Guided Reading and Review Chapter 5 Section 3 the New Government

If anyone could pull it off, she could. That's what friends and colleagues said when Roxanne Coady left New York in 1989 to open a bookstore in a small town.

Of course, they believed in her. She had been i of the top tax accountants in the country. She was whip- smart, driven, and tireless — "on 82 different boards," every bit she likes to say, which is simply a slight exaggeration. She even grew up in business: As a daughter, she kept the books for her male parent's bakeries. "If you were to selection a dream person to start her ain bookstore, information technology would be Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Faith Middleton. "She's so smart nigh business organisation."

Coady nearly proved everybody wrong.

For the first several years, R.J. Julia Independent Booksellers, located on the main drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew by leaps and bounds. The im-pressive growth, however, obscured a dotcomlike inability to turn a profit. Coady says that she ignored budgets and "blew probably $250,000" of the coin that she and her married man, a former real-manor developer, had saved upward. It was twice what she should have invested, but she couldn't resist going all out on free wine and nutrient at book signings, stylish extra-strength numberless, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving bug, I threw more money at them," she says. "I didn't run the store similar a business."

As an auditor, Coady had always used her head. Merely as a bookseller and book lover, she let her heart take over. She built the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business. "Now," she says, "I'm combining head and centre."

Xiii years after dramatically changing careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off after all. In the same time that nearly half of the independent bookstores in the country have closed, R.J. Julia has achieved more than $three million in annual sales and a modest profit. And Coady, its ever-stylish, opinionated, and animated owner, has made the transition from successful accountant to successful bookseller.

A Bookseller Waiting to Happen

Coady's passion for reading and her talent for accounting were inspired by her parents, who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States in 1948, settling in New York'south Lower Due east Side. Although her mother had yet to empathize English, she read to her children anyhow, pronouncing the words phonetically. Once Coady learned to read, she wanted to tackle every children's book in the library in alphabetical society. When she was in centre school, her male parent, a baker, purchased the kickoff of 10 bakeries, called Em'due south, and brought her to a coming together with his accountant.

"Who'southward going to do the bookkeeping?" the accountant asked.

"She is," her begetter replied.

He wasn't joking. The accountant agreed to teach her, and Coady, the oldest of half dozen, juggled schoolhouse, family unit babe-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for higher. "Now my male parent feels I work too difficult," she says, laughing. "He says, 'You can't ride two horses with one donkey.' I tell him, 'Daddy, this is what you raised me to do.' "

Past the 1980s, Coady had become a partner and national tax director at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international accounting business firm. She was the first adult female selected for the job. "People tell me now, 'It must take been boring working with taxes,' " Coady says. "Merely I loved it." She had a 12th-flooring corner office overlooking Primal Park and was making about $250,000 a year. In 1988, she was featured on the embrace of Money mag, which dubbed her "the accountant'south auditor."

Heady stuff, to be certain. But it wasn't enough to go on her in that location. "As much as I enjoyed the work, information technology wasn't enriching," Coady says. "Information technology was in terms of dollars, simply it wasn't enriching to my heart." At least not in the way that books had always been.

Even as she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an insatiable reader. She would always behave a novel with her, stealing a few moments in a taxi, on the train, anywhere. She was forever recommending favorite titles to friends. "I ran a piffling library out of my firm," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the best book you gave me.' "

They were telling her something. It was time to make a change.

Creating a Modern-Twenty-four hour period Boondocks Green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady'south grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration campsite in World War II, is much more than a store where you buy the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. Information technology's a local institution that has become interwoven with people'south lives as few businesses are. "It's the heart of the community," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, managing director, and producer who lives in neighboring Guilford and attends a monthly book-club meetings at R.J. Julia. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable." Area residents feel a responsibility to support the independent bookstore — their bookstore — fifty-fifty if it means paying a little more at times.

From the offset, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to be a modern-day town light-green. "I felt people were becoming disconnected from each other," she says. "We had lost a public place for conversation about things that mattered." The store hosts more than than 200 events a year, from book signings to volume-social club meetings to children's-story hour on Wednesday mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has made Madison, an affluent coastal town with 2,200 residents, a regular book-tour finish between New York and Boston. The walls are lined with dozens of autographed photos of past visitors: Jimmy Carter, Garrison Keillor, and Anne Rice.

At Coady'south proposition, Lee Jacobus started a classical literature book club at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, he prepares equally though he were still teaching in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes 40 minutes a twenty-four hour period, three days a calendar week. "It's an enormous time investment and, yeah, I exercise it for free," says Jacobus. "Merely this is an establishment that should be supported. It's important to the intellectual life of the town."

For R.J. Julia to distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace, Coady believes it has to offering unparalleled service and expertise. Like their dominate, the staff is well read, which prepares them for "hand-selling" — that is, recommending books that they or their colleagues have read. "That's the value that we add together to the volume-ownership experience," Coady says. "We put the right volume in the right easily." The shop's superlative-selling section is staff recommendations, where each volume is accompanied by a "shelf talker," a capsule review from a bookseller, or in the case of the new Harry Potter, by a bookseller'southward child ("I'm xi, and I finished in exactly 5 days, downwards to the hour! Once you beginning reading it, you lot won't stop!" raves Hana, the manager's stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is ane of nigh 35 booksellers on staff. Similar Coady, she'south sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking about books all day. She can't imagine working at a concatenation, even the i that'south coming to Waterford, virtually xv miles from where she lives. "There are likewise many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I can give a discount to a customer whenever I want to." It's true. Coady lets the staff do whatsoever it takes to brand a customer happy. There may non exist many official rules, only the staff definitely knows the kind of shop that she wants R.J. Julia to be. When it comes to sharing likes and dislikes, Coady'southward an open book. As she reminds the staff, she prefers the offering, "Let me know if I can be of assistance," or "Are you finding what you lot need?" "Can I assist y'all?" strikes her equally intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, it was love with R.J. Julia at first browse. The night wooden bookshelves, contumely fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood floor give the place the ambience of a neighborhood bookstore in Europe or New York. Ferringer, the head of the political-science section at the University of New Oasis, tin can spend entire afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And withal, information technology's hard to say who benefits more: Ferringer or the bookstore. "I know them past proper noun," she says of the staff. "In that location's Nancy, Karen, Lisa, Suzanne, Meredith, Beth, Babette, Roxanne."

"Information technology's the heart of the community," says an R.J. Julia customer. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable."

Maybe the best measure of R.J. Julia's relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a client from the start. During a recent visit, she picked up a special guild, The Thin Adult female, a lighthearted British who-washed-it, written by Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What's remarkable almost her buy is that Harrington never requested the book. In fact, she had never even heard of information technology. "Suzanne ordered it for me without my knowing," she says.

"I knew she'd honey it," says Coopersmith.

She was correct.

The Roxanne Upshot

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many small towns, was in decline. Suburban big-box retailers were condign the rage. "After I opened, the theater, the hardware store, the 5-and-dime, and the eatery all closed," she says. "I thought, 'What did I just do?' " Now, Madison is a dissimilar story. Although the business commune consists of just one long block on Boston Post Route, there'due south an fine art house and an elegant Italian restaurant across from R.J. Julia. There are a multifariousness of shops and boutiques. At that place'southward even a Starbucks.

Equally an entrepreneur, Coady has come a long way herself. She'south running R.J. Julia like a business, with budgets, a grooming manual, and more-structured evaluations. By coincidence, her son Edward and the store were born in the aforementioned year. Since turning xiii this yr, says Coady, both have had their bar mitzvahs: Edward became a man, R.J. Julia a mature business.

In reality, though, adding corporate subject to the bookstore remains a claiming, especially without the fiscal incentives she had at her disposal at a major bookkeeping house. Instead, Coady offers a coincidental, fun environment in which booksellers can be their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative word in independent bookseller is independent. When Coady tried to go the staff to article of clothing matching R.J. Julia shirts, they declined. So she bought R.J. Julia buttons, which no i wore for long. A newly arrived box of green R.J. Julia lanyards in the role could be side by side. "This is where the republic thing shoots me in the pes," she says.

Coady's natural effusiveness and honey of writing — she reads nearly half-dozen books at a time — make her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the floor, our sales go up xx%," says store manager Meredith Warner. Organized religion Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Effect twice a month, when Coady appears on her show to talk about books. Recently, every bit she described Family unit History, Dani Shapiro's novel about a female parent's attempts to salve her fractured family, "the hair stood up on the back of my neck," says Middleton. "You could hear a pivot drop in the studio."

That passion infuses every square foot of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its owner. When Coady first contemplated changing careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would be a change of stride, less demanding for her than being an executive at a large business firm. "I often joke that I gave upwardly money for time, and now I have neither," she says. She'south still a type A, so it comes every bit no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she's expanding the children's section, revamping the souvenir-shop area, and drawing up a business concern program to take the brand in new directions.

A 2nd R.J. Julia? A chain of stores? Coady can't say. That chapter has however to be written.

Sidebar: 5 Great Reads

"Everybody has time for i discretionary thing," says Roxanne Coady, the owner of R.J. Julia. "Mine's reading."

Below are five of her all-time favorite books. If these aren't enough, check out R.J. Julia'south lists of recommended books for adults (www.rjjulia.com/fivefeet.htm) and kids (www.rjjulia.com/threefeet.htm).

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi

"It'south about World State of war II and the Holocaust from the perspective of a pocket-size German town that may or may not empathise what's going on, but in a quiet fashion is mimicking what's happening. You feel the impact of betrayal and of beingness co-conspirators through silence."

Beloved Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey

"A view of the Revolution from Abigail's vantage betoken, what it was like at home, raising her kids during a unsafe time."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"It's about sorrow every bit a fashion of defining yous, how you demand information technology to live and office in a meaningful style. It'southward a philosophical book, but in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka way."

The Bluest Eye past Toni Morrison

"The narrator is a black girl who has been abused, and the novel is about how she moves through that experience. This is one of those books that changes the style y'all wait at the world."

A Kid's Anthology of Poetry by Elizabeth Sword

"I've been reading from this to my son since he was 2, and we always find something that amuses the states, any mood we're in."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior author based in Baltimore. Learn more than nigh R.J. Julia on the Web (www.rjjulia.com).

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Source: https://www.fastcompany.com/47069/chapter-two