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At his carpeted, chandelier-bedizened supermarkets, Byerly offers 24-hour, seven-days-a-week grocery shopping, complete with full-service meat and fish departments. The outlets are attractive, but the difference is, as he puts it, "the way they're run." Each store is managed semi-independently by a single boss, who tailors the contents to neighborhood needs with little overseeing from top management. Company-wide, Byerly's has 2,100 employees, but only five work in what the proprietor jokingly calls "world headquarters" in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina.
Byerly's places special emphasis on helpfulness. Each store employs a full- time home economist, who can work with customers on everything from menu planning to getting bubble gum out of household carpets to figuring how much food to buy for a party of 300. The home-ec experts maintain "special-foods programs" of particular dietary products at each outlet. Says Byerly: "Let's say your doctor prescribed a low-sodium diet. The home economist will give you a blue folder listing everything that you can buy in the store that's low sodium. And each of the products is marked with blue tags on the shelves." The same system is used for low-cholesterol and low-calorie diets. As at many supermarkets, Byerly's employees will place customers' groceries in their autos, but on those rare occasions when the wrong bags are put in the trunk, the right goods are delivered directly to a shopper's door, along with a free cake or other goody by way of apology.
Byerly insists his prices are competitive with regular supermarkets' despite the many services. Says he: "We take the advertising savings and try to be price competitive. We're aimed at the average shopper." Whoever shops at Byerly's, the appeal is obviously spreading. Lea Plotke, a resident of neighboring St. Paul, claims that she always takes out-of-town guests for a look-see at her Byerly's. Why? Because, she says, "it's like a tourist attraction."
Mini Maid Services. In 1973 Homemaker Leone Ackerly, mother of three, wanted to buy a new auto. To earn the money, she hired herself out as a cleaning lady. She has since, as they say, cleaned up. Now 41, Ackerly drives a Jaguar XJ6 and oversees a maid-service empire, based in Marietta, Ga., with 900 employees at 96 franchises in 24 states. Annual revenues: more than $9 million. Mini Maid is about to launch franchises in Germany, Italy and Australia. The secret of Ackerly's success? Says she: "We do one thing one way for one price."
Inspired by the meticulous regimen of fast-food outlets like McDonald's, Ackerly's Mini Maid operation offers a menu of 22 basic daily cleaning chores that its four-member crews will perform in an average time of 55 minutes for a fee of $39.50 to $49.50. The duties of the blue-and-white-clad cleaning squads -- primarily young mothers and homemakers -- range from washing kitchen floors to scouring porcelain to bed making. Says Ackerly: "We arrive with a smile, we have knowledge, we deliver what is asked of us, and we call back new clients the next day to see what could be done better."