Monday, September 5, 1910
Michael Conrad sat at his desk in his office at the bank. He was reviewing some important papers. His secretary, Mrs. Johnson stepped into the room.
"Your 4 o'clock is here."
He looked up and smiled at the visitors.
"And a very pretty appointment it is."
Mrs. Johnson nodded. "I thought you might like the clients."
Michael hemmed and hawed. "Admittedly, I do favor one above the other."
"Me or her?" replied Jean Clementine.
"I'll let you figure it out on your own. Have a seat Mrs. Clementine, Miss Conrad."
Mrs. Johnson shut the office door and returned to her desk.
"Hello, father," said Sarah.
"Jean, are you feeling better about my tax and mortgage proposals?"
She nodded. "I am. Looking back on it I feel like an idiot."
"I'm confident the county appreciated all of the extra money you were sending their way."
Jean shook her head. "The thing I don't understand is how come after all of these years they never said anything?"
Michael chuckled, "Welcome to the world of politics."
Sarah tilted her head. "Mrs. Clementine was paying extra tax money to the county?"
Michael nodded.
"And no one said anything about it?"
Michael shrugged. "Department of Revenue is a big place. No one's going to check up on a little bakery in a small town, unless of course, she didn't pay her taxes."
He turned to Jean. "That's water under the bridge, or, dough already out of the fryer, in your case. You are not going to get that money back and you have no one to whom you can voice your complaint because there was no fraud involved on any level. It was a mistake in numbers. You're not an accountant so don't fuss to yourself, just let it go. Ok?"
Jean nodded. "I'll try."
"And, do I have your signature for all of the suggestions I made this morning?"
Jean handed him an envelope. "All twelve are more than fine with me."
Michael smiled as he opened the envelope. "Fantastic. Things are about to turn around for you. Sarah has several suggestions. I have reviewed each one and they are financially sound and they make sense."
"Sarah made the suggestions?"
He nodded. "Yup. Jean, sometimes we can be too wrapped up in something for our own good. And, if you'll pardon the sexist generalization, sometimes women folk get too emotionally tied to their business and then they refuse to admit that they've made a mistake."
Jean rolled her eyes. "Guilty as charged."
"You are in desperate need of an outside examination of your business. I think we straightened out the tax and mortgage issues of the past and present; it's up to me to try to suggest a possible course of action for your future and that's where Sarah comes in."
Michael made a gesture for her to begin.
"Thank you, father. Mrs. Clementine, I will start with the simplest suggestion.
Every morning, you get a copy of the River City Star delivered to your bakery. How much do you pay for that subscription?"
"Nothing. Our eldest son, Jimmy won a contest when he was a senior in school. He designed a new logo for the sports section and won a lifetime subscription. He and his wife Jessica and James Robert Jr. live in Bismarck. They don't need the paper so we've just continued getting it all of these years."
"Mrs. Clementine, according to the sales office at the newspaper, the most read section of the paper are, in order, weather, sports, and the comic strips. Weather is printed on Section A page 2. Most of the Sports scores are posted on Section B page 1. Comics are in Life-Styles, page 3.
Now then, what if, when the paper arrived in morning, you immediately posted those three sections of the paper on the far left window near the cake display case?"
Jean shrugged. "I dunno. I suppose some folks to cheap or lazy to buy a five cent newspaper would stop and read the weather report or the sports scores or the comics." She gasped. "And then they would immediately see the cake display and smell the donuts cooking because that's where the vent release is located!"
Sarah nodded. "And what if you changed the cake display case to a donut display case?"
Jean's eyes brightened. "People would see and smell sweet, delicious donuts right before their very eyes! Sarah you're a genius! That won't cost anything and if brings in a dime's worth of business than it'll be worth it!"
Michael motioned to Sarah. "And, she's just getting started."
"Mrs. Clementine, do you remember what I was doing during the Eagle Creek Music Festival?"
"Of course, you and Emily sang some patriotic song nobody had ever heard of."
"That was just the first night. What did I do the rest of the night and the next day?"
Jean rubbed her chin. "Oh, wait, I remember now. You gave away popcorn for the bank."
"And since then, have you seen that popcorn maker?"
She shifted her eyes. "No. I suppose you just put it in storage somewhere at…" her eyes brightened. She turned to Michael. "You're not using it, even though it works just fine."
Michael nodded.
Jean began to doubt herself. "But, well, that's a lot of upkeep. I don't see how I could make much money with… but then again, last time Will and I were in River City he bought a bag of roasted cashews and that machine looked a lot like a popcorn maker."
Michael added. "Different cooker, higher temp for the coconut oil but it works exactly the same way."
Jean asked, "But, would most folks pay a quarter for a bag of roasted cashews?"
Sarah shrugged. "Probably not most folks, but if you sold the bag for fifteen cents and people had to pay for it inside at the cash register what would they see?"
"Cakes," Jean couldn't believe it. "They would see the cake displays and order books. Sarah, I am amazed!"
Sarah shrugged. "Suggestion Number Three: Your biggest competitor for sweets is Casey's Café. Only one other merchant in Eagle Creek sells sugar based foods, Jeremiah's Dry Goods. However, they only sell a few chocolate bars and pre-made candies.
What if you sold cakes to Casey's?"
Jean shook her head. "Ray wouldn't want to do that. He bakes his own pies."
"But he doesn't bake cakes."
"So? He must have a legitimate reason for selling one and not the other. But then again," Jean thought for a moment. "Casey's does not build their business on cakes but on full meals. Desserts are just a side money maker," she shifted her eyes. "And not a big money maker at that because of all the time involved. If the bakery made extra pies and cakes we could sell them to Casey's."
Sarah added, "Which would free up his cooks and his servers to concentrate on putting meals on the tables quicker thus getting people in and out faster so they can seat the next guests."
Michael said, "You already contract with Casey's for your catering, so this would not be too far of a stretch."
Jean nodded. "He might do it at that."
"Suggestion Number Four: Cheryl Cobblestone…."
"Is a lousy cook!" snapped Jean.
Sarah replied, "But she can make change and keep the store clean and be friendly with people."
"True, however, there's more to running a bakery than that."
"Mrs. Clementine, if Cheryl worked a few hours a week that would leave you enough time to bake and do other things. As far as I know, she's just doing busy work down at the Methodist Church, if you had her even ten hours a week that would be ten hours more work than she has at the moment.
The real money maker would be when she goes out of town."
"Out of town?"
"The second Saturday of each month there is a big flea market in River City at the fair grounds. It costs $5 for business level membership through Sheridan Commercial Productions, the company which manages the flea and farmers markets. If you had Cheryl working for you at the fair and paid her a quarter an hour…."
Jean shook her head. "Do you know how many donuts that would be?"
"Ma'am, fudge is easier to transport. It is more compact, stays sellable a lot longer than fried goods and it can be transported in any kind of weather. Pay her twenty-five cents an hour plus 15% commission on the profits. She would sell a ton of fudge!"
"They already sell fudge in River City!"
"Lieberman's Sweets has one location in a flea market with 500 stalls. Additionally, with a nut roaster you can make fresh walnut, pecan and cashew fudge, something Lieberman's Sweets can't do."
Jean sighed. "We don't even make fudge, except for a topper. That being said, we might could do it, but, wait, why would I pay her a wage plus commission? Wouldn't commission only be cheaper?"
"It would, however, that would be a much greater risk because Cheryl gets easily discouraged. If no one's buying she'll interpret that as something being wrong with her. She won't make hardly any money and she'll feel like there's no use in trying. She'll quit. However, if you let her know, via a wage, that you have confidence in her abilities and, via a commission that you believe she can succeed: she would do it.
Lot's of people don't succeed because the people whose opinion they most respect discourage them by saying they don't think they'll amount to much."
Jean's face fell. She thought of Emily.
Sarah reasoned she'd hit a nerve. "Also, ma'am, you said Cheryl was a lousy cook. Show her how to make fudge. That does not involve too much cooking."
Jean shook her head. "That flea market is still a big risk."
Sarah spoke softly, "Mrs. Clementine, the company that manages the River City Flea Market is called Sheridan Commercial Productions. They manage the farmers' market the third Saturday of the month in Plentywood and the quarterly commercial gathering in Outlook.
Cheryl hardly leaves Eagle Creek. Going to those places would be a big adventure for her.
She would do it, ma'am, she would do it. Money, responsibility, travel, she could make new friends who would be immune from the gossip about Cheryl's past in Eagle Creek."
Jean considered it. "That's true. I had more than one lady ask me why a girl with her reputation was working at the bakery."
She shook her head. "Those snobs! Cheryl sinned like everyone else, the only difference is," Jean padded her tummy. "The reward of her deeds was a little more obvious."
She whispered, "No offensive daughter or son to be."
Michael smiled. "And now for the bigger suggestions."
"Suggestion Number Four: a telephone."
Jean's eyes bulged. "Oh no, no, no, no! I refuse to have one of those contraptions. I've heard that you can use one of those things to listen in to other people's houses."
Michael raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"
Jean was defensive. "It's true! I overheard Misty Brown tell Clea Walker about it last," she cringed. "Which would mean that I was the one listening in on their conversation. Oops."
Jean held up a finger. "However, I do not know how to use a…" she made a monkey face at Sarah. "You're about to say, 'I can learn'."
Sarah snickered.
Jean thought a minute more. "How many houses in Eagle Creek even have phones?"
Michael looked at a piece of paper. "38."
"38! It can't be that high a number. How do you know that?"
He handed her a small stack of papers.
"There's a town being built just north of here called Lassiter. The Montana Communications Corporation is providing phones for each house and business. They were mapping out the signaling stations last week. In the meanwhile, the construction site needs communications with their vendors in River City and Great Falls.
MCC is running cables out next week and connecting them with an exchange unit they're building just outside of town. They're running those through Scobey which means Madoc and Outlook will have phone service in weeks. They will, naturally, expand east to Quincy and Dooley. This entire county will have access to phones by Spring."
Sarah spoke up, "You could sell cakes all over the valley if you had a telephone."
"Perhaps," she drummed her fingers. "But, even if we could we'd have no way of efficiently getting to all of those new customers."
Sarah smiled. "You could in a new truck."
Jean bit her lip. "New truck? Do you have any notion of how much that would cost?"
Michael slid over a drawing Jake had made. It was of a modern truck which had a large sign on the side: Clementine Bakery, Eagle Creek in big white letters. Towards the bottom was a smaller sign which read Financed through Montana Chemical Bank, your business solution.
Jean looked at it in disbelief.
Michael said softly, "When you park it in a public spot put a sign in the window with information about this branch and I can write it off as a business expense for the first year."
"Will and I can't afford a truck."
"I can. Drive it a year and just pay for gas and upkeep. I'll hold the note. If you don't sell more wedding cakes or cater more anniversary celebrations then I can take it back, retool and sell it. Jean, you'll loses would be minimal at best."
Jean ran her fingers through her hair. "That's a lot to consider."
"Admittedly it is. Take time to think it over."
He turned to Sarah. "You're pretty familiar with Pete Jackson aren't you?"
Sarah's eyes bulged. "Um, I um."
Jean tried to hide her giggling.
Michael didn't catch on to the double entendre.
"You already know the hardware store his father co-owns has a truck because you rode in it to a singing last summer."
"I did!" Sarah nodded. "Right as rain father, Jackson Brothers Hardware has a truck." Sarah wiped her brow.
Michael turned to Jean. "Go talk to Maynard Jackson down at the hardware store and he'll relate his experiences with owning a truck for business reasons."
Michael looked at his pocket watch and asked, "Is there anything else you care to discuss?"
Jean smiled at Sarah. "Nope, I think that's everything. I'll get started on those first suggestions. I'll talk to Cheryl, see what she thinks. My guess is she'll love the idea. The telephone and the truck, well, I'll have to look at the long term numbers with Will and get his input. That being said, this has been the happiest bank meeting I've ever experienced."
Jean and then Sarah stood up. They both shook his hand professionally.
"Good luck to you, give my best to Will."
Jean was overwhelmed. "Michael, you are a dear friend."
"I look out for my clients."
"Thank you for listening, Mrs. Clementine."
"Good day to you, Michael."
"Good day Jean, Sarah."
