Coupon-Clipping CEO
Teri Gault began cutting coupons more than 25 years ago (for fun!), even though she and her husband brought home six figures a year. When the couple first met, he was a stuntman on CHiPs, which led to her own acting gig on a couple of episodes and, later, two movie roles, including the Bill Cosby film The Devil and Daniel Webster.
A decade later, after she'd opted to be a stay-at-home mother and her husband's career slowed, her coupon hobby became necessary to put food on the table. Today her game – The Grocery Game – is a $12 million business with members in all 50 states and abroad. Subscribers use proprietary lists of grocery sales with their own coupons to maximize savings in stores. Gault, who turns 48 in February, talks to PINK about how her thrift made her rich.
How did you turn clipping coupons into a business?
I'd spend five hours a week compiling my shopping list [to work with coupons], then I realized other people could use this. So I asked my sister to test it. She called me the next day to say she'd gotten $150 worth of groceries for $50. She and five families from her church helped work out the kinks. Eight years ago this February I got a website, rolled coins to buy my $65 business license and spent $15 for three lines in our local paper. That got us off the ground.
How did you start franchising?
In a few months, I had e-mails across the country asking for my product. I knew I wanted to expand so I started a waiting list. I spent the money from the first three years to start franchising. I worked three jobs – more than 80 hours a week – and slept three to five hours a night. Now I take better care of myself, but sometimes you have to crawl on your bloody knees to get out of a hole. The majority of our territories are currently sold, and we have about 50 telecommuting employees nationwide.
How is your Life/Work balance?
I'm the CEO, but up until now I have been operating as the general manager and I've been working a lot. So I turned my quality control department head, my sister, into the general manger so I could just travel and do press. I travel 10 months of the year and take two off to be with my family. During six of those travel months I do 12 to 14 cities, and during the other four months I go to six to 10 cities.
How do you motivate your team over long distance?
There is a private forum where employees can chat and post pictures of their families and get to know each other. And every year we have a big holiday party at my house, where there are lots of hugs and lots of kids running around. Throughout the year, when someone makes a big mistake that affects other people in the company, I make her write a funny limerick about what happened and send it to whoever was affected by it. Then at the holiday party, we have a book of the best limericks. It's all about having fun.
You say you focus on having fun in business. Why?
In several jobs, I was not treated well as an employee. I promised when I became an employer, I'd treat my employees well. And that makes them work harder for me because they know I value them. When push comes to shove, when an opportunity comes our way, they will scramble and work extra hours to make it happen. They know that I love them and they love me. The biggest asset any company has is human beings. When I go into a place of business, I can tell by the feeling in the room if the managers treat their employees well. When they're not treating them well, they're not getting a good product.
So how did you get here from there?
In 1980, I cut coupons we didn't need. It was a game. We had a helicopter and would go for mountain-top picnics, and I'd be saying, "I got these crackers for 50 cents and they would've been $2," even though we just spent $350 on gas for the helicopter. My husband's business took a bad turn in the mid-'90s that put us in a terrible financial crunch, and then I cut coupons to put food on the table. I was working several jobs but only had about $35 a week for groceries. So I started tracking sales trends and cycles and turned it into a science.
How do the franchises work?
Franchises use our proprietary database and work with our quality control department to form their own lists. They buy zip codes and then make money off the membership fees their clients pay. We track more than 10,000 products. It's also for those people who don't have time to spend maximizing their coupons. It's for the busy professional. Even college students are using it now. We have 82 grocery lists that go up every week – four or five in most areas. There's a $1 trial period for four weeks, then it jumps to $10 dollars every eight weeks for one list and $5 for each additional list. Seven lists cost $40 dollars for every eight weeks and you save over $100 per week.
What was your biggest career mistake, and what did you learn from it?
Trying to do it all myself, which was based in fear – fear that if I spent money to hire someone, I could fail. In the early days I nearly killed myself because I was afraid to spend that money. Once I hired people, I could develop and get bigger and better. It's a risk, and women aren't usually risk takers because we're caretakers, so we're more careful. But fear was my enemy. When I hire a new major manager, fear can come up. But I catch myself and think, "I already learned this lesson. I waited too long to rescue myself from all that work." But if we don't take care of ourselves, no one else will.
What's the secret to your success?
I won't take no for an answer. I won't keep pounding down the same door for a long time, but I'll go to another one. I make a list of everything I can possibly do in my power to make this thing I want happen. In the beginning, I had no money, just time. So I'd write a press release and fax it and make phone calls – all of which was free. I would do everything on that list. I will get what I want. I'm tenacious but not vicious. If someone says no and means no, I leave them alone. But I'll find someone else. When I was younger, I'd look at people I admired and think, "That woman has two eyes and two legs just like me, and I know my brain is as good as hers. Someday I'm going to do that." I just learned to wakeboard this summer and I'm nearly 48 years old. I like to know that I can do whatever I want to do.
Reprinted from the January.February 2008 issue of PINK magazine.
"In the early days I nearly killed myself because I was afraid to spend that money. Once I hired people, I could develop and get bigger and better. It's a risk, and women aren't usually risk takers because we're caretakers, so we're more careful. But fear was my enemy."
Teri Gault, founder, The Grocery Game
