Here's The Scoop: Small Can Be Good - owner of small ice cream shop gives tips for entrepreneurs - Brief Article

Amy Miller is founder and CEO of Amy's Ice Creams, Inc., in Austin, Texas. She prepared this account at with Contributing Editor Susan Biddle Jaffe. Readers with insights on starting or running a business are invited to contribute to this column. Write to: Entrepreneur's Notebook, Nation's Business, 1615 H Street. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20062-2000.

Being in the ice-cream business, I like to answer the question "Can you top this?" by saying, "Yes, with hot fudge."

In the early days of my business, good publicity and recognition piled up higher than a three-scoop sundae, but the toppings that a lot of people seemed to expect were increased growth and higher sales figures. Questions were constantly raised about when my next store would open and about how much sales had grown.

For me, though, progress and sustainable profitability are reflected not so much by rising numbers of stores and sales as by a company's responsiveness to changes in the marketplace and the community, its ability to maintain commitments to founding principles such as innovative employee management and constantly improving customer service, and its effectiveness in addressing

corporate infrastructure needs.

Today, Amy's Ice Creams, Inc., has seven stores, all in Texas, and $2.5 million in annual sales--and I'm not worried about it becoming the next Ben and Jerry's. We're not as big as we could be, perhaps, but we are as big as we want to be--for now, at least.

As a company has opportunities to grow, its owners and managers should consider how expansion would affect the firm--for instance, whether it would add to or merely dilute the volume of business in the long run. The following strategies have helped Amy's achieve the kind of controlled, sustainable growth that makes its future secure.

Make your company distinctive. New stores and products and double- or triple-digit growth figures aren't the only ways to capture headlines and customer interest and loyalty. Each of our stores garners interest through its design, which reflects the store's location and gives people a sense of being in a unique place. Our newest store, for example, mirrors the elegance of its surroundings--the lobby of a restored hotel in Houston.

Our employees are trained to make connections with customers. For instance, by recognizing the fact that eating ice cream is a treat or even a celebration, employees can enhance the experience that customers have in our stores.

In addition, rather than spending on traditional advertising, Amy's directs most of its marketing funds to community donations and charity fund-raising efforts. As a result, our customers know us not only by our product but also by what we do for their towns.

Capitalize on what you already have. Identify and use in new ways aspects of your business that might be underused. For example, rather than viewing Amy's as exclusively a storefront business, we have developed sales to area restaurants and have entered into corporate catering agreements.

Let your imagination take flight. Have you been wanting to try an off-the-wall approach or develop a new product suggested by a customer? If it's within reason, do it.

Being small gives you better opportunities to experiment. Because Amy's doesn't produce thousands of gallons of ice cream at a time, new flavors can be produced and tested--not on focus groups but on real customers--at lower cost and with quicker feedback than if we were a larger operation.

Staying small can make the difference between needing the entire street to turn around and turning on a dime. It can mean fewer degrees of separation between the firm's decision makers and its customers.

Because you and your employees are closer to the market, you are able to respond more quickly and creatively to changes in corporate culture and customer desires. And you can give the kind of personalized attention that engenders employee and customer loyalty.

From my perspective, those are the abilities that give a company not only the potential for growth but also the means to sustain it.

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