Success On Your Own Terms

You can’t make this up...“In my early thirties I was a creative Jill-of-all-trades. I was playing the “long game,” knowing that eventually I wanted to build my own brand. After years of trade shows, pitch meetings, and quite a few rejections, my licensing agent Kim and I landed my first deal with a major retailer. I did the booty dance of all booty dances when the agreement landed in my inbox. 

It was tough to balance client work, my first book and the collection, all with a toddler at home, so I took a leap of faith and hired my first assistant and moved into a shared office space. Several months in, our main contact for the collab went on maternity leave. Communication slowed, and sometimes weeks would go by before we’d get a response to our emails. Still, I trusted in the process, and kept working until the designs were approved.  

A couple of months before launch, I got a call from Kim. I had just stumbled on some beautiful rattan furniture at Ross that I was hauling to the checkout counter. She had just gotten off the phone with the retailer, and they decided to drop the entire collection. Yes, I sobbed in the checkout line at Ross, eventually abandoning the chairs so I could cry in the privacy of my car — and I’m not really a crier. They didn’t give a reason why, so I was left feeling insecure about my design work and ultimately, the feasibility of building my own brand. And to make matters worse, I was to be paid upon signing of the Purchase Order, but because no Purchase Order was ever signed, I would not be paid. 

Looking back, I am so grateful to have had that experience early on in my career. After this, we worked with an attorney to create a new agreement to use as a base-line with partnerships. I also learned the importance of relationship building with multiple people, so that if one person leaves the company, we aren’t left high and dry.

Ultimately, my only regret was not buying those amazing rattan chairs. Afterall, they were only $89! Of course, I had no idea then, that in two years I would be launching my own line of rattan furniture with a licensing partner that would land my designs on the covers of magazines and in retailers around the world. But hey, when you play the long game, there are no regrets — just lessons and a good ugly cry at a discount retailer every now and again.” — Justina Blakeney, Designer, Artist, NYTimes Bestselling Author and Founder of Jungalow 

“This was our silver bullet!” said no entrepreneur ever. 

Still, it didn’t stop me from looking for mine. Years ago, I invited prominent actresses to an awards show. They were at the height of fame and I was convinced I’d wake up with all of America wanting their outfits. I felt similarly when we launched our first two celebrity collaborations. These destined It Bags were sure to catapult the brand to new levels of respect. Now, everything would magically happen! 

Spoiler alert: It didn’t. 

Business often feels like a prescribed path with definitive milestones. Partnerships. Big press hits. Even bigger investments. I’ve learned that placing high expectations on external factors is a losing game. You are the only one who can create your playbook. This week, we hear from Justina and Farmgirl Flowers Founder Christina Stembel about taking your success into your own hands. 

Our brand’s path continues to be unconventional. I haven’t predicted a single big moment, like when Ginnifer Goodwin wore our Becky jacket on the cover of Marie Claire. Our team wasn’t told about the shoot. I just received an email one day saying: Please see the cover credits! The Becky jacket sold in the upper five figures because of it. We didn’t plan it. We didn’t even know about it. We just created a design we believed in and got noticed. 

There are principles to build a business but there’s no replicable plan. Every founder designs her own. Christina shares the moment she decided to define success on her own terms… 

“Raising capital to start or scale a business is often talked about as the only path to success. But that path is littered with obstacles for female founders who have less than a two percent chance of getting funding. Back in 2019, even with nine years of growing Farmgirl without a single penny of outside investment to tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue, I still believed any path forward required funding. But, as I was preparing myself for yet another pitch meeting, little did I know I was about to hit a wall.

 By “luck” this meeting happened to coincide with what is, to date, one of the biggest opportunities I’ve had in my career: filming a commercial for a major financial institution. I was less than 36 hours away from having 100+ people from creative agencies, the bank and the production and filming crews in the Farmgirl warehouse to film this commercial when I had to hop on a red eye to meet with this potential investor out of state.

To make this meeting and the commercial filming work, I’d have to pitch them first thing in the morning and get on the very next plane to come home to begin production the next morning. To complicate matters even further, I was sick as a dog. Still, when opportunity knocks - even if it’s knocking on two doors at the same time - you answer. 

Within what felt like five minutes it became very apparent that not one of these potential investors had given my presentation even a cursory glance before I got myself cross country to their conference room. They could barely get a polite decline out of their mouths before I began to cry - not tears of sadness at being rejected (for the 100th time) but tears of anger. Anger that I had wasted time on this potential opportunity, when I had an actual opportunity to get back home to. And angry that I’d believed this time would be different only to get the same “no” I’d received so many times before.

It was right there and then that I decided that for me funding had not and would not determine the success of Farmgirl. And today, with hundreds of employees, distribution centers on two continents and over $60M in annual revenue in 2020, I can say with 100% certainty that I was correct. And that even though growing a business the bootstrapped way is the longer and harder way, that it was and continues to be the right way to grow Farmgirl.” 

Conviction rarely comes without pain. I was honored when a celebrity asked us to create a custom outfit for her tour. We made it our priority and paused pressing projects to design it. It was a big investment, still it felt like an opportunity to create an extension of our brand. I grew more confident in our decision every time I saw the beautiful designs. Of course, I didn’t know that I’d be the only one seeing them. The tour was unexpectedly canceled leaving our team lost for time, funds wasted, and progress. The experience reminded us that exclusivity isn’t a part of our ethos. No matter how important the lesson, it didn’t buffer the fall. 

It’s human nature to ruminate on why we didn’t achieve a goal, especially when our peers did. I’ve learned that comparison is a dangerous mindset. You can want yourself into the grave trying to attain something that isn’t right for you. It’s taken years of practice to avoid falling into this trap. Now, I pick myself up by focusing on our wins and how we can break new ground. 

Every business journey is distinct. Still, there is one shared tenet: Without a unique perspective, you’ll get left behind...fast. 

The only way to succeed is to write your own rules. 

How did you break away from the pack in your career? Share your story in the comments! 

I share all of my You Can’t Make This Up moments in my new book, Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success. It’s a collection of 21 rules that help me overcome my fears and turn my dreams into reality. I’m honored to share them and hope they do the same for you. You can learn more and pre-order it here!