As Yvonne Tocquigny marks her 25th year in business, she’ll tell you that her proudest achievement is not the creative awards her agency has won over the years - so many, in fact, that some are kept in boxes in storage. Her proudest achievement is raising her two children. And as you get to know Yvonne, you quickly realize that this is the perfect expression of her ability to create on a grand scale while staying grounded in what matters most.
Despite having created one of the top marketing, interactive and advertising agencies in the country, Yvonne remains firmly planted in her homegrown Texas farm roots. It is from these beginnings that she draws the traits that have formed her success: patience, persistence and self reliance.
Today, the Tocquigny agency is recognized nationwide for measurable marketing strategies, creative talent and innovation in interactive media. By successfully blending emotionally-charged creative content with cutting-edge technology, Tocquigny has distinguished itself as a leader in a field known for fierce competition.
The agency’s client list reads like a Who’s Who roll call in the high tech arena–Dell, AMD and HP among many others–as well as familiar brand names in a wide range of industries. And the awards and accolades keep flowing in, such as the No. 17 ranking on AdWeek’s list of Top 50 interactive media agencies in the nation and No. 1 on the Austin Business Journal’s list of top interactive development teams to name a few.
And the company is not stopping there. Long recognized as one of the few firms that provides clients with quantifiable results, Tocquigny is launching a software tool, Snapshot™ Metrics, that will help businesses track response to advertising and marketing efforts. “Companies must be increasingly careful about their spending to stay competitive,” Yvonne explains. “Clients need to be able to show a Return On Investment (ROI), something that has typically been challenging in this business.”
THE ART OF CREATING A BUSINESS So how does a farm girl with a passion for art find herself at the head of a 70-person nationally acclaimed agency? Yvonne will be the first to admit the journey has had its ups and downs. “I’ve almost gone out of business at least three times,” she shares. “When I started out, I never intended to make a living being in business for myself.”
Yvonne’s first dream was to be an artist. “As a little girl I’d sketch the fashion pictures in the newspaper. People would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I’d say an artist. I was told that I could never make a living doing that, so I learned to say commercial artist,” Yvonne remembers.
A copy of Communication Arts magazine was the spark that illuminated Yvonne’s path in the field of advertising and graphic design. “I was struck by the power of the work in the publication,” she says. “It created a strong emotional response, and I knew that was what I wanted to do.”
So she secured an internship at the Houston office of Ogilvy and Mather, an international advertising agency. Yvonne quickly found her way in the creative world of advertising, and it was not long before she was forced to try her hand at creating a business of her own. “The owner of an agency I was working for went to Las Vegas and gambled away the business,” Yvonne says. “Suddenly, I was without a job and knew I had to do something.” And the seed for Tocquigny the agency was planted.
She still has her first accounting records, a simple handwritten notebook meticulously filled with client names and the invoice amounts. “I knew nothing about business, but I loved creating. The business grew and I slowly hired employees and interns.”
PERSISTENCE IN ROUGH TIMES Yet, Yvonne experienced her share of setbacks. After her second year in business, she nearly had to close shop because of the taxes. At five years, Yvonne tried to apply for a business loan to buy office equipment and found that banks would not lend her the money. “I was a woman with no husband to co-sign for me,” she laughs. But Yvonne kept moving forward, completely self-funded. “The fact that we’ve always been self-funded has caused us to grow slowly, but remain stable. As a result we’ve been able to make it through the tough times.”
One of the toughest times Yvonne remembers is the real estate bust in the 1980s. Most of Yvonne’s clients were in real estate at the time. “I had to lay off people and almost went out of business. I had a mortgage and two babies. Ultimately, one client paid everything he owed us, stretched out in payments over two years, even though he had lost everything too. His integrity is what kept us in business.”
With a solid strategy for rounding out services and diversifying its client base, Tocquigny rebuilt a strong list of clients that included the healthcare industry. Later, when the structure of healthcare changed, the bottom fell out once more. This time Yvonne knew how to weather the rough period and quickly regained momentum with clients from varied industries.
THE CREATIVE POWER OF GROWTH “We have long- standing relationships with our clients, some lasting as long as 15 years and that helps us attract business from other clients,” Yvonne says. Tocquigny continues to expand its creative abilities and further establish its reputation as an innovator in multimedia and interactive technology. The company now manages campaigns, such as product launches, that span the globe. Tocquigny is also offering more sophisticated marketing consulting services.
The agency attracts top talent from around the country. “I strive to create a culture that motivates and honors each of our employees,” Yvonne says. “It is a good feeling to know that we are creating something that other people want to be a part of.”
As her business grows, Yvonne Tocquigny continues to grow personally too. She has worked closely with an executive coach, Katie Laine. “I realize that I need to rely on a different set of leadership skills to take the agency to the next level,” Yvonne confides. “I’m willing to learn about myself and try a different way of approaching things.”
Always the artist, Yvonne’s creativity is expressed in all areas of her life. Her oil paintings hang throughout the Tocquigny offices. They depict simple things like candles or a tangle of thorns, but honed in close and enlarged to capture them abstractly. Yvonne still gardens. “I want to stay connected to my early experiences on the farm,” she says. It is from this grounded place that she draws her creative power, and she views business as a creative endeavor. Tocquigny applies this creative and entrepreneurial spirit to continue building a business that not only embraces, but helps drive change. With a focus on future trends and a keen willingness to develop new skills, Tocquigny looks forward to what is next.
The long-distance journey of Austin's Sweet Leaf Teas
Clayton Christopher and David Smith have been best friends since they were old enough to ride trikes. As college roommates, they decided to take their friendship to a whole new level. They went on an eight-month, 5,000-mile trip through 16 countries–on bikes. It was during this adventure that the pair realized that if they could live in a tent together, they could surely become successful business partners.
Four years later, Sweet Leaf Teas was born. Clayton conceived the idea on a road trip through Alabama after realizing that no bottled beverage tasted quite like grandma’s tea. He decided on the name while on a sail boat in the Florida Keys, and a bike trip through Morocco gave him the idea for his favorite flavor, mint and honey green tea. Like a long-distance bike ride, running the business has been a real adventure–full of hills, pot holes and valuable lessons.
When Clayton started the company, he was the sole employee. He made, sold and distributed his own product while others were relaxing on Lake Travis. Clayton worked in a small office with no air conditioner, where he would brew the tea shirtless–using crawfish pots, pillow cases and pantyhose to get the job done.
TEA FOR TWO A year later, Clayton and David made the taboo decision to go into business together. Clayton says, “I love working with friends. My best friend is my partner. We figure if you’re going to work with someone 60 hours a week, you’d better get along.”
After the European bike vacation, it was apparent that the two could survive anything together. David says, “I would base a lot of our decision to work together on that journey. When you have two people traveling for a long period of time, you kind of realize that if we were in business together, there probably wouldn’t be too many surprises.”
“We trust each other 100 percent, and he knows that I’m always looking out for him, and I know that he’s always looking out for me,” Clayton says.
UNEXPECTED DETOUR When Sweet Leaf got a flat tire, the two relied on each other to get through. Clayton says, “My partner was a huge key in really helping me and pulling me out of the woods so to speak.”
Clayton calls Sweet Leaf the “company that probably shouldn’t have made it.” As the two worked harder, the business was falling further and further into debt–$400,000 to be exact. He remembers that these were the worst times. In fact, if he could’ve given the company away with all its debt, at one point, he would’ve gladly walked.
Instead, they changed the business model, started outsourcing and found investors. “Had we stayed on that path, there would’ve been a point where, no matter how tenacious I was, I would’ve filed for bankruptcy,” Clayton remembers.
Determined, Clayton went knocking on investors’ doors. He knew nothing about business plans, anti-dilution or preferred liquidation, but he knew a good product when he tasted one. He simply refused to stop.
“I’ve learned so much from cycling. I raced on the pro tour for a couple of years here in the U.S., and there were so many times that I just wanted to quit,” Clayton says. “Just as soon as I thought I couldn’t go any farther, all the sudden, I’d look back, and it would be me and one other guy and a hundred guys a mile down the road. I’ve taken that mentality of never giving up, because if you go a little farther, you never know what’s around the corner.”
HOW SWEET IT IS Many changes have been made since the company’s early days. Sweet Leaf now has eight full-time employees, the tea is made in a real brewer, and Clayton no longer drives the truck.
Today, Sweet Leaf is sold in 3,000 stores in 32 states. The company expects to sell 6 million bottles this year, up from 2.5 million last year. Another 1,000 accounts are also expected to come on board in the next three months. In most of the stores, Sweet Leaf outsells the competitors by sometimes as much as 60 percent.
The Whole Foods tea cooler says it all. Sweet Leaf can be found in the center of the display with white heavenly lights shining down on the bottles. While looking at row after row of the various flavors, one might expect to hear a triumphant song playing in the background. The other brands, placed at the opposite ends of the cooler, seem to fade into obscurity with the others.
“In the next five years, I think that Sweet Leaf Tea will be a household name,” says Clayton. “I think we’ll be one of the top four teas in the U.S. We may be expanded into other beverages at that time. Or I might be on a sail boat down in the Caribbean and Sweet Leaf could be owned by someone else, but we’re having way too much fun right now.”
VICTORY DANCE Clayton and David are having so much fun, in fact, that the company has a new home in a downtown office. And the best part is–it’s air conditioned. The back wall boasts “Sweet Leaf Tea,” and there are lofts on either side of the warehouse-sized room. Clayton walks in, turns on the lights and immediately heads to the thermostat. He explains that they’re going to have a grand opening office party complete with a band and, of course, lots of tea.
During the interview, the mailman comes, and Clayton appears giddy when he realizes that he has just received his first piece of mail at his new office location. “I think success is being truly happy at what you spend the majority of your time doing each day,” he says. “I mean, of course, it’s inevitable in our industry that our financials, to a certain degree, are a measure of success. But if I didn’t enjoy what I was doing, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
Empowered by his success, Clayton knows that he could now run any business he wanted. “I can still remember my first ride up Jester. “You’re like, ‘am I going to have to turn around?’ It’s so much easier the second time. I’d be so much less intimidated to start another business. I know that whatever I do after this, the likelihood of succeeding is exponentially greater than the first time around. It’s getting up Jester for the first time. It changes everything.”
His home is reflective of his personality – artistic and utilitarian. Every angle, structure and piece of material has its purpose, every room tells a story, and all are uniquely meshed into the surrounding space. Upon entering the house, one is met by an upward-angled ramp that makes an immediate 360 into a second-floor sitting area and dining room.
The unique design should not be surprising. M.J. Neal is an architect. A son, grandson and great-grandson of architects and contractors, Neal seems destined to have fallen into the profession. Since inception, his firm has earned nine honors and awards by the American Institute of Architects, the Texas Society of Architects and other prominent architectural organizations.
A natural student of the arts, Neal does not limit his designs to one area. He and his associates have created award-winning designs for both residential homes and commercial facilities. Among his most recent creations are his home, appropriately call the “Ramp House,” and a jewelry store, Anthony Nak, in downtown Austin.
WELL THOUGHT-OUT PLANS
Designing his own house was a remarkable experience for Neal. The home resembles no other house on the block: It’s a unique collaboration of natural and recycled products in a sustainable environment.
“The idea was to take this suburban lot, adjacent to downtown, and try to show people how it can become an urban/suburban hybrid, allowing the lot to have many varieties of special quality and show people how they can fully utilize one of these sites. That’s the reason the house is situated the way it is,” he says.
Every detail has been meticulously thought-out. Sunlight finds its way into every room in the house, while the angle of the window shutters (no drapes) keep outsiders from peering in – privacy with a view.
The ramp that meets guests at the front entrance is made from Brazilian wood cut from a managed forest in that country. “The house is a slave to the ramp,” Neal says. “The ramp was put in to really start thinking about the fourth dimension - time. It slows people down as they come inside the house.”
Upstairs, flooring made from natural hemp or recycled rubber tires enlist functionality. The dining table, a relic from the library at The University of Texas, is displayed with acrylic chairs in an array of colors. Appropriately, the colors match the acrylic panels lining the home’s ramp, and the panels doubles as guardrails. Neal’s goal is simple: to engage a person’s senses.
The “Ramp House” has earned Neal several honors and awards, including the 2004 Design Honor Award from the Texas Society of Architects, the 2003 Silver Medal from the Interior Design-Residential Bienal Miami+Beach, and the 2003 Citation of Honor from the American Institute of Architects in Austin.
Awards for other projects include the 2004 Merit Award from the American Institute of Architects in Austin for his Twin Peaks project, Honorable Mention at the 2003 Memphis Riverfront Competition, and second place at the First Annual Artists for Kids Toy & Game Contest, which was sponsored by Children’s Hospital of Austin and The Austin Chronicle. In 1997, the Academy of Architecture Arts and Sciences also named Neal one of the best architects under age 39 for his work on the Carmichael residence.
HOPES AND DREAMS Creating something beautiful is what Neal loves most about his work. His objective with each new project is to “take the hopes, dreams and desires of clients and elevate them beyond anything they can imagine.” To him, this means creating thoughtful architecture that has a positive impact on their lives.
Currently, his firm is working on a 10-unit loft property and various residences locally and elsewhere. Neal says he is happy to be practicing his profession in Austin and hopes to make a positive cultural impact on the city. As for the future, he plans to continue honing his philosophy on architecture:
“Programming, materials, and the play of light striking the surface of materials are what architecture is about. How one combines these three elements determines how a building works and feels, both internally and externally, and enables the building to rise to the extraordinary or sink to the mundane.
When cycling enthusiast Gary Seghi walked through the tunnel that led to the International Paralympics in 1991, he expected to feel excited and proud to represent the United States in the Olympic-style games for athletes with a disability. What he didn’t expect was the emotional wave that would overwhelm him. As he stepped into the arena to the tune the “Star-Spangled Banner,” he felt a rush unlike any other. It was the greatest thrill of his life, he says. He wanted to fall to his knees, but pain would stop him—pain caused by a life-changing accident.
FACING ROADBLOCKS In 1982, while training for a national bike event, an 18-wheeler hit Seghi at an estimated 70 to 80 miles per hour, leaving his body’s imprint permanently indented in the truck’s grill. After the initial impact, he slipped from the front of the cattle-hauling truck, which completely ran over his body before dragging him another 100 yards. “This can’t be happening,” he remembers thinking.
From that day forward, Seghi’s struggle to live a happy, healthy life had begun.
“I was pronounced as a D.O.A,” he recalls. “I had arrived at the hospital, and they revived me.”
Doctors didn’t expect him to live even after they gave him 22 pints of blood during the first operation. And dislocated and fractured hips, spine, tibia and ribs–as well as a shattered knee and a deflated lung–weren’t helping his prognosis.
Seghi spent the next 10 weeks in the intensive-care unit, during which time he endured several operations. The doctors finally concluded that both legs needed to be amputated.
As soon as he heard the doctors’ recommendation, he felt that he only had one option: to get well. For him, that meant foregoing amputation. For the next five years, he couldn’t exercise his legs because the pain was too intense. He was only able to stretch them sporadically.
FIGHTING BACK While coping with pain in his legs was an incredibly difficult physical and emotional challenge, it, surprisingly, was not his biggest one. According to Seghi, learning how to wean himself from the Morphine and Demerol he needed to take to endure the constant pain was far worse. “To be consumed by a drug and controlled by it was totally foreign to me,” he says. “That was the hardest part–going cold turkey and getting off of it. My whole personality changed.”
Seghi says that he started to feel sorry for himself and began psychoanalyzing and questioning all the events of his life. He finally reached a point, however, where he needed to dig deep inside himself. “I started to understand in more depth the throes of what trauma is about and what goes on physiologically in terms of sensations that you have and what goes on psychologically.”
Determined to succeed, he decided to continue his career. He had started as a chiropractic intern two years before the accident and realized now that he wanted to pursue chiropractic medicine as a full-time profession. His moment of clarity came when he was just one semester shy of his doctorate in neurophysiology.
Seghi thought to himself, “What would you rather do? Sit in a building with florescent lights, studying insect behavior, or would you rather be outside helping other people? I didn’t need to have a Ph.D. behind my name. It was no longer important to me.”
And with that, Seghi dropped out of his Ph.D. program and never looked back.
CHANGING COURSE Seghi completed a three-year program that named him a doctor of chiropractics, and he has been living this dream ever since. The course, however, has not been without its share of bumps. As Seghi was embarking on his newfound career, his wounds were raw and refused to heal. He literally had bloody patches on his legs for four years following the accident. They were so bad that he would have to schedule 30-minute blocks of time between patients to allow himself time to clean his bloody wounds. “I was in no way going to stop what I was doing,” he says. “[My own pain] gave me a little more insight about what my patients felt.”
Seghi wants his patients to feel his concern for and understanding of their specific situation. He believes that he is responsible for their physical and emotional well-being. What’s interesting to an observer is that he doesn’t let on to the patient that he has felt their pain. He doesn’t carry on about himself or his past injuries and trials. He quietly focuses on giving the best possible care and never asks for recognition.
“For me, it’s way harder to give a gift autonomously. It has to come from the heart.” Seghi pays no mind to the possibility of recognition or return.
But life has a funny way of catching up, and, in many cases, recognition is just inevitable. In 1996, the Austin American-Statesman reported that his friend, Lance Armstrong, said, “He’s very strong on his bike, as strong as someone who never had an accident, especially for his age. He’s super serious about training. He’s very dedicated. Sometimes I think he’s more serious than I am.”
It was two years after his accident that Seghi got back on his bike. And though he could only go a couple of feet, it was a huge accomplishment. Since that time, he has been the national champion six times and won seven or eight silver medals. “I should not be able to do anything on that bike,” he says, while motioning toward his bicycle sitting across from his desk in his office.
A pile of gold and silver medals can be found in his office, but they’re not matted behind frames; they’re tossed to the side like dirty laundry. It’s not that they don’t matter to him–it’s just that winning is not his most significant accomplishment. His greatest accomplishment was something that never made the newspaper headlines. That was learning how to appreciate the aesthetic beauty in every person and in every thing.
When referring to the crash, he says, “All of this allowed me to experience something else.” The accident re-invented his life, giving him a second chance to make the most of everyday.
In 1991, Seghi didn’t just place sixth at the International Paralympics; he competed against able-bodied athletes and won in the cycling category at the Pan-American Games.
“I’m convinced that you can meet any challenge if you remember that the line that separates the possible from the impossible moves as soon as you change your attitude.”
A select number of aspiring young men and women complete an intensive two-week training program after successfully completing a rigorous application and interview process. Then they report for their first day of work. For a group of young people in Austin, this is not the start of their professional careers; it’s the beginning of a four-year high-school career at San Juan Diego Catholic High School.
Located in south Central Austin, the high school provides students with college preparatory courses and a unique corporate work-study program. San Juan Diego began as an initiative of the Catholic Diocese of Austin under the leadership of Bishop Gregory Aymond in 2002. Today it is one of only five such programs in the country modeled after the Christo Rey “schools that work” curriculum of education and professional skills training.
HOW THE SCHOOL WORKS
Incoming freshmen take part in a summer boot camp that focuses on professional skills like appearance, interpersonal skills, dining etiquette, confidentiality, sensitivity training and “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Teens.” This orientation session also includes a practical focus on basic office skills and the use of office machines.
Once the school year begins, faculty and staff assign students to employers, such as law firms and health-care networks, based on abilities and aptitude. A team of four students fills one office position. Each team member generally spends four days in the classroom concentrating on college prep courses and one day a week, plus one extra day per month, at his or her job. In return for their assistance with filing, data entry, mailroom tasks and other office duties, the students receive “salaries” that offset their tuition costs. These salaries pay for more than 60 percent of their tuition costs.[Is this the proper meaning? Not sure I understand.]
San Juan Diego also offers scholarships to qualifying students. The school receives funding from Christo Rey Network founder B. J. Cassin, while other costs are met through funding from the diocese and various sources, such as a Gates Corporation grant.
The student body is largely Hispanic with a median annual household income of $30,000. Sixty-eight percent are below the poverty line. Elizabeth Nichols, director of the Corporate Work Study Program, explains that the goal of the high school is to attract students with limited resources. Nichols takes pride in the fact that a majority of these students will be the first in their families to attend college. “The students have to be driven,” she says, “because they have to cram five days of college prep material into four days” to allow for their one day of work.
San Juan Diego has a traditional leadership structure that includes a principal and 21 faculty and staff members. The school also has a president who works to increase community awareness of the school for fundraising purposes and to attract new business sponsors for the internship program. The board of directors handles the operations, fiscal management and policy, while an advisory board made up of “heavy hitters” in the business community helps make contacts with potential new sponsors.
STUDENTS IN THE WORKPLACE
A founding board member and former board chairperson is Bill Daniels, a partner with the law firm of McGinnis Lochridge & Kilgore. Daniels participated in the initial feasibility study that led to the school’s founding and today employs San Juan Diego students. Daniels noted the professional appearance and skill level of the students. “We started with one team of students, and they worked out so well we requested a second team,” he explains. “Even one member of the firm who was initially skeptical of having high-school kids in the office lobbied to add the second team,” says Daniels, during his praise of the program.
The outcome of this type of learning is a future workforce that enters college with more professional skills than many college graduates have. “I see these young people, and I see the people who will succeed,” Daniel says. The expectation of success is evident among school administrators, too. One of the school’s goals is a 100-percent college acceptance rate, which should be met in 2006 with the school’s first graduating class.
A total of 25 internship sponsors provide jobs for the students. Other employers include Dell with three teams, St. Edward’s University with two teams and the Seton Healthcare Network with two teams. The law firms of Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld are also participating as student employers.
Retention of internship sponsors is another example of the school’s success. “We have a 100-percent retention rate of sponsors from the first to second years, and 93 percent in the third year,” Nichols says. “It’s an opportunity that most of these students would never have,” she adds, speaking of their introduction to the corporate world of successful professionals.
In the spirit of the school’s penchant for lofty goals, San Juan Diego aims to attract another 20 corporate sponsors, particularly in the high-tech, banking and finance industries. The school staff is currently working on a grant that will provide advanced computer training for students, so that they can all become Certified Microsoft Office Specialists.
Based on the impressive accomplishments of the school so far, these goals are well within reach. And goal attainment is just the sort of lesson that the young men and women attending San Juan Diego can take with them throughout their scholastic and professional careers.
For more information about “the school that works,” or to inquire about your business becoming a sponsor, visit the Web site at http://www.juandiegoprep.org/ or call Elizabeth Garcia Nichols at (512) 804-1935.
