"People laugh when they hear that title, because you don't often hear business and happiness in the same sentence. Tom McMakin, former COO of Great Harvest Franchising, is hoping to spread the ideas behind the company through his book, Bread and Butter: What a Bunch of Bakers Taught Me about Business and Happiness. And give generously to others." As Scheel puts it, "If we decide one day that we want to become a pizza store, because that's more fun, then that's what we'll do." Like all members of the Great Harvest franchise system, the owners of the Missoula Great Harvest bakery, Dave Scheel and Linda Tawney, live by the mission statement of Great Harvest Bread, written by the Wakemans: "Be loose and have fun. Fresh bread turns in the oven, and new loaves are moved up to the counter's bread board, another Great Harvest trademark, where everyone who enters the store is offered a free thick slice of freshly baked bread, slathered with butter and honey if they choose. They work in rhythm to the music, joking and laughing. In the Missoula bakery, upbeat reggae thumps from speakers as employees knead dough around a table in the middle of the store. One of the first tenets is the importance of music, the "heartbeat" of the store. The franchise contract even states, "Anything not expressly prohibited by the language of this agreement is allowed." Great Harvest does operate according to the basics of franchising: Owners turn back 7 percent of gross sales to the franchise company, which in turn provides a host of support, such as bread recipes, baking techniques, accounting advice and store-design tips. Everything but the name, the daily grinding of the flour and the sources of wheat for the bread is up to the individual owner. That's the term the Wakemans came up with to describe a franchise in which the rules for franchise owners are few. Today, Great Harvest Bread is a mini-empire of about 150 "feels good, tastes great" bread stores across the country, operating under the "freedom franchise" umbrella. "We just thought, 'Let's figure out a way to stay out here.'" We were in our twenties and out in Montana," says Laura Wakeman. "A lot of people think we woke up one day and thought, 'Let's be entrepreneurs.' It wasn't that way. ![]() Two years later, their success led them to franchise their bakery, but in a way that preserved their ideals: no uniforms, few rules and an emphasis on community-building. Pete and Laura Wakeman started the first Great Harvest bakery in Great Falls, Montana, in 1976. This summer in Montana, we met a group of bakers at Great Harvest Bread Company who have been thinking about how to balance life and business for quite some time and have come up with a winning recipe. Sacrifice in the short term may seem less attractive now that every day is more uncertain, and more precious. ![]() For others, it means reconsidering the idea of working long hard hours now to save up for a great retirement later. For many, this means spending more time with their families. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the mood of fear and anxiety has prompted many people to reevaluate their working lives.
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