Living and working with the same person might start to sow the
seeds of discord with some couples, but for a few brave souls, it’s
both a pleasurable and pragmatic option. After all, who would make
a more a more loyal and devoted employee of a small business than a
spouse?
Living and working with the same person might start to sow the seeds of discord with some couples, but for a few brave souls, it’s both a pleasurable and pragmatic option. After all, who would make a more a more loyal and devoted employee of a small business than a spouse?
When Claude Turpin was preparing to retire from the linen service corporation where he had worked for 45 years, he realized he wasn’t ready to call it quits as an active member of the workforce after all. Sure, he was tired of the politics that had come to rule his once-small organization, but he wasn’t looking forward to having more time on his hands than he would know what to do with.
Luckily, he had a friend and confidante who was just as interested in finding a new occupation for their time together – his wife, Joann.
“My philosophy is that if I just keep active – keep my brain active, keep my body active – I’ll feel better,” says Claude.
Instead of booking tee times, he and Joann bought Heritage Dry Cleaners on Airline Drive in Hollister.
“I wasn’t looking to get into a business that was saturated with dry cleaners,” says Claude. “I wanted something where we could grow with the community. I checked into the potential in Hollister, and it seemed like there was plenty of room for us.”
“I felt that we had potential to do well in this business because of Claude’s history,” said Joann.
The Turpins moved to Hollister from Santa Cruz, their home for 30 years. Joann left behind the beginnings of a real estate career.
“I was just getting to the point where people called me instead of me calling them,” she says.
In 1990, they purchased the cleaners and they’ve been working together ever since. In December, they will celebrate their 47th wedding anniversary. Claude is 70. Joann is 64.
“We’ll be hobbling around here pretty soon,” jokes Joann, but she adds, “Neither one of us is ready to retire, but we’re basically retirement age.”
One couple that subscribes to the idea that two heads are better than one in a business is the Saccos, Francis and Jeannine. They’ve run a medical practice together for 25 years in Gilroy, having met in Worchester, Mass. while attending college.
She was a registered nurse and a nurse educator. He was an ob/gyn specialist. Today, they share a practice where Jeannine acts as a nurse midwife and Dr. Sacco sees patients from a more clinical standpoint. Like the Turpins, they see a practical side in working together.
“We think our patients get the best of both worlds,” says Jeannine. “I’ve learned to be more accepting of instrumentation when it’s needed, and I think he’s become more comfortable with working outside the confines of more rigid care.”
In fact, they believe their sometimes differing opinions in the office are often the source of their strength as a team. “If you can always stay focused for the patient,” says Francis, “I think things work themselves out, whether that means consulting, discussing or, yes, even arguing.”
Says Jeannine: “He does not hesitate to ask what I would do (in a given situation).”
Together the couple has raised four children – three of whom have gone on to careers in medicine. The Sacco brood includes a hand specialist, a pediatric
neurosurgeon and a nurse practitioner. Their other child is a guitar-maker in Santa Cruz.
“They have no other role models,” says Joann. “They’ve always known that we had to go to the hospital. We have no family around here at all, so there were no other examples.”
Time well spent
Cinda Meister and Brad Jones of Morgan Hill say they don’t really need time apart as a couple, and perhaps this deep friendship is what has propelled them to such success in the small business realm. The pair have kept the independent bookstore, BookSmart, alive for the past 10 years in a tough market where the two previous owners at the same location had failed.
The married couple met while working together at a restaurant in Colorado Springs and moved to Morgan Hill following another restaurant gig in Arizona. Once here they helped to start Mushrooms Grill and Bar, but when their financial backing dissipated, they found themselves working part-time jobs downtown while hoping to open a restaurant of their own.
Jones was leaving work one day at The Frame Shop to meet Cinda at the catering company where she worked.
“When I came out I saw the lady who owned the bookstore (at the current BookSmart location) hanging a sign, and I could tell by her body language that it was closing,” said Brad. “It was like she was pounding a cross into the ground.
“I ran and grabbed Cinda. I put her face in the window and said, ‘What do you think?'”
Cinda loved books, but beyond that they didn’t have any experience running a book store. When the couple talked with the landlord, he wasn’t exactly enamored of the concept. But with the aid of a mutual friend, they managed to convince him to let them sign the lease.
“We started basically with a credit card and borrowed a little money from friends,” says Brad. “The woman before had left the shelves. They were part of a note from the previous owner, and we managed to work out the same deal.
“We started out with $8,000 worth of books and the shelves went back to about the second pillar, just the beginning of the store.”
Today the couple’s bookstore has a quarter million dollar’s worth of merchandise and stocks some 67,500 books.
Success breeds success
Cinda and Brad built on the success of BookSmart and started Thinker Toys, an upscale children’s store. They also own The Love Bug, a card and gift shop, and, as of last Thursday, leased a fourth business, Caffe Kaffe Vin. The couple has discovered how to use each other’s strength to their advantage.
“We’ve both learned how we can work best, how each of us likes to work and likes to manage things,” says Cinda. “We’ve also learned when there’s a situation where we should step in and take over for each other.”
Cinda’s better with cantankerous customers who have gripes or complaints, taking over in situations where Brad would likely react poorly. And Brad is better when Cinda is being too patient with people who are acting inappropriately in the store.
Meister and Jones try to stay ahead of large businesses by offering as much service to their customers as possible – having that little extra bit of knowledge.
“I try to read as much of the material as I can so that I can be aware of the content,” says Cinda.
That’s especially important when helping parents to select children’s books or helping to steer a child away from a book that parents might find inappropriate.
“I’m not trying to tell you that there aren’t power struggles,” said Brad. “We know a lot about each other, just maybe not everything about each other.”
The Turpins, too, have learned how best to divvy up responsibilities.
“We’ve done it on a personal basis, so we kind of know when to back off of each other,” says Joann. “When we’re both here, I let him take the management lead, and I just kind of become a worker bee. When he’s gone, I take over.”
Claude says their success stems from the fact that they’re both task-oriented. They don’t put off a project or hesitate when it’s time to get things done.
The workload and tasks that normally fall on the shoulders of a single owner can instead be accomplished by the couple.
“I do the payroll,” says Claude. “She does the bookkeeping.”
All in the family
When parents work together in a small business, they’re the ultimate authorities on how much time is spent with the kids – not a boss or a timecard. That can be a tough act to manage.
“If you’re trying to juggle a business and children … I don’t know if we could have worked it out,” admits Claude Turpin.
The Saccos, who unlike the Turpins did run their own business together while the children were still in the house, managed kid time by being disciplined about it.
“Our goal was always to be home for dinner – one of us at least,” says Jeannine Sacco. “Dinnertime was extremely organized. The kids came in and sat down. We’d talk about their day, go over homework problems. It wasn’t until our daughter was in high school that I went back for my surgical assist (certification).”
For the Turpins, it was when their three children were grown that they first contemplated a big change in their lives – moving to a brand new town and launching a business. Yet, even though they’re in a different location, by managing their own operation, they have the flexibility to spend as much time as they like with family.
“You know how some people have dreams that when they retire they’ll go golfing or they’ll travel around the world? I don’t know that we’d know what to do with ourselves,” says Joanne Turpin.
“We spend a lot of time with our grandkids, and they come in and work in the store sometimes.”
For better or for worse
If there’s any disadvantage to a couple working together, it lies in putting all of the eggs in one basket, admit Cinda and Brad.
“If times are tight in the stores, it means they’re tight at home,” says Cinda.
Adds Brad: “Not only does it mean you might have trouble paying the rent, you might have trouble paying the mortgage.”
Still, the benefits of working together far outweigh any drawbacks, say all three couples.
“You see we have a very large office,” Francis Sacco points out. “I couldn’t do this if I was all on my own. Big businesses talk about economies of scale. This is our economy of scale.
“This isn’t for everybody. There’s a certain number of people for whom work is an escape from home. They look at work as recreation … go and talk around the water cooler about family problems.”
That’s clearly not the life the Turpins, the Saccos or Meister and Jones want.
