Chapter 11 Introduction to Genetics Section Review 11-4

If anyone could pull it off, she could. That's what friends and colleagues said when Roxanne Coady left New York in 1989 to open a bookstore in a small town.

Of grade, they believed in her. She had been one of the height tax accountants in the state. She was whip- smart, driven, and tireless — "on 82 dissimilar boards," every bit she likes to say, which is merely a slight exaggeration. She fifty-fifty grew up in business: As a girl, she kept the books for her father'southward bakeries. "If you were to pick a dream person to start her own bookstore, it would exist Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Faith Middleton. "She's and so smart about business organization."

Coady nearly proved everybody wrong.

For the starting time several years, R.J. Julia Independent Booksellers, located on the main drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew by leaps and bounds. The im-pressive growth, however, obscured a dotcomlike inability to turn a profit. Coady says that she ignored budgets and "blew probably $250,000" of the money that she and her husband, a former existent-estate developer, had saved up. It was twice what she should take invested, only she couldn't resist going all out on free wine and nutrient at book signings, stylish actress-strength bags, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving problems, I threw more money at them," she says. "I didn't run the store like a business organization."

As an accountant, Coady had always used her head. But every bit a bookseller and book lover, she let her center take over. She built the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business concern. "Now," she says, "I'm combining head and heart."

13 years after dramatically changing careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off after all. In the same time that nearly half of the independent bookstores in the country take closed, R.J. Julia has achieved more than $iii million in annual sales and a modest profit. And Coady, its e'er-fashionable, opinionated, and animated owner, has made the transition from successful auditor to successful bookseller.

A Bookseller Waiting to Happen

Coady's passion for reading and her talent for accounting were inspired by her parents, who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States in 1948, settling in New York'due south Lower Due east Side. Although her mother had all the same to understand English language, she read to her children anyway, pronouncing the words phonetically. In one case Coady learned to read, she wanted to tackle every children's book in the library in alphabetical order. When she was in middle school, her father, a bakery, purchased the first of 10 bakeries, called Em'due south, and brought her to a coming together with his auditor.

"Who'south going to do the accounting?" the accountant asked.

"She is," her father replied.

He wasn't joking. The accountant agreed to teach her, and Coady, the oldest of six, juggled schoolhouse, family infant-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for college. "Now my father feels I work besides difficult," she says, laughing. "He says, 'Yous can't ride 2 horses with one donkey.' I tell him, 'Daddy, this is what you raised me to exercise.' "

By the 1980s, Coady had become a partner and national tax manager at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international bookkeeping business firm. She was the commencement woman selected for the job. "People tell me now, 'Information technology must have been boring working with taxes,' " Coady says. "But I loved information technology." She had a 12th-flooring corner office overlooking Fundamental Park and was making about $250,000 a yr. In 1988, she was featured on the cover of Coin magazine, which dubbed her "the accountant'southward accountant."

Heady stuff, to exist sure. But it wasn't enough to go along her there. "As much as I enjoyed the work, information technology wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, just it wasn't enriching to my heart." At least not in the mode that books had always been.

Even as she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an insatiable reader. She would e'er carry a novel with her, stealing a few moments in a taxi, on the train, anywhere. She was forever recommending favorite titles to friends. "I ran a little library out of my house," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the best volume you gave me.' "

They were telling her something. It was fourth dimension to brand a change.

Creating a Modern-Twenty-four hour period Town Light-green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady's grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration military camp in World War II, is much more than than a store where you buy the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. Information technology's a local institution that has get interwoven with people's lives as few businesses are. "It's the heart of the community," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, director, and producer who lives in neighboring Guilford and attends a monthly book-club meetings at R.J. Julia. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable." Area residents feel a responsibleness to support the independent bookstore — their bookstore — fifty-fifty if it means paying a little more at times.

From the beginning, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to be a modern-solar day town green. "I felt people were becoming asunder from each other," she says. "Nosotros had lost a public place for chat virtually things that mattered." The store hosts more than 200 events a year, from book signings to book-club meetings to children's-story 60 minutes on Wednesday mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has fabricated Madison, an flush coastal town with 2,200 residents, a regular volume-bout finish between New York and Boston. The walls are lined with dozens of autographed photos of past visitors: Jimmy Carter, Garrison Keillor, and Anne Rice.

At Coady's suggestion, Lee Jacobus started a classical literature volume club at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the Academy of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were still teaching in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes forty minutes a day, iii days a calendar week. "It'south an enormous time investment and, yes, I practise it for costless," says Jacobus. "But this is an institution that should be supported. Information technology'south important to the intellectual life of the town."

For R.J. Julia to distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace, Coady believes it has to offer unparalleled service and expertise. Like their boss, the staff is well read, which prepares them for "hand-selling" — that is, recommending books that they or their colleagues take read. "That'south the value that we add to the volume-buying experience," Coady says. "We put the correct book in the right hands." The shop'southward top-selling section is staff recommendations, where each book is accompanied by a "shelf talker," a capsule review from a bookseller, or in the case of the new Harry Potter, by a bookseller'southward kid ("I'one thousand 11, and I finished in exactly five days, down to the hour! In one case you start reading information technology, y'all won't stop!" raves Hana, the director'south stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is ane of about 35 booksellers on staff. Like Coady, she's sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking nearly books all 24-hour interval. She tin't imagine working at a chain, even the i that'southward coming to Waterford, about 15 miles from where she lives. "In that location are too many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I can requite a discount to a client whenever I want to." Information technology's true. Coady lets the staff practice whatsoever it takes to make a customer happy. At that place may not exist many official rules, simply the staff definitely knows the kind of store that she wants R.J. Julia to exist. When information technology comes to sharing likes and dislikes, Coady'south an open book. Equally she reminds the staff, she prefers the offer, "Let me know if I tin be of aid," or "Are yous finding what you lot need?" "Tin can I aid you?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, information technology was love with R.J. Julia at commencement browse. The dark wooden bookshelves, brass fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood floor requite the place the ambient of a neighborhood bookstore in Europe or New York. Ferringer, the caput of the political-science department at the Academy of New Haven, can spend entire afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And nonetheless, it'southward hard to say who benefits more: Ferringer or the bookstore. "I know them by name," she says of the staff. "There's Nancy, Karen, Lisa, Suzanne, Meredith, Beth, Babette, Roxanne."

"It's the heart of the customs," says an R.J. Julia customer. "The bookstore and the boondocks are inseparable."

Perhaps the best measure out of R.J. Julia's relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a customer from the beginning. During a recent visit, she picked up a special order, The Sparse Woman, a lighthearted British who-done-it, written by Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What's remarkable about her purchase is that Harrington never requested the book. In fact, she had never even heard of it. "Suzanne ordered it for me without my knowing," she says.

"I knew she'd dearest it," says Coopersmith.

She was right.

The Roxanne Upshot

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many pocket-sized towns, was in decline. Suburban large-box retailers were becoming the rage. "Afterwards I opened, the theater, the hardware store, the 5-and-dime, and the restaurant all closed," she says. "I thought, 'What did I just practise?' " Now, Madison is a different story. Although the business organisation district consists of just one long block on Boston Mail service Road, at that place's an art house and an elegant Italian restaurant beyond from R.J. Julia. There are a diversity of shops and boutiques. There'southward even a Starbucks.

As an entrepreneur, Coady has come a long fashion herself. She'south running R.J. Julia like a business concern, with budgets, a training manual, and more than-structured evaluations. By coincidence, her son Edward and the shop were born in the same year. Since turning 13 this year, says Coady, both accept had their bar mitzvahs: Edward became a man, R.J. Julia a mature business.

In reality, though, adding corporate discipline to the bookstore remains a challenge, specially without the financial incentives she had at her disposal at a major bookkeeping business firm. Instead, Coady offers a coincidental, fun environs in which booksellers can be their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative word in contained bookseller is independent. When Coady tried to become the staff to wear matching R.J. Julia shirts, they declined. So she bought R.J. Julia buttons, which no ane wore for long. A newly arrived box of green R.J. Julia lanyards in the role could be adjacent. "This is where the democracy thing shoots me in the foot," she says.

Coady's natural effusiveness and love of writing — she reads nearly six books at a time — brand her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the flooring, our sales become up twenty%," says store director Meredith Warner. Organized religion Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Effect twice a month, when Coady appears on her prove to talk about books. Recently, every bit she described Family unit History, Dani Shapiro's novel about a mother's attempts to save her fractured family, "the hair stood up on the back of my neck," says Middleton. "You could hear a pivot driblet in the studio."

That passion infuses every square human foot of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its owner. When Coady outset contemplated changing careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would be a change of pace, less enervating for her than beingness an executive at a big business firm. "I oftentimes joke that I gave up money for time, and now I have neither," she says. She's still a type A, and then it comes equally no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she's expanding the children's section, revamping the gift-store area, and drawing up a business programme to take the make in new directions.

A 2d R.J. Julia? A concatenation of stores? Coady tin can't say. That chapter has yet to be written.

Sidebar: 5 Bully Reads

"Everybody has fourth dimension for i discretionary thing," says Roxanne Coady, the possessor of R.J. Julia. "Mine's reading."

Below are v of her all-time favorite books. If these aren't plenty, cheque out R.J. Julia's lists of recommended books for adults (world wide web.rjjulia.com/fivefeet.htm) and kids (www.rjjulia.com/threefeet.htm).

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi

"It'due south about Earth War II and the Holocaust from the perspective of a small German town that may or may non empathize what's going on, only in a quiet way is mimicking what'south happening. You lot feel the impact of expose and of being co-conspirators through silence."

Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey

"A view of the Revolution from Abigail'due south vantage signal, what it was similar at home, raising her kids during a dangerous fourth dimension."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"It'south about sorrow as a style of defining you, how yous demand information technology to live and office in a meaningful way. It's a philosophical book, but in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka style."

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

"The narrator is a black girl who has been abused, and the novel is nigh how she moves through that experience. This is one of those books that changes the way you look at the world."

A Child'southward Anthology of Poetry past Elizabeth Sword

"I've been reading from this to my son since he was two, and we always find something that amuses usa, whatsoever mood we're in."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior author based in Baltimore. Learn more nearly R.J. Julia on the Spider web (www.rjjulia.com).

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Source: https://www.fastcompany.com/47069/chapter-two