Feasting Through the Famine: an Entrepreneur’s Turnaround

In an industry hit hard by the recession, Jim Israel confirms his cash flow is poor.   He also professes to be “the most optimistic person on the planet who’s losing money in 2009.”  As co-founder and CEO of Culinary Concepts, Inc., a full-service catering and event planning company in Philadelphia, Jim is keenly focused on a future he’s already transformed. 

Getting the Wake-up Call

“For the first twenty years in my business, I blindly went about making money and losing money.   Luckily, there was more of the former for a long time, but then we hit a rough spot over a bad project that lost money… it was a wake-up call.  I realized I love what I do… but needed to be responsible, consciously, for what happens in my business.”

Jim noted that part of the rude awakening came when the Director of Operations who helped him rebuild the company to its strongest position “couldn’t answer ‘why’ we had succeeded.”  Jim realized they had endless ideas, but no structure, no plan, no metrics for analyzing costs, revenues, or anything.

He needed advice.  As a caterer, Jim had been immersed in planning parties and amassed a “ton of connections”, but he had not made time to network.  He joined BCA (Business Clubs of America) in early 2008 “to get involved.”

By the time Jim met Cheryl Beth Kuchler, Founder and Managing Principal of CEO Think Tank®, a few months later, he knew he was headed for a break-even year, at best.  “The economy started shifting on us early [last year],” Jim explains.  He needed to change his business, and his business model, in order to drive growth.

Changing the Recipe

Knowing he did not have the right leadership in place, Jim made some adjustments.  He took over the operations role for several months.  Then, he replaced himself with a head of sales before hiring a VP of Operations.  In both cases, Jim applied new interviewing and hiring strategies he learned from his participation in CEO Think Tank®.

“Instead of hiring people like me, I found more measured thinkers. I chose people who…aren’t wired the same way as I am [but can deal with my energy and ideas] without being overwhelmed,” reveals Jim, in explaining how he built his new management team.

Jim also attributes his CEO Think Tank® experience with the realization that he need not hire from only the food industry – a common mistake many entrepreneurs make, thinking that they need “industry” experience in their employees.  “I learned that every business has the same functions.  My Think Tank allowed me to view companies in a different way… and brought out in me talent I didn’t yet own.  I’m a sponge when it comes to information and I learn quickly.

Transferring  Skills

That talent has been evident throughout Jim’s career.  While attending the University of Denver to study hotel and restaurant management, he grew enamored with the idea of interning in another country, so he switched his major to marketing.   Knowing he wanted to work in business, he took a job in a record store, where he devoted sixty plus hours per week. 

“Once I gain knowledge of something, I love to project that knowledge onto others for their benefit.”  In the case of the record store, it was album recommendations for customers in a record store.   “I do food that way.  It’s what’s carried me in catering.”

Before long, Jim realized that strategy would not work indefinitely in the music industry.  “I figured I’d get too old to know what’s current and what to recommend.”  Jim ate lunch daily at a neighborhood sandwich place owned by a friend, who noticed he knew and chatted with all the customers.  Jim’s friend offered him a job as maitre’de for his new Italian restaurant.

“He recognized I had sense of what customers wanted.”  Jim didn’t take the job because he was ready to leave Denver, but he headed East clear that he wanted to be in a people business.  He never resolved to be a chef, just to own something.  He interviewed for jobs in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, where he grew up.  With roots here, Jim took a job at the Commissary, a renowned restaurant and market in Center City.

Discovering his Destiny

While working as an assistant pastry chef at the Commissary, Jim met his future wife Janet, who worked in corporate take-out.  The company they eventually would establish together was born from their shared determination.   From their apartment building, which had no freight elevator, they ran up and down the stairs to illegally cater small dinner parties of 10 - 30 people as a way to test the waters in catering.  

Jim worked 80-90 hours per week, between his day and night jobs.  When the chef from the Frog established a new restaurant, Chameleon, Jim joined his team in order to learn the front of the house, as opposed to the back.  By the time Culinary Concepts was established in 1987, Jim had gained hands-on experience in every aspect of the business, except finance.  “That’s why it took me 20 years to become solvent!”, he says with a smile.

Turning his business around has “brought out a passion that’s almost the same as [his] passion for food.”  He focuses on the process of business rather than on making money.  “It’s funny… now that I’m not the point person for everything and I’m not running sales or food, I’m more involved in the whole business.”

Adopting a New Way to Work

Jim credits his CEO Think Tank® membership, along with Cheryl Beth Kuchler and Doug Diamond, with helping him find his voice.   “You can’t do it alone.   As an entrepreneur, you hire people because they’re good, but most entrepreneurs don’t know how to lead.  [Instead], we just do what I did – cheer.   I only conveyed energy and maybe some savvy, and relied on employees to apply their talents.  Then I’d get frustrated when they didn’t align with my vision.”

Today Jim is creating a “community of competence”.   His role is to determine structure, hire well, and evolve the team in a unified direction.  “Communication is critical, but there’s nothing to say if you don’t have a plan.”

Creating a Plan

When Jim won the bid to cater an event at Wharton Business School for 8,000 people, he knew he had room for improvement.   “I listened and saw the forest for the trees.  Everything’s a jigsaw puzzle and I can usually picture an end before the start.”  Despite his company’s success in transforming the event for two years, the contract returned to bid, in keeping with Wharton’s policy.

Jim grew tired of the passive bidding process.  Through CEO Think Tank®, he was introduced to Verne Harnish’s  Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, which transformed his thinking again.  Jim knew he needed to identify his brand promise, what really differentiated Culinary Concepts from the competition and diversify his revenue streams if he was to be successful going forward.  “You can’t buy into something like the Rockefeller Habits if you don’t know what you want to accomplish,” advises Jim.  And going to the “Habits” workshop clarified Jim’s vision.

What Turns Around Comes Around

Culinary Concepts achieved a key growth goal this year by negotiating an exclusive on-site catering agreement with the Independence Seaport Museum.  He demonstrated to the renowned nonprofit organization that he could enhance its revenue stream by “owning” the venue for events.  Culinary Concepts hired an event planner to work at the museum and paid to revise the organization’s website to promote the venue.    

Jim laments that he could’ve earned 50% more in each year of business if he’d had his new structure from the beginning.   Still, at age 47 with four kids near grown, Jim believes he has “plenty of time to make up for it.” 

Jim once thought his value-add was in planning parties.  “I always thought I was a success and failure at the same time.”   Ironically, he doesn’t talk about food anymore.  “It’s a given, it’ll be great.  It’s the business that I need to look at.  If we’re running well operationally, our food will be better.”  And, with new structure, new energy, and new direction, 2010 promises to be a profitable one!

To visit the Culinary Concepts website, click here.