From Publishers Weekly
She did it her way and today she has a thriving business built on a tenacious belief in saying no to defeats along the journey. Hoskins created Michele Foods, Inc., when she was a newly divorced mother of three daughters, dreaming a seemingly impossible dream. Taking her great-great-grandmother’s closely guarded family recipe for a delicious honey crème syrup and combining it with sheer determination, Hoskins overcame not only racial barriers (she’s African-American) but also a complete absence of knowledge about the food industry that she planned to infiltrate and master. Hoskins recalls the modest beginnings of her multimillion-dollar business. She and her children worked to devise home-grown marketing methods, distributing product to mom-and-pop shops, later knocking on the doors of major local grocery chains in Chicago and eventually moving into restaurants like Denny’s and national outlets like Wal-Mart. Hoskins survived a brain tumor in the midst of her undertaking and, even in debilitating pain, plunged forward in her workaday whirlwind. "Being an entrepreneur can be an isolating pursuit," confesses the author. "When you start off on your road to being an entrepreneur, no one’s going to stop and say, ‘Oh, wait a minute. Let me give you a course on entrepreneurship.’" This is a real account of triumph in the rough edges of big business. Hoskins relates contributions of family and friends, whom she lovingly credits in the final chapters. Today, she mentors others and offers classes designed for new entrepreneurs.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

America Washington was born a slave in the 1860s, and it was her creation, honey cream syrup-formulated for the plantation for whom she cooked-that became her great-great-granddaughter￯﾿ﾽs key to success and independence more than a century later.

In Sweet Expectations, Michele Hoskins tells how she overcame incredible odds to turn her family legacy into a formula for success. Through her entrepreneurial genius, indomitable spirit, aggressive sales tactics, and impenetrable faith, she built a multimillion-dollar corporation with national distribution through all of the top food chains.

Laced with touching detail, bittersweet anecdotes, wise observations, and valuable success principles, Sweet Expectations will inspire you like no other story you have read before.

Author Bio:Michele Hoskins is founder and owner of Michele Foods, Inc., a multimillion-dollar company that produces Honey Creme Syrup, Butter Pecan Syrup, and Maple Creme Syrup. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, and Oxygen, and has been profiled in major publications such as People Magazine, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, Success, Fortune, and The Chicago Sun-Times.