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How Soon They Forget
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Business New Haven
11/11/2002
By: BNH
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Grocer/entrepreneur Stew Leonard is the subject of a lengthy and mostly complimentary feature story in the November Fortune Small Business (FSB). In it the 72-year-old dairy-store king describes as "a blessing" his 1993 guilty plea and subsequent four-year prison term and fine for conspiracy to defraud the IRS. The reason? It forced him to hand the reins of the business over to his son, Stew Jr., under whose management the company survived, and even thrived.
However, in a sidebar, blockbuster business author Tom Peters, who first took the Leonard success story national in his 1985 bestseller A Passion for Excellence (a sequel to 1982's In Search of Excellence), isn't so sure.
"The essence of a brand is its integrity," Peters told the magazine. "In the deepest sense Stew Leonard's was revealed as phony. They were selling charm as much as the big rock out front [of the Norwalk store] that says THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS FIRST. The big rock is hollow."
Stew Leonard's phoenix-like return to prosperity and prominence Peters attributes to "our short American attention spans."
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