B.O.O.S.T. Podcast
B.O.O.S.T. Podcast
Organized for Success: Building a Brand That Lasts with Jennifer Q. Williams | EP162
In this inspiring episode, Jennifer Q. Williams explores the entrepreneurial journey that began at age 25 and flourished for over three decades. She shares candid reflections on launching her business with a stack of credit cards and a bold vision, navigating risk and resilience, and building a brand that’s become a household name in her community. From the power of organized living to the importance of customer service, she offers practical wisdom for entrepreneurs at every stage.
Jennifer’s story is a masterclass in grit, grace, and growth. It’s also a reminder that sometimes the best businesses start with a simple idea and a whole lot of heart.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferqwilliams/
Website: https://www.stlouisclosetco.com/
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You can't be afraid of problems. You just have to just, I think, deal with them immediately and deal with it the best way you can and bring other people in to help you with the solutions. That was
SPEAKER_02:Jennifer Williams. Jennifer is a leader in the custom closet industry for over 34 years. What started as a simple idea of helping people get organized has grown into a successful business. Today, with a 30,000 square foot factory and a team of 40, Jennifer and her company provide homeowners with high quality custom closets, mudrooms, pantries, and more. And in this episode, Jennifer shares strategies to tap into new markets. I'm Kelly Leonard, and this is The Boost Podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to The Boost Podcast, the podcast created to ignite your business and career potential. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur launching your entrepreneurial journey, an established business leader, or early career professional, we've got you covered in the And I'll see you next time. together. And now here's Kelly Leonard. Hey,
SPEAKER_02:Jennifer, welcome to the Boost podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Well, hello, Kelly. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here today.
SPEAKER_02:Likewise. And so for folks who are hearing your name for the very first time, tell us a bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Well, my name is Jennifer Williams and I founded the 34 years ago, a business called St. Louis Closet Company. And what we do is we design, manufacture and install custom closets and organizing systems all over the home and for businesses.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. And I know... You started this business in your 20s, right? Which is no small feat. So what inspired you to really just take that leap and launch the company? And what was sort of your big learning curves in those early days?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was 25 years old, and like a lot of 25-year-olds, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was in graduate school studying communications, and I just didn't know. I didn't have that spark. I was waiting tables at a couple restaurants to help put me through college, and a friend of mine came to St. Louis from California, and he opened up the first custom closet company here in St. Louis. And he called me and he said, Jennifer, I think you would love this. I was like, well, I already have two jobs waiting tables. I'm already going to college. He's like, just come try it. So I went through the training to learn how to be a closet designer. And Kelly, I'm telling you, I fell in love. It was like the light switch went off. I just knew that this was what I wanted to do. I was always a super organized kid. My I just saw firsthand how excited and happy my customers were. I was organized. I understood the benefits of organization. And it was just so much fun. It was creative. It was exciting. And so I just decided literally after two weeks working for this other company that this is what I was going to do. So I quit working at this company. I dropped out of graduate school. I quit marketing. one of my waitressing jobs. I did keep one though, just in case things didn't work out. And I went to the small business administration, got an SBA guaranteed loan and just jumped off the cliff and did it. And that's how I got started 34 years ago. It was, it was definitely something.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. And so what were some of your learning curves in those earlier days?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, like I all small businesses. I think the biggest learning curve is you never have enough money. Even if you spend a lot of time researching the business, researching your industry, you always need more money than you think. Like I said, no matter what Where you are, things, there's surprises with small business, right? You know, the taxes, just, you know, the city tax, the state tax, the local business district tax, you know, you have to have a good accountant, you have to, the payroll taxes, I mean, on and on and on. There's all these things that You may have this great idea and you may be ready to sell your products, but you have all these other things that are not necessarily unexpected, but you just don't realize how much of that is. So I think that, you know, not having enough money was a big thing for me. And I had to quickly pivot and start selling and getting to work right away. So I had the money to keep the business going. And then also, I think, you know, I started out with myself. I hired two other people to help me. And I realized very quickly and still today feel the same way. You have to hire and surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. And I have been very fortunate with the best team of people. A lot of people that started with me in the very beginning are still working for me. And I think the part is, you don't know everything. Right. You can't know everything. And entrepreneurs are like these idea people. We come up with these ideas and then tomorrow it's another idea and another idea. But you need people around you to sort of implement those ideas and sort of keep you on track. And then I think the third thing that's really important, and I learned it along the way and I think I'm still learning it, is in order to be successful in business, any size business, really, I think you have to be able to make money. decisions quickly. The average human makes like 30,000 decisions a day, like a day. Think about that. So then imagine tacking on a small business. And if the business owner cannot make a decision and move forward and keep going down that path, everybody stops, right? Your business stops, your employees stop, the clients stop. So you have to be able to Obviously, take your experiences, make the best decisions you can, but know that along the way, you may have to pivot and be like, oh, that was not a good one. We're going to change. We're going to, you know, Take a different course here and figure it out. But you can't freeze up. You have to keep going forward.
SPEAKER_02:So inside of so much what you shared with me was I could hear sort of the ups. I could hear the downs. You alluded to some of the downs. I would be curious to know, like, if there was a particular time period in your business where you had a really challenging time that you would be willing to sort of share with the listeners? Because I also I believe that, you know, entrepreneurship can also be a very lonely place. And it's easy to think that, oh, this is this is only happening to me. And so I feel like when folks hear those very transparent stories, that vulnerability, it provides that glimmer of hope. And so even when you think back to 34 years ago, even if you reflect back 30 years ago, I don't know, even if you reflect back 30 days ago, can you share a particular... time where you just experienced some level of just, I don't know how I'm going to keep going and like how you were able to navigate that season?
SPEAKER_00:Well, there was, well, first of all, entrepreneurship is not as glamorous as sometimes it appears, as you know. And I think that if you are thinking of going into business, you have to know that there is going to be Mm-hmm. When 9-11 happened, the entire country just shut down, literally and figuratively shut down. Nobody knew. Are we going to even still be in business? Are we are the planes ever going to fly again? Are we going to ever get supplies again? Nobody. The phones quit ringing. That was a very scary time. Then again in 2008, when the recession hit. And it was particularly tied to home loans and home building, which is what my product is. We go into the home and do custom closets. So that was a really, really tough time for me because I had been on this growth pattern, growing, growing, growing. I had just gone out and bought a brand new building. I had just spent a ton of money rehabbing the building, moved my business, was ready to just take off. 2008 hit. And we had to figure that out. And then the more recent time I'll give you a few more details was COVID. Cause that's probably, you know, just a little bit, you probably have some younger listeners than me and they're like, what was that? 2008 recession. When COVID hit in St. Louis, where I'm, where I'm from, we were, and I think it was like this around the country. We were told we had to close, right? We were going to all close for two weeks and flatten the curve. Well, I mean, we were all scared, right? No matter where you were, you were scared to death. And I brought in all my employees and I said, this is what we're going to do. I'm going to keep paying you. We're going to come back in two weeks. I called all my customers. We rescheduled everybody. And after about 10 days, customers started leaving messages, started calling me at home, calling me myself. Like, I need you in my house right now. I need you so bad because all of a sudden, think about it. Everybody's, the kids are going to school at home. Everybody's working from home. They have all these people in the house all day and they didn't have home offices. They didn't have desks. They didn't have, you know, organized spaces and they needed my services more than ever. So I had to quickly pivot. bring back all my employees. And people were scared. People were really scared about working in customers' homes. People were scared. So we had to go out and buy more installation vehicles so that my installers could each have their own van because they weren't allowed to drive in a van with someone else. The amount of money that I spent on Clorox wipes, goggles, gloves, um, and masks. I wish I had that money back today. Um, and we figured out a way we, we figured it out. Now we had a lot of employees that chose not to come back. They didn't feel safe coming back to work and we did not, we don't have a business where we could work remotely. We work in the customer's homes and, um, it was a long, long two and a half years. Now the business was, took off which was fabulous right that's great but it was not easy every single day was a struggle and then if somebody tested positive for covid right we had to quarantine we had to see who they were with who they talked to we had to notify customers customers were calling us and saying we just all tested positive and it was it was the craziest two and a half years of my life. And then we came out of it. And to be honest, I was afraid people were never going to spend money on their homes again, because they were like, we're going out, we're going to the movies, we're going to go to a party, we're going to travel, we're going to go to a baseball game. And, you know, fortunately, we've continued to grow. But it's been harder, right? Because now we're competing with the same dollars that are being spent on travel and entertainment, which I think people are doing more of now since COVID.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay. So all of those things were out of your control, right? And so for the person who perhaps is risk averse, they're like, oh my gosh, now I know I'm not going to go into entrepreneurship because it's out of my control. But what is a mind, one mindset shift or practical step that can help someone who is considering entrepreneurship to just get started with some degree of confidence?
SPEAKER_00:Well, first of all, I don't think you can be an entrepreneur and be risk averse. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I really think that if you know that you can't make decisions and you're scared of taking risks, it's probably not a good career move to go open your own business. That's number one. But number two, it goes back to, you know, my decision making and moving forward. You look at each individual thing as it happens. Like, okay, here's a problem. Here's a challenge. How can we figure this out? I feel like you have to be collaborative with your staff. You have to be collaborative with your clients. You have to be open and honest about problems. You can't cover them up or act like they're not happening because that's just going to get worse. So I feel like for me, I go into work every day and it would be lovely if everything was just, you know, sunshine and flowers, it'd be great. And it's not, but I look at that as a challenge. And for me, that's what keeps it exciting for me is So you break it down into little steps, similar to when I tell people to organize their house. Don't do the whole thing in one day. Start with a drawer, right? Start, look at these problems. Like, you know, we had a huge, crazy rainstorm and my shop where we manufacture everything flooded, like big time flooded. So was a bummer we had to throw a bunch of stuff away we lost a lot of money but what did we do we knew that well it might flood again so we ripped everything out and we built big platforms so now all of our materials are stored on platforms so if it happens again we've now solved that problem so you can't be afraid of problems um you just have to just i think deal with them immediately And deal with it the best way you can and bring other people in to help you with the solutions.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Thank you for that, Jennifer. I mean, this has been a very inspiring conversation. I definitely appreciate everything that you shared. If folks are listening in and want to tap into just sort of the good work that you're doing, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we have a website. I think our website's the best way, stlouisclosetco.com. We are also on LinkedIn, YouTube, Houzz, Facebook, and Instagram. So really just Google St. Louis Closet Company and pick one of the choices.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Thank you so much for all the work that you do and just for congratulations on 34 years of just doing the good work. Appreciate you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
