Lunch with Lucy: Maximize Profits by Investing in Your People

By Sherry Stewart Deutschmann

Transformational Leadership Through Empathy

When entrepreneur Sherry Deutschmann first decided to start a business, she knew she wanted to build something totally different. In her first book, Lunch with Lucy, Sherry tells the story of the creation of that company, LetterLogic, and how she turned it into a $40-million company by putting employees first—even ahead of customers and shareholders.

Putting her people first took many forms, with an extremely generous profit sharing plan and fair living wages among them. But the centerpiece and heart of LetterLogic’s culture was the employee-centric practice Sherry designed called “Lunch with Lucy”—a practice that removed the hierarchical dynamics found in most organizations.

On any given Wednesday, any employee could invite “Lucy” (Sherry’s midday moniker) out to lunch, at a place of their choice, with the bill picked up by Sherry. At these events, Sherry wasn’t the CEO. She was “Lucy,” a co-worker. By making herself 100% available, “Lucy” created a judgment-free environment where she could learn about a team member’s dreams, ambitions, and challenges—and gain their insight into what she was doing right or wrong as a leader. She credits this approach with the success of her company.

 Lunch with Lucy’s interior, refreshingly laid out like courses on a menu, invites us to see how a leader’s choices directly impact employee morale, engagement, and commitment—and in this author’s case, ultimately led to a healthy and hearty bottom line. Sherry’s voice is new, and her honesty, humor, and humility shine through this story of a woman building a successful business through empathetic leadership and uncommon, commonsense business practices, one lunch at a time.

Sit down at the table and learn about a business model that is truly transformational.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Mar 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733478113

Book preview

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1

The Brown-Bag Days

My Story

"When I was writing Kitchen Confidential I was in my 40s—I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car."

—Anthony Bourdain

INGREDIENTS:

GRIT AND DETERMINATION,

WITH A HEAVY SPRINKLE OF DELUSION.

Iwas a naïve twenty-five-year-old, newly divorced mom when I made the rash decision to leave the mountains of North Carolina and move to Nashville to become a star. You might assume that anyone moving miles away from friends and family to pursue a singing career would have at least a few years of singing experience. I didn’t. My experience was patchy at best: One of my friends at the time, a singer and guitarist, had a paying gig at Little Switzerland, a resort hotel in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and he let me sing a few duets and some solos; my brother Carl allowed me to sing a decent rendition of Linda Ronstadt’s Blue Bayou at his wedding reception; and when our family friend John Moye, a gifted pianist, came to visit our house, I constantly begged, pleaded, and harassed him until he played—as I stood over his shoulder singing into his ear.

And there you have it—the complete unabridged accounting of my singing history. Definitely not enough to warrant a professional singing career, but I was determined, nonetheless.

Before taking the final leap, I had driven to Nashville to audition for the live TV show You Can Be a Star—a singing contest televised from Opryland, just behind the Grand Ole Opry. It was a precursor to The Voice and American Idol, but it was dedicated to country music.

The morning of the audition, the show’s producer came out to speak to the dozens of waiting hopefuls and told us not to be discouraged if we didn’t pass the audition. Even country legend Randy Travis had failed the same audition but still went on to become a huge star. Bolstered by that knowledge, I gave an adequate performance and passed the audition. A few weeks later, I drove back to Nashville to compete.

I selected Bonnie Raitt’s song Darlin for the competition. I walked out on stage wearing a new blue polyester dress with massive shoulder pads and a plunging neckline (it was the ’80s), and I froze. The stage fright was crippling, and I delivered a sad, sorry version of the song I loved. After the scores were tabulated, I came in third place. Don’t congratulate me. The show only had three contestants per episode! Coming in last should have been a clue to me that I wasn’t cut out to be a singer, but I still thought I could be a star and was still determined to move to Nashville.

I’d like to be able to tell you that I had a stash of money saved just in case it took more than a few weeks to get a record deal. (If you know anything at all about the music business, that sentence alone proves how naïve and delusional I was.) Or, it would be good if I could say I had a great education or some other amazing skills I could have called upon to help me get a footing in my new town—or, if worst came to worst, that I had a few assets I could sell to pay the rent. But none of that was my reality.

This Was My Reality

MONEY: After I paid my first month’s rent, I had less than $200 to my name.

EDUCATION: I had a diploma from Avery County High School, Newland, North Carolina.

SKILLS: Well, I was then (and believe I still am) the best toilet scrubber in the South. My sisters and I cleaned houses for the wealthy families who had vacation homes in our ski-resort town. And I helped my sister Connie clean gas station restrooms for $5 a stall.

SUPPORT SYSTEM: Yes, I had that—an adorable three-year-old daughter, Whitney Meghan Lloyd, who gave me lots of love and encouragement. We didn’t know a soul in Nashville, but we had each other, and we’d make it together.

ASSETS: Something of value I could sell if times got tough? Well yes, I had one. It was Jezzy (short for Jezebel), a sort-of-white, diesel, 1976 Volkswagen Rabbit with over 200,000 miles on her. Jezzy had belonged to my father’s construction company. Their mechanic used her primarily to visit various job sites to maintain the backhoes and earthmovers and other heavy equipment. Once parked too close to the edge of a cliff, she had taken a tumble off a construction site on Beech Mountain. Though still functional, she was lopsided and dented all over, with her white paint quickly becoming rust-colored. The steering wheel and blue vinyl interior were caked with black grease and mud when I bought her for the bargain price of $1. Yes, one hundred pennies. (Later, you’ll find out why many thought I was ripped off!)

Though Jezzy was definitely the ugliest car on the road, she had one great feature: a Blaupunkt stereo system with multiple speakers, sub-woofers, and a cassette player. Just days before my move to Nashville, the stereo and speakers were stolen. My one and only asset suddenly lost about 95 percent of her value. But I left for Nashville anyway and arrived in style.

SCRAPING BY

I moved to Nashville just as the now world-renowned Bluebird Cafe opened. It was, and still is, my church—my favorite room in the world. What an experience it was to sit in such a small venue and hear Grammyaward winning songwriters play and sing the songs they’d written.

This is the place in my story where I should have a tale of heartbreak and humiliation—where I sang at an open-mic night and someone crushed my dreams by telling me how awful I was. But, that’s not what happened. Though I came in third and last place on You Can Be a Star, I was a solidly mediocre singer. Not awful. Not good. Just mediocre. A few nights at the Bluebird were all I needed to objectively gauge my talent and realize I didn’t have the goods. While I secretly harbored a ridiculous dream of being discovered, I put my energy into making a living outside the music business.

Ironically, it was a combination of Jezzy and my religious background that led to my being hired for my first job in Nashville. I was raised in a Jehovah’s Witness household, and it was expected that all members of the congregation participate in field service, where we went door-to-door to share our faith. In my hometown of Banner Elk, North Carolina, the demographic swung wildly from the very poor to the very wealthy. In rural, mountainous, western North Carolina, there were homes with dirt floors and no indoor plumbing standing in stark contrast to impressive chalets owned by celebrities and wealthy southerners. My earliest recollection of knocking on a stranger’s door, introducing myself, and delivering a brief presentation was as a third grader, age