Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
“I got swayed,” says Mary Leonard, owner of the St. Paul-based Chocolat Celeste, maker of delectable and expensive chocolates. She at first targeted the corporate gift market, which she wanted to serve via the Internet, but ended up opening a retail shop on February 12, 2002, after everybody kept asking her where her store was.
“I’m going back to the original business idea,” Leonard says. That idea is to sell chocolates as high-end executive gifts, while scaling back hours and her personal focus on the retail store on University Avenue. To that end, she has hired a sales person who used to work in corporate gift-giving at Marshall Field’s. She is stopping her mass newspaper advertising and appearances at individual chocolate sampling events. And she is out making calls to corporate clients.
Leonard posted $320,000 in revenue last year, up 185 percent from the year before, she says. About 50 percent of that came from sales to consumers and about 50 percent from corporate gifts. In the future she wants a 75-to-25 business-to-business vs. consumer split. She expects sales to grow in 2004 by 30 percent.
One advantage of the new focus: In chocolate retailing, she makes almost all her revenue in the four weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas. She’d like to spread that out more evenly through the year.
Mary Leonard, Chocolat Celeste: 651.644.3823; ma**@*************te.com; www.chocolatceleste.com
