Please Let It Stop

by Gold, Jacqueline

  The next day’s papers echoed public opinion and went on the attack against the Dublin Corporation and their performance on the television programme. I, on the other hand, was commented on for my demeanour and also for the tasteful pale pink suit I wore. I obviously wasn’t the sex slut in cheap red lace and skintight PVC that everyone had expected.

  Later on I tried to arrange a meeting with the Irish Prime Minister. Not expecting him to oblige, I was very pleased to see that he at least sent his second in command, Jerry Hickey. I met him in the Dublin store and told him what we were trying to achieve. He was very supportive, a complete contrast to the Dublin Corporation.

  Now we have five other stores in Ireland and they are all very well received. To illustrate how times have changed, when we opened in Cork the Mayor wanted to have his picture taken in the store. He knew the value of good publicity! The O’Connell Street store is now one of the highlights for visitors on the Dublin tour bus. I haven’t heard the commentary but I would like to think they say something like, ‘This is the scene of a major battle between Ann Summers and the Dublin Corporation. As you can see, the lady won.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Minding my business

  When I reflect on my move into Ann Summers I think I was very brave. I walked into a situation where I was totally inexperienced, I wasn’t getting total support from the board and I had the handicap of being related to the owner so I had far more to lose. I was being driven only by gut feeling, by the responses from women I’d met at that first party I attended in Thamesmead and my own self-belief. It is not easy to step into an industry that is dominated by men and has an image that is more sleaze than sensuality. But that’s what being an entrepreneur is all about. You have to take risks and go where others are too afraid to be. That’s the thrill and it’s also the difference between people who have ideas and those who make them happen: the latter step outside their comfort zone. And they don’t stop once they’ve tasted success. Being an entrepreneur is not just about making money: if that is your only motivation your business will fail. You need to be hungry for success, to want to build something and put your own stamp on the world.

  As the business developed, so did the challenges and the competition. Just after we started, a company called Silver Rose suddenly appeared on the scene. The man who ran it, Geoff Silver, had one shop selling erotic underwear and he wanted to set up a party plan scheme. What better way than to poach some of my people? Chris Rogers and Ann Galea decided to go off and join him. They took thirty of the women they’d recruited with them. This was literally only a year or so after we’d started which was bad news, not so much in terms of the people we lost but in trying to make sure that the remaining sales organisers were not discouraged, so one of my key tasks at this point was to ensure that morale remained high. Some of them took the defections to Silver Rose quite personally and, although I tried to point out to them that life goes on, they decided to leave as well. Nonetheless, our recruitment rate was very high, at about thirty new party organisers each day, so we recovered quickly.

  Expansion is necessary for a business but it brings with it a lot of risks. In 1989 I employed a woman called Joyce Greenhill to run the party plan operation in the north. I had known for some time that we should be operating up there but it would have been foolish to try and run the process from our southern base. Joyce was very good at what she did and helped us get organised for our northern operation. In a way the party plan business organises itself: you train some people up, they recruit others and it perpetuates itself. As we progressed, I began to feel that Joyce wasn’t quite right for us. Yes she could do the job, but there were things about the way in which she did it that weren’t right. We now needed to project a more sophisticated image and I felt she was not going to be the right ambassador for our brand. The people I needed were a lot more polished and professional: that was the image I had been working hard to cultivate for myself and it was what I expected from my senior staff.

  There are many people in business who are uncomfortable with change and I think Joyce was one of them. She didn’t like the formalities of the business, formalities that become necessary whenever you grow in size, which was what was happening to Ann Summers. The more people you have, the more necessary it is to put in structures, otherwise you end up with chaos. I think Joyce felt we could just continue as we had always done, but becoming a bigger version of that. Not surprisingly, she was unhappy, so that when a company named Lovelace came calling, she was flattered. Lovelace was owned by a man called Carl Slack and we hadn’t considered them major rivals. Fundamentally, Joyce wanted a directorship or she would leave. I said no and she went – and so did many of our party organisers. She was actively poaching them, forcing me to enact a campaign of damage limitation. I spoke to our organisers and told them to handle the defectors with good grace by letting those who were leaving know they were always welcome at Ann Summers. We lost around 500 ladies in all. Less than a year later Carl Slack’s business was in trouble. I saw an opportunity to buy him out and get my staff back. It wasn’t that easy. We bought the party plan channel of Lovelace but many of the ladies, fed up with the politics of the whole thing, decided that party plan was no longer for them. The deal meant we wouldn’t lose any more staff and we gained a few back, but that was about it. The poaching issue was to rear its head again in 1994, when a company called Intrigue, in what was quite a brazen move, placed ads that said, ‘Ann Summers girls wanted.’ However, they continued trying to steal our party organisers. Intrigue had employed one of our ex-area managers and were effectively targeting our sales force with their ready-made lists of our people. In other words, they were setting up a company using stolen lists without doing any of the hard work or training or bearing any of the costs. We were actually preparing for full-scale legal battle when we heard they had gone into receivership. I will not hesitate in calling in top lawyers to fight anyone who tries to steal our business and I will go to any lengths to protect the business from anyone who dares to unlawfully or unethically jeopardise the Ann Summers brand.

  As Ann Summers became more successful, I had more money to reinvest in the business and was planning for the future. By the early 1990s we were growing 20 per cent year on year. By 2001, having expanded the number of Ann Summers stores to fifty-two, we also had enough evidence to realise that our retail operation was not siphoning off business from party plan: in fact, it was helping increase party bookings. In the following four years we opened eighty-three more stores. We were very careful to ensure that the shops communicated to the customers in the same way as the party plan business. That meant they had to reflect the same brand image and the same ethos of being fun, female-friendly places that women wanted to visit. In February 2000 the high-street chain, Knickerbox, came up for sale. I was very interested and not just because I knew it would be relatively cheap. At this time Ann Summers was still struggling with credibility and I felt that not only was Knickerbox a good fit with our business, but it would add something positive to our brand. I had tried to buy it a few years earlier when it came up for sale, but failed. Now they were really in trouble it was time to get serious.

  At the time Knickerbox was losing £5 million a year and I knew it was just a matter of time before they went into receivership. That might sound a bit vulture-like but it’s the way business operates – why pay more for a company when you can get it at a knock-down price? Of course, operating in this way is a gamble because someone else could come along and whisk it away from under your nose. This is exactly what happened when I tried this tactic with La Senza, which was snapped up by the owner of Rymans, Theo Paphitis. Theo is one of the dragons on the television programme, Dragons’ Den. This time I was determined to do the deal. I went to meet the owner, the very brash and colourful Gary Klesch. He is one of those people who is in every sense larger than life and greeted me wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. He must have stood at about 6 feet 5 inches. There was a pretty blonde at reception and, all
in all, I felt like I’d stumbled into JR Ewing’s office!

  Klesch had set himself up as a ‘distressed debt’ specialist, rescuing companies in trouble but since he’d acquired Knickerbox he hadn’t really done anything with it. I bought Knickerbox two weeks later and it was very cheap. I did a deal where I cherry-picked the best stores out of the fifty they had. We incorporated them into our existing infrastructure, which made it much more economical to run. I also put Knickerbox concessions into Ann Summers stores. This was a strategic move designed to introduce Knickerbox customers to Ann Summers, on their terms. These were people who would have liked to go into an Ann Summers store but still felt a little unsure of being in there. By putting a Knickerbox into the store, it meant they could go in and identify items with which they felt comfortable. Of course, they would then relax enough to do what they really wanted to do, which was look at the Ann Summers range. Because of this, footfall (the number of people coming into the shop) increased and our sales at Ann Summers increased by a considerable 15 per cent on top of the new sales generated from Knickerbox purchases.

  With 145 stores and £145 million sales turnover, we’re now mainstream; in effect we’re a high-street brand. That means that we’re exposed to the ups and down of the economic cycle, although not as much as other stores. One reason for this is that sex will always sell and even in a recessionary economy, sex toys and lingerie will still be doing brisk business as couples find themselves spending more time at home and decide they need to spice things up. We have consistently gone against retail trends and done well when the rest of the high street is struggling.

  However, like other retailers, we are at the mercy of high rents and that can really impact on our bottom line. Fundamentally, the choice we have to make regarding sites is whether to be a destination store – a specialised and unique store where customers know our location and are willing to make a special visit. Destination stores will often be away from the main high street or shopping centre. The other alternative is to base ourselves in an ‘A’ location like a major shopping centre where you benefit from having loads of traffic already and are therefore in a position to capitalise on impulse buyers.

  Quite often it is more profitable to be out of the way rather than in an expensive ‘A’ location. Once you offset your revenue against the rent it often works out better. In shopping centres such as Lakeside we are naturally affected by footfall, or lack of it, just like everyone else. It means that if people stay away from Lakeside then we lose out as well.

  While most landlords welcome Ann Summers, there are some who still feel that we are not appropriate for their hallowed space. As I write, Bluewater are making it a bit difficult for us. The irony is that Bluewater did a survey and Ann Summers was the most requested store.

  Party plan is very good for us and is even less susceptible to movements in the economy. During the miners’ strike in 1984–85 party plan did very well. There were two reasons for this. One was that because men were out of work, women needed to supplement the family income, so they joined us as party organisers to earn a bit of extra money. The other reason we did well is that people were attending parties – having come with no intention of buying – and finding they only had to spend a little to return home with an item that would amuse them and their husbands!

  I like to think that we have been responsible in some way for changing the attitudes of women – and men – towards sex. But you can’t force products on to consumers if they don’t want them in the first place. So our customers are also pushing their own boundaries. Women now are much more in the driver’s seat with regard to exploring their sexuality and I think that putting shops in the high street has helped this to happen. Instead of sex being seen as something hidden and taboo (unfortunately, that attitude does still persist) it is now seen as fun and something to enjoy, celebrate and explore. Our shops are warm, well lit and welcoming. Customers can browse the shop on their own but if they have any questions they will be answered by informed sales assistants who know their products and will make them feel comfortable. Despite our enviable sales figures we don’t allow ourselves to become complacent. From the beginning I have always relied on my customers and staff for feedback, and listening to them has been a fundamental part of the success of the business.

  There are still people, some of them women, who argue that the idea of women dressing up in sexy lingerie is not empowering at all because it is being done purely for men. The gist of their argument is that it is a step backwards. I find this faintly ridiculous since it presupposes that women do not enjoy feeling sexy and exploring their sexuality, and only do so for the pleasure of their men. It’s a notion that completely ignores a woman’s desire for pleasure and her ability to orchestrate it. As with many areas of their lives, this is about women taking the initiative, and that can only be a good thing.

  At the same time it means that men are learning to understand that women can and will make their own decisions and demands with regard to sex. Years ago men weren’t bothered whether women were enjoying themselves. Now men make an effort and want to please their partners and they like women to be confident – well, of course, there are still those that feel inadequate and struggle with the concept of a woman enjoying her sexuality but, in the main, men are more receptive, especially the younger generation, who understand that sex is not something you do to someone: it’s something you do together. It’s interesting to note that problems with attitude towards Ann Summers shops and products are often found among the older generation of men: I have come across difficult landlords of premises, or senior people in JobCentres where we have tried to recruit staff. I can only conclude that the existence of Ann Summers constitutes some kind of threat to them and makes them feel inferior or insecure.

  Still, there are some places where you may not want to confront your sexuality. A few years ago Boots the chemists were considering adding sex toys to their shops. I like Boots but I wouldn’t want to buy my sex toys from there. As I’ve often said to people, ‘I buy my meat from the butchers, my shoes from a shoe shop and my sex toys from a shop that doesn’t sell haemorrhoid cream.’ At one point Tesco were also said to be thinking of it. Now I have nothing but admiration for Tesco; I think it is a brilliant brand. However, the thought conjured up this image of me pushing my trolley around the supermarket, loading it up with eggs, bacon, baguettes … and a Rampant Rabbit. Then I would get to the checkout, the bar code wouldn’t work and there would be red faces all round. Are people ready for this? I don’t think so.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dad and l: a perfect team

  It is frequently assumed that my father was very influential in getting me involved in the Gold Group. The truth is that it was my own choice and, until I decided to present my party plan idea back in 1982, I don’t think he ever expected that I would become an integral part of the family business. Having produced two daughters but no sons, his expectation was that there would be nobody to succeed him. Now that person will be me. I accept it as a responsibility and see it as a natural extension of what I already do. It’s a challenge I will take on with no difficulty since these are businesses I am involved in anyway and the same business philosophy and skills will apply. At the same time I don’t want the day to come when he retires and I take over. Today he is Chairman of the Gold Group, I am its Chief Executive, and we are true business partners. At seventy he is extremely young for his age and very active, so hopefully we will continue working together for a long time to come.

  *

  The circumstances of my parents’ divorce put a lot of distance between my father and myself and there is no question that our personal relationship started very late, probably about fifteen years ago. Despite his lack of direct influence over me when I was young, you can’t discount the effects of genetics and I believe I take after him in so many ways. I love working with him and I especially enjoy the banter between us when we are discussing business issues. We went from having a very strained relationship, or ve
ry distant relationship, to becoming very close because all of a sudden we had something in common: passion for the business. In some ways that shared passion helped us get closer personally, and today he and I – and my sister – have more than made up for lost time. As well as business the three of us regularly share dinners, watch football and go on holiday.

  Over the years his advice has been invaluable, not just because he is a clever man but also because I found there were limited networking opportunities open to me. One of the reasons for this is that Ann Summers was – and still is – regarded as a controversial business and other business-people just didn’t want to be associated with us. At one point I joined the Direct Selling Association (DSA). Their conferences were very inspiring, with people from successful companies like Avon sharing their experiences. I once gave a speech there to a curious audience who were completely stunned when I told them what our turnover figures were. They had underestimated the professionalism and success of our operation. There were many questions afterwards. Did we really rely on customer feedback? Was our team made up of only women? Actually, the person who asked me the latter question was a man who ran a cosmetics business, Jaffra Cosmetics. It turned out he did not have one woman on his executive team, which I think is a huge mistake if you’re in the beauty industry. His business went under not long after. In the end I felt the DSA was happy to have us as members, but, unlike their attitude towards other successful businesses, they continually failed to recognise our achievements. They refused to see that it didn’t matter what product was being sold; I still had the same business and marketing issues as everyone else. They were more concerned about how their other members would react if we were recognised over others. When I said I was leaving the association, they pleaded with me to stay but I was already far too annoyed with the way I had been treated. Once my mind is made up, I rarely change it.