从家庭主妇到家具女王

    这就是我，一个结过婚并有4个小孩的乡村女孩正在实现的构想。当我申请第一份工作（马萨诸塞州布伦特里Hamilton's Furniture的室内设计总监）时，该公司所有人——乔治·汉密尔顿——最初拒绝了我，因为我没有任何经验。我就想：“我必须得引起这个人的注意。”有一天，我和孩子们在海滩上时心中也在想着这个问题。这时我看到一架飞机飞过头顶，打着什么广告，我记得是百加得朗姆酒（Bacardi Rum）的广告。每个人都在看那个广告。

    因此，我跑去租了一架豪客比奇（Hawker Beechcraft）飞机，让它拖着写有“乔治，朱迪·乔治将给你赚几百万”的条幅飞行。我让飞机每天都在他的办公室上方飞，飞了一个星期，直到他让警察联系我，指控我有骚扰之嫌。然后，接下来的一周，他雇佣了我。

    后来，他的公司收购了家具店Scandinavian Design，我的传奇就是从这里开始的。时任首席执行官罗伯特·达尔文给了我一生中真正的机会。我们一起努力，在不到6年的时间内将公司收入从300万美元提升到了8,900万美元左右。接着，我又开始提出所有这些想法，一家新店的想法。

    然后有一天，我开车去上班，进门就被解雇了。罗伯特告诉我：“你有你自己的梦想，那不是我的梦想。”

    我的心都碎了。被人炒鱿鱼令人感觉相当羞愧，特别是对于女性。我从没想过我能挺过来。然后，我开始制定一个商业计划。

    这一次，我单枪匹马。我请了最好的律师事务所。我去找一流的会计师。我去了德勤（Deloitte & Touche），我们达成了一个协议：如果他们帮助我将这个商业计划搭建起来，我将聘请他们做这家公司的会计师，但我不能预付。他们做到了。他们承担了风险，为我做了20年的会计师。

    至于启动资金，我去找了贝恩资本（Bain Capital），在那里我遇到了米特·罗姆尼。我喜欢米特·罗姆尼。我对政治不感兴趣。我一直远离政治。但米特冒了一次贝恩资本任何人都不会冒的风险。当时，他在那里的资历也较浅。我想米特所做的是，他认识到了我的激情和决心，相信“如果有人能做到，她就能做到。”

    并不是因为我是一个天才，也不是因为我拥有世界上最好的点子。我想，我做的最重要的事情是正确待人。猜猜看，是谁帮我拿到了启动资金？是制造商和员工们，当贝恩资本打电话向他们了解情况时，他们都给了我很高的评价。四年内，我为这家公司筹集了3,000万美元的创始资金。

    1986年，我们创办了Domain，迅速取得了成功。产品设计与（我老东家）Scandinavian的斯堪的纳维亚风格截然不同。我的设计更欧式。我知道每个人都有巴黎、意大利或西班牙情结。因此，我融入了这些国家的元素，设计了外观。

    2002年我出售这家公司时，它的销售额为6,800万美元，当时是美国一流的家具公司之一。我以3,000万美元出售了这家公司，我没有把这些钱据为己有。约20名Domain员工从这笔买卖中获得了巨额回报，因为我知道我想做些其他事情。如果我真的要做其他事情，我需要他人的好评。

    Domain在2006年再度易手。当时整个行业不断走低，最终收购它的那家公司不想长期持有它。他们进来是想轻松赚些快钱，但在家具行业这根本不可能。当时美国的经济状况是大萧条以来最糟糕的情况之一。他们失去了耐心。2008年Domain提交了破产保护申请。

    So here I am, a country girl, really, married with four kids. When I applied for my first job [as director of interior design for Hamilton's Furniture in Braintree, Mass.], the owner -- George Hamilton -- originally said no because I'd never had experience. I thought,"I have to get this man's attention." I was thinking about that on the beach with my kids one day and I saw this plane fly overhead advertising something, I think it was Bacardi Rum. Everybody was looking at it.

    So I went and hired a Hawker Beechcraft plane with a banner that said, "George, Judy George will make you millions." And I flew it over his office every day for a week until he had the police contact me for disturbing the peace. The next week, he hired me.

    Eventually his company bought the furniture store Scandinavian Design, and that's where I worked my magic. Robert Darvin, the CEO, gave me the real chance of a lifetime. Working together, in less than six years we went from $3 million to about $89 million in revenue. But then I started bringing in all these ideas again, ideas for a new store.

    One day, I drove to work, got in, and was fired. Robert said to me, "You have your own dreams. They're not mine."

    I was heartbroken. There's a lot of shame about being fired, particularly for women. I never thought I would survive it. Then I started putting a business plan together.

    This time, I went all on my own. I hired the best law firm. I went to the best accountants. I went to Deloitte & Touche, and we made a deal that if they helped me put this business plan together, I would make them the accountants, but I couldn't pay them upfront. They did it. They took a risk. And they were my accountants for 20 years.

    For startup money, I went to Bain Capital, where I met Mitt Romney. I love Mitt Romney. I'm not political. I've kept out of that. But Mitt took a chance where nobody would at Bain. And he was relatively new there. What I think Mitt did is he picked up on my passion and drive, and said, "If anybody can do it, she'll do it."

    It wasn't because I was a genius. It wasn't because I had the best idea in the world. I think the most important thing I ever did was treat people right. And guess who got me the money? It was the manufacturers and the employees who spoke so highly of me when Bain called and interviewed them. Within four years, I had $30 million in startup funding for the company.

    We open Domain in 1986, and it really took off. The design was very different than Scandinavian [George's former employer], which is Scandinavian. I was more European. Everybody I knew wanted to be in Paris, Italy, or Spain. And so I took all those countries and developed the look.

    The revenue was $68 million when I sold the company in 2002. It was one of the top furniture companies in the country. We sold it for $30 million, and I didn't keep the money. About 20 people at Domain benefited tremendously from the sale, because I knew I wanted to do something else, and if I was ever going to do that, I needed people to speak well of me.

    Domain changed hands again in 2006, when the bottom starting falling out of the industry, but the company that eventually bought it wasn't in it for the long term. They came in, and they wanted quick and easy money, and there was no way in the furniture industry that was ever going to happen. It was one of the worst economic climates for the industry since the Great Depression. They got impatient. Domain filed for bankruptcy in 2008.