“Enthusiastic Evansville entrepreneur visits Carmi”

Enthusiastic Evansville entrepreneur visits Carmi

Posted: 23 Oct 2010 09:23 AM PDT

Carmi, Ill. —

Entrepreneurship isn't everything it's cracked up to be.

In fact, it's all that and more.

Tracy Zeller shared the story of her own endeavors when the Evansville, Ind. jeweler spoke Thursday to the Kiwanis Club of Carmi.

Zeller worked for five Evansville jewelry stores before opening her own business in 2004, and it has since grown by leaps and bounds.

The decision to go into business for herself wasn't easy. But once it was made, Zeller made sure she did it right. And it has paid off-for her and for many others.

An Evansville native, Zeller earned a degree in accounting from the University of Southern Indiana and went to work for a major Evansville jeweler as an accountant. By 2003, she had worked for four other jewelry stores in her hometown; she knew the business well and was making a good living. But when her employer decided to phase out health insurance and commissions (she had sold $1 million in jewelry the prior year and was doing quite well on commission, she said)in effect cutting her pay by 30 percent--she decided to switch jobs. A month later, in the midst of a poor economy, she lost that job, as well.

"I had a two-week pity party," she told the club. "But they did me a favor."

Zeller decided to go into business for herself. "I didn't just wake up one morning and decide to become a jeweler," she said. "I did it as a matter of survival."

But she thought it out. Instead of staying on Evansville's East Side, where there were many jewelry stores, she decided to open on the West Side, where there were few.

"Boy, was I challenged," she said, asserting that to her knowledge, no woman had owned and operated a jewelry store there at that time.

Four banks rejected her application for a loan. But she drew up a detailed business plan-as big as a phone book, she said-and approached a fifth institution. Two days later, the check was hers. Grateful, she still does business with that bank, she said.

"I wanted to do things differently," Zeller told the club. Rather than "raid" employees and vendors from her former employers, she hired new people, set up relationships with other suppliers and even designed her own forms from scratch. She opened on Red Bank Road (near Lowe's). And her business has grown-at an annual rate of 30 percent since 2004, she said.

It's vital to surround oneself with good people, Zeller told the club. "We have a terrific team of dedicated, diligent people" who "give 130 percent, not just 100 percent." But there have been occasions when "one bad apple" threatened the morale and direction of her staff. And she advised her listeners to terminate people of that nature, as she has done.

Some people have "illusions of grandeur" about owning a business, seeing it as a life of leisure and money. That's not the path Zeller follows. She described a very busy lifestyle that includes holding 6 a.m. staff meetings each Monday, often working late and speaking at meetings of many sorts (twice at the University of Evansville Wednesday and at a girls' athletic program later Thursday).

"You have to be willing to be the first to arrive at work and the last to leave," Zeller told the club. "You have to love what you do and do what you love."

Sometimes unexpected things occur, said Zeller, who described her business as "faith-based." A longtime friend (Kyle Niemeier) came up with an idea for a symbol called GOD (Great One Divine): Believe it. Live it. Share it. Zeller has incorporated the symbol and the slogan into jewelry and even window decals. "You see them all over Evansville," she told the club, and offered them to members.

She added that the mission of her business is to give back 50 percent of its profits to the community. And even though her team members don't always get raises because of that, they have "bought into it," she said. (One may read about it at this website: GreatOneDivine.com .)

Zeller (who has been married to Jim Zeller for 24 years) said she has deep roots in southeastern Illinois. Her father is New Haven native Richard Van Zandt, and her mother is the former Betty Harrington of Ridgway. She is related, she said, to the Ramsey, Oxford, Mobley and Carney families here, as well.

And she has another Carmi connection. One of her former employees is Erin (Gholson) Morrison, who now works for her mother at The Courtyard and whom Zeller (a past president of a Kiwanis Club in Evansville) promised to provide a club membership application to (Erin's uncle, Terry Gholson, is a Carmi Kiwanian).

Zeller said she is very passionate about what she does. And she sometimes translates that into other endeavors. She trained hard for and completed a marathon in 2000, she said, and in 2006 (about a year after taking up golf) recorded a hole-in-one.

"That doesn't have anything to do with what I'm talking about here today," she laughed, "but I have the microphone!"

And she poked fun at her "naturally curly" hair. "Do you think anyone would pay for this?" she said.

Zeller was introduced by program chairman Luke Raczykowski, and her address followed a meal prepared and served by The Green Onion of Crossville.

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