When customers began to ask Eugene artisan Deborah Chapman for Christmas-themed products two years ago, she turned to students in the University’s Lundquist College of Business.
The result was a recipe for sweet success.
In November 2009, her pewter reindeer ornaments were featured in the magazine of Food Network personality Paula Deen, and last month, her holiday-themed measuring cups were featured as one of the magazine’s “Great Gift Ideas for the Chef.”
“I really do feel that this product was a direct result of that class,” Chapman said in an e-mail.
Chapman, who owns local pottery and pewter business Crosby & Taylor, said one of the best ideas from the students’ suggestions was to combine a Christmas theme to the company’s best-selling products: kitchenware. The students helped develop suggestions and a viable business plan for her products.
Chapman said the recommendations culminated in creating the company’s “number-one best-selling measuring spoon this Christmas.”
“The editor of the magazine was actually thrilled to hear the response, so I think she felt it was very successful choice for her to include in the magazine as well,” Chapman said. “Our sales direct to the consumer did increase this year, so we really did have our best Christmas ever.”
The two groups of students who provided business suggestions to Chapman were a part of BA 453: Business Strategy and Planning. All business students take this capstone class during their final term.
As managing director of the college’s Securities Analysis Center, business instructor Beth Hjelm said the students in her class are separated into individual groups and work directly with businesses by providing them with suggestions and strategies to become more successful.
“It’s very fulfilling to know that the client acted on the students’ recommendations, but what’s even better is when those recommendations yield productive and positive results,” Hjelm said. “We’re very glad to have them as a client.”
In this case, Colby Graham, a group member who was assigned to provide a new business strategy for Crosby & Taylor, said his group made recommendations for Chapman to expand her “current Christmas line by first focusing on adding a Christmas ‘touch’ to top-selling non-Christmas items to penetrate the market, followed by gradually adding on new items.”
In addition, Graham said his team also recommended that the product packaging be updated for the Christmas season.
“Being a part of the Lundquist College of Business, you are expected to complete various projects working with businesses around the community,” Graham said in an e-mail. “I often wondered if any recommendations that my team and I came up with would ever be put to use, and it brings me great satisfaction to hear that our recommendations were able to help Crosby & Taylor.”
Although Deen had knowledge of Crosby & Taylor’s products and has been using them on her show and in her kitchen for the past four years, Chapman said the suggestions of the business students helped to provide an objective perspective to her business.
“I think that the students gave the idea of looking at the products from an outside perspective,” Chapman said. “The problem is that when you work in the company for so many years, you tend to be a little single-minded, so I think that they broadened my focus and made me think of things that I hadn’t thought about before.”
However, Hjelm said Chapman has already taken progressive business steps of her own by selling the company’s products online directly to consumers and using social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging to promote her products.
Crosby & Taylor’s products are handcrafted in Chapman’s design studio in West Eugene and it is the only company in the nation that combines clay pottery with pewter in its products, Chapman said.
Chapman also said that neither she nor her husband Jim, a retired woodworker, have degrees in metalwork or jewelry making.
In the next few weeks, Chapman said she is excited to be visiting with another group of University business students that will study the viability of her proposal to make local products for the University.
“I think there’s nobody better situated better to figure that out than the students themselves,” Chapman said.
 
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