Consulting Fashion Entrepreneurs After Quitting My Corporate Job [$900K/Year In Revenue]
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hello everyone! My name is Alice James and I am the founder of Alice James Global(AJG), a fashion brand consulting firm that helps brands of all sizes with any and every step of running their business.
AJG was built by assisting entrepreneurs looking to bring their ideas to life. In addition to startups, we now support larger brands by offering them a team of experts for the cost of one salary.
From starting out of my daughter’s bedroom on my own 6.5 years ago to now having a team of 11 women supporting over 30 brands per month, I never could have imagined what this business could do.
We’ve helped over 8 Shark Tank brands and managed large-scale brand collaborations with Target, Nordstrom, and HomeGoods to name a few. Our annual growth has averaged a 60% increase over the last three years.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I’d worked for over 10 years in the corporate, big-box retail world successfully building and launching apparel and accessory brands. While I enjoyed what I did, I’d hit the glass ceiling and there was no room for growth. On top of that, the fast-paced world of corporate retail wasn’t something that worked well with my role as a wife and mother. There had to be a better way.
I decided it was time to make a change and headed out with my years of experience and industry network into the world of consulting. What I quickly found was a ton of entrepreneurs out there trying to start their fashion businesses but having no clue how to do it. My expertise was a perfect match to the support they needed and thus began my fashion consultancy.
With the sheer volume of people reaching out for help, and how easy it is for launching brands to make costly mistakes without knowledge of the industry, I knew there was a huge need for this service. One of the great things about building a consultancy is that there isn’t a huge upfront investment so I was able to get this off the ground without a lot of capital.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
There are so many reasons not to start a business, but I decided it was worth a shot. No one could have made that decision for me.
There were bumps in the road in trying to figure out what services to offer and where we could be most useful. Some of the best advice I got early on was “Don’t try to be everything for everyone”. I used this as our guiding principle which helped us stay focused and impactful.
In the beginning, we focused on launching fashion brands. We narrowed in on providing the main functions of fashion brand management including design, sourcing, product development, manufacturing, and logistics. We knew we could provide premium service in these categories and that they would be most impactful for this startup group.
The prices we landed on for these services were determined both by competitive research as well as meticulously tracking our time. Launching businesses are many times on a tight budget and we needed to make sure every dollar spent on our support was worth it.
To build out the scope of our support, we started by flushing out our supply chain and vendor partners to validate our strengths. We needed to make sure that our factories would be able to offer lower volume production orders, that they had industry standard quality assurance measures in place, and that they were socially compliant and certified to do business ethically.
Since we assisted with sourcing and producing products globally, we needed to work with reliable and socially responsible partners who could help us provide the premium service we promised.
In the very beginning, I would find customers through referrals or through Maker’s Row, an online vendor marketplace where I could look for founders seeking assistance. I would send them a little about my background, outline how I could help, and get them on the phone for a discovery call.
I would then talk them through how I would approach their brand launch, partners we could use, and estimated costs. If they decided it was a good fit, we’d schedule a kickoff meeting and outline the next steps. I’d get to work right away jumping in to manage communication with partners and get the process underway.
Our first customers were solely start-up brands trying to get their concept off the ground. What I learned pretty quickly was that they weren’t just looking for a consultant to execute the tasks, they were looking for someone to educate them throughout the process so they could ultimately take on some of the tasks as their business grew. We still have a large focus on educating launching brands today.
The final scope of services naturally structured itself by tracking customer demand, service feedback, and AJG impact. We do get requests for additional services outside of our scope, but we’ve managed that by building out a vetted referral network.
Describe the process of launching the business.
There wasn’t a launch moment for my business since it grew from consulting on my own to adding people to my team along the way. In the beginning, I marketed myself on platforms like Maker’s Row and provided content for informational websites like Startup Fashion. World of mouth and referrals were the methods of growth at the beginning.
Once we couldn’t manage the workload we’d hire to align with the needs of the business. While this approach minimizes the risk of committing to long-term expenses, it can also be hard to manage and can lead to a lot of ups and downs in productivity.
I built our website on my learning Squarespace along the way. We didn’t have a lot of reviews to highlight so we went for bold colors and bright pictures.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned throughout the process is that you can’t be an expert at everything nor should you. Watching expenses at the beginning, I often took things on like building our website, SEO, and marketing.
This took an enormous amount of my time to learn these things on my own. I know now that it’s worth hiring an expert for a few hours to get the job done right and free up your time to focus on the business.
The most common denominator successful founders have is a passion for their product/service. You have to be all in on your business/product or no one else will.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
I believe that our business continues to grow because we provide authentic, genuine support in an industry built to take advantage of businesses and entrepreneurs. We pride ourselves on the passionate commitment and support we provide and our brands feel that.
The majority of our brands have found us through Google, LinkedIn, industry content we’ve provided for Startup Fashion, and features in Austin Women Magazine, Women’s Wear Daily, and Sourcing Journal. For Google we’ve implemented a specified keyword strategy and ad campaign for both launching and growing brands. With LinkedIn, we have a very targeted marketing campaign to reach the decision-makers of specific brands.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced in marketing has been that we are a niche type of business and many of our ideal customers don’t know that our type of service exists. I still get on sales calls and a potential customer will say, “I didn’t even know there were businesses like yours! I would have hired you sooner!”. We’re still navigating through this, but switching up keywords and a/b testing has been our strategy in continuing to show up where our customers are.
The best way for us to retain customers is by providing them with the best experience possible. If their business is successful, they’ll need more of our help so it ends up being a win-win. Referrals are a large part of our business as well so consistent premium service is key.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We are doing better than I would have ever dreamed! We’re continuing to grow working with more clients, hiring new team members, and remaining profitable. We’ve also been able to be more thoughtful and selective about the brands we support. Although we help founders and CEOs of any kind, we’ve been able to take a special focus on helping POC-owned, LGBTQIA-owned, and women-owned businesses.
Over the past few years, our main focus has been profitability. Being a services business our biggest asset is our team. Hiring and retaining top talent will likely remain at +90% of our expenses. Building around that foundation has been the key to having the best team in the fashion consulting world.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that it’s not about the amount of mistakes you’ll make along the way, you’ll make a ton, but it’s how you react to those mistakes. Do you let it take you down or do you learn from your mistakes and keep going? Resilience is what you need to succeed.
The COVID supply chain issues were a major challenge for us for years. Although this was an enormous struggle, we’re much more prepared to deal with typical supply chain disruptions.
Being an entrepreneur and also owning a business that helps other entrepreneurs, I live in the startup world. The most common denominator successful founders have is passion for their product/service. You have to be all in on your business/product or no one else will.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We use Hubspot, PandaDoc, Slack, Quickbooks Online, Monday.com, and GSuite. I don’t think we could live without Slack and we have channels both internally and externally to streamline.
Hubspot has been helpful, but when you have a small team focused on sales and marketing, it can be an oversized investment.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
This is probably a common response, but I enjoyed Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. I was always a believer in focusing on the customer first, so it was validating and motivating to hear about his success with this strategy at Zappos.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Believe in yourself! I can still think back to the very moment I decided to listen to my gut and take the chance to start this business. There are so many reasons not to start a business, but I decided it was worth a shot. No one could have made that decision for me.
I also suggest finding a peer group of other founders in your space. Being a founder on my own, I found that these relationships brought me invaluable support and validation.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We just hired someone this week but will be on the lookout for more help in the new year.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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