COVID has brought doom to many many many small businesses.  Consumer behavior is shifting.  Many brick and mortar locations are forced to close.  What consumers needed 8 months ago is very different from today.  This stuff happens that is totally out of our control, but it has drastic impacts on businesses. 

Sloane is surviving and I am very grateful for that.  Our sales are down by 50%.  We have just adjusted how we operate to ensure we can still stay in business.  We have low overhead, which is very helpful in periods like this.  Having many employees, buildings, equipment, etc would have made the adjustment MUCH harder. 

The main selling feature of our undershirt is that it cannot be seen by others.  We run into an issue when people aren't leaving their homes, so a big benefit is no longer relevant.  I know I wear Nike shirts and casual track type pants daily now.  No polo shirts.  No button downs.  They are all collecting dust in my closet.  I don't wear my own product even close to what I wore it before because I barely leave the house anymore!

Starting a new business is risky.  COVID was a Mike Tyson level punch to the gut reminding me that a global pandemic can happen and stall the plans that you had for your business.  The focus is now survival.  Conserve and live to sell another day. 

I read articles on how COVID is now creating so much opportunity in new spaces.  eComm is growing.  People will be working from home much more.  Health safety (masks, cleaning products, etc) will be much more in demand.  Businesses can be started to take advantage of these trends. 

What about all the businesses that are closing and struggling to stay alive?  What happens to the owners of those businesses who worked for years to build them?  How do they pay off the loans/investment they took?  What do they do next? 

If you are interested in starting a business, then I think it's a great time to look at what's happening in the market.  Could you take the stress of seeing your company take on water?   Could you fire loyal employees?  Could you pivot to something quickly?  We are seeing a very unique situation happen right in front of us.   It's the equivalent of the car wreck you can't turn away from looking at. 

The articles are out there.  Read them.  Learn from them.  Starting a business is always very up and down and we are seeing as down as it gets.    

I am a very optimistic person and try to stay positive as much as I can.  I am a realist though and what is happening right now is as real as it gets for business owners.  

I took a 2 week vacation.  No work emails.  No work meetings.  Solid sleep.  Active everyday.  Read 10 books.  Spent time with family.  Got a lot of sun.  Golfed everyday.  Amazing. 

Bill Gates takes one week every year to seclude himself.  He just reads books and articles.  He pauses from the everyday chaos of work to make sure he is taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture.  I thought this was pretty intense for awhile, but have come to highly respect it and think it is almost needed in this day and age. 

We can get our head so down into the details that we lose sight of what's going on around us.  Are we adjusting to changes in consumer behavior?  Are we seeing something far off that could be a great opportunity for us?  Are we slowly getting into unhealthy habits?  

A lot of things that happen to us personally and in business happen in very small increments.  Ads slowly become less effective.  We slowly put on weight.  We slowly get less and less sleep.  An employee slowly becomes less and less effective.  Without taking time to pull your head up and see these things allows bad things to slowly get worse and worse.  

I remember we had FB ads running that worked really well.......at the beginning.  I got busy and didn't check performance as regularly as I should have.  After a few months I looked and saw that we were VERY unprofitable with the ads.  I felt like a total idiot for letting that happen.  Life took me away from really important details.  

I started taking a trip to get away every 3 months.  I found it relaxing and it also reset me.  COVID times have changed that, but this past trip was a reminder on the importance of pausing and resetting.  

I am back with more energy and many ideas on how to improve Sloane and what I do for my day job.  

When you run your own business things feel a lot more personal than when you are an employee at someone else's company.  I think a core reason for this is that IT'S YOUR MONEY!  When something bad happens its YOUR MONEY that is getting flushed down the toilet.  

Over the years there have been many situations where I wanted to punch a wall because something happened that caused me to lose money.  It could have been my issue, a vendor issue, a partner issue, a website issue, etc, etc.  I am a pretty mellow person overall.  I rarely get outwardly mad.  For some reason the losses my company took hurt deeply.

When you run a business the metrics for success are very clear.  When you succeed it feels incredible.  You are proud of what you've developed and your hard work seems to be paying off.  When things aren't going well there is no one to blame except you. 

You chose the vendor.  You wrote the email.  You chose the freelancer.  You are why things are falling apart.  It can be a very lonely place and you often don't have a lot of people to talk to.  You just keep grinding. 

For all these bad things that come up with entrepreneurship you are forced to make hard calls.  Fire people.  Change vendors.  Fight for the highest quality.  I have had to change my attitude as I've been running Sloane to not take any BS.  If you let things slide, then it's often hard to get them on track. 

I remember we had a warehousing company in LA who stored and shipped our product.  Over Black Friday they lost $10K in inventory.  Lost.  They said they tracked it to their warehouse, but can't find it.  What the?!?!?!  It was the busiest time of our season and our most popular sizes and colors were lost IN my vendor's warehouse. 

They said they were going to find it.  Days went by.  A week went by.  I was stressing the whole time.  I'd call them everyday.  Were they looking for it?  At one point I told them I would fly to LA and come to the warehouse to track it down.  I was dead serious! 

A week turned into weeks.  By Christmas they still hadn't found the product.  At that point I was livid.  It was ruining my Christmas break.  I was calling everyday.  I refused to give up.  If they couldn't find my product, then I wanted the money for the product. 

I began a crusade to get my money back.  I think we were 2 months post the actual incident and I was still calling them everyday and forcing them to pay me.  They finally caved in and gave me the money for the value of the product.  I fired them the next day and moved to another vendor. 

It literally felt like someone came into my house.  Robbed me of $10,000.  I felt violated.  That's how personal it can be when you run your own business.  I have gotten a lot tougher with how I manage things to make sure I never get taken again.  Hard things come up all the time and you need to make sure you have the mentality to make the hard calls. 

I actually think entrepreneurship molds you to be like this.  I was way more casual before and now I have battle scars all over that have hardened me.  It feels good and I am ready for whatever is next.   

Getting your business off the ground involves finding consumers that will pay money for your service/product.  Lots of consumers = success.  No consumers = failure.  I am going to do a mini-series on the path to find consumers and get as many people as possible interested in your product/service. 

Much of this will sound simple.  When you get into the details.....it is not.  Some of these details are the difference between success and failure.  This blog will cover the first step:  WHO is your WHO?

The name of the game in business is to solve a consumer problem.  When you do that a consumer is willing to pay you to make their life easier/better.  This applies to EVERYTHING.  A better tasting ice cream.  A healthier ice cream.  A safer car.  A more fuel friendly car.  A higher quality lawn care service.  A cheaper lawn care service.  

Consumers want different things.  I made that list because it's not like EVERYONE wants healthy ice cream.  Many people are totally fine with the high calorie stuff if it tastes amazing.  The key thing is understanding your consumer like no one else.  

What I always find most helpful is creating a muse.  It's also called an archetype.  It's a fictional person based on what you know of your consumer.  You create this person and it allows you to understand the different aspects of their life, motivations, stresses, pressures, feelings, etc, which then lead to insights.  

I have a multi page description of our Sloane Man (below).  You can see the detail we go into on this.  It's critical.  The deeper you go the better because that means you really understand your consumer.  

What this does for you is give you insight into things like....what websites is he on?  What kind of thing does he need to see in an ad to get him excited?  Is it about cost or more about looking his best?  Who is he trying to impress?  Co-workers?  Women?  Family? 

All of this impacts your product development, advertising, retail strategy, pricing, size of prize and overall strategy.  

SLOANE MEN MAN

Name:  Steve

Age:  27

Residence: Chicago, IL – River North

Hometown:  Outside Baltimore, MD.  Primarily white town, but had friends of all races

Family:  Parents are still together after 30 years of marriage and he has an older sister (30) who lives in NYC

Relationship Status:  Girlfriend of 1 year, Sierra.

Race: Mixed Race (Mom: Half White, Half Latina Dad:  Black)

Education:  Degree in Business from Georgetown; 3.7 GPA; Varsity baseball team ; no frat affiliation  

Profession:  Finance – Banker for JP Morgan; Currently applying to business school with the goal of starting his own company post graduation   

Hobbies:  Pickup basketball twice a week, Softball league, casual golfer (14 handicap), works out 4 days a week, reads books mainly in history, likes to visit a new country every year, volunteers with the Big Brother program

Style:  Likes to dress well.  Pays attention to his style and prides himself on being well dressed.  He recognizes that he could probably do a better job with the nuances of this clothing, but is satisfied with how he looks.  He dresses pretty formal at work with a suit and tie and goes with a cool/casual look on the weekends.

Humor:  Steve has a serious job, but also likes to have a good time.  He has a big group of friends who he’s made throughout the years in Chicago.  They are similar to him…..young, successful and fun.  They don’t take themselves too seriously.  Their conversations revolve around sports, women, cars, trips and partying.  They don’t philosophize much about solar systems or art.  They think that’s lame and keep things light.

Favorite Clothing Brands:  IndoChino for suits.  Cole Haan for shoes.  Thomas Pink for work shirts.  Glasses are Warby Parker.  Weekend wear is J Crew, Bonobos, Lacoste, Polo and Nike.  He likes to look good, but not obnoxious.  He stays away from super fashion forward brands like Gucci, Prada, Zegna, etc.  His friends would make fun of him for going out in something too out there.   

Where He Shops:  He’s big into online shopping.  He loves Amazon Prime.  He enjoys the convenience of online shopping.  No hassle in the stores.  Quick delivery.  Easy returns.  Almost TOO easy.  He is a member of Dollar Shave club and gets a few trunks from Trunk Club every year.  If he does go in store he really enjoys Nordstrom.  Macy’s is below him.  Too busy and cluttered with so so clothing.  He’ll go into cool boutiques (and find boutique type stores online) every now and then looking for stuff that’s not available to the masses.  He likes the exclusivity of having a few pieces that no one has.  He just got a Travis Matthews (niche golf wear provider our of Southern California) hat online.

Favorite Content Sites Online:  ESPN (by far!!), Fast Company, Buzzfeed, Mashable, CNN, Bleacher Report, GQ, NYTimes.com

Favorite Apps:  Facebook (likes to see what’s up with friends….doesn’t post much), Twitter (follows for latest news), Instagram (posts a cool picture every now and then), Pinterest (new app for him and really likes following), Pandora (loves many types of music from Drake to Phoenix to Miles Davis).

Perfect Day:  Get up on a nice warm day and head to the basketball courts to play pickup with friends.  Grab a smoothie and water afterwards and chill for a bit.  Get showered and changed and head to a local street festival with his girlfriend and friends.  Drink and hangout there for awhile and then head to dinner with his girlfriend and a few friends.  He’s kind of buzzed and having a blast.  He’s laughing and joking the entire day.  They head to a “cool” restaurant that’s pretty relaxed.  They are fine wearing what they wore to the festival.  They hangout at the restaurant continuing to drink and have a good time.  They leave and head to fun bar down the street.  It’s crowded with younger professionals all out drinking and dancing.  Him and his friends keep drinking and go back and forth from the dance floor to bar the rest of the night. 

Favorite Overall Brands:  Red Bull (loves how they push the boundaries), Nike (loves their mix of cool style, message of pushing your athletic limits and high quality), Tesla (loves their innovation and how they stand out from the “normal” cars), Shinola (one of the boutique brands that he likes because it’s pure man….well crafted and different than anything else anyone has….authentic), GQ (represents cool style that isn’t too pretentious)      

Words He Lives By:  Work Hard, Play Hard (it’s cliché, but he really works hard at this job and really tries to have fun outside of it)