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HATTIE: Hi. I'm Hattie Bryant. Every week, right here, you meet generous men and women who tell about their experiences as small-business owners. These people are this country's job generators, the wealth creators.

Calise & Sons has been baking and serving bread in New England since 1908. These trucks are a familiar and welcome sight to the hundreds of retailers and restaurateurs who buy and sell or serve their bread throughout New England.

Then there are the beautiful loaves. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the bakery is sifting, stirring, waiting for the yeast to do its magic, baking and cooling to precisely the perfect temperature for packaging.

Meet the Calise brothers. Mike is the oldest and is president of the company. Joe is the youngest and handles all administration. Bob is the middle brother and is responsible for sales.

BOB CALISE: We bought a company that was virtually bankrupt. It was a different type business. We were a retailer then. We used to go house-to-house making home deliveries. And we bought the company from my father and his three brothers. We would have been better off if we hadn't let them go bankrupt and then buy it. But be...

HATTIE: What would have happened? You wouldn't have had to take over the debts?

BOB: Right. Right. But we did it, you know, because of our father. And, you know, we paid a price for it. The first two years that we owned the company, when we bought it--when we bought the company, we let six people go immediately and we worked for the six people.

HATTIE: The three of you took the six jobs.

BOB: That's it. And we worked 14, 16 hours every day for the first two years without a day off except a half a day on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

HATTIE: How'd you do it? Where'd you get the money?

MIKE CALISE: We didn't have money. We bought the business on promissory notes. But before we took the business over, my mother called us up to supper one night, and she says, `I hear through your father that you're gonna buy the business.' And she says, `There's only one way you'll do it. If you want to stay in business like your father and his brothers, don't do it. If you're gonna not get along, do not do it.'

HATTIE: They didn't get along?

MIKE: No, they didn't get along.

HATTIE: Just, like, always yelling at each other?

MIKE: It was just a family business. . . everybody said what they had to say, they had no goals, no ideas, no steps to move on to the future. So we had dinner with my mother; she says, `The only way you'll buy this business is if you're one for all and all for one, or don't do it.' And that's the way it's been for us since that day.

We were always close, my two brothers and me. Since we were kids -- because of the upbringing with the type of mother and father we had -- we all care about each other and we all worry about each other.

HATTIE: When you said the type of upbringing, what does that mean?

MIKE: Well, strict Italian family. Values. Doing the right thing. We worked hard; we grew. She was there; she used to work with us. My mother used to come to work every morning at 5:00.

JOE CALISE: We worked for peanuts just to make sure that we can make the payroll and give our people more money.

HATTIE: So advice you would give early on in any business: As an owner, take take very little so that you can give your people more.

JOE: Yeah, take very little. And don't look at the clock when you're working. Don't look at the clock. Because if you figured what we made by the hour, I think, it wasn't even a buck an hour. I'm telling you, it was that bad.

HATTIE: When you all took this business, how many employees did you have?

JOE: Well, it started out at 20. But then as soon as we took it over, we couldn't work with my three uncles. They had a way of doing things that wasn't our way of doing things. And within three, four months, they were all out of there--six months, maybe. We worked seven days, 14 hours a day. We made it. We baked it. We delivered it. And if you didn't pay me, I chased you over to your house with my baseball bat because I didn't play golf then.

HATTIE: Did you really? Did you have a baseball bat in the back of your...

JOE: Oh, I sure did.

HATTIE: And you went around to collect your money?

JOE: When I had to.

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BOB: And then we changed the concept of the business. They were primarily a retailer and we decided to make it a wholesale company.

HATTIE: How did you get that first wholesale account?

BOB: Just by knocking on doors and showing them our product and being competitively priced.

MIKE: Our first big break was with a Star Market in 1973, I think. And they were looking for somebody to do a private label program. They came down, they visited our plant and we made samples for them. And we passed all the tests that were necessary and we started with them. That was our first major private label account.

BOB: About six months after we moved into this building, a competitor of ours got into some trouble and we did their work for them. Then we eventually took over their label. We bought their label and their customer list.

HATTIE: So do you think that's a good piece of advice for people trying to grow their business that they might find...

MIKE: Acquire.

HATTIE: Acquire.

MIKE: We acquired.

HATTIE: So how do we build these good relationships, get the money and handle the collections positively?

JOE: Well, it's very simple. In our business, we have weekly terms. Statements go out Monday morning. If they don't get paid by Friday, they're on my hit list.

HATTIE: What do you do when they get on your hit list?

JOE: Well, the accounts I've known for years, we don't worry about them, but some accounts, like new accounts, I watch them especially close.

HATTIE: Do you call them on the phone?

JOE: Oh, if I have to. But I'll watch them and I tell my salesmen, `This is a new account. You better get paid every week until we see what he's all about,' because it's only bread and we work on pennies.

BOB Don't low-ball the marketplace.

HATTIE: Don't be the cheap guy.

BOB: Yes. In the long run, it's going to hurt you.

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HATTIE: Hard work has taken the Calises to $13 million in sales with 170 employees. Tony Cappozi is in charge of personnel. What were you doing when you first came here to work?

TONY CAPPOZI: I was working in the packing room packaging bread.

HATTIE: And how old were you?

TONY: Eighteen, maybe.

HATTIE: Eighteen. (Voiceover) I asked Tony how he finds good employees.

TONY: The majority of the people by word of mouth. Actually, we have happy employees. We keep them happy and they bring a lot of good quality help to us. By running ads or working through employment agencies, we found a minimal amount of help. Most of it is through word of mouth.

JIMMY FONTAINE: OK. This is our middle zone of our tunnel oven. Here we're checking for color to determine if we have the right baking temperature and time.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Making perfect bread requires perfect processes. Plant manager Jimmy Fontaine works closely with Mike. Mike, how'd you find Jimmy?

MIKE: I found Jimmy through a priest who was a friend of mine. He said there's a nice young boy, needed a job for the summer. He started with me when he was 16 years old. He's been with me ever since. He really got involved--he started learning all aspects of the bakery in around 21, 22. How old were you, 24?

JIMMY: Twenty-two.

MIKE: Twenty-two, he decided he wanted to make the bakery his life. So he said he wanted to learn more about it. AIB offered a home-study course.

HATTIE: What's AIB?

MIKE: American Institute of Baking.

HATTIE: OK.

MIKE: I told him, `You take the home-study course, you pass the course, then I'll send you to school.' Took the course, passed the course, and I sent him to school in 198...

JIMMY: Nine.

MIKE: ...9, to the bakery technology course at AIB. And he's been with me ever since.

HATTIE: Do you like flour?

JIMMY: Do I like flour? Yeah, I love flour.

HATTIE: I mean, is it fascinating?

JIMMY: Yes, yes. There's a lot of chemistry behind it. A lot of people really don't understand the whole day baking, you know? There's a lot of chemistry behind the baking process.

HATTIE: All right. Tell me, basically, why it works.

JIMMY: Why it works...the baking process?

HATTIE: Yes.

JIMMY: We start with the flour. We blow it into the building. It is then added to the mixer, where we add all our minor ingredients. We add our salt, our sugar, our oil and our water. The whole bakery is computerized, straight from order entry right to distribution. All the formulas are in the computer, which any of the scalers can just go in and basically just dial in the formula. Dial in the weight that they want and a formula will come up designating how much flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar, and so on and so forth.

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HATTIE: (Voiceover) Since 1972, everything at Calise & Sons has changed except the dedication to quality Italian bread making.

MIKE: This is a split row. It's used for any type of sandwich you want. This is baking about 840 dozens an hour, 9,600 pieces.

HATTIE: Why is this conveyor so complicated?

MIKE: The purpose of it is to give it time to get to between 95 and 104 degrees 'cause that's how we like to package our product.

HATTIE: Michael, what kind of bread is this?

MIKE: Traditional Italian bread.

HATTIE: And so wait a minute, you can just pick it up? Isn't it really hot?

MIKE: Yeah, well, it's about 210 degrees, but I have bakers' hands. I been doing this all my life.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) The Calises have been recognized by their peers. Where did you come up with this?

MIKE: This logo was devised by Jimmy and my management people when he came back from American Institute of Baking.

HATTIE: And you're proud of this piece of bread?

MIKE: I'm very proud of this. I'd put this against anybody's.

HATTIE: What do you think it takes to grow a business? I mean, you guys started with a recipe.

JOE: Blood, sweat and tears; a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

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HATTIE: (The Lightbulb in the Studio) Even though the Calises had to dig themselves out of a hole when they took over the company, at least they had a good product. People liked to eat their bread. By taking their mother's advice and working together, one for all and all for one, they have been unstoppable. They knew they had antiquated business practices which they had to fix first. And then, they invested in modern equipment and technology. At the same time, they invested in people. With a solid manufacturing operation, they decided their best strategy for growth was acquisition. How do you go about buying your competition? There are many ways. In this case, they did not want to buy plants, equipment, bricks and mortar. They only wanted to buy the customers, the delivery routes. If you have the system in place to produce more product, go buy your competition.

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HATTIE: (Voiceover) Tommy De Santo has known the Calises for over 20 years.

TOMMY De SANTO: Well, and they have a goal, a common goal, to make Calise's Bakery the best bakery, at least in New England, and maybe one day in the nation. So they have the great desire. They still have the killer instinct, and I think that's what's important.

HATTIE: So you write their insurance?

TOMMY: I write their insurance. Twenty-two years ago, it was a big opportunity for me to write a bakery. And I was making a presentation, and Joe and Bob and Mike were in the room. And Joe was counting some money, and at the same time we're talking about my proposal. And I said, `Well, what do you like to do?' And he says, `Fine.' Mike said, `We approve of this proposal. Let's go with it.' So I proceeded to call my office. And, in fact, I called in the underwriter director and bound the entire account.

HATTIE: It's done. It's a deal.

TOMMY: It's done. You're covered. I hung the phone up. I think, within six or seven minutes, I felt these eyes looking over my shoulders and passing right through me, and I couldn't imagine why. And all of a sudden, Joey stands up and hands me this cash box full of money. And they all run out of the room. So I turned around and I look out and I'm gassed. And I look and I see flames 40, 50 feet high.

HATTIE: Oh, no.

TOMMY: I just couldn't believe it. I thought the building was totally on fire. But, thankfully, it was only some baskets and some plastic that was outside the building. I did the sign of the cross and said, `Thank you, God.' And it was the beginning.

HATTIE: And it's been great ever since.

TOMMY: It's been an adventure and a great time. They pay attention. They do their homework. They have a good maintenance crew, they do they're due diligence. And they keep their hands on the pulse of their business.

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HATTIE: We all have competitors that --how do I say it? -- go behind us or try to get our customers by undercutting prices, how do we combat that?

JOE: Well, that's a tough one. It really is. You know, you can do a lot of things, but when you start running a company, you say, `Well, I'm gonna do this the right way.' And you gotta put your mind to it and go the straight and narrow. And then you see somebody at their back door and he says, `Well, I'll give you the bread for 20 cents cheaper.' How's he doing it? How's he doing it: -- very easy. Three or four people that work for him -- they're getting paid cash under the table and he doesn't pay them benefits, he doesn't pay taxes. What's it cost for health and welfare for your people?--35 percent, 38 percent?

HATTIE: That's right. So you're going to always say, `My prices are staying here.'

JOE: Yeah, we'll move the price a little bit, depending if the account is worth it. But now I believe in the fact that if they have been my account so long, I am not going to lose it, and if I have to drop the price a little bit, I'll drop it. See, we used to win contracts. Like, if you look at contracts, the state contracts and that, we used to win five, six, seven years ago, we won them at $1.46, $1.48. Last year, we won contracts for the same product, six, seven years later, at $1.16, $1.18. This year, we lost it to $1.14. They can have that business -- the people who outbid me on that -- they can have that business because we're maxed out over here. So I'd rather be selling something that I'm getting $2 a dozen for than something I'm getting $1.16 from the state.

HATTIE: When do you think your persistence--you kept at something, and it really did pay off?

BOB: With the Shaw's account 'cause it took me almost two years to get the private label account. And then...

HATTIE: From the time...

BOB: ...two years prior to that, I was put out of all their supermarkets by the same buyer.

HATTIE: You were put out of them?
BOB: Put out of all of them.

HATTIE: What do you mean, like, thrown out?

BOB: Thrown out.

HATTIE: He says, `I don't want to talk to a Calise ever again.'

BOB: It was Calise and a bunch of other companies that they threw out. And I was doing about $3/4 million of business with them at the time.

HATTIE: Why did he throw you...

BOB: We were put out with a 30-day notice.

HATTIE: Why?

BOB: Someone else paid for the business.

HATTIE: OK. So what did you do? What activities, what actions did you take to win the business back?

BOB: I saw him at a food show about six months later. And I asked him how everything was going, and he said, `Not good.' And I said, `Well, why don't you put me back in your stores?' And so we had a meeting and he started to put me back in some of the stores and then we started talking about the private label and that's how that came about.

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HATTIE: So what advice would you give the 25-year-old today who has a little money and they've started a business? What would you tell them? They didn't have your mom and dad. They didn't have your parents and they need somebody to tell them how to do a business. What would you say?

JOE: Walk softly, carry a big stick, don't be afraid to work. You gotta roll up your sleeves and you gotta work at it. And anything that's worth getting, it's worth working for.

HATTIE: Do you see this as work or do you see it as a job?

JOE: I see this as enjoyment. Like, I roll up my sleeves every day and I enjoy coming to work right now.

HATTIE: Any fear of failure?

BOB: No.

HATTIE: No?

BOB: As long as these guys can make the product for me, I can sell it. So as long as I can sell it, the place'll do well.

HATTIE: Who in your life has been a hero to you?

MIKE: My father. My father.

HATTIE: What do you think you learned from your father?

MIKE: All the basics--honest, sincere, hardworking. Treat people like you want to be treated; give the second chance when you have to; compassion. Yeah, my father. I know he's up there looking down on us and I know he's very, very proud. And I think my grandfather's got to be the proudest because this is what he would have loved to see if he was living today. He wanted to grow and grow and be the biggest around.

HATTIE: And you are.

MIKE: Yeah, well, sort of. . . . yeah, we are. We are. We really are. I'm not trying to boast, but we really are.

HATTIE: OK. What does one for all and all for one mean?

MIKE: It's one pie. It's one whole pie. That's what it is.

JOE: If one of us is missing, you get...

BOB: We do this just here. Outside we don't get along.

HATTIE: But have you ever heard, `Don't go to sleep on your anger'?
JOE: Oh, many times.

HATTIE: Is that one of...

BOB: No, I never heard it.

JOE: Quiet.

HATTIE: You've never?

BOB: No.

HATTIE: But obviously what you're saying is that when you leave here, if you have a disagreement, you've settled it. You don't go home and simmer and be mad at each other. JOE: Ninety-five percent of the time.

BOB: No, it may take till tomorrow to straighten it out.

MIKE: If we come in in the morning and we had a disagreement the day before, it's straightened out before the day starts. You know, we're wise enough and smart enough to know that we have to run a business and we've got to get along. And you can't run it on anger and you can't run it on different personalities. You work together and you straighten it out. And that's what we do. And we've had a few. We've had a few, but in the next morning, it's all over. It's all forgotten and we just get along and do what we gotta do.

HATTIE: Now so much of the time your mom has been here.

MIKE: Yes, a lot of years.

HATTIE: And she just died in March.

MIKE: Yes.

BOB: Right.

HATTIE: So you know she's still watching you?

MIKE: Oh, she's right on our shoulder.

JOE: Oh, yeah.

MIKE: She's right on our shoulder.

Make An Impression With Mail

HATTIE: (In the studio) Even as we embrace technology, our marketing advisor says there will always be a place for pen and paper.

HATTIE: OK, John. I'm a small business owner. I don't have an identity in the marketplace like big companies do. So when I'm trying to get somebody on the telephone to take my call, a lot of times it's hard. They won't take my call. I found something really interesting. What do you think of this?

JOHN WARGO: Creative.

HATTIE: These are business greetings. There's a whole catalog and what happens is when I use these people start taking my phone call. What's working? What is the psychology of this?

JOHN: First of all, as you say, if you don't have a relationship with a person, you don't talk with them you don't communicate with them. what you want to do first of all is establish a line of communication. Mail helps you establish that line of communication. The personalized greeting helps you identify yourself as someone who is interested personally in talking with this individual. So what the mail is helping you to do is pre-sell the person. This lets them know who you are so when they begin to look at who is calling they have some reference.

HATTIE: So is I send three or four of these, after awhile the person is going to say, OK, I'll talk to you. But what about the handwritten note? We're in this cyberworld now and and moving at laser speed with email and faxing. How does this affect someone?

JOHN: I think it shows a great deal of interest on the part of the individual who is taking the time to write a hand written note. this is important and effective. I understand that George Bush, over the years, established a great relationship with people all over the world because he always took the time to write a hand-written note. Your own personal touch is more important than anything in the communication.

HATTIE: Talk to me about stamps. I use stamps. Is that important?

JOHN: The meter is OK. Stamps are OK. Everything works. The stamp with a personalized note is an indication of a more personal communication. There are a variety of stamps for different occasions and what it is showing is you're putting extra effort into this communications. You do that two or three times and the individual knows that you want to establish a personal communication. I think using the right stamp is an effect way to get an open and read rate.

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