Public Relations practitioner Mary Reynolds describes herself as a “reluctant entrepreneur,” but it’s more apt to call her a successful entrepreneur. In October, Reynolds will celebrate the 10^th anniversary of The Reynolds Group, Inc., (TRG) an award-winning, boutique public relations firm she launched in 1999. Recently Reynolds shared stories from her career with a group of female executive MBA students and alumni as part of the Executive Women (EWG) of Goizueta's breakfast series. EWG is an alumni group of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Reynolds’ career path has been as unconventional as how she runs her business. Early on, she decided not to spend money she didn’t have. While some of her competitors were wining and dining clients and leasing Class A office space, Reynolds held court in the basement of her home until it was clear that TRG was viable. When the economy tanked in 2008, TRG’s liquidity and lack of debt meant the firm was well positioned to face the downturn. With an eye toward the economy rebounding, Reynolds decided to move forward and hired a pair of employees, one to attract new business and another to streamline her business practices and make the company more efficient.

While operating a business debt-free may be considered the conservative way to go, Reynolds isn’t afraid to roll the dice. In the past she offered TRG’s services for free on the front end until clients got on their feet and could pay her on the back end. She also and made meet and greet trips to visit with her PR counterparts in other cities and focused on fostering relationships with local industry leaders like Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison, Riccardo Ullio, Bob Amick, Gary Mennie and Alon Balshan.

That foresight landed Reynolds a job assisting chef Tom Colicchio of Top Chef TV fame with the opening of Craft Atlanta and Craftbar, his restaurants in Atlanta. Such out of town tours also helped Reynolds secure a relationship with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and one of its star chefs, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who opened Spice Market Atlanta in the W Hotel Atlanta Midtown and Market at the W Hotel Atlanta Buckhead. Reynolds has also worked with Bacchanalia’s Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison as well as celebrity chefs Wolfgang Puck, Rachel Ray and Alton Brown. While Reynolds touts great food and luxury living in celebrity spheres, her road to entrepreneurship is equally inspiring.

As a young woman, Reynolds sang with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and performed on stage at Six Flags Over Georgia and Six Flags Over Texas. As a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, Reynolds participated in a pair of Department of Defense USO trips alongside Bob Hope and Sammy Davis, Jr., spending time visiting troops in faraway destinations as Japan, Greenland, Iceland, Diego Garcia, Germany and aboard the USS Saratoga.

When Reynolds moved back to Atlanta, she took a job at the burgeoning Peasant Restaurants LLC. Then owners Steve Nygren, Bob Amick and Dick Daily were in the midst of an expansion, and hired Reynolds to do their training and development. Reynolds discovered her entertainment background was a useful tool when it came to her new job of caring for customers in a hospitality setting. When she joined the Peasant, the company had five restaurants in operation. When she was courted away by another establishment a few years later, there were 42 eateries under the Peasant Restaurants’ umbrella.

The company that recruited Reynolds away from the Peasant was OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC, the company that owns Outback Steakhouse. “They gave me my first taste of being an entrepreneur—with a net,” says Reynolds. They offered her the chance to become a restaurant owner/operator. Reynolds went for it, taking out a small business loan and becoming the first owner of a Carrabba’s Italian Grill in the state of Georgia (she opened it in Macon). She trained with Johnny Carrabba in a “start up” type environment. Counting dinner only, her restaurant pulled in an average of $80,000 a week.

But success came at a cost. Owning four restaurants kept Reynolds working constantly. By the time she owned four Carrabba’s with two more under construction, she realized restaurant ownership wasn’t for her, deciding it was not the right path at that point.

The decision to make a change was not an easy one. “Each person I brought in became part of a family,” she explains, adding that sometimes figuring out what you don’t want to do is equally as important as figuring out what you do want to do. “It was a hard thing to let go of, but it was the right thing to do.”

Reynolds was exploring next steps when she received a call from an acquaintance in Chicago who wanted to introduce Reynolds to David O. Corriveau and James W. "Buster" Corley, two men who had combined their neighboring businesses to start a restaurant and entertainment concept dubbed “Dave & Busters.” She met with the duo in Dallas, Texas, and shortly thereafter became the company’s first female executive and the first executive hired from outside the company.

“There were challenges associated with my newcomer status,” she explains. But before long, Reynolds, who was pegged to do the company’s marketing and PR, fit right in.

She may have started as a one-woman company operating out of her basement, but her goals were big: take care of clients thoroughly, hire the best talent and run the company debt-free. Three years in, she hired her first employee. “I was terrified,” she recalls. After she hired her fourth employee, she moved out of her house and rented office space.

TRG currently has 15 teammates and zero debt. “If I couldn’t afford it, I didn’t buy it. I was very focused on that,” Reynolds tells Goizueta students and alumni of her company’s financial philosophy. “You have to temper yourself—put [money] aside to reinvest.”

In addition, “If you’re fiscally responsible, when you go through tougher times, you’ll have resources available to you,” she says. Even is a slumping economy, this strategy allows Reynolds to position her company for the future. The newly-minted vice president of new business development is Kara Kaminsky, a Goizueta alum, and Reynolds also hired a “rock star” accountant who is already making her mark by helping the company become more efficient.

“I understand my role,” explains Reynolds, who cites making sure TRG’s current clients are happy and successful as her number one priority. One of her more important leadership roles, she says, is bringing out her teammates’ strengths.

When it comes to her industry, Reynolds and her clients share a similar philosophy. As Reynolds explains, “Everyone expects the food to be good; it’s about the three P‘s.’” The People Side, or good service, a great Product—good food or a good environment, and Profitability. “People can’t get too caught up in things that aren’t going to make the business successful,” says Reynolds.

Recently, Reynolds read an article in Fast Company magazine about the top 10 things every entrepreneur needs to know. Of the 10, one stood out to Reynolds: “Be fearless,” Reynolds tells the women, several of whom have or are looking to start their own businesses. “Why are we sitting here? Let’s go.”

The Executive Women of Goizueta’s (EWG) mission is to provide a forum for executive level businesswomen to interact and support each other. EWG provides its members the environment in which to share experiences and business strategies, to learn about recent business trends and research, and to motivate one another to be successful women leaders in business. EWG’s Vision is to provide an atmosphere of "Women empowering Women." To this end, EWG holds regular events including informal discussion forums, an annual conference, and breakfast meetings with business leaders. For information on the October conference in Atlanta, visit

2009 EWG Conference – Managing Change, Managing Challenge.

 

Photo: Mary Reynolds, front, shares her insights with EWG members, including Meggan Arp, a Modular Executive MBA student at Goizueta.