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Dividing to Conquer: Ann Perrault and Jackie Victor

 

Ann and Jackie’s Story: In the beginning, Ann Perrault and Jackie Victor were dedicated to each other, but not to a business. But then Jackie scrapped her career in grassroots organizing, and Anne stopped dabbling in carpentry and massage, and they joined forces and built a hugely successful retail and wholesale bakery.

Avalon International Breads has grown steadily over the last decade, to a $1.25-million business that employs about 35 people in a part of Detroit that could still use a little love. The company turns out about 9,000 loaves of bread and baked goods a week, made from expensive organic flour in luscious varieties ranging from focaccia to peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies. Naturally, they’re gobbled up by loyal local consumers and stores throughout the metro area.

Avalon is a beacon amid Detroit’s ongoing urban renaissance and an exemplar of business spirit as well as savvy. The partners emphasize organic ingredients, waste recycling, workforce diversity and other values they call “sustainable.”                                           

“We’re trying to make it work for everyone involved, but it’s difficult,” Ann says. “And there really aren’t many great small businesses that are run this way to serve as examples. I guess we have to make our own example.”

Ann and Jackie’s Key Move: Dividing to Conquer

Like many partners who go into business, Jackie and Ann reached a point where it was clear they couldn’t go on living their lives and running a company together, all in one jumbled sphere.

So they made a move that rescued their relationship and catapulted Avalon to a new level of growth and stability: They decided to take turns running the company and their household. It’s not something every couple can do, but they believe it’s certainly something every couple in business together could consider.                                                                                                                 

“Our best move was to decide not to work together and to put our lifestyle and our relationship first,” says Jackie, who in early 2005 began a planned three years largely away from Avalon so she can focus on raising the couple’s two children. The plan is for Ann and Jackie to essentially switch spots in 2008.

“The decision immediately altered our home life in the most positive ways,” Jackie adds. “We’re happy to see each other at the end of the day and we like spending the weekend together again.”

For many years, the women were happy building Avalon together. Ann served as Ms. Inside, the operations chief, handling production, maintenance and product development, while Jackie was Ms. Outside, dealing with sales, marketing, public relations and human resources. Jackie more or less worked days, and Ann more or less worked nights. They both cared for their daughter in between.

But a few years ago, strains began to develop in that arrangement. As the business expanded, Ann was spending more time at Avalon during the day, helping manage the growing workforce. “The lines got a little fuzzy, and it got harder in terms of who was making the decisions,” Ann remembers.

Like many couples who go into business together, Ann and Jackie were coping with deterioration in their home as they threw themselves into the company.  “The business was taking away from the soul of our home, our relationship as a couple and as parents, and that is the only thing that is important,” Jackie says. “Everything else is a means to an end. We knew that either the business would fail, or we’d split up – or both. Or, we could be proactive and get in front of it.”

Ann and Jackie sought therapy to sort everything out beginning in early 2004. “It took us three-quarters of a year and a lot of sessions to decide that we should take a break in terms of working together,” Ann says. “But from the start, the business wasn’t going to break us up.”

But the uniqueness of their agreement wasn’t in one partner deciding to stay home and the other running the business alone. It was in their arrangement for consecutive “sabbaticals” that would be served by Jackie – since they planned to have Jackie carry a second child – and then by Ann, three years later.

Three years was a deliberate term. The first year, the women decided, each would have to learn the basics of the skills and responsibilities that the other had exercised in the business when both were there. The second year, each would feel confident enough to make necessary changes in Avalon and get into a management rhythm. In the third year, they decided, would come “mastery” – and fun.

Ann and Jackie never considered it an option to make their role change permanent when they began it in October 2004. Jackie keeps her hand in the business, working a few hours a week and handling a special project here and there, and Ann has been investing in real estate to serve as a side pursuit when her time at home comes. And they’ve decided that one reason Ann feels free to work so hard at the business now, as Jackie puts it, is “she sees a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m going to be the one that takes over.”

In the meantime, Avalon is going gangbusters, led by a fully-in-charge Ann. She made some tough human-resources decisions that Jackie had shied away from. Ann also asserted new control over the company’s finances, turning a $60,000 deficit in 2004 into a $60,000 surplus last year.

“Last year we grew our revenues 25%,” Ann says, matter-of-factly. “Our profit margin increased from 3% to 14%. It totally changed the business.”

Jackie agrees with how crucial the move was for Avalon. Ann “really turned the business around,” she says. “And if I’d still been there right now, I would have stood in the way.”

Even more important, the move transformed their home life. “When crises happen, we’re not both dragged into it,” Jackie says. “If Ann gets a call from the bakery in the middle of the night, she deals with it and grumbles to herself, and I roll over. And when our daughter gets sick and has to stay home from school, there’s not a big wrestling match about whose day is less intense and who has to stay with her. It’s a massive improvement.”

Ann and Jackie’s Bonus Insight

The partners are enthusiastic proponents of a philosophy called “open-book management,” as described in The Great Game of Business, by Jack Stack with Bo Burlingham. It shows how entrepreneurs can make a “game” out of operating a company and share the resulting “winnings” with employees.

“You have to have total transparency to make this work,” Jackie says. “And there have to be rewards. Then it becomes a lot more fun.”