When it became apparent that Florine Mark had achieved success in her early days as a Weight Watchers franchisee, some people attributed it to good luck. She didn’t necessarily disagree with the assessment.
“They used to say, ‘Well, you’re very lucky,’ and I used to say, ‘Yeah, I’m very, very lucky, but I work very hard at being lucky,'” says Mark, president and CEO of the WW Group, the largest franchisee of Weight Watchers International. “I think that’s what everybody has to do, you have to work hard and you have to — I believe I’m lucky, I really believe I’m lucky. So it happens. If you believe it strongly enough, it will happen.”
If her operating principle is valid, Mark has worked quite hard. Her company, located in Farmington Mills, Mich., spans 10 states, including Pennsylvania, as well as Mexico and Ontario. Across the WW Group, approximately 100,000 people regularly attend 2,500 meetings held at more than 1,000 locations. In Greater Pittsburgh alone, 10,000 people meet in several hundred sessions at more than 90 locations.
Ironically, Mark turned to Weight Watchers in desperation as a final attempt to shed excess pounds.
“I had lost 50 pounds nine times before with diet pills,” Mark recounts, and she eventually overdosed on amphetamines. “My family doctor said, ‘I’m not going to be responsible for your life if you take any more diet pills,’ and I didn’t know how I was going to lose weight, because I never felt I could do it myself.”
Mark joined Weight Watchers in New York in 1966, dropped 50 pounds and gained the idea for a business venture. She started her franchise in Detroit with a single meeting.
In this month’s One on One, Mark, who was recently a guest speaker at The Business Show in Monroeville, talks about what it takes to be successful in business, why she and Weight Watchers continue to prosper — and why she’s got a dream job.
SBN: Why has Weight Watchers been successful?
Florine Mark: We believe in what we say; we walk our talk. We don’t give pills, we don’t sell food, we don’t make you pay in advance for anything. Everyone that works with us believes in our product and our service. We have a big staff of advisory boards of the finest doctors, psychologists, exercise physiologists, psychiatrists, M.D.s, D.O.s, constantly researching the best ways to lose weight, the best ways to exercise. We’ve changed out diets several times, four or five times over the last 30 years. We always want to be up to date.
You seem to be very enthusiastic about your business. How does Weight Watchers hold your interest after all these years?
Weight control is a very passionate, fabulous field because you see only your successes. Your failures seem to drop out and don’t come back, so you’ll see among the people who are there, your customers — we call them our members — people who are happy, who are doing something about themselves, are getting healthier, who are getting motivated to do better in life. It’s a very passionate, very wonderful business.
The product we sell is self-respect. When people ask me, ‘What do you sell?’ it’s not losing weight. We sell self-respect. When you see an 11-year-old kid that’s lost 30 pounds and feels good about himself and is playing soccer and baseball, how do you put a price on that?
When you see a man that comes in and says, ‘After I lost 70 pounds, I found out I had a rare form of breast cancer in men, and the doctor said that if I hadn’t lost the weight, I’d have been dead in a year,’ how do you put a price on that? It’s been the most wonderful business ever. I could never think of changing, I could never think of doing anything else.
What kinds of risks did you have to take when you were starting out with Weight Watchers?
Well, I had no money. I had small children and a lot of responsibilities. I could have gone out and gotten another job that would have paid a steady salary. I didn’t know if this was going to pay off as far as the money was concerned, but every day is taking a risk, whatever you do. But I have no regrets.
In fact, I’m more passionate about what I do today than I was, say, 25 years ago. But it’s easier now. Then, I was the bookkeeper, I was the controller, I was the advertising person, I was the marketing person, I was the leader, I was the receptionist, you know, I did everything myself. Now, I have a full staff of people all over the country from Mexico to parts of Canada and the Midwest and to the East. And it’s very exciting.
What might you have done if you hadn’t become a Weight Watchers franchisee?
I wanted to be a movie star, I wanted to do television on-air, I wanted to do radio. I like to write, I wanted to do public relations. I think that’s what I would have done, but I think marketing is what I love the most. And I do all of that now. I’m on TV. I write for our newspaper, with a circulation of 350,000; I’m very involved in that. So all of my dreams of what I wanted to be — I’m writing a book — all are happening.
Who were your mentors?
At the very beginning, there were no women around, so my mentors were my CPA and my lawyer. What I did, even though I had no money, was to find the finest law firm and the finest CPA firm, and I told these guys that I had no money but I was going to be successful. I must have convinced them because they treated me the same way then as they treat me today, and today I’m their largest woman client. Then, I didn’t have 500 bucks.
What are the factors that have helped you to become a success as a Weight Watchers franchisee?
I believed in the product. I had a fire in my belly, a passion in my heart. I recognized that success was, first, what you want, and then what you’re willing to give up to get it. I’ve always done strategic planning. I’ve always had goals. I’ve always written things down; when I get up, I’m always writing things down. I believe in people, I believe in my gut.
My goal was always to hire people that were better and smarter than I was and let them do the job; I’ve always done that. When I find out that it’s not working, I have to make changes. But I’ve been pretty right for a very long time. I have a lot of people that have worked for me for 25 years.
How is running Weight Watchers like operating any other business?
I think in most businesses today, if you want to be honest about it, the intellectual problems can be solved very easily. You hire the best CPA or the best engineer, you buy the best equipment, whatever. The real problems are people problems, and that’s where a lot of people in business seem to go astray because they don’t keep their eye on the thing that’s most important — that’s the people who work for them, and their customers.
And if you pay 100 percent attention to that and pay other people to do the financial and the other stuff, you will have a good business. If the people who work for you, if their morale is good and they like what they’re doing, you’re going to have customers.
What occupies most of your time?
The morale of my staff is 50 percent of my time, and 50 percent of my time is everything and anything to do with bringing members into classes. I’m involved in the marketing department, I’m involved in the advertising, I’m involved in the training of the staff and the retraining of the staff.
What advice do you give to entrepreneurs?
Be very passionate about your product; believe in it. If you don’t believe in it, forget it. Take the risk. Keep your eye on the people that work for you and the ones who are buying your product. Write plans. My plans change all the time, but at least I write them. I put them down on paper; I know where I’m going. I trust other people. I manage my team and I certainly have the final say, but I can’t ever remember having to use that authority.
It can’t be right for me and not right for you, and it can’t be right for you and wrong for me, so we have to sit there and talk about it and communicate until it’s right for both of us. You have to be able to give. You can’t be egotistical, you can’t be a monarch — the only authority in your business. First of all, it won’t be any fun, people won’t respect you for it, and I don’t think you’ll do as well.
Ray Marano ([email protected]) is associated editor of SBN.
