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Interview with MaryAnn Ross and Kimberly Lainson
Mother-Daughter Duo who Own PartyWorks
Dot Com Woman Of The Month (NOVEMBER 2003)
 Do
you want to know what it takes to make a Party Work? Ask our Party
Girls - MaryAnn Ross and Kimberly Lainson. Life has been a Party for
this Dynamic Mother-Daughter Duo ever since they became business
partners in 1997. Mary Ann's vision and Kimberly's dynamism have led
their business to great heights of success.
Instead of building just another online shop, they decided to
make it a complete shopping stop and resource center for Party
Planning and Cake Decorating enthusiasts.
Together, they own and operate five websites
Party
Works
Cake Works
Harry
Potter Birthday
Quilting Works
Baby Works
I discovered them while hunting for Cake Decoration ideas.
Soon, I realized that they were all over the web! Sumptuous meals,
delicious cookies, one-of-a-kind decorations, parties, holidays and
what not! And behind these business and creative talents lie two of
the most wonderful and lively women I have ever met! Come, see for
yourself!
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"Be an entrepreneur and put your
money where your heart is! "
Mary Ann Ross
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1. Let's start with some background
info about you. Please tell us about your life before you started
your current business.
Kimberly:
I am married to a chef and a mother of 4 teenage boys – 17, 15, 14
and almost 13. I started working at 13 in my parents restaurants and
ended up working in the airfreight business and then at Rockwell as
the administrative assistant to the VP of education. I help put on 7
day seminars with 7 different speakers for the VP’s of Rockwell. It
was great fun working with them and the speakers, hotels and all
aspects of running this seminar. I worked from home for a year
traveling to the seminars and starting our internet business with my
mother.
Mary Ann:
I was a stay-at-home mom until my children were in middle school and
gained great knowledge from all my volunteer work. I started back
part-time as a secretary. I’ve worked for two major corporations as
an Executive Assistant but my last job, before retiring, moving to a
rural location and starting an internet business with my daughter,
was a dream job. I worked for a group of people that were successful
entrepreneurs organizing their business meetings and parties by
hiring Lear Jets, limousines and sending them on trips that were out
of the norm. They were high profile celebrities in the business world
and demanded perfection. I learned a great deal and was sad to take
an early retirement, which I failed within the first year!
2. How did your career in the
Cake-Decoration and Party Biz unfold? Did you undergo any special
training for it?
Kimberly:
Actually mom’s answer below is totally accurate! It did start as a
joke to get my mother out of her fridge… I just couldn’t see a
fridge being organized… I mean open the door and place the object
in an empty hole… who cares where or what shelf it goes! LOL
Mary Ann:
I had taken early retirement at age 55 and moved from my lifelong
residence in the Los Angeles area (big city) to a very rural farming
and ranching community in northeastern Washington State. I loved and
still love where I live, it is perfect but at the time I moved, I
really didn’t know how to retire and I FAILED! As a woman of my
generation, I was taught to take care of my husband, take care of my
children and when I went back to work when my children were older, I
took care of my boss. Suddenly I was retired and could do anything I
wanted but I had no passions not to mention the guilt of doing
something or anything for myself.
This is a true story – I started alphabetizing everything in the
bathroom and pantry, including labels. When I got to the refrigerator
and started putting baskets with labels, my daughter and her husband
knew I needed a life! My daughter and her family moved to the same
area and she was computer-knowledgeable. We talked about starting an
Internet business and when trying to think of what we could do, we
suddenly came upon meeting and party planning because both of us had
extensive experience in this field. We didn’t want to actually
conduct parties so we decided upon supply party-goods and then within
a year or so added cake decorations, party favors and mylar balloons
to make us a one-stop shopping experience.
3. Was your business an instant success? Or were there lots that
we don't yet know about?
Kimberly:
Oh my gosh… noooooooooo it took at least a year (some of it
playing) to work out the details and put together our business plan
(my father said it was a must). We used SCORE which is a group of
retired executives who are there to help you start your business and
answer your questions. We had to learn how to create a website and
then how to create a web business. We had to learn about search
engines and submitting. We had to learn to add content and that it
was a key to getting people to visit and hopefully buy from your
site. We also learned that by adding our photo’s we created a real
people site – people could see us and know we really existed and
that it is not just some website that is impersonal. We started
working with other sites and exchanging articles, links, ad swaps and
sig swaps… it was a real challenge to build traffic and to keep
getting your site out where people could find it without spending
thousands of dollars on advertising. We researched our competition
and have seen them start to copy what we do – so we must be doing
something right!
Mary Ann:
No, not an instant success, it took months, weeks, days and tons of
hours, hours, hours to come to where are now today. Like many people
wanting to start an Internet business, we thought we could work from
home, not work hard and make lots of money, which is very laughable,
as we have learned from experience. There is much to learn about
cyberspace business and after the initial website design with
products, traffic must be driven to the website in order to make
sales. It took much dedication to get ranked as high as we are in the
Search Engines so we started writing articles asking other websites
to use our articles in exchange for a direct link to our website. We
then became involved with several groups of websites that cater to
the women and began and still do exchange banner ads, signature ads
and content that is different to gain attention.
4. You have chosen the World Wide
Web as your arena and media. Was it a tough decision to part ways
from the stereotype business setup? How did that decision contribute
to your success?
Kimberly:
Not really sure – we just came up with it and we live in the middle
of know where with 1 traffic signal in town and if you blink once
while driving through then you miss our town completely. Having a
store front just didn’t seem like it would work here – not enough
foot traffic and we had seen several other local businesses fail –
it was very scary to think of having a store front with rent or
building payments and all the overhead. We started in my parents
house in one bedroom. Moved to an outbuilding and then took over most
of my father’s shop. All on their property so the overhead was
minimal. Now we are in a store front in town on Main Street. We now
have to learn how to be an internet business and a store front… a
whole new ballgame.
Mary Ann:
The opportunity existed to start a business on a shoestring through
the Internet. The difficulty that existed for me was that I was use
to working administration in large corporations with some retail
experience. While this background lends itself to Internet
businesses, there is a whole lot of information we had to learn on
our own. When we started six years ago, not much was available on
cyberspace business.
5. Please tell us more about your
work. What goes into it? What do you enjoy most about your work?
Mary Ann:
As the website grew, we added more products and we added more
websites. As all of this grew over the last five years, the business
became a job. Kimberly is our web guru (we nicknamed her “MS. KIM-puter”)
and is responsible for accounting and payroll, inventory, purchasing,
new products and shipping. I write articles (which I love) and I am
responsible for administration, warehouse, employee relations and
entrepreneurial stuff. Earl (husband and Kim’s father) is our CEO,
CFO, President, construction worker, mover, janitor and general
all-around go-fer. He keeps us in business with his 33 years of
experience and his graduate work in business/finance. Thank goodness
for him!
6. What would be your advice to other women who want to start
their own business in the Cake/Party biz? Does it require a large
investment? Is some kind of formal training essential?
Kimberly: DON’T do it! LOL Well for anyone who wants to be a stay
at home mom and make money this is definitely not the right business!
It is a lot of work – we were working from 3:00 am until late and
after the kids went to sleep. When you own your own business you are
responsible to get things done. While we do have the benefit of
taking a day off if we need to or taking the kids to appointments…
you still have to get the work done – so you make up for it by
spending extra time. It is not a 9:00 to 5:00 job. When we started it
was fun – we had time to play and were excited to ship our couple
of orders a day or week… then word started getting out and we now
had lots of packages to send and had to hire people. Now you were not
only responsible for you but now you had employees, payroll and
payroll taxes UGGH! We love what we do but I cannot stay home all day
or take time off whenever I want to. Yes, sometimes I work in my
PJ’s but it is normally before the rooster crows in the morning or
after all are in bed sleeping.
Mary Ann:
Best piece of advice I can give is for anyone (woman or man) wanted
to start a business is to prepare a Business Plan and learn
everything they can about how to start, set-up and maintain a
business as well as knowledge of their products and who will be their
market. SCORE is an absolutely wonderful organization that offers
free guidance with an online mentor. I value this organization and
recommend it to everyone that writes to us asking how to start his or
her own business. A person in the party industry must be creative and
know how to put on a party on a budget, etc. If selling cake
decorations, they must be bakers and decorators. You can’t
successfully sell something if you don’t know all about it. We
specialize in children’s birthdays, baby showers and cake
decorations. We are self-financed because we didn’t want to borrow
money because of our age and the inability to jump back into the
marketplace to work for someone else if the business failed. To do it
right, it does take a sizable investment. We started out purchasing
from local party suppliers at discounted prices and then gradually
began ordering directly from the manufacture. Ordering from a
manufacturer or distributor initially requires a major first order,
followed by smaller re-order dollar amounts. Warehouse space is
needed for storage plus office space and packing/shipping areas.
7.
Party
Works, Cake
Works, Harry
Potter Birthday, Quilting
Works, Baby
Works - Do
you manage all your websites and ezines yourself? It must be quite a
task.
Kimberly:
Yes… we do manage all ourselves. While I do most of the web work
– mom does add content and keeps up our products in our store –
adding new products, updating out of stocks and deals more with the
orders and customers. We have 5 websites and 1 store. And yes mom
does scare me when it comes to web stuff! LOL
Mary Ann:
Kimberly manages the websites, ezines, contests and site content. She
is amazingly skilled and very creative. Me? I am way too impatient
and start pounding the keyboard. It makes Kim very nervous when I am
doing any type of web work or Excel spreadsheets. But hey, isn’t
that what a mother is for – to be a problem to her child?
8. Mary Ann, how does it feel to
work in partnership with your own daughter? Who's the boss (smile)?
How do you divide the tasks between yourselves? Who has been an
inspiration to whom?
Mary Ann:
I LOVE working the business with Kimberly, we have been best friends
besides mother and daughter. We get along amazingly well that it
surprises everyone around us, including her father. Neither one of us
considers ourselves to be the boss, it is just not a control issue
and never has surfaced. We each have our own areas and talents and we
respect each other immensely.
Sometimes we make what we call and executive decision without
discussing it first and we always support the other person. I cannot
think of one time that either of us made the wrong decision, it is
just that harmonious. When we first started our business in a spare
room in my home (we graduated to a small building, then a larger
building, now to a storefront, office and warehouse / shipping), I
realized pretty quick that Kimberly was not telling me what she
thought. I figured out that she was raised to respect her elders and
after all, I AM her mother.
Our solution was simple. If I am in the office with her, we are
business partners. If I step over the threshold of the office, I am
her mother. It worked from the moment we agreed on doing this. We
gave a seminar at a Chicago Trade Show two years ago on family
business and in the preparation of the speech, we realized we had
never had a fight or argument. I started calling people that had
family businesses to learn how they handled disagreements. We added
this information to our data and about a week before we were to leave
for Chicago, Kimberly and I had a disagreement. It was serious and
last all of about 10 whole minutes before we were hugging, crying and
apologizing to each other. It was funny but it was us! We inspire
each other and we move each other. As things arise, one of us takes a
leadership role. Our saying was that of General MacArthur from World
War II: “Lead, Follow of Get Out of the Way”.
9.
What do you like to do when you are not working?
Kimberly:
QUILT… it is my passion in life and everyone needs a passion. My
oldest son is now quilting too and very artistic in not only quilting
but drawing, crafts and other artsy things. The other boys just want
the quilts we make! LOL I love to spend time with my husband and the
boys (when they are not at each others throats).
Mary Ann:
Reading, needlepoint/cross stitching, crossword puzzles, baking,
cooking, eating, off-roading, playing cards, Backgammon and board
games, volunteering and being with my husband, family and
grandchildren. My time is devoted to my sweet companion, Ms. Sadie,
the sweetest 11-year old Pomeranian and business! And I love writing
articles and children’s stories.
10. Your views on Matrimony and
Motherhood? How did they affect your personal and professional life?
Kimberly:
I believe that when you get married that you are committed. It
isn’t always easy but just because times are rough it doesn’t
mean run away. It means waiting it out and learning to fix what is
broken or wrong. My husband and I have been through some really rough
times and even counseling and no matter what we were committed and
are still committed to each other. We have been married almost 18
years. We even had role reversal for a few years… After I had my
last child I worked in labor until the men I was in a meeting with
couldn’t stand it any longer and made me go to the hospital. I then
went back to work 1 week later and left my husband to be Mr. Mom with
3 kids in diapers and 4 kids at home. It was fabulous – he cooked,
cleaned, did laundry and took care of the boys. I hated housework,
laundry and child care LOL… I love my kids but I enjoyed letting my
husband deal with naps, diapers and tantrums.
Mary Ann:
Celebrating our 41st anniversary in a few weeks, I have to admit I
like it but only because my husband is adorable, loving and
supportive. We’ve had our ups and downs, good times and bad times
and feel very blessed that our marriage has survived and because it
has, it is nearly perfect. I loved being a mother and spending time
with my children. Kimberly will tell you and this is the truth, I
MADE her play games. I love being with children, hey are so open and
energetic. Many of my grandchildren’s friends call me “Mrs.
Grandma” and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Because I do
not have young children, I have it free and easy. Kimberly, though,
has four children (ages 12 to 17) who are very active and she plays
taxi driver to the point she is exhausted keeping everything going.
More good news about getting older is I sleep less, don’t have PMS
and the hair on my legs grows slower!
11. Who are/were the people who are/were instrumental in your
success?
Kimberly:
My parents were very instrumental in my success. I started
working in the family business at 13 and they taught me that it
didn’t matter who I worked for or what I did – just do my best
and put out 110+ %.
Mary Ann:
Success as a person would be my mother, my father, my husband and
several warm, caring, sharing best friends. Business success was
doing the best job I could for my employers, which gained me
promotions and advanced skills. The job I retired from was the dream
job I wanted to have for years and I didn’t even realize it was
until I retired.
12. What lies ahead?
Mary Ann:
A few months ago we signed an agreement with a major online
corporation to sell our products on their website. The launch and
media blitz is scheduled for next week sometime and we cannot reveal
the name because we signed a Confidentiality Agreement. This new
venture will give us a lead in the cake decorating and party supply
industry… who could have known six years ago when we were in a
little spare room in my house? We are blessed with this ground floor
opportunity!!!! We’ll continue to work our web sites and the
separate new venture, hopefully to one day sell and let someone else
continue the business growth!
Kimberly:
One day I really hope to have a quilting store!
13. What business/personal advice would you like to give to the
women reading this?
Mary Ann:
Create your dream and take footsteps towards it.
If business experience is not in your background, go back to school
or to SCORE to learn what it takes to be in business and make money.
If you want an Internet business, it requires hours and hours of work
and if you have small children, you can become computer/business
addicted and ignore being a mother and wife – it is a very delicate
balance. Keep the dream going. Believe in the your dream! Be an
entrepreneur and put your money where your heart is!
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