Forging a Relationship That Pays Off

Roxanne Coady chuckles as she completes the statement, but her laugh is without irony. She genuinely believes what she just said. It is this perspective that inspired her, way back in 1990, to open RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison – in the process, leaving her high-powered position as a national tax director for a major accounting firm in New York to start a journey in which she had zero prior experience.

“I was turning 40, married, didn’t have any kids and it looked like that wasn’t going to work out,” recalls Roxanne. “So I thought, ‘Well, it’s time to try something that really speaks to my heart.’” 

Roxanne spent the next year refurbishing the space which used to be Nick’s Bar and Grill but was vacant at the time she bought it. “The only thing left in this building was the fat from the hamburgers,” she notes. Roxanne kept the tin ceiling and wood floors, fixed everything else, and, as the world goes, was eight months pregnant on the eve of the opening. RJ Julia Booksellers – the response of Roxanne’s heart speaking – soft launched, as they say, with no formal announcement and just a pulling down of the parchment paper covering the windows.

The “R” in the business name is for Roxanne, and the “J” is the middle initial of her husband. “Julia” honors Roxanne’s grandmother, Juliska – a Hungarian who emphasized education and loved to read before she was sadly killed in a concentration camp. Roxanne’s parents came to the United States in 1946 and settled in the Lower East Side of New York City, starting out poor and unable to speak much English. Roxanne was born a few years later. “They were afraid of the library because they had been concentration camp survivors, so they feared anything that required IDs,” Roxanne says. “All they could afford were Golden Books, which were a dime, but they read them to me.”

Roxanne is polite and extremely well-spoken, carrying herself with a New York panache that mingles humility and confidence. From the moment you meet her, she is clearly one of those special people with a presence in the room – as well as an affable approachability that brings people together.

Lori Fazio, the President and Chief Operating Officer, joined the RJ Julia team in 2007. Like Roxanne, she is sharp, witty, and very likable. “ I started as a part-time bookseller because it was my favorite place in town, and there's not a day I wake up that I'm not excited to go to work. It makes my life full.”

Patrons ranging from nine weeks old to 90 years young (the nine-week-old smiled in her stroller while Mom looked at biographies). As a woman walks in – she turns out to be an owner of Wilcox Tree Experts, another business customer of the Bank – two teenaged siblings burst onto the sidewalk, one with his mouth on the straw of a green smoothie from the store’s café, and the other with his nose firmly planted in the green-clad graphic novel he just purchased.

When asked how many books are in the store, Lori thinks there may be 50,000, but then quips, " I'm a little nervous about that answer.” Roxanne more confidently states the number being over 100,000, but both agree, there are a lot. Doing some quick math, Roxanne notes there being more than a million dollars of inventory on the Madison shelves alone.

A reverence for books and learning, infused with a belief in open discourse, seems to be the prevailing ethos at RJ Julia. Intellectual freedom and the welcoming of varied curiosities and perspectives are also core tenets. Says Lori, “ We are a place of community. People come in and want to be around other people, in a space where they feel safe, brave, comfortable, and accepted.”

Ultimately, as their website states, RJ Julia is “fiercely committed to putting the right book in the right hands,” as a means of personal discovery.

Another important aspect to everyone in the business is giving back locally. Says Roxanne, “I calculated at one point that we’ve probably donated over $2 million dollars to the community. We also founded Read to Grow, which is the largest literacy organization in the state. It gives out a book to every baby born in Connecticut.”

RJ Julia originally had loans with a big box bank, but saw the bank’s communication and consistency of service wane over the years. “[It seemed that they and]  most of the larger banks were not too interested in smaller businesses,” says Roxanne, so we thought, ‘We can't be dealing with that kind of vulnerability.’" 

Then, she got introduced to the CEO at Essex Bank. 

At that time of the introduction, Roxanne bluntly states, RJ Julia had “horrible cash flow.” Nonetheless, she says about Essex Bank, “they decided to loan us money and develop a relationship based on that we worked hard, that we had integrity, that we had a business plan that looked like we could make it work, and they would be patient about that.” 

The relationship was a good fit from the start, and was put to the test by a major challenge in 2020: the global pandemic.

Lori says, her face growing serious in recalling the time, “we had to pivot very quickly.” They also needed to make business moves that required a deeply connected Bank team for guidance. “Knowing we could call up [the Bank], ask a question, and get an answer right away helped us figure out the loans and the paybacks. It was all very complicated, and they helped us put ourselves in a position that we could keep paying everybody, and we could then pay back our loans, and get paid back from the government.”

“The last ten years we’ve been fiscally very strong, quite successful, and it’s a credit to the relationship that we have.” Lori adds that the Essex Bank team distinguishes themselves through their proactivity and punctuality. “Essex is very strategic. They recommend things to us, and always have our back. Plus, I can call up with something, say I’m coming in a few minutes, and they have it ready. They really make a difference in our day-to-day business.”

For starters, Roxanne has no intention of stopping, noting that she loves diving into the business strategy, as well as the implications of emerging technologies and customer trends. “Why not do it if I love it? I don’t want to play pickleball. I’m a terrible athlete. So why not have the bookstore to make customers and employees happy?”

One thing both Roxanne and Lori are acutely aware of is the fact that when RJ Julia opened its doors, it was one of approximately 9,000 bookstores nationwide. Now, more than 3,000 of those businesses are gone. They are also mindful of the “Amazon model” – competing in a world with we-have-everything retailers. 

Says Roxanne, “In theory they sell books for less, but that's not so true anymore. They don't answer the phone. We answer the phone. We don't have a voicemail. You want to talk something over, you talk it over with us. All Amazon has is an algorithm.”

Lori agrees. “ We don't need all of the business in the world. We need enough business to keep growing and be the experts. I think [the future is] all about us staying true to who we are." (She also notes that many patrons plead, “don’t change anything.”)

Like most things, Roxanne offers a clear and compelling view for how stability and growth occur. “You have to constantly reinvent yourself or you'll lose ground,” she proclaims, but notes, “ there's an irony that the way to deliver the same essence of what you do is to be adaptive.”

“It's clear we care, and that’s another reason why we like Essex Bank. They are here to help us. We are here to help our employees and our community. People are attracted to that… people want real relationships. You can come into the store, run into a neighbor, see somebody you haven't seen in a few years. It just feels good, and people want to feel good.”