Finding riches in ruffles

Nation's Business, Sept, 1986 by Rita Ford

Finding Riches In Ruffles Even her product names whisper with the sounds of soft sophistication and flouncy femininity that make up her personality: Williamsburg Rust, Flower Patch Pink, Burgundy Bonnet, Oriental Garden Grey, Country French Brown and Lavender Honey. These are more than just bolts of material that comprise the fabric selection of Dorothy Noe's $13 million custom-made curtain business, Dorothy's Ruffled Originals, Inc.

Noe says her Wilmington, N.C., company offers its customers curtains with "66 percent more fabric and 50 percent more ruffles" than standard commercial issue.

Abundance was the value that inspired Dorothy Noe's business. She was a homemaker with a new house to decorate. While shopping for window treatments, she rejected ready-made curtains. She thought they lacked the fullness and warmth the antique decor of her cottage-style home demanded. She took sewing lessons and designed and made her own curtains.

Later, while selling some of her antiques, she found that prospective buyers were more impressed with the voluminous 96-inch-long curtains at her windows. Suddenly she was taking orders--for curtains, not antiques.

"I couldn't believe so many people were just begging for these curtains," Noe recalls. By late 1973, her curtain company was born in the family garage. She had a seamstress and an installer. She did everything else--visited the homes, measured windows, gave estimates, advertised and promoted the business.

Noe never took any business, marketing or advertising courses, nor has she used consultants. Instead, the company's decisions have been based on "thinking and judgment," she says. "I look back and I wonder how, but it seems like the decisions made at that time were all good." Jokingly, she adds: "Training and background might have interfered with success. What I did was intuitive."

Intuition steered Noe to restaurants, dentists' offices and boutiques, where she persuaded owners to use her curtains.

She built on that exposure, and, in 1976, expanded by adding mail order. In 1978, she switched from black-and-white to full-color ads. That year the business also left the garage when a retail store, showroom and three factories were established.

She has now expanded into wholesale marketing, distributing curtains and accessories to department stores, interior decorators and window treatment stores.

Noe also owns 10 Dorothy's Ruffled Originals stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia where she sells folk art and gifts. Her original staff of two has ballooned to 300, and she estimates that 1986 sales will exceed $20 million.

Personal style and family support contribute as much to her success as her intuitive lucky streak. She also says that her traditional standards of behavior and definition of femininity have served her well in functioning in business, which many still consider part of a "man's world."

"Today my success speaks for itself, and the men I deal with respect that," she says. "But it hasn't always been that way. When I first started out negotiating with bankers and suppliers, I knew I had to tell them what they wanted, would not do business with me because my order was too small. Instead of arguing with him, I committed to 100,000 yards of lace, deliverable and payable in small increments every month. He was happy to hear that.

"You can be hardnosed and nice and still get there."

Noe was not raised to become a businesswoman, and she is glad of that lack of formal preparation. "If I had planned it," she says, "I would have messed up for sure. If I had done anything differently, my business would not be what it is today."

Brought up in a large family, Noe learned early that rewards came after hard work.

"I was born with a lot of desire and drive," she says. "And I was raised with a lot of responsibility. I learned early that if you want something you have to make it happen for you."

A lady who chooses linen and lace over traditional business uniforms, she is as comfortable talking about characteristics of femininity and family values as she is discussing the daring, entrepreneurial spirit. She calls her husband, Chuck, chief executive officer of the family business, a "good businessman and a great inspiration." Daughters Andrea, 15, and Love, 17, also work part-time for the business.

Noe's dream is to "make Dorothy's Ruffled Originals, Inc., the world's largest curtain company." Noe, homemaker turned entrepreneur, now faces a whole new kind of family planning--passing the business on to the next generation.

Says she: "Andrea recently said, 'Mommy, I want your job.'"