Gifted Entrepreneurs

Jim Wilcox figured starting his own gift-basket business would be an easy way to have some fun after a grueling fight against colon cancer.
Fun? Yes. Easy? No.

BY LESLEY MITCHELL
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

"I thought that if I created beautiful gift baskets, the customers would come," said Wilcox, a partner in Wasatch Baskets & Gifts.

Wrong.

Wilcox learned the hard way that gift baskets are not the easiest items to sell because many consumers believe they are expensive or that the food or other items arranged inside them are not really all that good. And competitors, he soon found, were everywhere, due to low barriers to entry and minimal start-up costs.

Norm Fitzgerald, a small-business counselor with the Service Corps of Retired Executives in Salt Lake City, has seen numerous gift-basket enterprises come and go over the years for these reasons.

Today, when prospective gift-basket entrepreneurs ask him for advice, he offers little encouragement. "I point out that there are quite a lot of people already involved in the gift-basket business," he said. "I tell them they would have to develop a plan that would give them an advantage in the marketplace for them to be able to succeed."

Wilcox — with partners Ethel Wilcox, his wife, and family friend Kurstin Lee — was able to do just that. The trio recently were honored with a Business of the Year 2002 award from the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce for their success in building a nationwide basket business.

The company is one of only a small fraction of home-based businesses — let alone gift-basket enterprises — that are able to outgrow a basement, garage or spare bedroom. The company, which started out in Lee’s basement, today operates out of a small office and distribution facility in a Heber City industrial park.

The trio’s entrepreneurial odyssey began in fall of 1999 when the Wilcoxes, both university professors in Ohio, were visiting Utah to finalize a decision to retire in Park City. Jim Wilcox ended up in an emergency room in pain.
"I had not been feeling right for some time but the doctors in Ohio would run tests and say everything was fine," he said.
But he wasn’t fine. Doctors at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah ran some tests and discovered he had colon cancer.

Based on his faith in the hospital’s doctors and the reputation of the cancer institute, he elected to have surgery in Utah. Lee, a former graduate student of Jim’s who later worked as a professor with Ethel, flew to Utah for the surgery.
"I remember after the surgery Jim said, ‘What type of business could we all do together, here in Utah? I would like to do something fun,’ " Lee recalls.

Wilcox, who last week learned his cancer has returned, has pledged that the Huntsman Cancer Institute will get an annual check comprised of two-thirds of Wasatch Baskets’ profits.
The institute, dedicated to cancer research and treatment, so far has received three checks for an undisclosed amount based on his pledge, plus the Wilcoxes have pledged 60 percent of their estate to the institute upon their death, said Shelley Thomas, an institute spokeswoman.

The Wilcoxes appeared recently in a public service announcement promoting the institute that will air through April on television and radio stations throughout the West.
It was right after Jim Wilcox’s surgery that the trio started brainstorming the types of businesses they would like to start. They quickly pushed aside the idea of simply growing the lucrative sideline consulting business the Wilcoxes, which have doctorate degrees in organizational communication, and Lee, who has a master’s degree in the same discipline, had started in Ohio. Not fun enough.

"When you do consulting work in organization communication, you’re usually working with a company that has a lot of conflict, an organization that is not doing as well as they would like to do. You don’t bring consultants in when you’re doing great," Ethel Wilcox said. "Those are not fun situations to be in."

They eventually settled on a basket-making business started in a home Lee purchased in Heber. Ethel Wilcox and Lee would make the baskets, Jim Wilcox would deliver those sold within a certain area.
Because all three had taught and consulted extensively on ways employers can recognize and make their workers feel more valued, they targeted as potential clients businesses that give gifts to their employees or clients.

Identifying customers was the easy part, Lee said. Getting people to give gift baskets a try was more difficult, she said.
The trio eventually decided on an aggressive marketing campaign in which Lee makes presentations to any company willing to hear what she has to say, Ethel Wilcox calls potential clients and Jim Wilcox is committed to attending networking functions organized by chambers and business groups.
"We spend a lot of time marketing this way," Jim Wilcox said. "And it has worked."

Aside from realizing the value of marketing, they believe another reason they have been successful is their pledge to take themselves seriously, even when they were operating out of Lee’s basement and assembling baskets in her living room.
Lee’s advice to other home-based businesses: Have a separate business phone line and don’t let your 5-year-old answer it. If you are a retail-type business, work with a bank to ensure you can accept credit cards as well as cash and checks. Dress professionally — color-coordinated polo shirts and name tags aren’t all that expensive. Drive a nice car with your company’s name on the doors. Get an office if you can.

One piece of entrepreneurial advice offered by the Wilcoxes and Lee is perhaps the most important, said Glenn Cobb, president and chief executive of the Sandy Chamber: Do what makes you happy — even if it is not the easiest path to take.

"It’s really rare to see someone as happy as they are, working as hard as they do," he said. "Doing what makes you happy is something we should all strive for but so few of us are able to accomplish."

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© Copyright 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune.

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03022003/business/business.asp