Salena Knight: I really dislike clothing shopping. I know you would think that someone who was in retail and who deals with this stuff every day would be a true fashionista. Guys, not me. When I go shopping, I hire a stylist to go shopping for me. I recently found out I was heading to Orlando, Florida, and I was like, I need Florida-esque clothing. This is a girl thing, I think. So I started doing my online shopping. I don't really like going to malls and

Salena Knight: For the next week, I have had parcels. I literally have parcels at the bottom of my desk right now. I should have talked to my friend Jennifer Johnson because she is the founder of True Fashionistas. It is Florida's largest lifestyle resale store. And guys, I have no problems with consignment, with secondhand, with thrifting. That is half of my wardrobe. She has built this business to an over $50 million business. Guys,

Salena Knight: If you cannot learn from her, I will be very, very surprised. She's a former national model and actress, and now she is an amazing retailer. Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Jennifer Johnson: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for our conversation today.

Salena Knight: I know you were just saying, You should just come to me and we could just ship you out what you need and I'm like, Why didn't I think of that?

Jennifer Johnson: buy everything on our website, isn't that amazing? But that

Salena Knight: Is not where we started. I would love to know how did you end up going from modeling and being an actress into retail?

Jennifer Johnson: Well, it all started getting married. I know that's gonna sound weird, but so let me back up. I've always been in love with fashion. I grew up in a family of six, and I was the second oldest, and we had no money. So the only new clothes that I ever got was going garage sailing with my grandma. And we go garage sailing, find things I liked, and then my clothes was new to me. So I was always enthralled with that. But it seemed like every single thing that I did got me further away from.

Jennifer Johnson: Something to do with clothes in a way. I after I got married, I decided I can do this wedding and event planning thing and started a wedding and event planning business, which then turned into a bridal shop where I sold bridesmaids' dresses and bridal gowns and tuxes and wedding rentals. So it was kind of in the fashion industry. I was also doing a lot of modeling and acting at the same time as well. It kind of went in tandem and moved to Florida, is really what happened. We moved to Florida and I went, all right.

Jennifer Johnson: Clean slate let me realize my dreams. And I'd done a little bit of research. I had in my head an idea of what I pictured as the perfect consignment or resale store. Can I

Salena Knight: A bit and ask when was this? Because I know right now consignment stores are the hottest thing in the world. Like everybody has a consignment store. Where I live, we have like three. And this is not a very big suburb. And so I know that you know, 20 years ago, because I know how long you've been in this game, it wasn't really a thing. So what I I would love to know what even made you think consignment store?

Jennifer Johnson: Well, I and let me tell you, almost sixteen years ago when we started, it was still not a thing. And I don't know. I think it was how I was brought up. It's because I never had new things. We always had to hunt, if you will, for what we wanted. And it was something that was ingrained in me.

Salena Knight: Is thrifting though. Like I have to say, literally, last night my daughter said to me, Can you take me to Bondi? Bondi is not near us, and Bondi is not the kind of clothes that we wear. It's a very, very different lifestyle. But she's like, Can you take me to Bondi so that we can go thrifting over there? I read that they have the best op shops. And I like, Hmm, I'm happy to take you there, but I don't think you're gonna be happy with the clothing. But I'm like you, I grew up very, very poor.

Salena Knight: And that thrill of the hunt, the thrill of the chase and finding those elusive, the hundred dollar item for six dollars, I don't know what it's like. When when we're turning up talking about charity shops, op shops, I don't know what it's like in the in America right now, but over here, those stores have gotten a lot of hate because they're they're charging, let's be honest, reasonable prices for finer stuff. And so there's a huge amount of conjecture and hate for those charity stores. But at the end of the day,

Salena Knight: They're there to provide a service to help people in need. Now, resale is obviously very, very different, which is why we know when we come to somewhere like True Fashionists, is what we're getting is much higher quality. But yes, I don't know about you, but for me, I still to this day, even though I can afford better things, I still love me going some thrifting.

Jennifer Johnson: You know what, it's it it gets like the endorphins going or something. It's literally like, my gosh, I found something amazing. And that's why I love my industry so much because we never know what's going to come in the door every day.

Salena Knight: You get that every day. You get the endorphin hunt every day.

Jennifer Johnson: It's

Jennifer Johnson: every day. And so I think that's also what attracted me to that business model was the fact that I didn't have to go curate all the looks by buying them. You know, like everybody else is going to buy from the same vendors. Ho hum. We were going to get different things from different people all the time because our customers shop from all over the world. So customers come to us to make their purchases because they're going to get something unique.

Jennifer Johnson: They're going to save a lot of money and they're going to help the environment. So there's really three things that they're doing at the same time. And when I look back as to why I chose that, I think it was because of the uniqueness factor of it. It was never going to be, we have five of this and five, it was one of everything. And so when we moved to Florida, I just realized that this is it. This is what we're going to do. And that's what we did a few years after moving to Florida.

Salena Knight: Where did you move from? Minnesota. So you had wow. Could they be any more different?

Jennifer Johnson: A Minnesota.

Jennifer Johnson: Really cold to really hot.

Salena Knight: Really cold or really hot. But you left a successful boutique there. Before we move to Florida, I would love to just ask you, what did you do with that business? Did you sell it? Did you think of bringing it with you to Florida and having the two stores? What tell me about that?

Jennifer Johnson: So when I moved to Florida, my twins were three. They're now twenty-one. And I had no intention of ever doing wedding and event planning in Florida. I had done it in Minnesota for 12 years. I'd owned that business. I started it from nothing. I started it in my home and grew it to the point that we bought a building and did all the things. And I was doing a lot of weddings. And I was kind of burned out. And it was in 2008 when the recession was really rampant here in the States.

Jennifer Johnson: It was bad time for people to buy businesses, so nobody could get a loan to buy a business. So I ran it absentee with management in place in Minnesota and I lived in Florida. So I ran it absentee until we were able to sell it. And then we we finally did sell it.

Salena Knight: Kudos to you because that is something I know how difficult it is to run a business when you're not there, especially something so customer-facing. So kudos to you. So we moved to Florida. We decide we're going into the resale industry, which is very new. Well, not new, but it's very understated, you know.

Jennifer Johnson: Antiquated. Let's put it that way. When I went into it, the industry was completely antiquated.

Salena Knight: say up until about like 18 months ago, I still reckon it probably was. So tell us about that story. So you're a few years into Florida, you've got twins and you decide, you know what, I've got little kids. What am I gonna do? Ask a busy woman. I'm gonna start a new business.

Jennifer Johnson: Exactly. So going into it, when we had first moved here, like I said, hadn't sold the business. And a couple of years in, we hadn't sold it as of that moment when I had I'm like, this is it, we're doing this. My neighbor said, Well, you know, you want to do this thing and you don't have the money. Well, I have the money and you have the knowledge. Let's do it together. So I went, Okay, yeah, let's do it together. It seemed like it was going to be a good fit. Her and her husband had a business and

Jennifer Johnson: I'm like, let's do it. My husband agreed. So we went into business together. And literally, I would say about two months into the business together, she decided she didn't want to do this anymore. She knocked at my door Sunday night, 10 o'clock at night, her and her husband, and they said we want out. So either you buy the business. Yeah, a few months. It was a couple months, two, three months. She's like, I don't want to do this anymore. So you either buy me out and buy the business, or I'm gonna sell it. Okay. I knew.

Jennifer Johnson: In that moment, that we needed the business. This was meant for me. And my husband cashed out his 401k and we bought her out. Wow. Now she would not sign it on compete, which I wanted the business bad enough. It didn't matter to me in the moment. Because I find out literally a couple of days after we signed, you know, we paid her.

Jennifer Johnson: She signed a lease in the same plaza that our business was in, probably eight, ten stores away from it, same side of the shopping center, and she opened up a business doing the exact same business. So I felt betrayed. I felt all the feelings that you can possibly imagine, but that wasn't the end of it. When she was ready to open, she took all of my employees except for one.

Salena Knight: Wow. Okay. Can I just pause there because I have so many questions. We're putting a pin in. She took your employees. Okay. I have questions. The first one being, I mean, two months. My brain is like, how would you even know in two months that you didn't want to be part of a business? Because the first two months are the most excit like the first six months are the most exciting part where you're buying all the stuff and the marketing and you know, making everything pretty. There's nothing hard in the first six months.

Jennifer Johnson: No, but I came to realize after the fact it wasn't that it was hard. It wasn't it was I had she got the knowledge she needed. She got what she came for.

Salena Knight: Really?

Salena Knight: And you think that that was the plan all along?

Jennifer Johnson: Kind of think that. I think maybe she noticed the success that it was about to become because we had filled that store. I remember when we first opened, it was an empty store because we had no product. And people would come in and be like, my gosh, you're crazy. You're opening this store and there's nothing in it. And I'm like, it's okay. It's gonna fill up. Within two weeks, we were full. So I think she noticed, okay, I think she's on to something here. And that was what she needed. And

Salena Knight: Wow.

Salena Knight: So you don't think she went into it with the the duplicitous concept? It was just like once she was savvy enough to realise very early on, whether we condone this behaviour or not, she was savvy enough to realise, my gosh, this is a thing. Why am I giving half of it away to somebody else?

Jennifer Johnson: Like cutthroat business. Like, you know, the friendship didn't matter at all. It was all about so and I

Salena Knight: I guess as seasoned business owners, again, never that I I wouldn't act like that and I I don't condone that behaviour, but you can see that, you know, that saying that rich people become rich because, you know, they're prepared to put all those other things aside. I guess you can understand why someone would do it, but ethically, you know, I that's not something that I would do.

Jennifer Johnson: And on all moral accounts it's wrong. And you know, never has happened to me and will never happen to me again. But you just don't expect that from another human being. And I

Salena Knight: Can't even see, like, as you said, this is the most exciting part about opening a business is all the you know, those first six months, like anything that goes wrong is just water under the bridge. Like, we're just we just pretend that doesn't exist because we're so excited about everything, the opportunity, all the new people, all the new stuff, making things pretty. And so, I mean, on one hand, I can kind of say, like, clearly, seasoned, you know, she had the seasoned.

Salena Knight: business mindset of I can make this thing and take it run. But I can just imagine that opening a business, you are going through all the things and then being like sideswiped with this at ten o'clock at night. Girl, I'm about I'm in bed at ten o'clock at night. I know.

Jennifer Johnson: I'm a morning person always. And yeah, it was just it was different, odd to say the least. And you know what though? I'm at

Salena Knight: what

Salena Knight: that conversation looked like. Like I I just my head is just trying to picture this.

Jennifer Johnson: You know, and it's hard, it it was a long time ago. My business is almost sixteen years old. So it was like fifteen and change years ago. And I just remember we sat outside, we had the conversation, and they just said, both of them, you know, not what we expected and we just won out. So never did I ever get a an idea, an inkling that it was because she wanted to start another business at all.

Salena Knight: We don't just go and like sign up a lease and stuff in in a couple of w so how long you said two weeks later?

Jennifer Johnson: No, it was only a couple of days afterwards and and we know that because we had confirmed that. So I think it was obviously something that had been started very early. Yeah. So maybe it was a month and she went, my gosh. You know, I don't know. And the sad part is is some places will not allow other competing businesses to be in the same center.

Jennifer Johnson: Yeah. And this landlord was not like that. And we're still in the same center to this day. We're just in a much larger location. But we're still there.

Salena Knight: Thank you for sharing. My brain is trying to process all of those things. So now you have your brand new store, you're filled in two weeks. She goes and opens up a competing store, a couple of shops down, and she takes the staff with her. At this point, someone who's listening could well be thinking, Jen clearly must be Attila the Hun. Like if you are, if your team will just up and leave that quickly.

Salena Knight: There must be something wrong with you. Clearly that is not the case.

Jennifer Johnson: People leave for a penny, people leave for a quarter. And what's very interesting is she lost her entire staff within I would say six months to a year. All of the people that she took from me left her. Woke me.

Salena Knight: Because I think this is, I know one of the key issues that many retailers face is dealing with their team. So, how do we build this culture of having people who aren't so fickle that a couple of extra dollars a week is going to move them on? I've worked in places where it was like, I don't care what you pay me, I love being here.

Salena Knight: I love the people I work with. I love what we're doing. And then I've had other jobs where I'm like, sure, you pay me a couple of extra dollars and I will come and work for you. You are so new and so fresh. Yes, when you're new and fresh, there are little hiccups that can happen, but you are a seasoned business person. And what I tend to find is that the excitement that the team has when you've got all that brand new stock and all the brand new people and all the attention is quite often just enough.

Salena Knight: to keep the people because there is that constant dopamine and the excitement and the freshness. How do you think what happened for them to go and leave to go with her? So

Jennifer Johnson: I think in some respects there's there's a lot of manipulation that people can use with certain things and different carrots that people can dangle in front of people to entice them to something that, you know, they they want them to come with them. And so they're going to do whatever they can. And I feel like that was kind of the situation. I also look at it this way. If they were that quick to leave because of something that she maybe had convinced them of or

Jennifer Johnson: For an extra dollar or two or three, whatever it was, then they weren't meant for my team to begin with. They weren't there for the right reasons. That and a few other events after that really taught me a lesson. And that lesson was when you hire higher to your core values. When you hire to and now these days it's so easy, take your core values, plug them into AI and say, hey, give me some interview questions that I can ask that will bring out this in other people.

Jennifer Johnson: It has been the most magical thing ever because when you hire to the core values of your company, you are getting the people that you know are going to align with your mission and your values and everything that you do. They are going to hold the same space. And that creates a great culture and a great team. So I think back then, because I didn't really know what my values were, because a lot of times when you

Jennifer Johnson: When people don't always we all have values, okay? We all have values, but it takes something to happen for them to be unearthed in us. Something terrible. Let's say, you know, something goes against what you believe. You learn quickly. Wow, you know, I don't believe in people who who lie. So honesty and integrity is a core value of mine. And that becomes unearthed because of something that happened. And back then I didn't know what my values were.

Jennifer Johnson: And when you don't know what your values are, you attract all of the wrong people, whether they're employees or their customers or their friends. So once you figure out what that is, then you become smarter at the hiring process. And then you start getting people on your team. You're not saying that you're not going to make mistakes because I still made mistakes and I went on to fire my entire team after COVID and started all over.

Jennifer Johnson: It just takes mistakes and learning opportunities. I don't think of them as mistakes. They're challenges that are learning opportunities. And that's how it works. And I think that's what was at play back then is I did not know those. So I was attracting the people that didn't fit with the values of my company.

Salena Knight: It's interesting you should say that because I I remember the first ever business coach I had 17 years ago. And that was the first thing they made me do. And I just remember thinking, this is a load of hogwash. Like, why am I wasting my time? However, exactly what you just said, what I didn't realize at the time was I was accidentally taken accident completely accidentally.

Salena Knight: Taking those core values when I was writing job descriptions. I had a brain injury when I was five. I swear my brain is just a little bit wonky. And so I never wrote job descriptions in the traditional way. I was always like, are you a this person? Are you a that person? And even to this day, I still write job descriptions like exactly what you just said. You know, are you the kind of person who, you know, comes in early and stays late just because you completely love finishing a job? Something along those lines. I have

Salena Knight: always attracted, like you said, the people with the core values, we now have very clear values and standards of the way that we work. And what I like about that is we have one core value, which is set the standard. And then we have ways that we work. So we have six different ways that we work. But what I love about just having one is the ability to say to the team and to myself, did the way you show up set the standard?

Salena Knight: Did the way we interact with the customer set the standard? Is their output, does our output set the standard? And so you're not accusing anybody of anything. You're just holding them to this thing that you agreed in the interview process that they were aligned with. And so it it almost is a it's a qualification tool, like you said, but it's also like a measurement stick. Hey, this is what we agreed we believed in. If your if your values have changed, that's okay. You don't have to stay.

Salena Knight: But this is how we work here. And and so now I am very thankful in hindsight to that business coach. But also it's something that that we do inside of all of our programs as well. It's like, what do you value? Because at the end of the day, we aren't some mega multinational company that is always started as a multinational. Like we start as a founder and we have values. And those values are intrinsic in how we build the business.

Salena Knight: And so I think it is it's so crucial. I would love to know how did you because I've been through many iterations just within this company, not even other companies, of what those core values look like. How did you define yours?

Jennifer Johnson: So mine as a business and mine as an individual, as you can imagine, because I am an owner of my company, they intertwine. They're the same, essentially. I discovered them in many different ways. Again, a lot of the times it was something happened. And I sat down. I actually do so with my coaching clients, because I do a lot of coaching for small businesses, there's an exercise that I go with, and I have several different questions that they can.

Jennifer Johnson: that they ask themselves, you know, for example, what things do I celebrate? And what what in the moment is being crushed? So something happens, you have a challenge. What value, what thing, what idea is being crushed in that moment? So for example, on the one with my ex-business partner, it was trust, it was honesty, it was all those things. And one of mine is, is I know this is going to

Jennifer Johnson: Sound a little offshoot, but is do the right thing even when no one is watching. Okay. That's a core value. It tells me that you have integrity. If you can take the time enough after something happens to be still enough, to sit and ask the very simple question, what was there for me to learn here? What was the lesson? What was I supposed to learn from this situation? If you can sit and be quiet and figure that out.

Jennifer Johnson: On the other side of it is going to be, I guarantee you, a value that was crushed, which is why you were so upset about it, which was why it became an issue, a problem, a challenge, whatever. And that's kind of how I discovered all of my core values, with exception of one, two, really, being humble. Because if you walk into a room thinking that you know everything, you're done. Just like if you

Jennifer Johnson: Ask your employees to do something that you would absolutely never do, that's not right. Being humble just came about because that's just who I am. And then another core value that I have is always be learning. Whether that's reading books, whether that's taking courses, whether that's just keeping your mind open during the day, for someone, someone to share a different perspective with you, for you and you to listen. That's a really, really important one. So all of my values.

Jennifer Johnson: Have come about when I took the time to ask myself that simple question. What am I supposed to be learning here?

Salena Knight: It's

Salena Knight: like the mic drop moment here because you said right back at the beginning, I don't see failures, I see them as learning experiences. And I am one of those people where my self-worth is wrapped up. Like I'm aware of this, I actively try and you know disentangle it, but it's it's kind of almost impossible not to when it is your business and you are a personal brand. And so I do take it personally when things don't work out. And if someone

Salena Knight: we have like a feedback loop if someone sends back and then they're not happy or some criticism or something like that. I do take it personally and and sometimes it can be easy to think people are just stupid. But the reality is we have to go through the process and think, why do we think that? Like, okay, maybe they don't understand the same way we do. Maybe they didn't realize they had to click the button. Maybe when you're talking about firing people, it's

Salena Knight: I have so many questions around this because you mentioned you fired everybody in COVID, but I'm gonna come back to that. But taking in the moment is I've had to learn to not take those things as a personal affront. You know, they're a system, they're a process, and the process didn't work the way that person wanted it to. And so it has nothing to do with whether I personally put the button in that place. It what it matters is someone did it didn't work for somebody. Is this a

Salena Knight: Is a random outlier, or is this something repetitive? Like, is this something we need to be monitoring? It's the same with hiring. It can be, I have been in not a dissimilar position to you, not with a partner, but where an employee went and opened up their own store while they were working for me and was taking photos of my product in the store and pretending it was theirs. So, you know, not the same, but you know, that displacement of trust and the respect.

Salena Knight: And in that moment, you do think, how did I get this so wrong? Like that person seemed so nice, so genuine, so thoughtful, but sometimes we don't get it wrong. Sometimes it's not even a about us. It is about it's like you said, it's their values didn't align with our values. You mentioned that you fired your team after COVID. And I wanted to come back and ask about that. This is this is not the where we were going with the conversation, but I'm

Salena Knight: If you're down for it, I'm happy to talk about this part of the conversation because I know team is team is our biggest expense. So getting it right is always a constant learning journey. It is always something we're being humble about. It is always something we're always learning. It is always something we are trying to make better. I too have been through this situation where the business grows and you have a $50 million business. And so you've been through so many iterations.

Salena Knight: I've been through this process where the people who work for me, let's just call it money beliefs, didn't align with where the company was going. And so they couldn't see that customers were happy to pay the price, or they couldn't see the $50 million business. They could only see a $5 million business. And so their own internal thought processes weren't in alignment with where the company was going or in with the customers.

Salena Knight: So can you tell me what happened in the COVID moment, post COVID moment, that made you fire the team and what happened next?

Jennifer Johnson: Leading up to COVID, I knew something was wrong in my business. Okay. Couldn't really put my finger on it. And COVID hits. And we furlough everyone. So nobody is working. And I had a lot of time to think about my business, think about the employees, think about the culture that was within my company. And I realized that I was being held prisoner.

Jennifer Johnson: I know a lot of other business owners feel this at some times. I was being held a prisoner in my own store. The employees kind of all had banded together and they were lying, they were cheating, they were stealing. They were doing so many things that I kind of didn't see. And I guess it was because I took my foot off the gas pedal. I backed away from my business a little bit to work on other things. And

Jennifer Johnson: Also working on the business. So when you have your head down and your nose to the grindstone and you're doing the job of other people in your business, you can't look outside of it and see what's going on. Because I had stepped outside of the store and the store wasn't open, I was able to take a 10,000 foot view of what was going on. And that's when I came to all of those realizations. And it wasn't just from me, I started getting messages from customers.

Jennifer Johnson: Saying, do you realize that this was going on? And this was going on. It wasn't one or two, it was several. So it opened my eyes and I finally realized, my gosh, this is what's been going on. So we made the decision. We had probably 30 employees at that point. We didn't bring anyone back. So I had to restart my team from zero, which was the best thing that I ever did. Because we really started honing in on the the core value piece even more.

Jennifer Johnson: And started adding to our team. And now we're almost at 50 employees. And it was the best thing that ever happened. That and my business partner, see, if you look at these things and go, my gosh, why is this happening? Why is this happening to me? Why does all this stuff happen to me? Don't don't look at it that way. If you can reframe that just one word, why is this happening for me? That allows you to stop everything.

Jennifer Johnson: And figure out what the message is. Figure out the lesson that was in that challenge. And for me, it was hey, these people were not aligning. I had my nose to the grindstone. I was doing stuff outside the business. I was working in the business way too much. So I couldn't work on the business. I couldn't see it for what was in front of me because I had my head down. And that's what happened. And to be honest, COVID was one of the best things that.

Jennifer Johnson: Ever happened to our business because it changed everything about it. It changed how I I looked at everything.

Salena Knight: So sorry that happened to you. And I'm so glad that you can see on the other side. And it and it's interesting. Thank you for sharing that. You know, what is why is this happening for me? Because in the moment it does feel stressful. And I can only imagine what you must have been thinking. I'm sure you went through because I've been through this. It is that moment where funnily enough, post-COVID, I did exactly the same thing. It's where you realize this is what I want, and I'm not, I'm not prepared to sacrifice to get.

Salena Knight: that and I am sacrificing my own time and my own mental health and my own health and all these things so that someone else can take advantage of me. And I agree. I see way too often do I see business owners, their staff take advantage of them because the business owners are just really nice people who who are trying to do the right thing by everybody. Do you think that there has ever been a time when you've been in one of those, let's call it a breakdown moment.

Salena Knight: Where you haven't looked back and thought, I'm so glad that happened to me now.

Jennifer Johnson: I mean, in the moment, a lot of times back before I learned that lesson, I guess it took me years to figure that out. It took me years to figure out that, you know what, stop and and what is the lesson I need to learn here? It took several things and several years for that to actually happen. And some of that comes with maturity. Maturity as a business owner, as a person comes with learning the hard lessons.

Jennifer Johnson: You know, the school of hard knocks. Sometimes it's not something you can pick up in a textbook. It's not something that you can read in a book. If it doesn't happen to you, it doesn't exist in your mind. It's hard for you to put your your hands around it and see it for what it is until it actually happens to you. And then you get it. And then the light bulb goes on. So I think it was just it's something that I had learned.

Salena Knight: There are so many times now that I look back in my life and I just think in the moment I was crushed. I was devastated. And now I look back and I go, it's those sliding door of moments, isn't it? It's like, but if that wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't be here now. And if that wouldn't be happened, I w yeah, I wouldn't be here now. And so I like you said, in in the moment is crushing. And you do still have to deal with the, you know, that fallout.

Salena Knight: But if we can have that in our in our mind, which is what is why is this happening for me? I think being able to in the moment see that, okay, even if it is just I don't know the answer right now, but I will be able to look back on this moment and realize it did happen for a reason. And I am, you know, I'm not a person of faith, but I just know that in my life and I've been through a lot of hard knocks, that I always look back and just think, this happened for a reason. Without that.

Salena Knight: I wouldn't have, I wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't have what I have. And so thank you for sharing that. I think if any, you know, you've you've shared lots of things, but I guess going back into the team that you re-hired and even the team that you have now, how do you hold the team accountable? Because you have 50 people. How do you hold them all accountable? How do you hold them to those core values now that you aren't in the business every day?

Jennifer Johnson: Well, we have a great management team that they have a set of things that they watch for every day. And if they see someone's kind of veering off over to here, they do teaching moments. So, you know, let's say it's something that someone said to a customer that wasn't quite polite, they will have a teaching moment privately to say, Hey, you know, you know, one of our core values is is

Jennifer Johnson: Doing the right thing even when someone else isn't watching, meaning someone from management. How do you think this went? Just having those corrective talks, those, I won't even call them corrective. They're more of an acknowledgement or a more of an awareness conversation because people may not know, they may be on autopilot and doing something that they've always done. That is first and foremost. And I think really at the root of all of it is hiring the right people.

Jennifer Johnson: And we quickly realize that once we hire, so you can look great on paper, you can do great in an interview, but we're gonna really find out what you're like when you come in for the first week. We're very quick. I don't know your your audience has probably heard the the saying, slow to hire, quick to fire. I don't like to fire. That's not anything that's that's pleasant for anyone.

Jennifer Johnson: But you have to realize if somebody in that first week or first 30 days is not a fit for the company, you're doing them a disservice as well as your company and all of the people that work in your company a disservice if you don't part ways. We're very cognizant of the people that work with us. And we're always trying to to direct and train and mentor those people because I have a saying.

Jennifer Johnson: Kobuddy's nerfect. We're not perfect. And that's okay. We're not asking you to be perfect. We're just asking you to be moral. We're asking you to have a set of values that a good set of values. And it's really just at the crux of all of it, it's doing good for everyone, yourself and others. So it's that that's really what we do. We're just always paying attention. I've

Salena Knight: Feel like I could talk to you forever and that we could talk about all of the things that management could be doing and hiring the right people. But you just you just had such a wonderful note to finish off on. Hope it is nerfed. And that's us, that is our team, that is everybody in the world. We do make mistakes, but it is about having that integrity, it is about having that alignment.

Salena Knight: But I think what I have taken away is just that reinforcement that if we as the founders don't have the vision of where the business is going, then it is very hard to bring people along with this for that journey. And on top of that, you have to you have to be very clear about what your values are and not internalize them. It is really about taking the time to, you know, put them down on paper and not have twenty of them. Like I'm my my biggest

Salena Knight: Teaching moment was that everybody should be able to remember them off the top of their head. And if they can't remember them off the top of their head, there's too many or they're not in alignment. And so having those two things really does put you in a way better position to choose the people that you align yourself with, whether it is your team, whether it is business partners, whether it is other opportunities, if you know that within yourself and you can always be referring back to it.

Salena Knight: Then that is going to set you up for a much better chance of success. Thank you for sharing. I am going to check out True Fashionistas for when I come to Orlando in a few weeks. And my I'm very, very lucky, my next door neighbor is also heading to randomly heading to Orlando in the exact same week. And so I can just have my parcels shipped to her mother.

Jennifer Johnson: Exactly. I agree.

Jennifer Johnson: There you go. Now you can shop at True Fashion Easton.

Salena Knight: Because if people want to connect with you or true fashionistas, where can they do that?

Jennifer Johnson: So True Fashionistas is Truefashionistas.com. My personal brand is Jenniferanne Johnson.com. And you can also find me on social media, Jennifer Ann Johnson. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram and Facebook. So is True Fashionistas.

Salena Knight: Fantastic. Well thank you. We'll we'll pop all of those in the show notes as well.

Jennifer Johnson: Fabulous. Thank you so much.

Salena Knight: So that's a wrap. I'd love to hear what insight you've gotten from this episode and how you're going to put it into action. If you're a social kind of person, follow me at the Salena Knight and make sure to leave a comment and let me know. And if this episode made you think a little bit differently, or gave you some inspiration, or perhaps gave you the kick that you needed to take action, then please take a couple of minutes to leave me a review on your platform of choice.

Salena Knight: Because the more reviews the show gets, the more independent retail and e-commerce stores just like yours that we can help to scale. And when that happens, it's a win for you, a win for your community, and a win for your customers.

Jennifer Johnson is the founder and CEO of True Fashionistas, Florida's largest lifestyle resale store and a business that has generated more than $50 million in sales. After beginning her career as a national model and actress, Jennifer faced significant personal and business setbacks before rebuilding her career into one of the country's most recognised resale success stories.

Today, she helps entrepreneurs build profitable businesses without sacrificing the life they want to live. Jennifer is the creator of The Confident Entrepreneur, author of the Amazon bestselling book Grace & Grit: Becoming a Confident Entrepreneur, and host of the award-winning The Confident Entrepreneur Podcast, recognised as one of the Top 100 female-hosted podcasts in the United States.

Her achievements include:

• Gulfshore Life Businesswoman of the Year Honoree
• Small Business Association Emerging Leader
• Distinguished Entrepreneur Nominee
• Named one of Collier County's 100 Most Influential Leaders for two consecutive years
• Leadership Florida Graduate

Jennifer's expertise has been featured by TIME Magazine, Martha Stewart, CNBC, US News & World Report, The Associated Press, Newsweek, Vogue, Real Simple, Inside Edition, Home Delivery, and numerous national television and radio programs.