Liz Dee, co-president of American candy company Smarties with her sister Jessica Dee Sawyer and cousin Sarah Dee, didn’t always know she wanted to join the family business, which was founded by her grandfather Edward Dee in Bloomfield, New Jersey in 1949.
However, Dee continued “responding to the call,” working on copy for Smarties’ first website when she was in middle school and helping launch and maintain its social media accounts in college and graduate school. She took on her current leadership role in 2008.
Smarties, which just celebrated its 75th anniversary, is still based in New Jersey, where Edward Dee immigrated with his family from England the same year he started the company. Since its founding, and even over the course of Dee’s own tenure as co-president, the marketing landscape has changed significantly.
“It is an uphill battle to maintain relevance and shelf space,” Dee says. “Even if people love your product and love your brand, [you have] maybe a few facings on the shelf when some of the other companies out there have, say, 25% of shelf space, and that’s a limited resource.”
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Halloween is approaching, and Smarties attributes more than 25% of its annual sales to the holiday. This year, Smarties saw the earliest demand for Halloween ever in Dee’s time with the company, with requests to ship for the holiday beginning in June.
Smarties rolls out inventive giveaway campaigns, including one for Halloween: Sweet Switch, which allows people with food allergies or sensitivities to swap candy that’s unsafe for them for Smarties.
“You don’t actually need to send your candy back to us,” Dee explains. “Someone can just upload a photo of that to us, and we will go ahead and send them the Smarties. This is a nice way for us to both highlight the fact that we are top allergen-free [and] be there for people who are going to be receiving a lot of candy but may feel a little bit left out.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Smarties
During her time as Smarties’ co-president, Dee has led with an important goal: the company’s commitment to remaining family-owned while maintaining its relevance and authenticity in the crowded candy space.
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Dee shares with Entrepreneur the leadership lessons that help Smarties meet those objectives — including the piece of advice she chose to ignore.
“No job is too small.”
Fittingly, Dee’s grandfather, Edward Dee, who was just inducted into the Candy Hall of Fame last weekend, gave her some leadership advice that’s served her well during her time at Smarties.
“My grandfather attributed this quote to Thomas Edison, but he would say, ‘Opportunity is missed by most people because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work,'” Dee says. “And that really speaks to the way we manage, which is, no job is too small.”
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At Smarties, Dee strives to lead with a certain “scrappiness” and “grit.” The factory floor is just on the other side of her office wall, and she’s no stranger to rolling up her sleeves for an up-close look at the production process, she says.
“I am able to be there supporting team members and also seeing what’s happening where the candy is being made,” Dee explains. “If people climb further and further up ladders, they may just get further and further distance from the production of the products that allow them to even have the lights on in their offices.”
“You bring people up with you.”
On the topic of ladders, Dee mentions another leadership tip she strongly believes in: You don’t climb a ladder and bring it up with you.
“You bring people up with you,” Dee says. “[I’ve always] believed it’s very important to continue to support, empower and lift up team members, and we look for opportunities to do that where we can. It definitely speaks to a sense of the connection and gratitude that I feel for how I’m here and why I’m here — because we are supporting one another, working together to achieve shared, company-wide goals.”
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“We’re not going to hide who we are.”
Additionally, early on in Dee’s career, when she transitioned to leadership in the candy industry, she received a “bad” piece of leadership advice she disagreed with — and opted not to take.
The suggestion came from a 60-something man, Dee recalls, who told her that she and her co-presidents should hide the fact that Smarties is a women-run business. He didn’t think it would be good for the company — a belief that spoke more to his perspective than any real consumer analysis on the subject, Dee says.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Smarties. Sarah Dee, left; Jessica Dee Sawyer, center; and Liz Dee, right.
“We’re not going to hide who we are, regardless,” Dee says. “It’s really important, particularly as women in leadership, to tell our stories [and] not be ashamed or afraid to be authentically ourselves. We’re a women-run business. We’re a majority women-owned business. And we have a triumvirate leadership, which is an unusual leadership structure, but it works for us.”
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“People love Smarties.”
Now, as Dee looks to Smarties’ next 75 years and beyond, she’s excited to push forward its legacy, one rooted in a family history that’s already laid the foundation for a successful future.
“People love Smarties,” Dee says. “[They] tell me about it. It brings them joy, and they share that joy, and I want for that to continue. I know we can continue it by walking our path, maintaining our family legacy and doing what we do, which is keeping our people first [and] making sure that we continue to offer the same consistent, high-quality products that people know and love us for.”
