The Best Advice I Ever Got: Fred Carl, Jr., Founder and CEO, Viking Range

In 1986 I was working full-time in the construction business and renting an unfinished one-room office in an old cotton exchange building in downtown Greenwood, Mississippi, trying to start a company in my spare time. I had dozens of detailed sketches for what would be the first Viking range, and little else. My wife has a cousin named Michael Zito who back then was the managing partner of the Touche Ross office down in Jackson. Every time he came to town, he would stop by and see how things were going with my little start-up company. During one of those conversations he gave me the single best piece of advice I ever got—advice that laid the groundwork for Viking’s success. “Freddie,” he said, “you should run this from day one like it’s a public company. Treat it like it’s going to be big. Hire a top-notch accounting firm and get audited every year. Work with the best law firms you can—ones that do securities work. Invest for the future, don’t ever settle for second best, and start this thing off right.” I could have busted out laughing, because I was doing good to make payroll, let alone hire a top accounting firm and lawyers, but I realized Mike was right. By nature I hate cutting corners, and yet I wasn’t approaching the business itself with the same standards as the product I had in mind. To create the company I wanted to, I had to look into the future and pretend I was already there. I had to stop treating the infrastructure of the company like some necessary evil, invest in it more than I thought possible, and trust the investment would work. Right away I asked Mike to take me on as a client, and after some cajoling he agreed. (For years we were that office’s smallest account.) Then I hired one of the sharpest law firms in the state—after a deep breath, because they’re not cheap. It wasn’t too long before the advice paid off: In 1992 we were able to take on a major financial partner, Stephens, Inc., because we had great advisers, clean financials, and no question marks next to our name—none of that receipts-in-a-shoebox stuff that can kill entrepreneurial deals. Mike’s advice continues to guide me in a broader way. When someone uses our product, works in our plant, or comes to the Delta and visits Greenwood, I never want us or our town to be perceived as anything less than the absolute best—game faces on all the time. We could make our ranges in Podunk plants, but instead we use the Toyota Production System. We built our company hotel as if Architectural Record would come and critique. We offer top-of-the-line employee benefits: Anybody working here can get their high school, college, or graduate degree, and we’ll pay their full tuition. Now, don’t get me wrong: Shooting for the top isn’t always easy. It can be difficult and risky to do by yourself, and harder still to get others throughout your company and community to commit to your vision of what’s ahead. Walking through our downtown 15 years ago, I knew not everyone saw the possibility. But we built the hotel, and a gourmet restaurant and cooking school, and that got some new merchants to open stores. Step by step as the community redevelops, more people share that vision of what Greenwood and the Delta can be—and they’re aiming high, too. Viking now sells in 82 countries, and we have 99% retention and attendance rates for our employees, who refer to the Viking “family”—a word I’d never used. Following Mike’s advice wasn’t cheap, but we got our money back and then some. —Interviewed by Daisy Wademan

The Best Advice I Ever Got: Fred Carl, Jr., Founder and CEO, Viking Range

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