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I had the privilege of interviewing Jimmy Sansone. He’s the CEO of The Normal Brand - one of my favorite clothing brands - and the oldest of 10 children. While his brand is Normal, his story is anything but.
It’s a story that’s definitely worth telling and chock full of great entrepreneurial lessons. Jimmy grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so this was in his blood. What started as just an idea when Jimmy was working as an investment banker has grown into a thriving retail, wholesale, and online business.
Important lessons:
- How growing up in a large family shaped him and helped him become an entrepreneur.
- What it’s like partnering with your family. Jimmy runs The Normal Brand with two of his brothers, Lan and Conrad.
- How culture shapes brands and the power of culture cards.
- How did launching their own retail stores (they have 11 now with more on the way) increase their wholesale and online businesses?
- Lessons learned from mistakes.
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Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction and Jimmy’s Background
(11:42) Early Days of The Normal Brand
(15:51) Working with Family
(22:09) Expansion Into Retail Stores
(25:03) Benefits of Having Your Own Stores
(32:25) Mistakes Made Along The Way
(34:46) Culture and Core Values
(39:34) Future Plans & Merchandising Strategy
(42:28) Outro
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Show Notes:
- Jimmy Sansone (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmy-sansone-aa80b881/
- The Normal Brand (Website): https://thenormalbrand.com/
- The Normal Brand (Instagram):https://www.instagram.com/thenormalbrand/
- Patrick Lencioni (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-lencioni-orghealth/
- Working Genius: https://www.workinggenius.com/
- Hudson Hawk: https://www.hudsonhawk.com/
- Ryan Holiday: https://ryanholiday.net/
- Supplement Superstore: https://supplementsuperstores.com/
- 1st Phorm: https://1stphorm.com/
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Connect with Brett:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce
- Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/
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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Bryan Porter and more.
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Other episodes you might enjoy:
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Transcript:
Jimmy:
It was during my investment banking time where I kind of had this idea of making these normal shirts I was calling where the normal brand came from.
Brett:
Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the e-Commerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. And today we have how I did it, how we built It, story. I can't wait to dive into this. I'm visiting with Jimmy Sansone of the normal brand, a brand I've been falling for years now. Love what they offer, love their clothing, love their style, love their logo, love the story. And so we're going to unpack how this came to be and how they did it and what they learned along the way and what it's like working with family and all kinds of really fun stuff. We'll see what's next for the normal brand as well. So lots of good stuff to unpack here that Jimmy, welcome to the show, man, and thanks for taking the time.
Jimmy:
Thanks for having me, Brett. Excited to be on.
Brett:
Yeah, really pumped about this one. I love the clothing and I'm wearing a normal brand shirt, which I will say I feel comfortable in this shirt. I also feel powerful in this shirt, so it's a great mix and I'm probably going to be 30 to 50% more interesting wearing this shirt, so I got to thank you for that. Well, if
Jimmy:
You could write that down into review, we'll repurpose it as an ad and that'll be great.
Brett:
We'll just chop this up. I'll send it to you and you guys can use it, so that's awesome. But in all seriousness, love the shirt. Love what you guys are doing. It's funny, I actually, I got on your SMS list somehow. Email list. I signed up for it somehow some way, and then you guys opened a store in my hometown, Springfield, Missouri, talking to a buddy of mine who owns the local barbershop. He's like, oh man, normal brand. They're from St. Louis and they've got a huge family. I'm like, I got to meet these guys. And so that's how we connected. But this is one of those rare scenarios and one day I'd love to meet your parents because they are one of the few that have more kids than my wife and I have. So my wife and I famously have eight kids, but Jimmy, you come from an even bigger family. So tell us the size of your family and tell us what it was like growing up in this dynamic family.
Jimmy:
Yeah, I'm the oldest of 10 kids, so I have nine siblings, got 40 something or above 40 cousins. So I have a huge extended family and now they have their own kids. And so the generations keep getting bigger and bigger. A ton of fun. It was growing up on a team, we played team sports our whole life, but really we're, when you're kind of born on a team, I honestly, I think I wouldn't have it any other way. And I think it teaches you a lot of life lessons. I think it teaches you how to get along with people, management, things like that. And so childhood was awesome, and still to this day, my siblings are my best friends. So it's a great
Brett:
Blessing. I love it, man. And that's my hope, that's my prayer for my kids that they'll remain close. But I heard another guy talk about, he comes from a big family as well say that kids of big families, they don't grow up thinking it's all about them because it can't be, there's too many other kids and too many other priorities. It's not just all about one kid. And so I think, yeah, that environment can really shape character and make you a unique individual, but also someone that appreciates the team and appreciates the whole, which is pretty cool.
Jimmy:
Yeah, I think definitely you've got to learn humility. It's not all about you and frankly, you're judged on how you treat your siblings. Making life better for your parents really is what we should have been trying to do older when we were younger, and sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't. But yeah, super blessed with our now
Brett:
I'm going to clip that part and show that to my kids, so thank you. Thank you for that
Jimmy:
Reciprocate. But yeah, our parents were just incredible, just phenomenal role models and kind of really showed us the way and how to do things. And so yeah, it wasn't very hard. It was pretty easy.
Brett:
That's amazing, man. So do you guys still get together for dinner, like family dinners on a somewhat regular basis? Oh yeah.
Jimmy:
If you miss Sunday dinner, you've got real problems. And I mean, I live five minutes from my parents' house, so I mean, I'm over there. We work out together a lot of us. So we've got an 18-year-old brother who's a senior in high school. So we go to all of his games we're at,
Brett:
He's a quarterback, right? Plays football,
Jimmy:
He plays football and then he plays lacrosse. He playing lacrosse right now. And so those sports definitely keeps us together. But I mean if we go even a day or two without seeing our parents, I would say that's an odd couple of days.
Brett:
Love it man. Love it, man. The sand zones are my role model, so hopefully we can do something similar in the curry household. Curious, so you're an entrepreneur, it sounds like most of your family, they're entrepreneurs. Did that come from your parents? And if so, how?
Jimmy:
Absolutely. Or even before them, our grandparents were entrepreneurs also big time. And so they definitely inspired us. We were very tied with them. So my dad's dad kind of came from nothing. His parents were immigrants and he built a great business and we got to see what he had built. And then there was a family rule where the third generation is not allowed in that business, which was really a great blessing. It gave us the ability to kind of think on our own and what are the things we want to do. But since the time I was maybe 12 years old, our parents really kind of encouraged us to think outside the box entrepreneurially. So when I was 12, me and my brother Conrad started a sports camp. That summer camp continues to this day, my youngest siblings run it. It was basically glorified babysitting, but that was something that I did every single summer until I graduated college in high school I sealed driveways in college. During exam time we sold point settas like the Christmas flower. And so it was those types of, and then I went into investment banking. But I would say that those little ventures that we had earlier taught me more than banking for a few years did, and definitely shaped the type of people we are and helped influence normal brand in a lot of ways.
Brett:
That's so cool, man. So just help me understand, and this sounds awesome. So the third generation not allowed in the family business with the motivation to say, man, get out, build your own thing, do your own thing.
Jimmy:
That's right. Yeah. I think my grandfather was a very, very thoughtful guy. He passed away a few years ago in 2020 and April of 2020. But statistics kind of tell it all. I think when you get to third generation family businesses, it's like single digit percentages of those that prosper. And even there, there's still so you break apart companies, you break apart families. It was never worth that risk. And so we knew that from the time That's really smart. It was really smart. And so we knew that as a time from a young age, and it really gave us the, and then being able to have a front seat of a family business that's a family business that my dad, my uncles are end that my grandfather started. But being able to have a front seat to see how that works and how it works well, it helped us so much. And that lifestyle of we talk about work all the time now and we grew up with that as well. Yeah,
Brett:
I really enjoy that. And I've got a couple of close family members extended who are in business and we always get together and strategize and talk business. I'm actually the first in my close family to be an entrepreneur, which I don't know where it came from, but it just happened and I love it, but I'm trying to foster that environment for my kids. So we'll see. There's a couple of them that are definitely leaning that way. So as you started these ventures throughout your childhood and kind of the teen years, what was your parents' role in that? Were they kind of cheering from the sideline? Were they giving you direct advice? Were they just kind of standing back and watching and stepping in as needed or what was that?
Jimmy:
I think first it was just from a practical standpoint, I think the beginning, the impetus for it all, I asked for a gift of some sort. I think it was a bike. And my dad just said, sure, you got any money? And I was like 12 and I said, no. And he said, okay, we'll go get a job. And then at that point, you're too young to get a job anywhere. And so he said, okay, start something with one of your brothers. And so he's like, you got all these siblings, why don't you start a camp? So I think even from that, I mean a long time ago, 25 years ago, he helped even just kind of ideate and encourage us, you can do this. Just kind of think outside the box. And so I think just encouraging that mindset from a very young age, you probably can't overstate enough how much that has
Brett:
Helped. That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay, so fast forward a little bit. So you get into investment banking, which is a world that I respect. I've been kind of on a journey over the last couple of years meeting private equity groups and learning m and a and investing and doing different things. And so fascinating world. Was the goal to be career investment banker or did you always view that as a stepping stone to then launch your own thing?
Jimmy:
I always knew that I would eventually work for myself or hopefully with my brothers. That was a goal from the time. I mean, I think it's written down when I was in high school, but I didn't really know what that meant, honestly. And so I would say it was during my investment banking time where I kind of had this idea of making these normal shirts. I was calling where the normal brand came from, and it was this idea of something comfortable. Well-fitting durable and versatile was kind of the three main pillars at the beginning. And so I started getting these shirts made, people were asking me about 'em, and I was like, well, maybe more people would want these. So I quit my job.
Brett:
And was the idea because you didn't have a shirt that you fell in love with or you'd kind of always been drawn to fashion?
Jimmy:
I had a big passion for clothing my whole life, again, kind of inspired by my grandpa and my dad. So in the nineties they were all wearing suits to work really buttoned up. And so when I was 16, I remember I asked for a custom suit. So the formal wear was a big thing, but I loved clothes and just I'd lay out my outfits, I'd think about how does this color work? I'd really kind of shop with my hands. So when I go into stores, I was really really into clothes. I also kind of had a creative inkling. I like drawing and writing and doing other things, but honestly, the idea of being in fashion for a profession never even came into my mind, ever. It was never even a consideration. I thought maybe real estate or I went into finance business, stuff like that. Anything else was kind of stupid talk. But it wasn't until I was in banking and kind of had this idea. And again, I remember talking to my dad and he was like, yeah, you can do it. Why don't you just give it a shot? And so I think that kind of confidence that they would instill in us was
Brett:
Phenomenal. It's amazing. It's amazing. So that was 2015 ish. You're making these shirts, people saying they love 'em, and you go for it, and you start in the basement. Basement of your house is where you're either making clothes or packing 'em and shipping 'em or whatnot. So talk about those early days.
Jimmy:
Yeah, that's right. It actually took me a few years to kind of figure it out. So I left my job in 2012, didn't sell my first shirt to 2015. So there were some kind of, I would say that I had to do some growing up in those times in that three years. But finally got to the point where it was like I put myself in a position where it was kind of back against the wall. It's either do it or don't. And that was a really important thing to get it going, I think. And then I saw progress, and then once you saw progress, then you could kind of believe in it a little bit. But yeah, I had a bunch of mistakes on the initial, I didn't know anything. I didn't know what a tech pack was or how to work with factories or how you could Google as much as you want.
But I was trying to get these made and man, these shirts were coming in really busted up. I had my one that was good for myself and I couldn't make any others for anybody else. So it was sort of a disaster. So I actually started with hats. So the first thing that I ever sold was March 10th, 2015, and we launched with some hats to get some money in the door to pay for our first deposit, for our first run of Cut and Sew, which came in August of 15. My brothers joined me and then it was more of a business and then this kind of glorified lemonade sand.
Brett:
Nice. And so you start with hats because they were easier to produce, easier to get a quality product.
Jimmy:
And there were some people, some mentors that encouraged me to do that. And I also needed some capital to literally pay for a deposit to get the first run of shirts. I didn't know there's big MQs, minimum mortar quantities, things like that. It was a lot of money to kind of do this. I just didn't have that. And so this was a way to kind of get the name out, Hey, this is what's coming in a few months, but this is the brand, this is the story. I got super lucky that brands like Shopify were coming about right around this time. So I was able to build a website for nothing really, really cheap. And even, I'm not a coder or anything, I don't dunno how to do any of that stuff, but I can drag and drop a picture. And so I got really lucky that things like that were happening. And then also just kind of utilizing my siblings and our family network of people sharing things for me. I wasn't running any ads or anything like that. We were able to sell out of our hats a few times and then I was like, okay, maybe this is a thing. I got enough money for the deposit. And then we had to wait a few months. But then you started selling again.
Brett:
Yeah. That's amazing. And so in the early days, were a lot of your sales in person through the family network or were most of them online or combination? Oh
Jimmy:
Yeah. I think I know this guy. I wrote a thing on it, 102 people bought on the first day. I think I personally knew like 85. I mean maybe. That's
Brett:
Awesome. That's
Jimmy:
Awesome, man. So yeah, I mean it's a phenomenal thing to have your tribe come out. So it was family, it was friends. Sometimes I'll go back and I'll look at those names like, God, I forget he did that. Even distant friends and stuff like that. But those are things that you don't really forget when people step up, when you're in a vulnerable position, you're starting something. It's a public thing. It could really go poorly or it can go great and you'll never forget those people. So I got really lucky with 102 from day one in 2015.
Brett:
It's amazing, man. And that's what I've heard. I've heard the advice from, Hey, if you're a friend of an entrepreneur, don't take their product as a gift. Go buy it. Buy it at retail, buy it at full price, leave a review, help them out If you want to be a friend, that's how friend to an entrepreneur buy their stuff. And it sounds like a lot of people do that, which is amazing. So let's talk a little bit about working with family. This is a unique thing and I've always, I've tried to recruit my wife to work for me and she's busy raising a bunch of kids and doing other things, so she hasn't. But I love the idea of working with family, but curious, when is it really great and when is it challenging? And share with us some insights there.
Jimmy:
Well, I think business partners are super important regardless of if it's family or not. So if you just think about business partners, what do you want? I think you want somebody that you can depend on no matter what. I think you want someone that you can be radically honest with and fight with and get over it. And I think you want someone that's as incentivized as you are to kind of perform and takes as much pride. You want to make sure that when you hand something off to your business partner, you can forget about it. And so I'm just lucky that I have those in my two brothers. I have all of those qualities. It just makes for phenomenal business partners. I think that definitely we had an unfair advantage in that we were able to grow up with a front seat to another family business. And so you can kind of learn what to do, what not to do, learn from great successes, learn from things that didn't go according to plan. And so not to say that we're perfect, but for the reason I stayed at the beginning on what you look for in a great business partner, I mean, that's what I have in my brothers. And then you go a step further where it's like I would literally die for them that it makes going to business. It's like, okay, sales are down a little bit. We'll be okay.
Brett:
Yeah, and I love that. Perfectly aligned incentives. You're all trying to accomplish the same thing. You grew up in a family that communicated and hung out together and spent time together. So you're able to communicate clearly. I think in some ways, a lot of the reason families can't work together in business is because there may be dysfunctional outside of business. So if you can't be close as a family outside of business, you're going to be able to do it in business either. And so growing up, being able to communicate, able to do things, run projects, run summer camps with your siblings, I'm sure made that transition to another business much more doable.
Jimmy:
And I think we read books about company culture and stuff like that on trying to learn on best practices regardless of family business or whatever it is. And so I think we try to take, there's still so much that we can learn and try to learn as much as we can, but I mean those best practices, I think you said a lot of it, but it's like direct communication, passive aggressiveness is kind of like a killer. So try to keep that out. Ego is a killer, so having a healthy dose of humility. So I don't know if these Patrick Lencioni books we're big on those.
Brett:
Yeah, dude, I'm a huge Patrick Lencioni fan. Love at the table podcast. We did, I'm curious if you guys have done this too, the six types of your working genius.
Jimmy:
We just sent it to all of our people, so they're all doing their tests right now. Yeah.
Brett:
Yeah. That's awesome. So what are your working geniuses? Just curious.
Jimmy:
I've got to go back and look at it. I remember I was like, I don't remember all of 'em. And I was like, oh man, is that really what I'm like? And it really is, but I forget what they all are now. I did mine. Yeah,
Brett:
It's hard. I had if look at it several times, but I'm a galvanizer and a wonderer, so galvanize, I can rally the troops, I coach sports, I can get people fired up and excited. But then the wonder is you always ask me, well, what if we did this? So I dream a little bit too. So that combination can be great. It can also drive my team crazy and my family as well. But it's been so helpful us just understanding even with our leadership group, like, okay, what are your working genius as well? This is why we don't communicate clearly in these meetings because I'm trying to wonder and you're trying to be tenacious and get stuff done. Anyway, super helpful tool. Yeah,
Jimmy:
Actually, so we've been reading him since 2015 and the craziest thing happened. I had never met him. He shopped normal brand and then had a great interaction with our customer service and he wrote a note in and saying, giving a shout out to Colby D, our head of customer service. She sent it to us and I was like, no, wait. Patrick Lencioni, I reached out to him and now he and I have talked a few times. He's going to do some consulting with us and do some, it's amazing. Amazing.
Brett:
It's
Jimmy:
Amazing. It's crazy how that kind of stuff can happen.
Brett:
Yeah, we attend the Global Leadership Summit almost every year. I'm not sure if you've ever done that, but whenever he speaks, he's my favorite guy. He's my favorite presenter. So what a cool deal, man. That's sign. You guys are doing stuff, right? If Patrick ion's impressed, that's a good sign. Good sign for sure. So cool. So when then, is it challenging to work with family and just curious, any insights there? Well, I
Jimmy:
Think we're all very much alike. Sometimes when you can get frustrated, everybody can get frustrated, frustrated about the same stuff. So it's not like, oh, this guy's like that, but this guy kind of calms you down a little bit. We can kind of be at the same level at the same time, but the great news with that is once we fight, which happens 20 minutes later, we're fine. There's a good balance to it. We've been doing it our whole lives anyways.
Brett:
Yeah, and there's no question, do we love each other? Yes. Do we have each other's back? Yes. He
Jimmy:
Coming back be long term. Yes, yes. I mean it's all those things. Yeah,
Brett:
But we can fight about this one thing. Yes. Yes. And that's actually, that's another Patrick Lucci thing. This wasn't designed to be the Patrick Luconi podcast, but it's becoming that a little bit where he's like, good meetings should have tension. If you're in a meeting with leadership or with your executive team and there's no tension, there's no disagreement ever. Something's wrong. Either the meeting's not necessary or somebody's not necessary. There should be a little bit of tension. And so having that is super productive. So cool man. Let's talk about store expansion. So your online experience is great. I know we skipped a lot of years there, but you grew online from the site you developed on or that you built on Shopify to now you got a beautiful site. But when did you make that decision to launch your own retail stores and why your own store versus just selling through a traditional retail?
Jimmy:
Yeah, we started online and then we got into wholesale really heavy and wholesale meaning sell through other retailers. That was a majority of our business for a year or two. And then the online caught up. But I think it was through that wholesale expansion where we were able to see really great performing retailers. We were able to also see ones that failed you could and learn things about what made one store in one town great. And another store or across town, not good. Right. What's the difference?
Brett:
And were you guys selling all over the country or was it more in the Midwest initially over, yeah,
Jimmy:
We were sold all over the country. Yeah, southeast, northeast, Midwest and some west coast too. But a lot in the southeast, northeast, Midwest. I mean, we're in like 400 some odd doors right now. And so wholesale is still a big part of our business, but we got to definitely learn a lot and then mean to have a major brand, which we want to have, you have to have your own stores. And there's only so much of your brand that you can experience in somebody else's store or even online. Whereas to walk through a physical space, we do as many meetings at our stores as we can with people to, if we want 'em to really understand who we are, really. Like you're walking through something that was once just in your mind, right? In the physical space. And so our first one we opened in August of 2019 in St.
Louis, and that's been voted best men's store a few years in a row. That's amazing. Then 2020 happened, so we were about to do one, and then the pandemic happened. So we were like, okay, let's hang on. And then we opened our first out of town one in August of 21 in Nashville. And my brother Conrad really runs all of our store expansion. My brother Lan runs all of our wholesale stuff. So it's really like those guys being able to kind take it and run with it and be working on product and some of the creative stuff. It's a really good balance. But once we proved that, the store could kind of like, okay, well will people buy it outside of St. Louis? And then we saw that it performed really well in Nashville and we're like, okay, let's go. And so last year we opened five stores, so we're up to 11 now. We'll open a few more this year. And it's been a great venture for us.
Brett:
Cool. What are some of the benefits that you think you've gained from having your own store? And I will attest to, because there's one here in Springfield. I've shopped at it a couple of times. It's just got such an amazing look and feel. Oh, and I also want to ask, did I read that your mom designed the stores or was key instrumental in designing the
Jimmy:
Stores? Yeah, big time. Yeah. Yeah. She's a key part of the overall design, the aesthetic. She helps us source these crazy antiques from all over the place to really give it that extra level. She was big on, Hey, it's got to smell a certain way. Yeah. Yes. Our mom is a
Brett:
Beast. That's amazing. It's amazing. So what all are the benefits from owning your own stores? What are some of the probably obvious benefits, but maybe some of the unexpected benefits, intangibles, things like
Jimmy:
That? Yeah, I think unexpected may be that you really get on the customer service standpoint. On the customer service side, when you meet with our people there, we really want it to feel like it's an extension of our family. It's an extension of the, and so we want people to feel like it's a second home. We want them to feel at home, they're a part of the family and walking in so that there's a ton of training that we do on our side. I mean thick handbooks and a lot of formulaic stuff to make that be a thing, you're going to be greeted within two and a half steps of walking into our store. You're going to be offered a drink within three and a half steps. It, it's things like that from a training standpoint, but then manifests itself in hopefully a real authentic way.
But we want people to experience the brand in all the senses. So we want to be able to touch the clothes, smell it, hopefully it's a great smell. We've got candles burning from sound wise, we've got good music on, be able to try on the clothes of course. But I think it just gives you a chance to have a real personal connection. And what's really cool is we've seen that our managers and team members at these stores have been able to foster these great relationships with the local community where they'll text, they'll have dinner with them and things like that. So it's a little bit different in that we're a part, we're trying to be a part of the fabric of that community wherever the store is. And so it's an extension of our brand getting a lot more local,
Brett:
And you guys do an excellent job of it. And even the partnership here in Springfield with Hudson Hawk Barbers, you're connecting with other local brands that are a good fit for your brand. And yeah, it's just a good experience, man. And it feels like you're kind of stepping into your catalog and you have beautiful photography and the furniture just feels cool and looks cool. And I've got pretty long arms. I've got pretty broad shoulders, so I wanted to come in and try a few things on, ended up buying online. But it was great just to be in there touching and feeling. And I remember when my executive assistant who helped kind of structure and organize the podcast, he's like, I went to the mall and I went to the normal brand store. And it's amazing he was going on and on about it because he experienced it in person. And so that's cool. Did you see other parts of your business accelerate once you started opening stores? And once you got to a tipping point of stores, did online take off more? Did other areas take off more? Just any interesting insights there?
Jimmy:
Both. Yeah. So we actually saw, so wholesaler, maybe you would get worried if you open a store in a town where you've got a wholesaler, another retailer that you're selling through a third party, is that going to hurt their business? And we were very sensitive of that. We really came up through wholesale and online, but through wholesale. And I mean we would bend over backwards for our wholesale partners and still will. And whether it's showing up for trunk shows or showing up or, Hey, this wasn't right. Okay, let me swap you out of that. Let me get you this. So my brother Lan really kind of spearheads that and he just does a phenomenal job. He can be kind of everywhere at once, but we were worried about those stores. And what we found was that in cities where we open a store, our other retailers that are there actually do better, which was awesome. I think it's just the name gets out there and then their customers are shopping there and they're like, oh yeah, I know what that is. Lemme grab this. So our business got better within those, which is awesome. And on the online side, the same thing happened. We have found that in the markets where we have a store, our online presence grows, those people come shop in a store, it's a high percentage of 'em will buy online later. So it's a good kind of customer acquisition tool as
Brett:
Well. Totally makes sense. And did you have any of those retail partners that were a little bit resistant at first? Hey, we don't really want you opening a store in our town, type of thing.
Jimmy:
Yes, absolutely. There were some uncomfortable conversations for sure, but we were very direct about it and very honest about it. And we said, just hold on. Just wait. See what this does to your business. We had done a bunch of research and talked to other brands and things like that. It's not just unique to us. That happens. And then it's always a great thing where after a season or two and you have the conversation, they're like, you're right. We're killing it now with you guys. Yeah,
Brett:
Yeah. Now you've got the data, now you've got the proof. You go to the next city. Now you can really tell this compelling story to your retail partners, your wholesale partners, that hey, this, it's going to be a good thing. And
Jimmy:
We still go. We actually still go to, whether it's trunk shows or events at those retailers where my brother will show up or whatever and promote their store. They're a very important part of our business.
Brett:
That's awesome. So really, and we're going a little bit out of chronological order here, but so you, in the very early days, wholesale was a staple of the business, would you say? Was that the majority of the business in the early days? Yeah, for sure. Got it, got it. And did you identify that as the best path to take it? Or you knew that online was going to take some time to build up, so you wanted to go wholesale or what drove that
Jimmy:
Initiative? It was a need. It was was a capital need. We were a bootstrap business, and so we had to order all this inventory to, because of MOQs things that we talked about earlier. So we had to get on a schedule where we could sell that stuff. Pre-book is what we call it nine months in advance, because we didn't think we could sell it all online, but we had to buy it. So we were like, okay, where else can we sell this stuff? Where they were like, and somebody said, Hey, you should go to this trade show. So the first trade show we ever went to was called the Chicago Men's Collective. It's our biggest trade show by far. I mean, we'll be booked for every single day, morning till night. But that's where we met kind of our first retailers. And we wouldn't have had a company without the wholesale business because we wouldn't have been able to sell the inventory online. And from a cashflow perspective, we wouldn't have been able to pay for the inventory.
Brett:
Yeah, yeah, it totally makes sense. That's so cool. So cool. Well, you guys have done so much, right? Clothes are awesome. Store experience is fantastic. Online shopping is good. Even the text marketing is good. The SMS marketing is good. But what have you learned from failures, right? Because we all trip ourselves up as entrepreneurs and make mistakes, and those can be the best learning tools. So what mistakes have you learned from along the way?
Jimmy:
Oh man, tons. I think as the business has grown, we have more people now on the team. And so that's where we manage a lot more people than we ever have. So there's tons of failures there where it's not just enough to just kind of, okay, lead by example, and there'll be no, there needs to be processes and well thought out structures of how this is going and how that's going. So as the business evolves and matures, you need to kind of mature with it with kind of your procedures. So I would say we'd be here for a long time to tell you how many times we've kind of failed there. But I think the one thing that we've done, we've always had a good culture. We kind of knew that from the beginning. So we've always had a good culture. So that can kind of make up for some of the procedural things that go wrong, but just building processes and things like that. I would say that with store expansion and things like that, you have to, it radically changes the way you do business. So even getting inventory to the store on time, making sure it's merchandised appropriately, let's make sure we're getting them the right inventory. Well, this store actually behaves differently than this store in a big way. And so I think that we've had to add people to the team who can kind of specialize in these different verticals, but we're the type where we don't really, we make the mistake first and then try to fix it
Brett:
In some ways. That allows you to go faster, make a mistake, fix it, iterate, rather than trying to get it perfect out of the gate, which you'll never do anyway. Let's talk a little bit about culture. And we're big believers in culture as well. We have been fortunate enough, we won best workplaces through Inc. Three years. We won the number one place to work in our area, 4 1 7 biz, 4 1 7, 1 number one two years in a row, which is awesome. Wow. But we'd love to hear, thank you. What's your approach to culture? What do you guys think about, how do you approach
Jimmy:
It? Yeah, I mean, we build it. So we have, let's just take it out. We've got culture cards kind of on what our core values
Brett:
Are.
Jimmy:
Nice while I fish that out. So we build it basically off three core values. And this is a Patrick Lencioni ripoff, and we're not afraid to say that, but humble, hungry, and smart are kind of the main three things. Love it. I would say that that humility is what I would rank number one with coming to this business with just the way the business was started with really kind of no experience in it and making a lot of mistakes. You can't afford to have an ego. And so I think that that ego kills all teamwork and the simple transaction of, Hey, my bad, I messed that up. I'm sorry. And equally as important on the other side is all good, let's move on. That transaction is grease on the wheels for a team to move forward. So that's a super important thing so that we all carry one of these with the core values, but that's
Brett:
Awesome.
Jimmy:
Positivity, ownership, solution driven, humble, and hungry. So
Brett:
Good.
Jimmy:
That's kind of how we build it out. But if I was to pick one, kind of depend on the role I guess, but I would say that an ego doesn't have a place within our teamwork.
Brett:
Yeah, so good. Have you read the book? Ego Was The Enemy by Ryan Holiday. That's awesome. Yeah, so good. Love all his books. Yeah, I've gone down
Jimmy:
Stoicism Path for a year. I was reading 'em all. He had me reading Marcus Aurelius.
Brett:
So Good man. I've got The Daily Stoic, which is really good. And actually I think Discipline is Destiny. That may be my favorite book. I've read that too. Awesome is I love all of them, but that may be my favorite. But yeah, similar culture values here actually. So our kind of core three, we think and act like owners, we take ownership and what we do, we constantly help each other level up or we constantly improve and then we have fun solving problems. And so we kind of want to have this attitude of like, Hey, every problem is an opportunity for something. And so we talk about that and we would talk about owning our stuff, good and bad and giving transparent feedback. And so those things, when you communicate those things clearly, then you're living it out from top to bottom. And then when you are hiring based on culture first and skills and aptitudes second, just eventually, eventually that culture kind of permeates. Now it doesn't take much to puncture that culture to start to lose that culture. So you got to be really vigilant. But man, when you've got a solid culture, I've heard, I don't know, the old saying, culture eats strategy for breakfast or whatever that saying is. And it is true. If you've got the right culture, people will solve problems. I
Jimmy:
People will
Brett:
Get tough done friend
Jimmy:
Who's got a big HVAC companies, got a ton of employees and known him since high school and he actually gave us some ideas on, and we've got note cards with the different core values on it, one each, and then how it's demonstrated. And then we task our managers with once a month giving one of these cards out with a note on it to somebody in their team that demonstrated that core value. So find the good. So we really try to an emphasis on finding the good. And of course you can coach people up or whatever on when it's not being demonstrated. But giving a shout out to when it is demonstrated, I think reinforces how important it's
Brett:
Finding the good. And I love that it's a simple call out, here's a card, culture card, but you exemplified this, you model this that has so much meaning. I remember when I was in college, I worked at Lowe's and I worked in the plumbing department. I'm like, I'm not handy at all. But I learned enough about plumbing to be somewhat helpful. This was good at customer service. I was good at talking to people. And so I helped this dude out and he's like, I'm going to tell your manager. And so he did. But my manager immediately walked over, gave me a gift card to some restaurant. I don't remember what it was, but I will never forget that interaction when seeing my boss walk up and say, you did an awesome job. Handed me the card, which is great. So made me want to work even harder.
Jimmy:
If you walk around our office, you can see on the different, our team members will keep these cards on their desk by showing 'em. So yeah, it's a cool thing. That's very not an original idea at all.
Brett:
A lot of times the best ideas are not original. And that's one of those where I think being an entrepreneur, you just borrow good ideas from where you learn them and apply them. And it's more about the application, the execution, rather than coming up with brand new ideas that really sets you apart. So that's awesome. What's next, man? So what's next for normal brand? I know there's probably some top secret stuff you can't talk about, but what can you share with us? What's on the roadmap ahead?
Jimmy:
I think our merchandising strategy is definitely product is what I love. There's no better feeling to me. I'm staring at you and you're wearing one of our shirts. I'm making sure it's draping and things like that. So I love clothes. And so I can't talk about anything with nor brand without talking about what we've got coming up. We're always a few seasons ahead. I'm thinking fall 25 right now, but fall 24, I would say just with the new fabrics we've got coming out and the merchandising strategy of giving people more what they want and having, now we've got the data behind it where we can make a lot more educational decisions on this. It's not as much gut. It used to be like, I don't know. I mean, I like this. You think they'll like it. That's how it used to be. And so I'm pumped about the collections we have coming. I'm also excited about some of the different initiatives we've got at our stores. I think we're really getting out with the community and connecting with the community, and we're onboarding a bunch of new people that hopefully make that experience, make people's days better. I dunno if there's one thing I, I'm always excited about the future
Brett:
And usually it's a lot of little things. And one thing I'll kind of mention, because I think this ties into the physical store thing, shopped at Supplement Superstore a couple times, and actually I think you know the owner, right? Because he's a St. Louis Guy as well. Yeah, yeah. So the first time I went in the store's, been here forever. I think he opened it when he was MSU or whatever, opened the store. So I went in, talked to this girl, she must have been in college or whatever, told her what I was working on and my family working out and stuff. And so we picked a product, I bought it, kind of end of story. I get a card two days later from this girl that helped me. She's like, Hey, hope workouts are going good with your wife and your daughter. We sometimes go to the gym together and stuff. And it was just really cool, man. So it was an awesome experience. So I was like, well, can't buy this online now I got to go back to the store. And so now every time we go to the store, I get a handwritten thank you card that says something about the interaction that we had. So those little touches, man,
Jimmy:
We copied off them in that. We do that. So anytime you shop our stores, you get a handwritten note that gets sent out by the next day. Those guys supplement Super source, first form, total studs, an incredible culture, a great product. They've been phenomenal friends.
Brett:
First form is really good. I would've just skipped the story if I didn't like the product. Product is really good, so I keep buying it. And yeah, the in-store experience was
Jimmy:
Awesome. Yeah, we've got it all here.
Brett:
Yeah, that's awesome, man. Really, really cool. So pay attention to normal brand. I encourage you to shop for it or shop for it for your husband or significant other, whoever. Check out the website, get on their email list, an SMS list. That's one of the things that I do. If there's a brand that I really like and admire, even if I don't plan on buying something, I'll get on their email list. I'm just going to check out what they're doing. And so you guys do a great job there as well. So how else can people connect with you, Jimmy, I see you're somewhat active on LinkedIn. Are you active on any other socials?
Jimmy:
Yeah, I'm somewhat learning LinkedIn, I mean Instagram or on Instagram at the normal brand. And those are the big ones.
Brett:
Cool. And I noticed you don't post all the time on LinkedIn, but when you do packs a punch, that's what I actually just celebrated and just celebrated nine years. Right, so you just had your nine year anniversary post.
Jimmy:
Yeah. I always get my feelings on those anniversaries. So yeah, I just did a post talking about our parents, which
Brett:
That'll mess. It was really good, man. Really good. Worth going to LinkedIn to read that. If you enjoyed this story, go check out the post and I think you'll really, really enjoy it. So Jimmy, this was awesome, man. Wanted to do this again sometime and really appreciate it.
Jimmy:
Thank you, Brett. Thanks for having me on. And this was a lot of fun.
Brett:
Absolutely. And as always, thank you for tuning in. We'd love to hear from you. We love that review on iTunes. If you got value out of this, also share this story. If you know another founder, someone else in fashion or D two C or trying to break into retail or something, share this episode with them and let the sandstones inspire more people. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.
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