Famous Amos, the Muffin Man

In the early 1980s, the Famous Amos Cookie Co. was booming and its CEO, Wally Amos, was at last enjoying the fruits of his entrepreneurial labor. He had come a long way to head this $10-million-a-year company. The first 12 years of his life were spent “in the Colored section of Tallahassee, FL, not knowing much about what was beyond it,” Amos writes in his book, Watermelon Magic: Seeds of Wisdom, Slices of Life (Beyond Words Pub. Co., 1996). He spent the rest of his teen years suffering from low self-esteem in the multiracial, multiethnic schools of New York City. But he managed to put all that behind him by creating this enormously popular, multi-million dollar company.

Then in 1985 everything started to unravel. Amos ran into financial troubles and was forced to sell a majority interest in his company to the billionaire Bass family of Fort Worth, TX. A few months later, the Bass family sold its share to an investment group. In fact, between 1985 and 1988, Famous Amos went through four changes in management and ownership. Eventually, a Taiwanese food conglomerate acquired it and is still selling Famous Amos brand cookies. As for its founder, within one year of the initial sale Amos was just another salaried employee. Frustrated, he left the company in 1989.

But Amos has amazing resilience. Not one to let hardship keep him down, he turned around and started a muffin company that last year was expected to post about $3 million in revenues. Today, he is also a much-sought-after motivational speaker and author of several books. Here are a few of the principles that Amos stuck to throughout his life and that paved his road back to success.

1. “The past is a bucket of ashes.” That’s Amos-speak for “stay focused on the future.” When asked about his hard-luck days and previous business problems, Amos intones his “ashes” maxim and steers the topic around to what’s ahead. This tendency to look forward got him through the roughest times in his life. When he lost his multimillion dollar business and everything around him was falling apart, Amos simply picked himself up and looked around for solutions and new opportunities rather than bemoaning the doors that had closed behind him.

2. Turn liabilities into assets. A 1994 court decision added insult to Amos’ injury of losing his Famous Amos Cookie Co. when it ruled that Wally Amos could no longer call himself Famous Amos or use his name or face to sell cookies. The court reasoned that Amos’ name and face were part of the Famous Amos trademark that had been sold off to investors in the mid-1980s. Though the ruling was a devastating blow, denying Amos his key marketing asset, he found a way to capitalize on it. With a sense of irony he launched the Uncle Noname company, a baked-goods business that has been setting the muffin industry on fire.

3. It’s all about teamwork. Amos lost his Famous Amos Cookies because “I didn’t always listen to others,” he confesses. “I thought I was invincible. My ego got a little too big for me.” Indeed, while his workers were churning out cookies, Amos volunteered to be a spokesman for the Literacy Volunteers of America – a group he remains committed to – and began spending most of his time traveling. Though he was marketing his cookies, he also was busy marketing himself and at one point even tried to secure a role for himself in a movie. As his interests wandered, his cookie business began to flounder. Eventually, financial troubles forced him to sell, but the experience taught him an important lesson about teamwork. Today, he’s singing a different kind of tune – harmony. “I’ve learned it’s all about teamwork. It’s not about what I can do, but what we can do together.”

4. Change with changing circumstances. Amos knew and loved cookies. He knew how to bake them and how to sell them. But the judge’s order in 1994 essentially forced him out of the cookie business forever. His solution: muffins. He observed the national trend toward fat-free foods and created a line of tasty fat-free muffins that are selling enormously well. “I’m the muffin man now,” he says. “I didn’t plan it. Circumstances created it. And you go with what works.”