How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Live with Sarah LaFleur

Episode Date: May 23, 2020

When Sarah LaFleur started M.M.LaFleur, she wanted to help women dress efficiently and comfortably for the office. Now that most of her customers are working from home, Sarah has to rethink her brand and her marketing to stay relevant. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating these turbulent times.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.ca. Hey, welcome to how I built this resilience edition. I'm Guy Raz. So each week, I've been doing live video conversations with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're building resilience into their businesses right now. And in case you miss them when they happen live, we're posting. posting excerpts right here in your podcast feed. And today I'm bringing you my conversation with Sarah LaFleur, the founder of M.M. LaFleur. We featured Sarah on the podcast just a few months ago in

February, but since then, of course, a lot has changed. M.M. LaFleur sells high-quality, classic clothing to working women who don't want to think too hard about getting dressed in the morning. But since the global health and economic crisis, Sarah's customers, many of whom work in law, finance, and politics aren't going into the office. So these days, Sarah's learning to pivot. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, it was kind of crazy how quickly things turned. You know, we knew COVID was coming, actually,

because we have a lot of partners out in East Asia and Southeast Asia, even back in January, we knew that this was really affecting our supply chain and our partners. We said to ourselves, like, this could really become a problem if it comes to the U.S., but I think we were honestly just a little naive at that point. And then come Monday, I think this was March 20. or something. We had our best retail day and we were saying like, huh, maybe like COVID won't affect us. And then five days later, we closed all of our stores. And just even in all the scenario planning we had done, nothing, I think, prepared us for just how much worse it was going to be.

Yesterday we had Shen Heiman on from Rent the Runway. And, you know, one of the points you made is that most businesses aren't prepared for low or no revenue periods for an extended amount of time. It's totally true. I mean, you know, the first thing actually we did is we actually looked at our insurance policy. It's that thing called act of God, right? You never really anticipate an act of God situation when you're running your business because, damn, it's hard enough as it is. Like, I think, you know, being in New York, we experienced Hurricane Sandy. And then there was, you know, also that period where electricity just shut off. But even those, I think the recovery period was two to three weeks at best. This is totally unprecedented.

We had Marcia Kilgoron. She described how last year was such an incredible year for her shoe brand that they ordered like 30% more inventory. And of course, they're left with so much that inventory because they depend on retailers. Are you facing a similar challenge? You know, I think one thing that maybe is in our favor is we as a business have a lot of evergreen inventory. Inventory is a funny one. Like, you can never win. You have too much you lose.

You have too little you lose. It's always a tricky thing. I think one thing that we as a team have been talking about is, like, for example, the summer collection. We ordered the summer collection thinking everyone was going to be out and about and enjoying the summer and having brunch outdoors and whatever it is, right? And so we're lucky that even though maybe not all of that inventory is necessarily situationally appropriate, we have a lot of great evergreen inventory that we've been holding on to. So a lot of what we're doing internally is saying like, okay, how can we take this inventory that we have and actually market. it differently and make it appealing to her in this situation that she's living in. One example I'll give is just we have these pants called Colby Pants Origami Suiting. And it was called Origami Suiting because it was considered a suiting pant, but it had an elastic waistband. You could just fold it up and throw it in your suitcase and you can pull it out on the other end, wrinkle free, and it's also machine washable. So we renamed it Origami Joggers, which is actually how I wear those pants because it has a great elastic waistband. And sales basically had

gone from like, call it, we were selling 100 units. It had gone from like 100 units to eight units right after COVID hit. Now it's surpassed 100 units again and become our, I think it was our second bestseller left the past two weeks. So a lot of what we're realizing is like recontextualizing your inventory. It goes a long way, I think, if you're in the business of selling real products. Sarah, let me ask you, you've had to make a whole series of decisions that you just never anticipated having to make. Can you kind of like walk me through, you know, sort of how you've approached just leadership over the last eight weeks and 10 weeks and what you've started to learn about yourself as a leader. Yeah. Aside for maybe the store closings and, I mean, really

talking about the safety of our team, I think every other decision I have made in some other context. So whether that's about cost cutting or having to restructure the team, for a new one, you know, we've never done that before. But the tricky thing about COVID is that all these decisions are happening at the same time, as opposed to in separate situations. And also because all these things are happening at the same time and the world is changing so rapidly, that decision that you made a week ago is really no longer relevant this week. So it's just the speed of decision making that I think is accelerated so much. And just in terms of like how I am managing as a leader, I think fundamentally, it starts with the question of like, are you in a good place to make those decisions? And what I mean by

that is it's incredibly stressful. I'm sure there isn't a single CEO out there who isn't up at 4 a.m. You know, thinking like, oh, God, what am I going to do about that? But the most important thing is kind of keeping your wits about you. That's really what I have prioritized and I've learned to prioritize over the years because I've had experiences where I feel myself spiraling out of control. And when when you do that, there is not a sound decision that's going to come out of you. So a lot of what I am focused on, truthfully, is just kind of checking in with myself and saying, like, Sarah, mentally, are you good? You know, are you in a position to make good decisions? Yeah.

That was a question from Betsy Suda. She asked, you know, what strategies are using for dealing with stress and pressure? And she referenced, I think, the podcast where she says, are you still having whiskey on ice in the middle of the night moments? Totally. I'm pregnant now in that I have to say I miss my whiskey more than anything. So I switched to a tonic with lots of lime juice. So it's really hard. But, you know, I would say one thing that feels dramatically different for me right now

is I've got a stellar executive team who I adore. And they're very calm and very supporting, supporting of each other and supporting a team. And I haven't always had that, you know, I think. Between 2018 and 2019, we had to go through another big restructuring. And when that happened, I felt so alone at that time. And I just remember like popping tums every day at work because, like, you know, that's how you keep your ass and reflex. Yeah.

And it was a miserable time for me. You know, I think I was so darn focused on not letting my team see that I was not in a good place. But ultimately, I just, I was miserable. And, well, long story short, like my two closest girlfriends and my husband kind of staged this intervention that said, like, you are not okay, you need some help, like you figure this out, which led me to kind of me rethinking my executive team. I brought in someone phenomenally experienced. He talks a lot about 2001 and then the crash after Lehman. I think even just seeing this crisis through his

eyes, I mean, I was working when Lehman happened, but I was an analyst. I wasn't seeing the really tough decisions that were being made at top. And so just to have him and my other executives it's nearby me. It's been a real change. You know, Sarah, it's still early. We're like 10 weeks into this, right? But are there creative ways that you're thinking about shifting around and meeting your customers in a different way to try and meet the moment? Absolutely. I mean, I think I think we've never seen ourselves as a workwear brand. We've always seen ourselves as a brand for working women. And that distinction might seem like what's the difference. But it turns out there's a big one, especially under COVID, right, where suddenly working women, a lot

of them working moms are having to go through an entirely different pace of life. One of the first things we did was we launched a Slack channel to our customers, our MM community, and just invited them to join. And then one of the Slack channels, I think, is called MM Lafer, where our customers are to stay is sharing, honestly, like, dog and cat photos. But like from that, ultimately, like, there are a lot of things that came out of that Slack channel. There's now an MM job board for people who have been let go and are looking for new jobs. So MM customers are actually uploading and sharing different opportunities that have come their way and using it as, you know, a tool to just help other people find jobs, other MM customers find jobs. So that's been really inspiring. Another thing that we

launched is virtual appointments because, you know, one of the things that we really love in our stores is a lot of our customers book these one-on-one appointments. You know, the whole point is like you don't have to comb through all this merchandise. It's our stylist who are going to do the work for you. And obviously, that is no longer happening. But we launched virtual appointments and it's now doing, I think, as much revenue as one of our best stores. I think a lot of women see this as like a little like self-care moment for themselves where you get to take 30, 45 minutes. And someone else is saying like, hey, how are you doing? What are your clothing needs? Like the conversations go much deeper than clothing needs. Like I've got two kids at home. My husband has COVID. And so he's not

here. And so I need to make sure that I look appropriate for the call, but I'm going to also be holding a baby simultaneously. Like what outfits do you think makes sense? That level of conversation that's now happening in our virtual appointments. So maybe virtual appointments is actually more working mom friendly than asking a mom to come into a store. So definitely, definitely a lot of innovative things coming out of this moment. Acts of desperation will make you think creatively. When we come back in just a moment, we're going to hear how Sarah plans to pivot her marketing strategy and what she hopes to take away from this difficult period. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. Hey, welcome back to how I built this resilience edition.

So a lot has changed at M.M. LaFleur since stay-at-home restrictions have been in place. Sarah's team has started to do virtual consults with clients who want to look professional during video calls. And Sarah's thinking about the future of work because it'll probably change the future of her business. I think there's no doubt there's going to be a disruption to the way we work. What does that mean for how your business will have to pivot? Because you're going to have to meet your customers where they are, right? It may mean that fewer professional women are going into an office every day. Like, sort of walk me through how M.M. LaFleur may kind of become a sort of almost a different company in the future.

We've been spending a lot of time thinking about that. But I think one big aha moment I had is we actually were already seeing this trend for a few years. I think last time when I was on your podcast, we talked about the launch of power casual and how that was our fastest growing category. And so that was really freelancers, women who worked in tech or marketing media, more casual industries. It's now 53% of our revenue. Pre-COVID, it was already, I want to say, like in the early 40s, but basically COVID

just like pushed it up. So now it's the majority of our sales. We were lucky that we had already kind of pivoted into that direction. And then this COVID thing is for sure only going to accelerate it. I mean, it's a great question. Like suiting, what does suiting mean in this new world? You know, my aunt's a, she's a public defender. And she only wears skirt suits to court because she says, you know, pantsuits.

You never know what kind of judge you're going to get. And you just never want to hurt your client's chances. Now she's doing Zoom by court. And she doesn't actually have to wear a skirt suit. I mean, she's probably wearing something underneath. But maybe the need for skirt suits go out the window. But I think, again, we were fortunate that that wasn't such a big part of our business anymore. I mean, it's amazing because what really started in 2011 as a brand for professional women.

And many of your initial clients were lawyers. And we talked about this on the podcast. That's one of the reasons why you have such a big presence in Washington, D.C., because there's so many women lawyers in D.C. who were early clients. So it's, I mean, this could really kind of pivot into a business that is where you still have that the professional clothing, but also more of the casual leisure wear. Yeah, exactly. And I think what we take so much pride in, what my creative director Miyako takes so much pride in

is she wants to make the most comfortable clothes that are machine washable and easy to care for and also makes you look good. Right. So they're clothes that make you look like you stepped it up a notch, but all the factors of comfort are there. That's going to matter regardless of whether you're having to be in a courtroom or you're having to work, you know, eight hours a day just like staring at your computer screen on Zoom. So I think our customer isn't going anywhere. I think it's just, you know, we were going to need to keep moving forward with her. This is an important question.

This is from Rajne Aurora. And Rajne asks, how are you most? marketing your products right now? So one of the big things that we did right before we went into COVID, we were going to dress any female candidate who was running for office for free. We were going to rent our clothes to her or donate our clothes to her. And then she, after her use, would donate it to Bottomless Closet, which is another wonderful nonprofit organization. It turned into this huge marketing initiative like Croatian media outlets were writing about it. But obviously, there's all of women who are not campaigning on the campaign trail anymore. A lot of their campaigning is being

done from home. One thing we're doing there is actually just featuring some of these women and getting them to talk about, you know, what are the issues that they care about and how are they, how are they campaigning during this difficult time? We're sharing that on our, we have a newsletter called the MDash. So we're continuing to kind of, you know, make sure that customers understand what it is that we stand for, even if women aren't necessarily out there talking. Digital marketing, you know, that's kind of, if that's top of funnel marketing and digital marketing is all the way at the bottom, we continue to do that too. We have pulled back ad spend on just channels where we were seeing, you know, in marketing speak long payback periods because we wanted our money to be as

efficient as possible. But all of our ads, like, you know, one of our best performing ads and emails came from the quarantine uniform, seven perfect pieces for quarantine. That was really one of our best, best performing ads. And so I think, pretending like the world hasn't change is not good for anyone, especially not your business. And I think recognizing the situation that your customers are in is that's marketing one or one. It's so interesting. I want to get to one more question. This is from Jonathan Lander. He asks, you know, do you think that this will have a disproportionate impact on women in business? And if so, how could we minimize that impact? Yes. I mean, I see it even around me. I know of some friends who have either gone part-time

or they just find that the lifestyle of taking care of kids and having to manage a full-time job totally impossible. So they're either taking time off or leaving. It's a real thing. And it's really painful to see how, you know, the burden is falling on women. I think disproportionately it's probably affecting lower income women. But obviously in the kind of professional class, too, you're seeing it. And I think, you know, trying to understand women's place.

in the new normal workforce and how we get more women back into it, that's going to be a huge, huge challenge. When you look back at this moment now, what is it that you want to have learned from it or to have changed about the way you see yourself as a leader, the way you see your business, the way you see your life? When you can reflect on it and say, that's what I learned from that time period. What do you want that to be? You know, the first thing I would say is I would like to, I think this has always been my number one goal that I want to be known as the leader who is really there for her team because I am so I connected to them and attached to them. So that's probably number one. A personal motto that my parents always say is, you know, kind of the, if you meet triumph and

disaster and treat them both just the same, it's the if, like it's the poem from Rudyard Kipling's if, right, this idea of meeting both the greatest wins in your business and the greatest crazy's in your business. And I think if you can stay true to yourself through all of that, that's the most important thing, I think, for any founder, any business owner. So, you know, there are going to be so many challenging moments ahead. I think to be able to emerge true to yourself is probably the most important thing. Love it. Sarah Lafleur, co-founder of MM LaFleur, thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it. Yeah, and it's wonderful you're doing this. Thank you for, thank you for having me. That's an excerpt for my conversation with Sarah LaFleur.

the founder of M.M. LaFleur. To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash how I built this. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there and at YouTube.com slash NPR. If you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to nprpresents.org. This episode was produced by Candice Lim, with help from John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe. And I'll see you next week. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.