blo | north america's original blow dry bar

BUSINESS LUNCH: Mineral water was the only beverage consumed when wine-biz veterans Jack Segal, 62, Ray Signorello Jr., 46, and Jay Garnett, 41, ordered a hamburger, hanger steak and ahi tuna respectively at the Shangri-La's Market by Jean-Georges restaurant Monday. It was rare for the frequent global travellers to be in town together. After more out-of-towning, they'll all return next week. And this time, there'll be torrents of wine involved.

Thursday, April 22, is when Segal's restaurant-focused Seacove Group and Garnett's Whitefish Beverage Agency will officially partner with Signorello's Napa-based Signorello Estate to form Icon Fine Wine & Spirits. The three expect the 15-employee agency ( www.iconwineandspirits.com)to transact $10 million in its first year. The volume is a trickle beside outfits like Diageo, which reportedly moves $300-million worth annually here. But it should give Icon mid-20s ranking in B.C., as well as a unique composition -- in Canada, at least. That's because the Iconeers claim theirs will be the only agency involving a wine producer, Signorello, who calls himself "someone who can think from both sides of the fence."

The fence Signorello and Segal eventually jumped led them to Icon managing partner Garnett. That was in December, when condom, coffee and cocktail entrepreneur Garnett suggested he be added to fellow Young Presidents' Organization member Signorello and Segal's gestating merger plans. They'll make it public during the Rob Feenie-catered wingding April 22 at the Vancouver Club, Jay Garnett president. Coincidentally, perhaps, the Vincor Canada division of global-wine-giant Constellation Brands will stage a tasting of its superior vintages at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel that night. Its cheeky-sounding title: Icons of Wine.

For now, Icon's principals plan to consolidate and conciliate the 100 or so beer, wine and spirits producers held in their largely complementary individual portfolios today. Wines poured April 22 will doubtless include some of the unrepresented global ones Icon intends to snag. "There's lots of overpriced wines available," Signorello said. "The trick is to find underpriced ones."

Another trick will be to fund a sampling program Garnett calls "a core pillar of what we do." That's because agencies can't lift bottles for sampling from lots they distribute, but must pay their fully taxed and marked-up retail prices. The program will likely entail two per cent of laid-in costs, which, according to Icon's projection, should begin at $60,000 annually.

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Blo Blow Dry Bar founder-principal Judy Brooks learned plenty from serving liquor. And at a ripe age, too. Sixteen. "I looked older when I was younger and younger when I got older," said Brooks, now 46, recalling a cocktail-waitressing spell at the Old Spaghetti Factory. The West Vancouver secondary student turned up for a busing job, but hit the floor with a tray-full of booze.

By age 18, the then-Judy Hart was food and beverage manager at the Granville Island Hotel at the height of a meet-and-mate era, when patrons seldom left alone "and some stole prepared dishes from the kitchen counter and took them into the washrooms to eat," Brooks recalled.

"That hotel taught me how to deal with people,: she said. Management lessons followed at the Wedgewood Hotel, where Eleni Skalbania made her F&B manager. "She was ahead of her time," Brooks said of Skalbania. "She knew exactly what she wanted, and wasn't afraid to get it."

The lesson resonated. At age 20, Brooks founded the Hart & Associates public relations and marketing agency, and learned a vital motivational technique. She was preparing to hard-pitch a corporation on the business or community benefits of sponsoring the Expo 86 fair when ad-biz champ David McPhee "said that they were probably going to do it because it was kind of cool." The lesson: "When you're selling something, you don't have to sell it. You just have to give someone an opportunity to purchase."

The revelation remains the "filter" from Brooks' decisions today, such as addressing the 30 requests for Blo franchises that reportedly arrive monthly.

Back then, though, married and pregnant she left for 18 months in Costa Rica - and launched a fitness facility. "It was a great way to meet people and learn the language." As for experience: "Have I ever done anything I was trained to do?"

That self-training paid off. Returning to Vancouver, she joined Barb Crompton's Fitness Group. Made corporate-fitness director two months later, she learned "how important systems are in business - everything for researching, documenting, executing and reviewing. Before we used the word, [Crompton] was one of the first persons in small business who understood branding."

Thus coached, "That's when I really started a company," Brooks said. Two, in fact. In 1992, her Body Logic provided on-site injury-prevention programs to corporations like Coca-Cola, Arco and Eurocan from B.C. and Minnesota offices. After the firm peaked at a reported $1.6 million annually, Brooks sold out in 2006. Two years earlier, with lawyer-brother Richard Hart and another sibling, forensic psychology professor Stephen Hart, she'd founded Proactive Resolutions to furnish conflict-management and respectful-marketplace training in B.C., Alberta and Australia. Brooks bailed 15 months ago, having joined the board of Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, the organization Odlum Brown director Christina Anthony founded in 2002.

That move led to Blo. In the office at 6:30 a.m., and with FWE events at day's end, Brooks wondered: "How come there's plenty of places that'll do my nails for $20, but none for my hair?" Daughter Devon wrote a business plan, Blo opened in March 2008, and quickly grew.

So, in 2009, did something else, Cervical cancer. Characteristically, Brooks had surgery (at UBC Hospital) on a Thursday, was home Friday and in the office - "a little bit tender and groggy" - Monday. That Friday, Dec. 11, she attended FWE's annual gala, encouraging younger women to become entrepreneurs, too.

This Monday, after "a post-operative poke-around," she praised the B.C. health care system for "compassionate, knowledgeable people who do a remarkable job... every step of the way someone told me what was going to happen and how I would feel... my business mind was impressed by how much went right."

Things continued going right for Blo. Two more Toronto outlets and one in San Francisco signed on. South Surrey opens this week, perhaps with Brooks serving drinks - legally this time.

- Malcolm Parry, Vancouver Sun, Section E2, April 15

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