ThisWeek Keys to Success 04/19/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/04/0419-Cupcake-Yum-Yum

Scarlett and Paul Kilzer bake delicious treats that are so unique they go beyond just being cupcakes.

They are called “yums,” and they gave the couple’s business it’s name.

The Kilzers started Cupcake Yum Yum five years ago, with a cottage license to bake out of their home and a couple of weddings on the calendar.

They don’t have a storefront. Instead they’ve chosen to stick with a catering business they operate out of their commercial kitchen in Dublin.

“We had a trial period to see if it made sense to do wholesale through Stauf’s coffee shops. It was a great opportunity for us to work with them, but we realized that wasn’t congruent with where we were headed,”Paul said. “This year we’re scheduled for 40 to 50 events.”

The couple has chosen to focus on catering corporate, community and private events. Paul’s background in sales and marketing has helped them establish a solid foundation in that market, Scarlett said.

“Paul has more than a little experience in sales: he has 20 years worth of background,” she said. “I was a quiet little mouse until he helped teach me self-promotion and how marketing works.”

Scarlett paid for college by working at Handke’s Cuisine, a landmark of Columbus food for decades, where she was originally inspired to combine her artistic skills with her love of desserts.

“I loved the creativity there and after seeing the back end of a high-end restaurant kitchen, I got the bug,” she said. “A friend asked me to do a wedding cake for them, so I experimented. I had no idea what I was doing but I did a ton of research and it was a hit.”

After a while, Scarlett said, she became tired of the traditional flavors clients looked for in wedding cakes.

“I got bored doing the same flavors so I gravitated toward the appetizer-size cakes that Handke’s made, so that’s the size of our cupcakes: two bites,” she said. “When we started, we’d think up the weirdest combos and one day Paul said, ‘Let’s put bacon in a cupcake,’ and it’s become one of our most popular flavors.”

According to Paul, that experimentation, along with Scarlett’s attention to detail, has been Cupcake Yum Yum’s main key to success.
“Scarlett’s unwilling to do this halfway. She’s obsessive about research,” he said. “If she has an idea, you can’t tear her away from it until she’s gotten to the bottom of it fully.”

The couple didn’t intentionally set out to be a gluten-free business but Paul uses said this is an example of his wife’s commitment to perfection, which he describes as “her passion for digging in and really understanding what she’s doing until she’s created something amazing.

“That’s why we get people normally uninterested in gluten-free products eating our cupcakes without knowing they are and being surprised,” he said. “Gluten-free or not, they’re just really delicious.”

Scarlett said it is important to embrace failure and the competition as well.

“Picking yourself up after you fail is key,” she said. “You can’t be afraid of that, and you have to understand your competition and embrace them. There’s plenty of business for everyone — you just have to find your niche.

“Personally though, Paul went through a year of chemo for cancer during this, and another key for me is balance. You can always replace money but you can’t replace family.”

Cupcake Yum Yum is committed to working with other local producers to obtain as many of their ingredients as possible locally and organically, Scarlett said, including their bacon.

More information about Cupcake Yum Yum is available online www.cupcakeyumyum.com.

ThisWeek Keys to Success 04/19/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/04/0419-Pizzuti

The Pizzuti Companies have been building on success for more than three decades.

Company owner Ron Pizzuti is an internationally recognized art collector, as well as the founder of the Pizzuti Companies.

Jim Russell, the firm’s chief operating officer, said Pizzuti’s interest in good design and artistic solutions is key to the company’s success.

It’s also inherent in an exciting new project now under way in the Short North area of Columbus.

“We’re currently the largest U.S. city without a boutique hotel, and we are going to change that,” Russell said. “I think this is the most exciting project we’re working on right now. It’ll include a Short North gallery space for Ron’s art collection, offices, parking and, of course, a boutique hotel.”

Timelessness becomes a product of good design, he said.

“One thing Pizzuti takes pride in is that we won’t sacrifice what we believe is right for our clients just because of a tough economy. We show that if you err on the side of quality and good design, you’ll hold your value longer,” Russell said. “If you visit our projects from the past 30 years, they all look very timeless and as if they had just been built.”

Pizzuti started his career in the retail sales business, according to Russell, which is where he learned how to merchandise and package real estate in a way that was different from how everyone else was doing it.

“His background in retail let him look at things more creatively and his flair for the arts certainly helped,” Russell said. “His first signature project he did with his wife, Ann, that was One Arlington Place. They really learned the business from the ground up and then just expanded from there.”

The Pizzuti Companies are headquartered in Two Miranova Place, part of a signature downtown Columbus development completed by the company.

“We like to say we were ‘green’ before it was a popular color,” Russell said. “Miranova Place was once a brownfield site and was the first voluntary action clean-up in Ohio, so we worked closely with the Voinovich administration to bring Ohio up to speed with that type of redevelopment.”

Another key to the Pizzuti Companies’ success has been to stay on the front edge of development, according to Russell, with things such as “green” technologies, mixed-use developments and public-private partnerships.

“Building sustainable is really an attempt by Pizzuti to continue to push the envelope and lead the industry instead of following,” he said. “We knew it was the right thing to do for the environment but it is also being conscious of operating expenses and adding value for our clients.”

The new Franklin County Courthouse project was managed by Pizzuti.

“The county hit a point where they needed an outside company to be an extension of their staff and we won that contract,” Russell said. “That ended up being the first LEED Gold Certified court in Ohio and one of the first in the nation.”

He said no matter how successful the Pizzuti Companies have become, it would all be wasted if they stopped listening to their clients.

“We’ll never be accused of just creating shade and shelter,” Russell said. “Another key to our success is that if you forget what made you successful and start telling clients what to do instead of listening, you’ll no longer be successful.

“We believe in listening and then analyzing to provide the best solution — that is key.”

For more information on the Pizzuti Companies, visit www.pizzuti.com.

ThisWeek Keys to Success 04/19/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/04/0419-Rule3

Don Smith couldn’t find a family-friendly bowling alley in the Columbus area, so he opened his own.

“I always enjoyed bowling and bowled a lot in leagues, but I noticed there was a general deterioration of bowling alley options in Columbus,” Smith said. “Moms and dads weren’t comfortable taking their kids into these dank, smoky places. So we thought we’d do something new and different.”

What Smith and his partner, the late Brian Stoner, developed was Rule 3, a family-oriented entertainment complex in Pickerington that includes bowling, arcades, pool, a restaurant and sports bar, volleyball courts and a patio area used for live music in the summer.

“We thought, ‘let’s bring bowling back with a light and fun place, with a true restaurant and sports bar so it’s fun for mom and dad and for the kids,’” Smith said. “We have these kid-oriented happiness zones and enough room for volleyball games going on outside, six birthday parties going on inside and people watching the Buckeyes and bowling, all at the same time.”

Since opening Rule 3 in 2009, Smith has been focused on providing that family fun experience.

“We’ve got about 65 staff members, and we’re in our third year of learning,” he said. “Meeting our customers’ needs and seeing those needs even before they do has been key to our success.”

As a longtime Pickerington resident and a central Ohio native, Smith said he understands how important the business and community relationship is.

“If you want your community to support you, then you better be a strong supporter of your community, whether that means getting flyers and brochures printed locally or something else; we try to choose people here in our area,” Smith said.

Rule 3 is supportive of the schools and community organizations as well. According to Smith, this is both a part of what he believes in and a niche for the business.

“We’re finding we’re a good niche for large local fundraisers because of our space and options,” he said. “We’ve gotten behind Lima Company, as several of their members are Pickerington natives. They do a memorial bike night fundraiser here.

“Another woman is organizing a local autism fundraiser and we’ll have a memorial and fundraiser for Terry McDowell, the fallen Whitehall police officer. We’re very proud to be able to support these events and glad to sponsor them.”

Rule 3 also sponsors several events for the Pickerington Local School District’s athletics teams, which is something Smith said he hopes to continue and expand.

“If I had it to do all over, I’d choose to do it right here in Pickerington again. I’m very proud to be here and extremely happy to be where we are,” Smith said.

For more information about Rule 3, visit www.rule3.com.

ThisWeek Keys to Success 04/19/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/04/0419-SpiritConcepts

Spirit Concepts has been on a winning streak in central Ohio for more than six decades.

“We’re in a group of about 40 stores nationwide that get together to share ideas,” owner Bob Zimmerman said. “It’s a very unique group; vendors meet with us and then walk away saying that they’ve never seen a group that competes yet works so well together.”

Sharing ideas and resources makes all the businesses better, Zimmerman said, which is one key to Spirit Concepts’ success.

“We work a lot with local schools, colleges, student organizations and academic groups. We’re not going to directly compete with someone doing the same thing at say, Tulane, or somewhere,” Zimmerman said.

“So instead, we’re working together, sharing ideas and making each other better.”

Spirit Concepts originally opened across from the Ohio State University campus in 1946 as University Jewelers and Spirit Concepts. After graduating from OSU, Zimmerman took a job with the company in 1977 before becoming owner.

“We started out as a full-line jewelry store in 1946, but by 1990, the business climate for that just didn’t exist on campus,” he said. “We’d gotten into screen-printing and embroidery, which is a lot of our business today.”

Currently, Spirit Concepts operates out of a retail and production facility at 7177 Northgate Way in Westerville. From that location, the company provides bulk and small orders of screen-printed items, embroidery, trophies, plaques, awards and various other promotional items to businesses, community organizations and schools.

Zimmerman and his son, J.C., run the business.

“We have several different processes, depending on a client’s needs,” he said. “We’ll match up what needs done with the best process for 12 items the same as if someone needs 100 items.

“A key to our success is we’re people- and customer-oriented, and that’s what we pride ourselves on being,”

Zimmerman also said staying on top of trends is very important to maintaining an edge in his business.

“You have to roll with the trends,” he said. “What’s popular now won’t be in five years’ time, so you have to anticipate what section of the market is going to be attractive five years from now and go in that direction. Keeping up with technology helps that, too.”

A new technology that Spirit Concepts is using is called Square. It works with iPad, iPhone, iPod and Android to function as a remote credit card cash register.

“I’ve got Square on my iPad and they’ve released an app called Square Register, which allows me to email customers their receipts immediately, and then if I am at a festival or something, I’ll know who I sold what to. It helps me to follow up with those customers,” Zimmerman said.

For more information about Spirit Concepts, visit www.ohiostatespiritconcepts.com

ThisWeek Keys Story 03/22/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/03/0315-Bebo-Naturals.html

Three sisters found the perfect recipe for turning a family tradition of made-from-scratch, natural foods into a family business.

Bebo Naturals of Hilliard prides itself on making a local, all natural baby food for central Ohio parents, according to owner Ariana Ulloa-Olavarrieta.

Ariana, Cinta and Tania Ulloa were all born in Mexico and moved to Ohio at a young age with their parents after their father accepted a position as a physics professor at Ohio University.

After pursuing other careers around the country, the three sisters chose to relocate their young families back to Columbus, so they could all raise their kids together.

“We were raised to always cook with fresh ingredients. Everything was always homemade and even leftovers were incorporated,” Ulloa-Olavarrieta said. “Right about when we were all getting ready to have kids, we made the conscious decision to raise our kids together, so we all moved back.

“We were talking about how Cinta would spend all day Sunday cooking food for her first child because she was having a hard time finding baby food that she felt good giving him to eat. That’s when I said, ‘you should start a business,’ which soon became ‘we should start a business.’”

According to Ulloa-Olavarrieta, the sisters were all working full-time jobs and spent their evenings and weekends testing recipes, using themselves, their kids and their friends’ kids as taste-testers.

“We knew we were onto something because the other moms were noticing there was a big difference between what their kids were eating and what her kids ate,” Ulloa-Olavarrieta said. “We did a lot of taste-testing with friends to get our recipes just right and then we launched officially in September 2010.”

Bebo Naturals are available via Green Bean Delivery, at several area farmers markets and through the Celebrate Local store at Easton Town Center.

One of the company’s keys to success, according to Ulloa-Olavarrieta, has been taking the time to plan things and not growing too big too fast.

“We had been approached early on by grocery stores but decided to wait until we felt we were ready to expand into that market and deal with those demands and setting up bar codes, etc.,” she said. “We’re now at that point, so we’re in talks with some local grocery stores to get in there.”

Ulloa-Olavarrieta said finding mentors to model a business after is important to success.

“I think it’s important to take it slow and do your research — like with the bar codes: If we’d bought them off the secondary market, we might not have been able to work with the larger grocers who will only accept your product if you have your own bar codes,” she said. “We’ve tried to surround ourselves with good mentors for advice like this — other small-business owners that we’d like to model ourselves after.”

Being a part of the local economy is very important to Bebo Naturals as well, according to Ulloa-Olavarrieta.

“We mostly buy local, sustainable ingredients, and we’re always looking to convert more of our ingredients to local goods through meeting new people and asking. We don’t pretend to know everybody, so we’re always on the lookout for other local producers,” she said. “ We all have to work together at this to get business in here and get the economy going again.

“If we can play even a small part in that, we want to. We want to keep doing this because we truly believe in it.”