Secrets of Success: Mickey Judkins

entrepreneur’s vision valued, from Water Street to the White House

Tom Giffey, photos by Andrea Paulseth

Business comes instinctively to Mickey Judkins. Consider her initial venture: When she opened her first clothing store in Eau Claire, she did a market analysis without even knowing it ...

While studying at the University of Arizona in the mid-1970s, she had fallen in love with a funky clothing store in Tucson aimed at college students. When she returned home to Eau Claire in 1977 to finish her degree, she noticed there was no similar business in town. It seemed like a niche that Judkins could fill (finding a lucrative niche is part of market analysis), so she opened her clothing and costume store, Butterfly Exchange, on the same day she registered for junior year classes at UW-Eau Claire.

More than 35 years, two successful retail businesses, and a side career as a globe-trotting evangelist for Wisconsin’s economy later, Judkins is still an entrepreneur.

Her latest venture is serving as a self-described “economic matchmaker,” a consultant who helps match budding technology with investors and large companies that can make use of it.

“I’m always looking for new ideas,” Judkins said during a recent interview in the neat-as-a-pin office she keeps in the back of her women’s clothing store, Details, 502 Water St. And, for those who have new ideas, Judkins has plenty of wisdom to offer.

“Be passionate about what you do,” she advises. “You need more than money to keep you interested.”

“Commit yourself to lifelong learning. One thing you can be guaranteed is that the market is going to change. ... You don’t get an education and forget about it for the rest of your life.”Money was hard to come by for female entrepreneurs when Judkins entered the business world a little more than a generation ago. She began her first store with a $2,000 investment from her family. When she decided to open Details in 1985, she went a more formal route: She created a detailed business plan and a target market analysis she could take to lenders.

“At that time it was very difficult for a women to get credit at a bank,” she said, noting that it wasn’t until the 1970s that a woman could obtain a credit card in her own name without her husband co-signing for it.

For Judkins, the work paid off: This spring will mark the store’s 28th year in business. In addition to taking the time to create a business plan, Judkins said she’d recommend that entrepreneurs take another step she did: finding a mentor. Judkins contacted SCORE – the name stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives – a nonprofit group that provides free mentoring services for businesses. They connected her with a retired business owner who shared her passion for retailing and could offer advice.

“I highly recommend that a person starting in business, whatever age, should find a mentor,” she said.

Just as with her first store, which closed in 1987, Details meets a particular need in the local retail scene, which has helped it compete against big-box clothing retailers.

“This was a niche market,” she said. “Details caters to a high-end, high-quality product.”

Because the store is comparatively small, it can turn over its inventory more quickly than its larger competitors and can provide more personalized service to its customers, Judkins said.

“Define success. Whether you want the next blockbuster creation or whether you want to finance your children’s education or pay for a family vacation.”

Among those customers is Mary Ellen Schmider, who became a friend, mentor, and occasional fashion model for Judkins after moving to Chippewa Falls in 1995 following an academic career at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Schmider said Judkins stands out because of her product line (higher-end clothing that isn’t so high-end that the price tags scare away customers), her well-trained and helpful employees (who’ve been known to call husbands with shopping tips after observing wives browsing in the store), and her entrepreneurial savvy.

“She has a very good business sense, for one thing,” Schmider said of Judkins. “She’s a serious businesswoman. She understand something about the economy. She understands about what will work and what will bring value at the same time.”

Schmider continued: “Her interests are not for power, but for doing something useful in the world. She cares about the environment, she cares about the sense of responsibility for quality of life and community.”

Always looking for a new opportunity, Judkins was an early believer in the potential of e-commerce. In 1995, she created the first commercial website in Eau Claire, detailsdirect.com.

“I saw this new technology coming and I knew it was going to be very disruptive,” she said, noting that online sales account for 10 to 20 percent of the store’s business. “The globe has really become a marketplace for us. We’re shipping things to Russia, to Europe.”

Judkins’ business savvy brought her to the attention of Gov. Jim Doyle, who appointed her administrator of the Global Ventures Division of the state Department of Commerce in 2007, a post she held until Doyle left office two years ago. Judkins job was attracting domestic and international investment to Wisconsin, an effort she pursued after first identifying the areas in which the state had a global advantage, such as advanced manufacturing and agriculture, biotechnology, information technology, and sustainable energy.

The position took her around the nation and world, meeting with industry leaders and trying to connect them with innovative Wisconsin businesses and ideas. For example, she might meet with a firm about the components it needed for its products, then reach out to find Wisconsin manufacturers that could match those needs, trying to bring the two groups together in the same place.

“It was like speed dating for the economy,” she quipped.

Even though her appointment with the Department of Commerce ended when Gov. Scott Walker took office in January 2011, Judkins hasn’t simply returned to her initial calling as a retailer. In the past year, she’s been among the small-business leaders invited to Washington three times by the Obama administration for discussions about issues ranging from the “fiscal cliff” to technical innovation. She also launched her “economic matchmaking” consulting business to continue the kind of work she did for the Department of Commerce: creating alliances between entrepreneurs and industry leaders and investors.

“There are people all over the state of Wisconsin who have innovative technology,” she said.

Where the Jobs Are is sponsored by:

Chippewa Valley
Technical College

620 W. Clairemont Ave
Eau Claire, WI

Where the Jobs Are is sponsored by:

Chippewa Valley
Technical College

620 W. Clairemont Ave
Eau Claire, WI