophy—“Just go for it.” The biggest mistake that most people make is that they tend to overthink. She told me, it’s one thing to imple¬ment due diligence and some solid research, but it’s quite another to get so bogged down in minutia that you never get anything off the ground.
Our feelings were: Strike while the iron’s hot and then deal with the consequences later.
So many times, those who overthink the start of any new project find out, if they ever do begin, a great deal of what they studied and worried about never comes to pass.
So, our philosophy became, Wait till it happens, then we’ll react. Now, we’re not necessarily advocating that for anyone else, but it worked for us. By the time things started to happen, we had gained the experience to know that every impediment wasn’t a catastrophe and that opportunities sometimes came disguised as barriers or setbacks.
Repeat this pattern often enough and you actually develop some wisdom. And, after a time, if you’re tending to business and love what you do, things have a tendency to take care of themselves.
I must add one caveat here however: We learned from experi¬ence that reacting instead of planning isn’t always the most efficient way to operate, although that lesson came a little later on.
Before we hired our attorney and before Frances went to the bank that day, we had stayed up late at night designing a logo and stationery. When we had what we thought was perfect, a combina¬tion of the letters JFJ, we raced off to a Sir Speedy printer and had reams of lovely letterhead, envelopes, memo pads, invoices, and rubber stamps made. Armed with our new stationery, we thought we were ready to begin writing letters and billing clients on our very creative forms.
One slight problem, however.
When people saw our stationery, they said, “Oh no, you can’t use JFJ. That’s too close to JFA,” which stood for Jean Francois Albert, who just happened to be one of the most prominent designers in the country. To make matters worse, his operation was only five miles from us.
“You don’t want to be confused with Jean Francois, or have him sue you,” they said.
Our attorney concurred. We changed our name to JudeFrances Jewelry, LLC.
However, Frances and I agreed that since we’d gone to so much trouble in our graphic creative efforts, and because of the costs involved in reprinting it all, we would just keep using it until it ran out, which ultimately took almost two years.
We both had a hand in the jewelry designs, but Frances was and is more involved with the design and operations side of the business, and I took on the marketing and sales responsibilities.
Keep in mind, we were flying by the seat of our pants. We knew little about the jewelry business—designing yes, but manu¬facturing and sales, no.
Almost from the moment we’d sealed our deal, we both began to get serious about design and manufacturing and spent long hours in libraries and on the Internet researching our craft. We pored over books about antiquities, ancient art, and jewelry, and we looked at high-end magazines for ideas.
Since we wanted to appeal to a broad segment of the popula¬tion, we knew our designs had to remain accessible and elegant. That’s when it hit both of us. We admittedly both loved jewelry and enjoyed designing it, but we weren’t really artisans or artists in the traditional sense of those words, and that ultimately worked to our benefit.
Designing jewelry for us was more of an avocation, but busi¬ness was business. We had to distance ourselves from the desire to create art and focus on designing for our target audience of 16-year-olds to 60-somethings.
We took inspiration from the ancient and traditional designs we had studied, but distilled them down to basic geometric shapes. We focused on classically elegant designs that referred to historical styles, but with their emphasis on geometric shapes that had a con¬temporary edge.
For our first marketing effort—very grass roots—we gave some of the earrings to friends to wear to parties. I figured if the owners of Tassels had noticed them, having friends wearing them out in public might attract a similar response, and sure enough, it did.
Frances and I got an immediate response as women would clamor around our friends asking them where they’d gotten the jewelry. Our first big break occurred when the Tassels’ owners called and requested our line sheets.
There was only one problem. We didn’t have line sheets. A line sheet is a full color, slick catalog sheet containing pictures, descrip¬tions, pricing, and item numbers of your entire product line.
“Frances, Tassels called and asked to see our line sheets. Isn’t that fantastic?” I asked, squirming in my chair as I relayed the good news.
For a moment the line was silent.
“Frances, are you still there?”
“Yes. I’m still here.”
“What’s a matter? This is it! We’ve hit the big time, girlfriend,” I said.
She said, “Line sheets? Jude, we don’t have a line sheet. We don’t even have a line.”
All we had were a pendant and three earrings.
Suddenly all my enthusiasm was waning, like the air in a three-day-old party balloon. “Oh,” I said.
“Not to worry—just go for it!” Frances said.
She always had fresh, bright green apples sitting on her dining room table, lined up in the center, a tradition from her English family, she told me.
I brought my camera gear with me later that evening as she’d suggested, and when I arrived, she said, “I’ve got a brilliant idea. We can make our own line sheet. I was thinking last night how fan¬tastic our pieces would look using those green apples as a backdrop.”
“Huh?”
“Yes, yes. The bright green would compliment the gold color perfectly,” she urged.
“But Frances, all the great jewelry photography we’ve seen always focuses just on the jewelry. They’re always tight shots on pieces; nothing in the picture to detract from the jewelry.”
“I know. How boring? Think about it. Those green apples will jump right off the page. That’s what will catch people’s eyes. It’s different. That’ll help us stand out. Besides, it’s fun.”
That night, we arranged our pieces on a large swath of white satin draped over the edge of Frances’ dark wooden dining table and used her five green apples as a backdrop.
I ran around frantically the next couple of days having color copies made up. Then she called the Tassels’ ladies and admitted we didn’t really have a proper line sheet, but that we’d taken photos of our pieces. To our surprise, they nonchalantly said, “Fine. That’ll do just fine. Send them along.”
When the sheets were completed, we sent them off to Tassels, along with the other information they requested, and crossed our fingers. Within days, we got the call and our first order. We were ecstatic! To my utter surprise, the apples were as well received as our jewelry. From that point on, all of our advertising materials used those green apples in some fashion, and the black and lime green color scheme became our signature. Oddly, we had chosen those very colors for our stationery in the very beginning.
Looking back, we were incredibly naïve, not only about line sheets, but also about our line. We had only the few pieces, but we did have drawings for others: Pendant and hoops with three charms, a kite, a Guinevere cross and Maltese cross, all inter¬changeable on the hoops.
Frances’ idea to extend our line was to clone the kite, so to speak. That’s when she remembered one of her interior design clients. His name was Brian and he manufactured jewelry in L.A. In fact, they’d been friends for years. Therefore, he was the obvious first choice to manufacture our products.
Even though they were friends, when Frances showed him her drawings and told him what we wanted to do, he wasn’t exactly supportive. I remember the awkward meeting very clearly.
“Brian, this is what we want to do,” Frances began as she showed him the drawings.
He studied them silently for a few moments then launched into an argument for why it would be too expensive and too time-con-suming to manufacture our designs. Then he said, “Frances, dear. Why don’t you just stick with interior design? You’re so good at it. Why start going off into something you know nothing about? Let me tell you, this is a tough business and you could lose your blouse.”
She was adamant, though. We’d spent far too much time in research and design to abandon our ideas, just to make them easier to make. We were absolutely convinced they would sell, no matter how difficult they were to make, and we were willing to reduce our profits to maintain our concepts.
Frances’ first and only question was, “Can you make them the way we’ve designed them?”
His answer, “Yes, but…”
“Great, so you’ll work with us then?”
“Yes, but only as a favor. You’ve done plenty for me. It’ll just take me a little longer. I’m telling you, you’re making a big mistake.”
“Fine, we’ll be back,” Frances said. She looked at me as we walked through the door and said, “Don’t worry about Brian. He’ll do a great job and some day, he’s going to eat those words.”
For the next week, we spent nearly 15 hours a day designing our line at Frances’ dining room table and kitchen counter with felt pens and large drawing pads. Each time we had what we felt was a winner, even if rough, we taped it to the dining room wall so that we could see all of the designs together.
Seeing everything together was a big help because we could see how each piece related to another, how they complimented each other, and how they could constitute a signature look. We really wanted women to recognize each item as a JudeFrances piece, even if they only owned one pair of earrings.
“Can we make jewelry, too?” Frances’ 11-year-old daughter Charlotte asked, looking at all the sketches on the wall.
“Sure, honey. Why not? Here, you and Kendall can use these markers,” Frances replied.
The two girls started in. They seemed as intent as we were, quickly grabbing assorted colored pens for themselves, while tearing off sheets of drawing paper.
Charlotte is the younger of Frances’ two children and unlike her brother Rich, she’s not afraid to fall on her face, either as a young athlete or in anything else she takes on. She started drawing in a flurry, using all the colors on the table. Kendall was more deliberate, taking her time, drawing something that more resem¬bled a hamster than an earring.
There was something magic about that afternoon watching the two girls mimicking their mothers and applying their own cre¬ative flair to their renditions of earrings, bracelets, and things we’d not seen before. The girls’ playful mood enlightened our senses as well. When you come right down to it, the four of us were actually playing!
Being creative together was good for the soul.
The fact of the matter was, Frances and I got some good ideas from both of the girls and by the end of the week, we had hundreds of drawings taped up, not only in the dining room, but down the hall and out into the living room, as well. It was great fun. We just let loose.
Even after we’d decided which designs to use, we left all those drawings on the wall as evidence of our creative burst.
Later, when some of the new designs were complete, we showed them to the girls and told them that these were two of their designs, which in essence they were.
“Guess what we call them?” Frances asked. “The Kendall Crown and the Charlotte Charm.”
The wide-eyed smiles, the new swagger in their walks, the way they momentarily stood up straighter, said volumes about their sense of accomplishment. And to be honest, Frances and I felt the same way.
Those brainstorming sessions made us realize how much syn¬ergy the two of us had. I knew that when we ultimately made it, it would be the result of our differences, more than our similarities.
That thought first occurred to me while we were making those rough drawings. Frances would be sketching beautiful, but conser¬vative pieces intended to hang delicately from a thin chain around the neck, while I would be creating funky designs, something edgier—a piece I might wear around my neck with a length of leather cording rather than a chain.
Not to worry. Instead of fighting over the direction we were headed, or trying to convince the other that our own idea was more marketable or more fun, we reveled in our differences and in the range of our combined creativity. It was like having a whole staff of artists on hand.
Similarly, we knew early in our relationship the differences in our personalities were going to be a source of strength, not weakness.
Frankly, I don’t know if our partnership would have worked, had we already been good friends. I think that the synergy came, in part, from the fact that we were new to each other as collabora¬tors as well as friends, so a whole new world of discovery was taking place on both fronts.
Frances would often comment later about how important she thought it was to surround ourselves with people that had talents we didn’t. That concept was already in force with us. We could not have been more different in just about every aspect of our lives, and someday, we knew we would have a staff of dedicated, creative thinkers working with us—all with something different and unique to bring to the table.
For the foreseeable future, however, it was just us—and we had to do it all.
Shortly after our creative sessions in the kitchen and dining room, Frances decided we needed an office, something close to both of us, preferably with free rent. Since there were no magic lanterns lying around to make a wish on, she suggested we pull all the junk out of the storage room above her garage and convert it into our offices.
That weekend, we enlisted the help of the kids along with Frances’ husband Rich. (Frances didn’t want to throw anything of his away without an okay and of course, he didn’t let us toss any¬thing.)
It was like a long-unused attic; I had to wear a surgical mask as my nose wrinkled at the musty odors, and lots of dust and spi¬derwebs.
We cleared out old boxes of clothes that went to the Salvation Army; dusted off loads of baby toys that went to CHOC, the chil-dren’s hospital; and carried out at least two truckloads of odds and ends. Voila! We had the beginnings of an office, or at least a good¬sized, fairly empty space.
The following weekend, Frances and I scrubbed every other conceivable surface, pulled down cobwebs, chased bugs with brooms and tried to make the place habitable.
Soon after, the phones arrived, we bought a fax machine for $90 at Staples and the two of us proudly displayed our laptops on the makeshift desks—a card table and an old drafting table Frances had from her interior design days.
Somehow, with an office, we felt more official. At least we had a lot more wall space to tack up our drawings!
On Monday, we got back to work. The room was drafty and still a bit musty, but we reveled in our own space, even though both of us kept a can of Lysol nearby at all times.
Our first order of business in the new office/studio was to create a charm with two kites, then three, then four.
Then we repeated the process with the cross. In some cases, we turned one of them upside down and had it resting against another kite, side by side. Essentially, we would be using three small molds— a kite and two crosses— to make every piece of jewelry in our tiny line. The next morning, I had Frances take the designs back to Brian, and I also called the Tassels’ owners. According to the Brian, he needed at least three to four weeks to make our new charms.
That was in July of 2002, and I remember how terrified we were when all of the pieces were completed and we had to let go of them. Since we were out of money, we were brash enough to send it C.O.D., a real slap in the face to a quality store that had been in business for years.
It wasn’t enough for one of us to ship the single box; we both had to hold onto it and baby it all the way through the Fed Ex process. I made out the label while Frances clutched the box to her bosom. We spent an hour to make sure it was properly insured, that we had the right tracking number, and that we actually placed it into the hands of a real live clerk.
To put it mildly, we were paranoid, and yet excited, and that mood didn’t end once we handed off the package. Frances was on the phone promptly at 10:05 the next morning, calling the Tassels’ owners to make sure shipping had received our precious jewelry. The entire order amounted to less than $7,800, but to us it might as well have been $100,000.
From June through August, and actually beyond, we had friends wearing our jewelry to lunch, dinner, shopping, parties, and the theater, our only affordable form of marketing at that point, saying to them, “When people ask you where you got the stuff, all you have to do is to say the name of our company slowly and clearly.”
Of course, at that point, we didn’t even have a Web site to refer them to, or a place to buy our jewelry with the exception of a single Tassels store, which was in Atlanta.
The big names in jewelry use celebrities to showcase their wares. Just look at the actresses at the Academy Awards. But that wasn’t our niche. It was more important to us that the average woman could afford our work and could have fun wearing it.
Later that summer, we learned that our line was what the industry called a bridge line—sold in the designer sections of stores instead of in the fine jewelry departments. That also turned out to be fortunate. Pieces sold in the fine jewelry cases are quite expen¬sive. Women are less likely to ask further to see a ring or pendant that costs $10,000 than they are to walk a few feet and ask to see a piece, often as lovely, which only cost $300.
Our next big break, or at least what led up to it, came on July 12, 2002. It was my girlfriend’s birthday and I went to Los Angeles to attend.
While I was sitting at the outdoor dinner table, the woman sit¬ting to my right kept staring at the side of my face. Finally, she said, “Gosh, I just love your earrings. Where did you get them?”
I smiled, sat up much straighter, and said, “They’re mine, or ours. I mean, my partner and I are starting a jewelry business.”
“That’s fantastic. I want some. Where are they sold?” she replied.
“Uh, well, err... nowhere just yet, but they’ll be all over the place soon,” I said with my fingers crossed under the table.
As we started to eat, the woman related to me how one of her best friends worked for Manheim’s in Beverly Hills as a jewelry manager and how she felt her friend would agree that chain really needed something like this.
I smiled and thanked her for her interest, feeling a little like one of those first dates where you’re standing at the door and the man says, “I’ll call you,” or when your friends keep telling you they’re going to set you up with an incredibly great looking, smart, funny guy, but never do.
Only, it didn’t work like that. I stayed at a hotel downtown that night and the next morning my cell phone rang early. It was a Sunday and I didn’t recognize the number. Lo and behold, it was the woman from the party.
“Jude. I have great news,” she said. “I talked with my friend. Her name is Angela Robbins. She’s expecting your call.”
My God, I nearly fell off the bed! Within seconds, I was telling Frances the story over the phone, all uttered in the verbal equiva¬lent of italics and exclamation marks.
After ten minutes of fantasizing about how we were going to be millionaires, and how we would be on Oprah, and…Frances suddenly stopped talking. The phone was silent.
“Jude. We still don’t really have a full line.”

Chapter Four-Orange Bean Bag Chairs and Plum Colored Sofas

2007-06-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

My life was 180-degrees different than Jude’s. Even though we remain quite different, we are also similar.
I was, and still am, happily married. My brief courtship was not unlike the way I do many things; my future husband Rich and I met, dated for seven days, and then got married. It’s now been 20 years. Simple as that. Well, maybe not quite that simple. I met Rich in New York where I was living after arriving from England, where I grew up. In those days, I was a model. He was in New York from California on business. When he went back home, we had a whirl¬wind romance over the phone for the next year, never actually seeing each other in person. Then, when I got a chance to go to Africa in 1985 on a week-long photo shoot, I asked him along. A week after we returned, he asked me to marry him.
After we were married, we moved to California. I stopped modeling, but still wanted to work and I had few friends, so I took a job as an assistant earning $5 an hour at an interior design firm. In fact, as far back as I can remember, I have always worked. I even remember my first job, one that I created; it was making chairs at home at the age of 10. My father owned a company that made all kinds of Styrofoam products for just about everything that was an insulator, like ice chests or coffee cups.
I loved to sew and with a small amount of start up capital from my mother, while living in the English countryside, I decided to take advantage of that very stylish and fun phenomenon—beanbag chairs. I drew up the patterns and sewed them together, and my father brought home what seemed like an endless supply of Styrofoam pellets.
Using a large ladle from the kitchen, I happily filled the pat¬terns for the giant bags with foam and when they were nearly bursting, my mother held the last few inches of vinyl together while I stitched the seams closed by hand. The two hot colors of that era were chartreuse and orange.
We were forever finding these little pellets in every conceivable nook in the house. They stuck to everything because of the static electricity, even in our dog’s hair. Poor Bear was always shaking his furry head and scratching to get the foam out of his ears.
I remember selling quite a few of those lovely beanbag chairs for 10 pounds each, a tidy profit in those days. I felt quite creative, both as an artist and a young businesswoman.
After my $5 an hour stint as an assistant, I started my own interior design firm and continued with that for more than 15 years. It was an experience that was both challenging and quite ful¬filling. However, even after meeting and working with incredible people for those many years, I was beginning to tire of it especially after I met the client from hell, a woman I wouldn’t wish on a troll. I started a project for her, a project that was supposed to have taken less than nine months. It ended up lasting over two years. To make matters worse, much of the work wasn’t even design.
I now refer to those two agonizingly long years of my profes¬sional life as the “plum couch” era. Since this book is a very positive one, I won’t go into too many of the details. Suffice it to say, the experience was a nightmare for everyone involved.
I’ll call her Millicent because that sounds as constipated as she was. But even that doesn’t begin to describe her. It was the combi¬nation of her “conservative” nature and unforgivably horrendous taste that nearly sent me over the edge—literally.
Millicent had a penchant for the colors plum, orange, gold and red—not as accents, but all together. Every chair, sofa, wall, and room had to have all four colors in it. It appeared that a crazed golfer from the ‘60s had decorated her house.
She was extremely wealthy and her project was a substantial commission, but that’s not the reason I kowtowed to her “eccen¬tricities.” Her husband was my husband’s most important client, and I can’t stress how important that important client was.
Rich had just quit his job with Merrill Lynch, and was foraging out on his own. Millicent’s husband was his first and only client at the time—think Jerry McGuire with Tom Cruise.
When I took Millicent’s project on, I thought it would take about 10 months because it involved a fair amount of construction.
Once I began, though, and I realized her favorite color scheme was plum, orange and gold, and red particularly side-by-side, I knew it was going to be a struggle.
Fast forward: After two years, not 10 months, of fighting over whether her bedroom walls should be orange, to match the plum¬colored sofa in the living room; whether bright gold walls were appropriate for the kitchen, along with the dark red cabinets; whether we should use the Ikea catalog for the rest of the furni-ture—which she actually did for her $3 million beach house. Millicent’s job finally came to an end in 2000, when against all my better judgment and training, I finished the project the way she wanted it. The customer’s always right. In a sarcastic mood one day, I almost suggested we throw in some beanbag chairs.
Rich managed to hang on to her husband’s business, and I stopped thinking about getting a prescription for Valium.
Foremost, I’m not a quitter. Secondly, I will always work at something. And last, but certainly not least, I never wanted my friends or others to say that any success I enjoyed came because I had the good fortune to be married to a great man who happened to also be smart and had the ability to make our family comfortable.
The fact is, I never asked my husband and he never offered any help in starting our soon to be jewelry business, which I considered a compliment of the highest degree. And now he’s our greatest cheerleader.
Now, several years later, the question most women have on their mind is, “How did you get started?”
Before I answer that, I should tell you that Jude and I both believe that there is a reason for everything, if we can just keep our eyes and minds open to the possibilities. But we also believe that we make our own destinies. That may seem a bit of a contradic¬tion, but we don’t look at it that way. Yes, things happen, but what you do with those circumstances is what creates change—that’s where you have the control. One of those circumstances was my meeting Jude in the first place. If I hadn’t closed the interior design business, we never would have met.
I’ve also learned that new doors don’t open until old ones close. That’s why whenever we’ve had a setback, I instinctively think of it as a positive, not a negative. I know an opportunity is on the horizon—a door is about to open.
When I closed the door on the design business, I went back to an old interest—I had loved sketching jewelry designs since I was a small child. Early on in the interior design business, I began to create jewelry for myself, which in turn became a sort of hobby— designing for my friends who fell in love with what I’d made.
This was followed by designs for my business clients and so when Jude and I worked the yard sale together that Saturday, the conversation soon turned to our common interest, and our common interest soon led to a real friendship, not just passing waves and smiles at various PTA meetings and parent/teacher conferences.
As fate would have it, that spring my sister Fiona was coming from England to Carlsbad, a city about 60 miles to the south of me, to study precious stones at the Gemology Institute of America. She had always loved jewelry as well.
When I told Jude about her, Jude suggested the three of us have some fun that weekend and go into L.A. to show Fiona all the cre¬ative things that designers were doing on the West Coast.
I thought it would be a great way to spend the day and since I was thirsting for a new creative outlet and business, it was at least worth investigating. Jude and I had never discussed starting a business, as she knew from our conversations that I was as burned out as a cheap candle and I wasn’t coming back to life as an interior designer.
By the time we were crawling back down the 405 freeway that evening, Fiona’s passion had been stirred to new heights and Jude and I were babbling to each other like two schoolgirls. We went on and on about the incredibly inventive art forms we had seen, about their designs, and how they were actually made.
However, I have to be honest, in that it wasn’t just the jewelry that excited us. That was something we all enjoyed, but it was sev¬eral other things as well.
It brought Jude and me closer together in a common enthu¬siasm; we were becoming good friends. And I know that neither of us would have had the strength mentally, physically, or spiritually to launch a jewelry business on our own—but the thought of both of us working together to start such a business and bidding our current ventures adieu was nearly irresistible. So one night, not long after the L.A. excursion, we had dinner and I asked Jude if she wanted to start a line of our own jewelry. She was as enthusiastic as I was and we sealed our agreement with a champagne toast.
Another trait that Jude and I shared was our ability to just throw ourselves into the prospects of opportunity. Like my father used to tell me, “Frances, life is short and uncertain. Eat dessert first.”
So we did. We took a huge bite out of what looked like a double-layer German chocolate cake at the time, and it ultimately did become a feast. However, dessert did not come without quite a few unwanted extra pounds.
Our story isn’t so much about the details of the jewelry busi¬ness. It’s more about squeezing every ounce of life into our lives every day. It’s about just doing it; savoring the uncertainties rather than stewing over them; about chasing dreams even if you have to run through a field of sharp nettles barefoot; being productive; about giving a lot of your spoils back; about sharing, friendship; about getting along and negotiating and giving some things up with full dignity.
These are just some of the things we learned and they weren’t all about business. As it turns out, there were just as many family sacrifices as there were business challenges.

Chapter Three-Serenpidity

2007-06-20T20:43:00.001-07:00

In Newport Beach, California, from May until late November, nearly every day is balmy and filled with possibilities. The tinge of salt in the air carried on a gentle breeze seems ever present. Life is softened—and one can’t help but feel grateful, if for nothing else than the wonderful weather.
It was May of 2000. I had been divorced for four years but still felt a bit like the society wife I had once been. You know, raising children, trying to make a living, absorbed in one charitable cause after another—and let’s face it—to fill some void where once there had been a whole family.
Since I couldn’t afford to donate money to the charities, I gave my time, although I really didn’t have much of that, either. My offi¬cial occupation was freelance photographer.
Frankly, I wasn’t destitute, though I was in debt up to my faux gold belt buckle. My ex-husband was paying child support, but the divorce had worn me out emotionally and financially—yes, financially.
The scenario most people envision, particularly for a California society wife, is as follows: Wife and her attorney feast on soon-to-be-ex-husband’s bank accounts and other assets, pil¬laging like a band of marauding Huns.
Husband is left penniless with no cash and no country club memberships and is now driving around Newport in a faded 1978 Subaru using a pay as you go 7-Eleven cell phone, while ex-wife is getting a $100 pedicure in anticipation of a full day’s work visiting Saks Fifth Avenue.
The truth is my divorce cost me $100,000 in legal fees and an additional $15,000 in accounting costs. When the dust settled, I had no home, no money, my credit trashed, but I wanted desper¬ately to stay in Newport Beach because all three of my children were in wonderful schools and I wanted them to be close to their father.
Our divorce was neither amicable nor horrible—it just fell in the same category as most breakups—painful for everyone involved. And I never dreamed I would end up with so much debt. I think that scared me more than anything. I worried incessantly about how I would provide for my children and, of course, how they would be affected in the long term by the new single-parent way of life.
However, it wasn’t too long before, thanks to two beautiful women—and I mean that from the inside out—I was able to buy a very modest condo. One of these angels was my buying agent, the other was the seller’s agent—both returned their commissions, tem¬porarily at least, in the form of loans after escrow closed, so I could qualify and afford the purchase.
I am so relieved to be able to say that I eventually paid them both back, with interest.
Suddenly I had a monthly home payment, all the typical and seemingly endless responsibilities of raising three children, and now on top of owing the $115,000 from the divorce, I owed the two real estate agents. I admit, we could have rented an apartment, but in Southern California, that’s nearly the same cost as buying and, though I knew it would be a struggle, I had faith in myself. More importantly, however I wanted us to start to rebuild, not only our emotional, but our financial lives.
Yes, I lived in paradise, but there are two sides of the railroad tracks in every city. The four of us basically lived from child sup¬port check to support check. The only thing I had to fall back on was my photography skills. While still married, I had taken pho¬tography classes at night at a nearby junior college. As a hobby in those days, I took photographs of my friends and their families. Now that I needed the work, my hobby became a way to make a living, so overnight, I added “professional” photographer to my resume.
“Can’t we PhotoShop that?” Ron would always ask me. Ron was my assistant almost from the day I started shooting friends and family.
Now that I’m not doing it anymore, shooting friends and family sounds funny, because sometimes that’s just what I wanted to do.
My garage and part of my home constituted my studio, and Ron was referring to how we might avoid the agony of re-shooting a family portrait. Ron was good at retouching with the PhotoShop program. He could put an alligator’s head on a mom and make it look like it belonged there—and sometimes it did.
I would often stand incredulous as mothers would let their chil¬dren run through my condo with melting ice cream cones dripping all over the furniture and carpet, or chasing one another from room to room knocking over lamps, while their parents stood oblivious, chatting with me.
The problem with photographing an entire family—mom, dad and two or three kids—is that the mother often felt that one of the kids didn’t look right, wasn’t smiling, or closed his or her eyes. In the event that all the children looked wonderful, the mother would feel we didn’t capture the right side of her face, or she looked too tired, or whatever.
If you’re photographing just one person, and you shoot enough film, you’re bound to get one good shot. With four or five people, it’s nearly impossible. That’s why Ron always asked if he could just retouch it rather than pull the entire clan back into the studio— which the family felt at least as frustrated about as we did. In fact, they considered coming back a failure on my part, one they shouldn’t have to pay for.
Imagine that you, your husband, and your three kids have gotten all dressed up in your Sunday best, coifed everyone’s hair just so, shined your shoes, put on your makeup, piled into the SUV and driven ten miles to a woman’s small garage to have your por¬trait taken. On the opposite side of the garage, away from the set, hanging on the wall are rakes, brooms, a few assorted tools, an empty gas can that still smells a bit, and several U-Haul boxes.
After you’ve combed the kid’s hair, checked yourself in the mirror, and adjusted your husband’s tie for the umpteenth time, you’re ready to be plopped into position like mannequins.
“Good. Good. Now hold that,” I’d tell them. Everyone would be beaming, with the exception of that one child, the one who looked like he’d just sucked the fiber out of a lemon.
“Tickle, tickle, tickle,” I’d say and giggle as if I had to mouth the words in addition to torturing the child with my four-foot-long feather duster—anything to get a smile.
Looking back, I can see why so many of the children yelled and screamed—they were terrified. Think how it would feel if you were two years old, were made to sit on a velvet cushioned chair in a very unfamiliar room with a couple of strangers gawking at you and cajoling you to smile, and then some grinning, hyperactive woman thrusts a feather duster in your face? To the kids, it must have looked like the back end of a crazed rooster coming at them.
Ron and I tried every trick in the book to get the children to smile. My ingenious idea was to tape the feather duster to the end of a long pole and then surprise the toddler by pulling it out from behind the couch and jamming it in his or her face. Inevitably, however, the child would cry or start to scream.
By the time I came up with the duster idea, we’d already given up on the surprise factor. That’s when you set the aperture on the camera, point it at the child and just when he least expects it, your assistant jumps out from behind a curtain and says “boo.”
Candy or cookies worked sometimes, but the only nearly fail¬safe trick was to bring Cheyenne, our golden retriever, into the room unexpectedly. There’s something about a big, soft, loveable dog that just brings out the smiles in most everyone, particularly children.
Don’t get me wrong; there were some rewarding experiences, and I became a pretty darn good photographer, but after seven years of taking baby and family photos, I was burned out. It was time to move on and so I spent the final weeks of that year looking for a real job, not necessarily in photography.
Within two weeks, I got lucky and was hired for an entry level sales position by the high-end furniture company, Herman Miller.
That’s when I discovered I had a talent for sales. Working very hard, by the end of the first year, I was making a good living. My modest success was great for my morale and provided some sorely needed breathing room. My base salary was next to nothing; most of my income came from my own initiative in the form of commissions.
Seemingly overnight, I went from waiting for the postman to arrive every fourth Friday, to an occasional dinner out for the four of us, with a movie to boot.
Even though I was doing pretty well, I was amazed at how fast it all went away; a house payment here and a property tax bill there, the kids dentists and clothes, food—even at Costco, food bills add up for four people, especially when three of them eat like rescued Gilligans.
Then there were the payments to my lawyer and the real estate agents…well, you get the picture. And please, I’m not complaining. I thanked God every single night for everything we were fortunate enough to have—mostly each other.
I was blessed to have a great childhood guided by loving par¬ents who instilled many of life’s most valuable lessons in me. The one piece of advice my father gave me that always stuck with me was, “Whatever your lot in life—build on it.”
To me, that always meant that whether you were poor, or well off, it didn’t matter—you had a duty to yourself to be the best you could be. And as a mother of three beautiful children—Colt, Kendall, and Ruby I had to create the blueprints for their futures, too.
The tough part came when I had to make the decision to leave Herman Miller. I was making enough to support my family; but it was killing me, and it was starting to be hard on my children.
Every morning during the week, I had to be in downtown Los Angeles at 7:00 a.m., nearly a two-hour drive, so I was getting up before sunrise. At night, when I should have been home helping my children with their homework, I was often required to attend par¬ties and other functions to schmooze clients, as all good salespeople must do.
Eventually, it wasn’t even the work or the commute that did me in; it was the guilt. Yes, I had a woman helping me with the chil¬dren, but I was spending a fair amount of my income to pay someone to take care of my children so I could make enough money to pay her salary.
This was my rationale for quitting: If my job was costing me 12 hours a day away from my children, and I was paying someone nearly 20% of my income for the privilege, then what was the point? Why not work locally at a job where I would only have to earn half the amount, but would have a great deal more freedom to be with my family?
That’s when I discovered home jewelry parties.
I had always had an interest in jewelry design and had even done a lot of creative sketching as a sort of hobby, so this seemed a natural. Home jewelry parties are akin to those Tupperware par¬ties of the ‘60s and ‘70s where you would gather a group of women in your home, have refreshments, talk about your kids and hus¬bands, and then sell your wares.
As a result of these parties, I met a woman named Rachael, who had similar interests. Eventually, we started a rudimentary jewelry business. However, there was no designing involved. We purchased various items wholesale that we thought would be pop¬ular, or that we liked, and then we would resell them. In other words—we were retailers.
I jumped into it with both feet, without a business plan or even documentation for the partnership. It was strictly a hand-shake deal and off we ran. We opened a business, which could actually be better described as a box on a table, and rented space from a local store that carried all kinds of knickknacks. Essentially, it was one small glass counter displaying our line of jewelry.
The woman who leased the storefront used up nearly half the space herself. The rest of the area contained antiques, clothing, dishes, books, and the general type of things you’d find at a yard sale. But we were happy to call ourselves retailers and there was always good foot traffic out in front, mostly from people shopping in the other stores or eating lunch.
Our cash register was a tin box, which we stocked each morning with change—three tens, five fives, and 20 ones—a grand total of $75. We called the business Got Rocks?, which we thought was extremely clever. Thankfully, our rent was a portion of our monthly sales, not fixed. When we did well, we paid a little more; and when we didn’t do so well, we paid next to nothing.
OF COURSE, we had no health benefits, or a 401k, but I was having fun and the best part of that was that Rachael and I could share sales responsibilities. Since the store was fairly close to home, I could run back and forth during the day and see the kids when they weren’t in school.
We purchased our pieces from designers and manufacturers, but our buying criteria was always the same: it had to be unique, affordable, and most importantly, it had to be fun.
After a while, as our clientele grew and became more loyal. Some of our customers even asked me to design something myself, something special just for them. That’s when I got the idea of maybe, just maybe, one day starting my own line of jewelry.
That thought had been a distant dream when I was sketching ideas for bracelets, earrings and pendants years before; but now, the reality of it seemed more plausible, though I didn’t think I had the courage to take such a big leap alone.
It would mean I’d need a lot of start-up cash; would have to find manufacturers, then have to play the multiple roles of designer, sales and marketing person, plus operations officer; find stores to buy my line; and my God, I’d actually have to learn the business. And, there was always that risk of falling right back into the schedule I’d lived with while at Herman Miller.
For the time being, however, I satisfied myself with the daily routines at Got Rocks?, and designed the occasional special piece for a customer. Though we weren’t making much money, it did offer the freedom I needed, and I was whittling away at my debts, albeit slowly.
That’s when I met Frances.
It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, crisp blue skies, big bil¬lowy clouds, temperature just right, and I was in charge of putting on an enormous yard sale for a local charity. I had to gather up everything from used skis and bowling balls, to rusty dinner set¬tings and old dog eared copies of Danielle Steele novels—anything we could sell.
All of the women donated something and I drove around to each of their homes to pick up the items.
Another woman involved with the same charity was donating her yard because it was so large and her home sat on a street with a lot of traffic. Unfortunately, at the last minute, the woman became ill and I had to scramble to find another spot.
At that point, Frances and I knew each other only in passing because our children attended the same school. Mostly, our conver¬sations consisted of small talk about the kids; but after one PTA meeting, while we were discussing what we would be doing over the upcoming weekend, I told her about my charity yard sale and the fact that I was scrambling to find a yard. Without hesitation, she volunteered her home. I say home instead of yard because the entire affair became much more than a yard sale; it turned into an event, thanks to her pumpkin idea.
It was late October, shortly after the 9-11 tragedy, so we decided to combine our efforts and donate part of the money to my cause and part to the 9-11 relief effort.
I had placed ads in the local papers and stapled what seemed like hundreds of signs on telephone poles or on stakes jammed into the lawns of those who would let us.
The Friday evening prior to the sale, I must have made 20 trips hauling over all the donated items to put in Frances’ driveway. I started by placing the simple and inexpensive things just inside the gate, planning on moving those out to the curb in the morning to help lure people up into the driveway and subse¬quently into the yard.
The thing that made the event even more fun was the fact that Frances had come up with the idea to use pumpkins to decorate her entire front yard for Halloween. In fact, she’d ordered more than 150 of the bright orange squash.
I don’t know where you buy 150 pumpkins, who you would get to deliver them, or even what you would do with them, but Frances had a vision—one she fulfilled single-handedly. Because there was no one to help, she carried each of the pumpkins one by one into the yard and arranged them all by herself—certainly, a back-breaking experience.
At the end of the day, the sale was a huge success and we man¬aged to raise nearly $1,000 for the two charities.
But that’s not the end of the story—at least not the pumpkin story. After the sale and the trick or treating that weekend, it was obviously time to have the pumpkins picked up by someone. The problem was, none of the trash haulers that Frances called, were interested, citing potential health problems or problems with the local dump.
In Frances’ always-imaginative way, she decided she should raise even more money by selling the pumpkins as well.
“I’ve got an idea,” she told me one afternoon. “I’ll sell the pumpkins. Everyone will be making pumpkin pies for the holidays. It’ll be perfect. I’ll put out a large sign down on Capistrano Road that reads, ‘Beautiful pumpkins for sale. Perfect for pies. All pro¬ceeds go to the 9-11 victims families.’”
The only problem was getting all 150 pumpkins out of the yard and down to Capistrano Road, a busy street nearly half a mile away. However, with her Just go for it attitude, she simply started loading them into the trunk of her car, managing to stuff about 15 in at a time. Then, she drove them down to the corner, unloaded them into neat piles, and repeated the exercise for several hours until she’d successfully arranged all 150 of them along the side¬walk, a feat I’m sure was the subject of many curious looks by passing drivers.
For the rest of the afternoon, she sat with a sign, a beach chair, and a large umbrella ready to sell. By the end of the day, with her children’s help, she’d sold all of the pumpkins and managed to raise another $400 for the victims of 9-11.
The other upside to the entire episode was that she didn’t have to go to the gym for the next two weeks.

Chapter Two-Frances

2007-06-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

Jude and I have a saying: “Just go for it,” it sums up our approach to business and life. That’s why, in the Dulles airport that day when my zipper set off the security alarm and the guard asked me to remove my jacket, I did. But, it wasn’t without a fight. I tried to explain that the very soft, supple, and thin leather outer garment wasn’t really an “outer garment,” like a coat. It was more like a shirt or a blouse and underneath I had on nothing but a bra.
The guard’s facial expression suggested either disbelief or dis¬regard. His job was a simple one. Keep anyone with metal objects on their person from leaving his presence until presented with solid evidence that there were no weapons involved.
I can offer only one defense. This was in early 2002 and I hadn’t been traveling much since the 9-11 tragedy forever changed all of our lives. It’s sad that so many things have changed since that horrible day and how we get from point A to B was just one of them. Who knew a zipper would set off alarms? At least one person didn’t.
“Remove the jacket,” the guard said again in a firm monotone.
“Okay, sport.”
A roar went up and the entire scene dissolved quickly. The guard gasped. Cat calls and hoots came from the male passengers in line and I was promptly ordered to cover myself up.
Everything Jude just said is true with one exception. I wouldn’t characterize us as Abbott and Costello. We are more like Lucy and Ethel. Jude is Lucy-like because she is constantly dreaming up cre¬ative, and in some cases, wacky new sales and promotion ideas for our line of jewelry. But she always looks at the big picture. In that sense, she is the driving force.
I’m Ethelesque because I’m the details person. I love the minutia of daily operations and organizing things.
She loves serendipity.
I like planning.
We both firmly believe that it is our divergent personalities and talents that make us such a good team, and great friends.
There are, however, at least two places where we share common ground. First, we both have a insatiable creative itch. I was an interior designer for 15 years before I had the pure luck to meet Jude.
Prior to our meeting at a yard sale, Jude had been a freelance photographer for several years and had been designing and selling jewelry while simultaneously struggling to be a good and attentive mom.
The other commonality we share is our ability to throw cau¬tion to the wind—not in a dangerous fashion, but more like passionate explorers. We can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner. And though I’m a planner, more often than not, even I‘m not always prepared for what it might be.
In that vein, I’m a bit embarrassed to say that after three years of being in business together, we still don’t have a business plan and probably never will.
So many people have helped us along our journey. Take for instance the buyer at Manheim’s—not the actual name—an upscale retailer, which was the second store to buy our jewelry. She was very good at her job and quite successful, but a bit unorganized, or so we thought at first.
It was in the early going and we had just landed a big sales con¬tract with this store. We had practically no cash left after paying for the production of the first line. We also had subsequently no money left for paychecks, so we had to invoice quickly. In fact, we sent a bill with the first shipment, something unheard of in the retail jewelry business.
But hold on, not only did the store pay the invoice right away; the check was for more than the amount due. I was afraid to deposit it for fear that the almighty retailer would accuse us of theft. I called the buyer immediately.
“Doris, you’ve overpaid us,” I said.
“No, we haven’t.” Was her quick and decisive reply.
“Yes, you have,” I asserted.
“No, Frances, we haven’t.”
That was as far as I got with her. There followed several months of my calling Accounting, trying to convince them that we weren’t thieves and asking what we should do with the extra money. That was the beginning of a fascinating relationship with this woman who, though later terminated, turned out to be one of our guardian angels.
If I had to give you a simplistic formula for how we made it, I would say: Leap of faith (courage) + persistence + creative thinking + luck = success, or at least fulfillment, and that’s so much more important and long lasting than mere happiness.
It seems that every worthwhile endeavor begins with that all¬important initial leap. It may be over a dark cavernous, emotional valley, the depth of which is unknown, or just a large financial chasm.
Sometimes, that faith leads to astounding rewards. Other times, it just results in one hell of a ride. Either way, for me it’s better than standing in one spot looking backwards at the safety of what was.

Chapter One-Jude

2007-06-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

Scene: AIRPORT TERMINAL. SECURITY GATE.
POST 9-11.

“M ISS . You’re going to have to take those off.” “Are you kidding me?” “No, ma’am. I can’t let you through ’til you take ’em off.” “And just what am I supposed to do? Stand here in front of all
these people in my thong.” “No, ma’am. Not your pants. I’m talking about those pins.” “Are you kidding me?” “No ma’am. It’s the law.” The security guard’s voice had taken
on an ominous tone and his officious demeanor was beginning to grate my nerves. “Hey, lady, just do what he says, for crying out loud. We’ve waited long enough.” I wheeled around. A line of about two hundred angry people had formed up behind me, and most of them were doing that irritating
foot-tapping thing. They were becoming increasingly impatient, and beginning to murmur. But who could blame them, all of that waiting and standing around? My head began to hurt.
Frances and I were flying to Washington D.C.’s Dulles airport. We were late as usual, but this time it wasn’t our fault. We had given ourselves an extra hour this time, but just as we were leaving Frances’ house, her enormous, but very loveable Great Dane, Sophie, had dragged a box of tomatoes off the kitchen counter and eaten every last one of them. They had been a gift from a neighbor’s garden and there were three dozen of them neatly packed into the box. Of course, Frances was worried that Sophie would become sick at worst, or leave a horrendous mess on the carpet at best, so she insisted on waiting a half hour to see what might happen.
After 30-minutes of Frances and Sophie staring at each other intently, I insisted that she’d be okay and the kids would be able to check on her when they returned from school. “They’d report to us,” I’d said.
Even with that delay, we still would have made it on time, if it hadn’t been for the woman at the ticket counter who couldn’t understand Frances’ English accent. She kept telling us there were no flights to Dallas that day and Frances kept saying, “Not Dallas, Dulles.”
After several of these exchanges, their conversation began to sound like an Abbott and Costello skit and, frankly, I often thought of the two of us in just that fashion, only in our case, it was more like Costello and Costello, two frazzled women racing to yet another cross continent flight without a straight man, wearing the wrong clothes, fumbling to find our driver’s licenses, even arriving on the wrong day for one flight. It was all becoming far too familiar. In our defense, however, we were doing the work of six people.
Had we not been held up by the airline employee, I might have thought to undo the 35 safety pins running along the outer seams of my designer jeans—all the rage at the time—before getting to the X-ray machine, but probably not.
They didn’t hold my pants together as you might be guessing; they were just decorative and I thought they were cute. The other 200 people in line did not see the humor and didn’t care much for my fashion sense either.
“Now what in the world am I going to do—hold a flight atten¬dant hostage at the point of a pin?” I asked the security guard.
Standing rigid in his starched white shirt, shiny silver badge at eye level, his arms firmly crossed on his chest, he said with an edge in his voice, “Ma’am...”
I quickly started to unfasten the pins, one by one. It took me nearly 15-minutes, all the while listening to the groans and sighs all the way back as far as anyone who could see me and knew what was happening. I could almost feel the heat of their anger on my neck.
Inevitably, many of those closest to me in line were also sitting closest to Frances and me on the plane and so there was no lack of furrowed eyebrows, visual daggers, or prolonged dramatic stage sighs for the next four and a half hours.
We had started our jewelry design business the year before with a ridiculously small investment of $9,000 and it was already beginning to take off. In less than 12-months we’d gone from sales of nothing to nearly a million dollars. It was frantic—we were frantic, and we loved every minute of it.
Now we are celebrating our fourth year together and sales have climbed to an astronomical $8,000,000 that’s right—10 mil¬lion. And it all started at a simple yard sale in Newport Beach, California. Not bad for a couple of suburban moms.
Frances and I together have five kids, which is an integral part of this story. I was divorced by the time we formed our company and was raising three children alone: two girls and a boy. Frances is married, and continues to raise two children, and sometimes my three as well.
Between the scheduling of soccer matches, missed school plays, parent-teacher conferences, a monumental helping of guilt, scratching to pay the bills, flying hither, thither and yon for what seemed an interminable number of business meetings, the relentless ringing of cell phones, and missing flights—somehow we became successful in a business we knew little about.
What we had was a dream, a love for design, unbelievably per¬sistent natures, a deep respect for each other, and a great deal of love and support from our families. We didn’t have business degrees. In fact, neither of us went to college, but I learned we could accomplish anything we put our minds to. We did it, against supposedly impossible odds. Sometimes, we wake up scratching our heads at the improbable launching of JudeFrances.

The Incredible Success Story of Zasha

2007-06-18T13:39:00.001-07:00

Take two women, $9000 in seed money, relentless drive and motivation, and you have a spectacular success story. Learn how Jude Steele and Frances Gadbois started their business from a top of a garage to a multi-million dollar business it is today.

With its couture line, Jude Frances, and its newly launched bridge line, Zasha, JFJ today is a hugely successful business. Its products are carried by prestigious stores nationwide such as Neiman Marcus as well as high-end boutiques nationwide. Its bridge line, Zasha.com, is available only via the web. Zasha products will soon be featured on ShopNBC.com and Neiman Marcus.com. To see the entire collection, check out Zasha web site.

The story of Jude Steele and Frances Gadbois will make you laugh and it will make you cry. You'll read about the challenges the two women faced, both as entrepreneurs and as full-time mothers--and how they were able to succeed in both. An inspirational book, aptly named "Just Go for It", is a must-read for anyone who is looking to start a business or thinking about starting a new business.

Just go for it. Indeed.

Down load a free copy of the book here.

Famous Actress Kristen Bell who Plays "Veronica Mars" wears Zasha Jewelry!

2007-04-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

Famous and absolutely gorgeous Kristen Bell plays Veronica Mars on the hit show "Veronica Mars" on the "CW" television network and wears Zasha Signature Jewelry!

Kristen Bell wears the Zasha Large Marquis Stone Diamond Pave Cross Pendant which is designed in 14kt. white gold, fine diamonds and white topaz. It looks beautiful on Kristen Bell.

Kristen Bell has impeccable style and can be seen gracing the pages of the weekly fashion magazines looking adorably glamorous, stylish and beautifully accessorized.

A native of Detroit, Kristen Bell attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. While in New York City, Kristen Bell was cast in the role of Susanna Walcott in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible", starring Liam Neeson and Laura Linney. Bell's other stage credits include playing Becky in a Broadway production of "Tom Sawyer". She also appeared in "Hair" and in the title role in the musical comedy "Sneaux", by the creative team that produced the award-winning off-Broadway hit "Reefer Madness", in which she also starred. Kristen Bell was the lead in the telefilm "Gracie's Choice", opposite Anne Heche and Diane Ladd, and had a leading role in "The King and Queen of Moonlight Bay", opposite Tim Matheson. Kristen Bell starred opposite Val Kilmer in David Mamet's film "Spartan". Kristen Bell guest starred in two episodes as the young con artist Flora on HBO's hit "Deadwood", the series from the creator of "NYPD Blue", David Milch. She has guest starred on such shows as "American Dreams", "Everwood" and "The Shield". Kristen Bell starred in "Reefer Madness", which also stars Alan Cumming, Neve Campbell and Ana Gasteyer. Bell is appeared in "A Little Night Music" at the Los Angeles Opera, directed by Scott Ellis and choreographed by Susan Stroman. Kristen Bell also starred in the hit movies "50 Pills" and "Deepwater."

You can be sure that with her grace, style, charm and adorable good looks, that we will be seeing a lot more of Kristen Bell this year!

Gift Ideas for Mother's Day- Zasha Jewelry! It's the Perfect Mother's Day Gift Idea!

2007-03-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

Are you wondering what to get your mother or wife this Mother's Day? Do you need gift ideas for Mother's Day? Well, look no further. Zasha Signature Jewelry makes it easy for you with hundreds of Mother's Day gift ideas. This Mother's day, give her the gift of Zasha Signature Jewelry. Every woman is guaranteed to love jewelry from Zasha. It's a thoughtful gift that she will enjoy for a lifetime- even beyond just this Mother's Day. It's the Mother's Day gift that keeps on giving. Plus, the best part is that the Mother's Day gift arrives conveniently and beautifully wrapped.

Visit Zasha Signature Jewelry at and show her how much you love her with the Mother's Day gift idea of jewelry and beautiful hoop earrings and heart charms in 18kt. gold, diamond pave and pink tourmaline or a beautiful Signature Circle Diamond Pave Lariat pearl and diamond necklace- Moms love this stuff! Moms love Zasha jewelry!

When is Mother's day? May 13, 2007.

Zasha Jewelry Worn by The Real Housewives of Orange County

2007-03-05T16:43:00.001-08:00

Televison star Jeana Keough from the hit television show "The Real Housewives of Orange County," seen on BRAVO television, is a big fan of Zasha Signature Jewelry.

Jeana Keough from "The Real Housewives of Orange County" says, "I love my Zasha large cross necklace. Everywhere I go, people stop me. It is just so unique! It is a gorgeous collectible I will never tire of."

Diamond Cross Pendant

This successful real estate mogul on "The Real Housewives of Orange County" loves jewelry- the more diamonds, the better! She loves indulging and treating herself to stylish jewelry as you can see on the show, "The Real Housewives of Orange County." Jeana Keough wears the Zasha Large Marquis Stone Diamond Pave Cross Pendant. It is a stunningly beautiful piece designed in 18kt. gold, fine diamonds and white topaz. Although it comes in both yellow and white gold, Jeana Keough of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" prefers white gold.

Every time this star of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" wears her gorgeous Zasha necklace, she gets tons of compliments on it. It is a large stylish piece that is as fun, bold and charismatic as Jeana Keough's personality on "The Real Housewives of Orange County."

Press Release

2007-02-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

ZASHA SIGNATURE JEWELRY

Zasha jewelry is as flexible as today’s woman needs to be. With interchangeable hoops and charms, her hoops can be used to create limitless looks by adding, combining and stacking charms, and will continue to add style and value to her wardrobe. The hoops can be worn alone or with any of the interchangeable charms – add a simple charm for day or office, and a dramatic charm for a night on the town!
Zasha pieces are comprised of 14K white and yellow gold with diamonds and semi-precious stones. Zasha Signature Jewelry includes completely interchangeable complimentary pieces: hoops and charms, necklaces, rings and bracelets.
The line is reflective of it founders who are well established in jewelry design, sourcing, manufacturing, and operations, distribution, retail and internet operations. The team includes Isaac Savion, formerly of Charriol Jewelry and Watches, Frances Gadbois and Jude Steele of JudeFrances Jewelry, and Deanna Steele.
Savion, C.E.O., is a 15-year jewelry industry veteran who drove the manufacturing and sourcing for Charriol. Frances, with her dedication to design and quality, Jude, a PR and marketing whiz, and Isaac were ready to take the style and function of a new designer brand to the Internet. Deanna’s 15 years of retail and Internet operations experience – and her love for fine jewelry – was the final ingredient the team needed. Their combined backgrounds accelerated the quick brand launch.
And…the Steele last name is not coincidence; Jude and Deanna have unique partnership of their own. Respectively, as a mom and stepmom, the flexibility of their jewelry line reflects what they do on a daily basis, balancing work, kids, and alternating schedules.

To check out the latest Zasha styles and – of course, shop for great jewelry, visit Zasha

Who is the Zasha woman?

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The Zasha woman is...

Confident, stylish, sexy, smart, sassy and timeless. She's warm, engaging, and feminine ~ she has strength and composure, and thrives with challenge. She values relationships, friendship and family. She knows that every experience adds to her character. She's multifaceted: sophisticated, adventurous, beautiful – inside and out – and fun. Zasha woman is your sister, daughter, mother, best friend...Zasha is you!
The Zasha woman recognizes that women today need to be in style and fashionable. She wears jewelry that is flexible and fun, yet still classic and timeless. The Zasha woman is everywhere: at work, at home, outdoors, and on the move. She puts her look together with her own, inimitable style. We celebrate all that the Zasha woman is, and offer her the perfect pieces to complement each and every experience.
Why choose? Zasha women change work to play, and day to night. Zasha signature jewelry is completely interchangeable with complimentary pieces: hoops and charms, bangles, rings and necklaces. The collectible pieces allow the Zasha woman to match her wardrobe with different color charms, and keeping up with the latest styles.

ABOUT US

Until now, there has been a gap between “designer” and “fashion,” between “high end” and “affordable.” For this reason, we have created the ZASHA brand, which offers everything: designer style, fun to wear, always IN, and always affordable. Zasha signature jewelry is made in white and yellow gold, with diamonds and gemstones.
At Zasha Signature Jewelry, we are passionate about creating beautiful pieces that enhance every woman’s natural beauty. We take pride in the craftsmanship and quality of each piece, and work closely with our vendors to ensure that our clients receive the best value possible. We welcome our Zasha clients input on our product, service and design.