Martina Arfwidson and Gun Nowak were sharing a private joke when they arrived at their FACE Stockholm boutique on a recent day. A staff member quickly handed them copies of the company’s new mail order catalog, delivered a few hours before the owners walked in. While Nowak expressed her appreciation for the design and colors, Arfwidson fretted over the fact that all the catalogs were mistakenly delivered to the Soho store and not to the office where they belong.
This quick scene exemplifies the clear division of responsibilities for this busy mother-daughter management team.
“Through the years, it’s kind of developed who’s strong in what areas,” Arfwidson later explained. “Mom has the passion for the products and colors. I find her out in the countryside, comparing 50 shades of lipstick painted on her arm. I tend to adore structure and administration, the legal work and contracts.”
Four years ago, the Swedish-born mother and daughter dramatically changed direction, pulling their trendy cosmetics line out of major department stores and selling directly to customers through 24 company-owned boutiques. (They still sell FACE products in one upscale Hong Kong store and at the Fred Segal boutique in Los Angeles.) This direct sales strategy gave them more control over their cash flow and marketing. And it allowed them to build more of their cozy, brightly lit boutiques.
To reduce their overhead, they moved the company headquarters and distribution center out to Hudson, N.Y., a small town in the Catskill Mountains, about two hours outside of Manhattan. They are in New York City several days a month, promoting products to the fashion press and visiting their three boutiques in New York City.
Nowak founded FACE in Stockholm in 1980 after operating several busy clothing boutiques in Europe. Although she loved selling clothes, she became interested in cosmetics when a sales rep offered to sell her a line of products. She ended up creating her own line of colorful, natural products to fill a void in the Swedish cosmetics market. At first, she marketed the products to makeup artists and theater people. The products attracted so much attention, she expanded into the retail arena to meet the demand.
Today, the company offers 160 shades of lipstick and 120 nail colors, plus a rainbow of glittery eye shadows, eyeliners, creams, cleansers and other beauty products. Many celebrities including Goldie Hawn and Whoopi Goldberg are loyal customers, according to Arfwidson.
While her mother was busy selling cosmetics in Sweden, Arfwidson moved to New York City to pursue a music career. When her musical interests didn’t pay off, she joined her mother’s growing company.
“Similar to music, beauty products are peaceful, holistic tools for healing and pampering,” said Arfwidson. “By collaborating with my mother, I have found a way to combine some of the things that are important to me as a woman and a working artist.”
With her daughter focusing on operations in upstate New York, Nowak divides her time between the New York headquarters and an office in Stockholm with 29 employees.
“I needed a reason to come to New York so I could spend time with Martina, and opening FACE Stockholm in the United States was the perfect solution,” she said.
Nowak admits she never expected her daughter, who had little interest in fashion or makeup as a teenager, to join the family business.
“Dream, yes,” she said. “But it wasn’t anything I would wish for my daughter to work for her mother. I mean, I couldn’t ever think of working with my mother.”
By complementing each other’s skills, the mother-daughter team covers all the bases. They spend most of their time together, working and playing.
“Our life is very integrated,” said Arfwidson. “It’s not like we have time off and time on.”
Working so closely has also “made our relationship so broad,” she said. “We’re friends, we’re business partners. The relationship has become very rich.”
Providing Solutions
Speaking of smart women, two East Coast women were recently honored by Aetna Financial Services for submitting the best “Smart Solutions.” Their problems and solutions were presented in detail at recent invitation-only events held in New York City and Washington, D.C., and I was one of the judges who helped select the winners.
Hollis Thomases, founder of Web Ad.Vantage Inc., based in Aberdeen, Md., hires home-based mothers to conduct Web research and marketing for clients. Prior to starting her own business two years ago, she was a marketing manager for a major food service company.
“Many of my extremely talented and intelligent colleagues were leaving the workforce to stay at home with their children,” wrote Thomases in her contest application. “I made a mental note that, should I ever fulfill my dream and start my own business, I would love to tap into this talent in a way that would still be conducive to their lifestyle choice.”
Thomases recruits her “mommies” online, seeking women with public relations or marketing experience. She developed online training modules for the women who work on a project-by-project basis for clients looking to build Web traffic. The company expects to finish 2000 with revenues of $600,000.
Barbara Roberts, president and CEO of Acoustiguide Corp. in New York City, joined the 40-year-old firm about 18 months ago to guide it into the 21st century. The company, which supplies audio tours and cassette players to museums and historical sites, is taking advantage of digital audio technology to update its delivery systems.
“We have invented and launched three revolutionary digital MP3 Web-connected devices and developed award-winning documentary content,” Roberts wrote in her “Smart Solutions” application.
Jane Applegate is the author of “201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business,” and is CEO of SBTV.com, a multimedia site providing small-business resources. She can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected], or by mail at P.O. Box 768, Pelham, NY 10803.
