Stories

A first serial excerpt from "Rubies in the Orchard," Lynda Resnick's autobiographical, how-to marketing gem. A road map for anyone who's trying to do anything in business or in life.

Running Teleflora was a dream job. I was in charge of marketing and product development, and, of course, I supervised all my new friends in the sales force, which I gradually shaped to fit my vision. The business was growing, and so were profits. I had reached a point where I could start delegating some of the work – provided I could let go of a certain nagging perfectionism (which today has a fancy name and a medication regime to go along with it).

My job was fulfilling, and my life with my husband Stewart and our kids had hit a stretch of smooth sailing, about as close to domestic bliss as any family gets. For the first time in my life, things seemed comfortable and easy. With everything going so well, there was naturally only one thing left to do: shake it up.

In 1981, I hired a news clipping service to begin tracking a direct-response company called the Franklin Mint. There were similarities between the Mint and Teleflora. The Mint created unique products, just as we did, only without the flowers. In those days, their products were mostly coins and medallions, a few porcelain vases, and some miniature knickknacks worthy of display in a “free with purchase” vitrine. Unlike Teleflora, the Mint sold its collectibles through direct response, with no middleman between the company and its consumers. It was something I longed to do.

Wi-Fi. Hi-def. Super-sized. 200GB. High protein. Low fat. With every brand getting upgraded to meet today’s newfangled demands, you might think there would be no room in the market for good old-fashioned values. That’s where you’d be mistaken. With so much hubris cluttering the shelves, a little bit of minimalism can offer weary customers a breath of fresh air.

Enter Little Pepi’s, the Hatfield, Pennsylvania-based company whose secret recipe is simplicity. Since 1963, they’ve been following the same ages-old recipe for their waffle cookies, keeping the ingredients as basic as when Italians whipped up the first batch somewhere around 700 B.C. Little has changed since then. Even back in the cookie’s native Abruzzo region of Italy, where they are still enormously popular, pizzelles (the cookies have the same etymological origin as “pizza”; both words mean “round and flat”) are still made from the same basic ingredients: flour, eggs, butter or vegetable oil, sugar, and a special flavoring, such as vanilla — almost the very same ingredients that Little Pepi’s uses in its own pizzelles.

In the late 70's when I first started venturing from New York City to Los Angeles for screen tests and my sorry ass attempt at stand up, it was difficult to find community outside the wacky nightlife of the Improv Club. My appearances there, under Budd Friedman's generous aegis, were an evening out and conversation piece for my agents at William Morris, who were trying desperately to get me off that stage and into a nice little sitcom. Meantime, they used my appearances to lure Norman Wexler, the gifted screenwriter of "Saturday Night Fever" fame, severely manic-depressive, into signing with them.  When he wasn't locked up, Norman was my biggest fan.

I tried hard to fit into this world, but as the only ingenue comedienne in a world of compulsive male comics, or female comics who delivered jokes like compulsive male comics, I was a she-maverick by design.  When I wasn't onstage struggling not to slip in Robin Williams' sweat, or straining to milk laughs from Gary Shandling's exhausted audience, I'd be in the bar either waiting to go on, or to wind down and assess the disaster of my newest bits.