[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome back to season five of the Interior Collective, a podcast for the business of beautiful living. I'm your host, Anastasia Casey, founder of IDCO Studio, Quin Made Design Camp, and of course, the Interior Collective. Today I'm beyond excited to have a very special guest, Jean Stouffer, the renowned interior designer, entrepreneur and founder of Jean Stouffer Designer, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jean has built a nationally recognized design firm known for its classic, elegant style with projects featured in top design magazines and her very own TV show, the Established Home on Magnolia Network. What makes Jean's story even more compelling is that this isn't a solo endeavor. Jean has built a true family business. Her daughter Grace is her design partner. Her sons John, Daniel and David all play key roles and together they've grown their brand to include not only services but but also a retail shop, coffee cafe, product lines and a custom cabinetry line. In this episode, Jean will be sharing her journey of building a successful business, the joys and challenges of working with family, and how they've created a unique synergy that has propelled their business to new heights.
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Hello, Jean and welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here. I can't believe it's. It's finally aligned and I get to actually talk to you in person.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Well, I've been looking forward to this for a long time, Anastasia. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: I'm super excited to chat today because I feel like you are in such a unique position that so many of us listeners, myself included, think about, think about this concept of a family business and working with your loved ones and how to build a legacy brand that everyone in the family gets to be a part of in some capacity. And we're due in, gosh, I guess like seven weeks with our first baby and I've already been thinking, gosh, is she going to take over the business in 25, 30 years? Like, what is that going to look like? Will the business still be around. And so I think that there's just a lot of us, especially us mamas in the community that are like, how can I have my favorite people in the world more involved in the business? So I'm excited to dive into that today. Before we begin, you've built a nationally recognized design firm that really focuses on timeless and classic design. But can you tell us how you first started your business and what really uniquely qualified you to specialize in kitchen design in particular?
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Well, I started my business with not much behind me. I got a business degree and so did not study design at all. Had no skills. But I went to work as the business manager at a design firm, a small one. Two women.
I was their first employee. And I learned everything as I went, you know, like, how to invoice, how to write up contracts, how to do price quoting, how to get pricing.
And I just did all those things for them while I watched them doing their work, which fascinated me. I'd never seen it before. I had never been exposed to interior design.
So I. They encouraged me to get a skill which was at that time, learning how to hand draft.
So I. This is, you know, the mid-80s, and I did that at the community college and dropped out of the class when I got all the information I wanted. But just kind of, I would say, naively, started my own business at about that point because a friend of my mom's asked for design help. And by this time, I'd been doing some of my own interior design work in my own home. And it was appealing to people, evidently.
But I realized over the few years that I did general interior design. And at that time, it was not nearly as complex. It is now. It was more of decorating, I would say, you know, paint colors, curtains, furniture, rugs. I hardly even did lighting fixtures. People, you know, people. We didn't have a lot of new homes where we were, so it was all remodeling or redecorating. So people just used a lot of what they already had unless it was worn out. So that's how I got my start. And I found it interesting, but I also found it really challenging. I realized it was very subjective. There wasn't a right or wrong to a lot of things. And that was difficult for me.
And my personality, I'm very analytical. Like, I study business, accounting. I. There is a right and wrong to some things. And so when I started doing my own kitchen design and then that installed my own kitchen and then had other people see it and find it like something unique. They hadn't seen but liked and wanted. It kind of made a way for me with kitchen design. It started out very small, but it really appealed to my type of thinking and the way I was comfortable. It was analytical.
It had to deal with very, you know, mechanicals and very specific dimensions. And no, you cannot have an aisle that's narrower than this. You know, there was right and wrong, which really appealed to me, but at the same time, there was also the beautiful, the subjective of the aesthetic of a kitchen. So I felt like it was a really beautif, really great blend for me. And I started to focus on it for two reasons. It was a good lane for me, but also, I just had my third child. It was Grace.
And I wanted to be able to be home a lot, mostly, actually.
And at that time, interior design required a lot of trips to pick out things in because of no Internet at the time. So it was away from home a lot, and I didn't want that.
I wanted to be home. And so this. The combination of these things really helped me quite a bit. And so over many years, that many, many years, I did a lot of kitchen work and learned it, specialized in it. It really suited me and won some awards, which gave me national attention. Lots of stuff was put in magazines. So it really launched me. And it was all just by observation.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Honestly, I'm curious to hear. Okay, so I appreciate you saying that it was years and years and years, because I feel like in today's Internet world, it feels like some designers just explode overnight. And I think it's such a helpful. A helpful reminder from you in particular that. No, no, no, no. There was decade in between where we started and where we are now. Back in. Back at that time when you really started to get your name on the map, particularly in the kitchen design world, and you were winning awards and it was going into magazines. Did you have, like, a traditional PR firm at that time? Were you submitting work or was someone else seeing it?
[00:08:19] Speaker B: I did not have. I was the only person in my company. So anything that, if you could even call it a company.
So anything that happened was either something that I didn't orchestrate, but that came to me. Like an example is I did submit, you know, things. My son John photographed my work for me. I submitted things for this, like, a sub zero design contest, which is a pretty substantial, like, important contest, and it.
It won an award. And at that point, then people take notice, and, like, a photographer reached out to me and said, I can, because John didn't have any equipment. You know, he was in high school at the time. I can take these photographs of some completed kitchens you've done, and I've got connections at magazines. And so I was like, okay, let's give this a try. And it worked.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: How do you feel like your design philosophy has evolved over the years? Particularly, you were coming from that business background, that business mindset. There's a right and a wrong. It's black and white. And now you're definitely what feels like from the outside, creating things that are aesthetically led but functionally foundational. Do you feel like there's been a philosophy change over the years, as you've learned and watched?
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Probably. I. Maybe it's happened so slowly that I haven't noticed it. But, you know, a lot of. I think the baseline for what drives my design is that when I was, you know, just a younger person and with younger kids, I. We could not afford to buy the newest this or the newest that or. And so a lot of even. Even furnishing my own home, let alone switching anything out that was just had to be done, like at estate sales and garage sales and sometimes picking stuff on the side, up on the side of the curb and putting together a mix of things that was. Ended up being very unique because of the way it was, you know, acquired, acquired. And I just think it gave me a real appreciation for classic furniture, classic designs. I.
Most of my life I've spent in a community with older homes, beautiful architecture, small homes, large homes, all different sizes, but beautifully appointed and detailed. And that's. Those are the homes I got to work in first, you know, and that means a lot. You learn a lot about proportions, and if you study the house, you're working on it, help it. It's like actually kind of an education.
And so I feel like my. It's very function driven. Just being a mom with kids. It has to be, you know, like, that fabric. No, I'm sorry, that's not going to work for my family. And I. So I really think about that when we're designing for other families, we want to make it really, really functional for them where they enjoy their homes.
And they are.
They enjoy having people in their homes. Their first. Their first reaction is that they, they want to invite people and they're not afraid of people come in and, And.
And just also being just really thoughtful about people's budgets because I. I lived there a long time.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Absolutely. I know all of us designers listening, feel that we're like, we can put anything we want in client projects, but, you know, the cobblers kids wear no shoes for. For many, many, many years. You mentioned something earlier when you had gone to the community colle on that hand drafting program, that you dropped the class as soon as you felt like you got everything you could out of it. I feel that so deep, Gene. Like, I absolutely. That is me to my core. And I was wondering if you have any advice for designers who have an entrepreneurial itch that want to dabble in different facets of design and business and are always ready to try the next thing and push their own boundaries. Just in that one particular example, I'm like, oh, she's my girl. She understands exactly how I feel all the time.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I think if we're all interested in having a business that has at least the opportunity to last for years, managing the business financially is a really important piece. So that might mean that you don't have a beautiful office. It might mean that you don't get to, you know, go on all the trips to see all the things.
You might have to be really frugal for a lot of years to be able to build a sound foundation financially for your company that will last.
And I think growing is a really important way to think about that too. So. Too. So if you have this entrepreneurial. Oh, I want to get into this. I want to. Okay, what is that going to mean to you? Are you. Is that going to be. Have you done your numbers?
Is that going to be financially viable? Or are you going to sacrifice the business that you are working on that might be approaching financially successful or maybe is. Might you be jeopardizing it if you start into something new that could end up bringing the whole thing down?
So I think retail is a really big thing to think about, and we might get to that later.
But that's an itch that I am very aware that a lot of designers have.
And there's a lot of pitfalls to that.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: I appreciate that transparency so much. Anytime I have someone on the show and we're talking about retail because we build websites for people and we're building E Com and custom Shopify sites. I know the logistics that go into the back end. It sounds super glamorous. It sounds super romantic. And when you have to figure out how to actually get that couch to middle of nowhere, Alaska or wherever it is that that order came in from, I mean, there's just so many places that dollars get hidden and there's just so much that goes into it, Especially when we're talking about E Com. Not even just the expenses of retail before we move on to really getting into the family side of things. I wanted to expand on that a little bit more because I feel like Covid was a unique situation where people were at home, designers started their businesses or were really ramping up their businesses and there was an immense investment into homes at that time. And even for our own business, we had already been in business for five or six years before COVID had hit. We got really busy because these designers had loan money that was coming in from the government that they had to invest in their business. Incredible growth was seen in a two and three year period. And now that loan money's dried up and people's businesses are maybe still getting inquiries, but it's not necessarily for that entire custom new build project or the full home remodel things that the market and industry just feels different now. So kind of the same question to designers who maybe launched in the last, let's say five or six years and experienced real growth and now are maybe experiencing a different trajectory. What is you mentioned, maybe you don't have that office or maybe you're not going on those trips, those sourcing trips or you know, to market twice a year. What are some other things from someone who's been in the industry for a longer time frame that you think we can prepare or kind of keep gut checking on so that our businesses are financially viable as we weather changes in the economy, in the market, etc.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Why? It's really, really an important question, Anastasia and I, I think, you know, probably a lot of people hired people during this period of time and because the workload was so immense, they needed help. And it's very hard to let people go, especially if you've developed a personal relationship with them and you know, this is the source of their livelihood.
But I think that's probably a very important thing to review is can I afford to pay this person?
Is the business going to be solvent if these, this particular revenue continues?
And my expenses are this and these are hard choices but necessary. And I think employees are a big thing.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I feel that so deeply letting someone go is the absolute worst part of having a business period. It keeps you up at night and it's awful. So thank you for that insight. With your business background, do you have a magic number of like, okay, how many months of we are using savings in order to pay people, whether that's one person or three people, how long you wait that out to see if the new projects come in before making a drastic decision of we have to let people go. Are you more on the side of when it's not working, you need to do it then or are you like I encourage you to have six months of savings so that you can float them for this long?
[00:18:47] Speaker B: Well, I, my personal tolerance for that kind of thing is extremely low of using personal savings or God forbid going into debt. I mean honestly I am so allergic to that that I can't handle it. So I don't. And I, we've always run our business, we've cash flowed our business the whole way and honestly that is the only way I'm comfortable. So I would say if you see that you can't afford your employees and it could go on longer than this month, I think it needs to have serious things need to be managed immediately. Decisions need to be made. That's my, that is, that's my comfort zone.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: And it's so hard to hear but we need someone to tell us. So thank you Jean for being the one to give us permission that you know, if it's floating around in your gut and you know that it's going to have to happen, it probably needed to happen yesterday.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: You know Anastasia, I really, it's so interesting because I think I notice it in myself and now my daughter in law is getting her doctorate in the connection of the mind to physical, either illness or pain.
And it's so real.
And even though we can act, we can look and act like everything's fine, if we're experiencing stress on a level, on some levels it finds a place to work itself out and oftentimes it's our body.
And so I think that's another thing is that the stress of maybe having a debt load or dipping into personal savings, it sometimes is too much. I mean and that's only one of the stresses of business. Like there's clients and there's deadlines and there's all kinds of things but I think we need to be so attentive and not be running so fast that we can't say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know what's going on here. I have got to take enough time to tease through what's happening. Why am I constantly getting a sinus infection?
Why am I, you know, migraine, whatever.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: You name it, that is a needed reminder as well. I'm just going to have to listen to this episode as therapy over and over again.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: I just feel too like you said it earlier, Anastasia, and I just so agree with it that in this, with social media, in such the quick turnaround of digital photography and then throwing it up digitally like we're talking hours sometimes. Whereas it used to be like film photography, then you would go to the magazines. It's probably two years later. You know, the turnaround time is so fast and that people think they should be building their businesses and staying up with this and managing that and pushing forward on this and it's it is honestly something that doesn't have staying power. Our, our bodies are not built for this. Our minds, our spirits are not built for this. I really think we need to more applaud than race and it's a it if it has the potential then of creating a foundation that then you build on and financially you're sound. Education like learning things, learning how to deal with people, learning how to deal with vendors, clients. It takes time to learn these things and it takes thoughtfulness. And if you're always running and pushing forward, there's not time to think through things, to strategize, to learn.
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You mentioned it takes time to build that foundation, to build something that has legs that can carry you through into the future. And I think it's perfect time to really get into how you went from that one woman show with three little kids into really discovering or looking into family involvement. I know that family is central to your business.
Can you share how you started working with your daughter Grace? And I believe that was 2016, you brought her on and what it was like to welcome her into the firm. And she was not the first family member you were working with, correct?
[00:25:49] Speaker B: That's correct. My son John had independently been doing photography for me for a few years, several years by this time and kind of informally coaching me marketing, especially when it got to social media. He's. He is the one that really made it possible for me to understand how to operate in that realm. But that was all, you know, kind of independently, not as an employee, more I like I would pay him to do the photography just per job. When Grace joined. It's very interesting. We have two different ideas of how this happened. She says, she says she was a pity hire.
But for me it was one of the most wonderful things that I never expected. We never had worked towards this, never had talked about it. But it wasn't until she and Ted bought their first home and started working on it that she got interested in design even wasn't even a thing that she was. She was drinking and was teaching school. So she was very interested in it and asked if she could.
She. She had a baby. So that was. She was trying to figure out how to make that work with teaching school and they were young and poor and you know, and so she thought she would ask me for a job because she knew I needed help or was actually what she knew was that a lot of my kitchen and bath clients would ask me to help them with their whole home and I would just absolutely flat note it was a flat note because I did not have the resources, the skills, the time or the interest in doing it. So. But she did.
At least she had the interest back in 2016.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Was it still just you designing like that was. That was the team?
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Oh, so she was like your first hire?
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: In the first year, at least that we worked together, our office was a table in my bedroom.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: You didn't even make it to the kitchen. You were just in the bedroom?
[00:28:15] Speaker B: No, didn't even make it to the kitchen at that point.
So I, you know, I. It was really very organic. We. We built the business together.
And in these years, subsequently, she has really, really, I mean, I would say I don't want to do a thing with interior design without checking it by Grace first, because she has such a sense for it and a very overall sense, too. Now we have now a team that is extremely gifted and proficient, and they diagram everything. They, you know, they do all the communication with the contractors and the clients mostly, and they are very proficient. And so there's a business side of the design and then there's the diagramming side and the communication side, like the logistics and project management side that we have a ton of help with. Tons of help.
But her gut, she's just really good at it. So that was a very organic thing.
And then John, when we got to this place of, like, should we be. I handle my own Instagram. And that was our marketing.
And he would start having these ideas about what we should do, but we had no one to implement them. So in the meantime, we hired a CEO, which is like my good friend for many years who got her law degree and became a college president at the age of 50.
She came on as our CEO, and she has been methodically working with the kids to, if they have any interest in the business, finding the best way forward for them.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: That's driven by your CEO, that's not even necessarily driven by you, as to where they fit into the. To the brand.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: I would say, yeah, I mean, John was a pretty. It was pretty natural that. That was pretty obvious for everyone to see that. And it was natural for Grace.
Our. The. The other son, Dan, who has joined the firm is. Has a lot of qualities that have helped us a lot.
And what, What Laurie, our CEO, is doing with him is putting him through the paces of working in every department at every job level and giving him specific responsibilities that are his own and. But more in the operations side and the hospitality side.
And so. But she has been really key, really important in finding a way forward for each of the kids. And she's their boss.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: How did you get to the point in your business that you felt ready to take on a CEO how do you get to the point of like, yes, I don't want, want to be the one who's handling these things. Yes, we can financially make this work. What was the turning point of being like, this is the next step for us?
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Well, for us it got to be at the place where I was doing. I spent many, many hours a day doing payroll, meeting with the accountants, meeting with lawyers, meeting with insurance people, meeting, negotiating deals with vendors.
And it was very heavy on running and managing a growing business and I felt like it was going to implode.
Honestly, I felt like I had reached my absolute point of like, I don't know how to go any further than this. I don't have the chops to go further than this.
And if I don't do something pretty quickly, I'm afraid for it. What, like, things out of just like how we deal with inventory and how, how do you mean? How do you count? Oh my gosh, so many things. So Lori had been informally, she and her husband, who was the CFO of a substantial firm, had been informally acting as our consultants for a couple of years. We would meet with them, you know, periodically, just like, what should we do about this? And, and she offered, she offered to come on board. And we worked out something financially that I felt, we all felt would be okay for the firm and okay for her. That was for the, like the first year. I can do it for this.
And then knowing that after a year, if this is good, we'll think about it, we'll go on from there. And if in a year, this isn't good, all good. It's all good. And so she's been with us two and a half years now and I cannot imagine, I mean there had at this point we have to have someone that does what she does because it's, it's out of my realm.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And her role and her day to day tasks are not something that your, any of your children were equipped, experienced or wanting to do. So it was, it was time for that to be out of the family.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Very much so. But she's, she's key in, you know, the future and preparing for what might be next and making sure people are prepared for what might be next.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: So working with family members and also in this case, good personal friends can be tricky. I avoided bringing my husband on board for almost eight years of our business and then finally this year pulled the plug. And it's actually been a complete joy and we're closer than ever. It worked out for the best, but I know that that's not always the case.
How do you maintain strong working relationships with your children while also fostering personal relationships at home? And I know you mentioned they do not directly report to you. Obviously you work very closely with grace. But what are some other things, and even if they're subconscious boundaries that you've put into place to make sure that we can keep work and family life separate if that's the case, or as a beautiful hybrid, what. What has proven successful for you?
[00:35:00] Speaker B: Well, I think we're. We're all very aware that oftentimes family businesses blow up because it's money, it's. It's spouses, it's loyalties, it's jealousies.
There's a lot of things that we're aware of can sabotage a business and therefore relationships or all of it, you know, and one thing is, you know, we are. We are very like. Our Christian faith is very important to us. It's a. It's a bedrock of a lot of what goes on for us. And so every family meeting, every leadership meeting, we begin and we take turns.
Someone brings a word of scripture, a devotion, and then prays before we begin every meeting.
And it's. It's crucial because our natural inclination, you know, is to look out for ourselves. That's how we're made. We're just made this way.
I. It's hard to admit, but true. And so to do. To think about something different, where you're thinking about others before yourself, where you care about the others, knowing that the Lord will take care of you if you do so is hard, but is the way forward, especially in the family business. And so that's a. It's really important to us. And if we start getting away from that, I think that's when things might start not going well. I mean, there's hard enough things as it is, so to have then family, you know, we all come with stuff and having just grace for each other and patience with each other and understanding of where each other's coming from, like really trying to figure it out.
And so we spend a lot of time together, both working and not working, and family vacations, family dinners, and the cousins are friends. And I just, I feel like it's incredibly. I feel like it's a huge mercy, a grace from God, and I protect it vigilantly.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: Have there been instances, and obviously we don't need details, but have there been instances when someone is looking for more responsibility or more quote unquote, ownership in the company and it's not the right time or it's not the right place. And there's questions of is this the right trajectory for me in my own personal career to stay here, or is this, at this point now a passion project? And that might not be what's good for me long term, for sure.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: And so this is why we have very regular, proactive meetings as a family, one big one. Every year we have a family retreat that's just the people working in the business. So there's just four of us, plus Lori and my dear, dear right hand assistant, who is actually Grace's husband, Ted. It's his sister, so still in the back. So I feel like it's family. Yeah, I feel like she understands me completely. But we meet about things and Lori meets with each one of them once a year, very proactively. She's prepared a huge list of. In fact, Grace is meeting with her right now to talk about personal things, business things, goals, areas where you're concerned, areas you want to grow, areas that you want to just stop being involved in, you know, whatever it is. But open communication, very proactive communication.
And this is why. One of the reasons I'm so thankful for Lori, because this is part of, like, she schedules this. This is extremely important. It's not just, oh, let's talk about this, by the way, it's. No, here's all your questions. I need you to think through these so that we can have a meaningful conversation. And then we're going to come together at the family retreat after we've all done these questions and figure out the way forward for the next year. This is the first year ever, we're going to be like looking at five years.
We've never looked at more than one year at a time because we're all just like, holy smokes, there's so much going on.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: I think having it be Lori, having it not be you, is also a really important factor there because there is a level of just inherent respect that I'm sure your cl, your children give you. And sometimes that might include a little bit of filtration of what can really be shared with mom. And so to have that third party that is trusted like family, but is not the boss's boss and slash mom, I think is really helpful too. Outsourcing those sort of things in my own business has made a big difference because I think of all of our employees as family, but I also know deep down they're not family. And so you have to respect that. I'm curious, after Lori meets with everyone, after she's met with Grace, do You and Lori discuss before you go on this family leadership retreat, or does everything come out? Oh, that sounds dramatic. Does that. Is everything raised for the first time with you at this retreat in front of other people?
[00:40:47] Speaker B: No, I am briefed on all of it beforehand.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: One other question I have before we move on, because I really want to talk about kind of beyond just the traditional design firm and all the other facets of your business. You have. So you have family employees and then you have non family employees. Do you have, I'm curious, where those non family members fit into the company? And do you have advice on how to maintain this level of professionalism within the company and even with your family in front of the other members of the company, Even when going between those family convos and employee conversations, I can just imagine that as lovely as it is to work in a family business, you're always kind of like, but I'm not family. And so there's. There's maybe a subconscious hierarchy in someone's brain. How do you combat that?
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Well, we are always really actively trying to develop our employees and give them, as Lori says, a path.
A path in the company to achieve their, you know, what they. Their goals.
And so there are several leadership positions that are handled by non family members, and they're key roles and they're involved in our leadership meetings and they're respected and needed and people, like, a lot of times we love starting people in the warehouse because you can see a lot about a person's work ethic in a place like a warehouse. And if they have goals and they're working towards something at school or something, we always want to have a path forward. And I think as long as people feel. I'm sorry. As long as people feel like there is a way forward, like there's opportunity here and they've not hit a place, place where like, well, there's no place for me to go now because family I. And that might be true for some people because maybe the job that they want is a job that a family member has and will have, but maybe there'll be a time where that family member moves on to something else. So I, I think as long as an employee, employees feel like there's a path and Lori works with them and their bosses work with them with performance appraisals every year to find out what are your goals. Let's carve a path for you.
And in some cases, and this just happened with one of our senior designers, the path is for them to start their own business. And we want to Be the people that celebrate that, because there are some people that is the best way forward for them. And we want to make sure that we do what we can to give that opportunity to them.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think a lot of designers have a fear of their employees wanting to start their own business. I've heard from so many of our clients and listeners that, like, especially on a smaller team, you know, maybe they have two lead designers. And there's this constant fear of, oh, my gosh, what happens when they want to go off on their own? I'm going to lose my right hand. They're going to have all of this knowledge that I've given them, and then they just go and can monetize it for themselves. How do you. How do you transfer your way of thinking to be encouraging and hopeful for them and there to support them in that decision, knowing that you're going to be okay?
[00:44:30] Speaker B: That is such a good question. And it's something that I have to say I've had to work at over the years. It's not something that's come naturally to me, but the thing that I keep coming back to is one of the names of God is in the Bible. There's all God has many names, like Yahweh and Jehovah and stuff. And one of them is Jehovah Jireh, which means God is my provider. And I think that my concern is always like, oh, my gosh, am I going to be able to make it? Will she take something that has created my provision for the company or me personally? And always going back to recognizing that God has me and that humility and encouragement of others and thinking of others more importantly than yourself is a beautiful way forward.
And because jealousy and resentment eats you up from the inside out and anything that you did have is tainted because you're so hurt and upset.
And it's a good way forward is to think about others and that knowing that the Lord has you, has me, has us.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. By letting that person live to their fullest potential and by supporting them, you're leaving a door open for possibly an even better fit for you or allowing someone else in your company to step into their fullest potential. What, by taking that over?
[00:46:15] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: So I'd like to talk about expanding beyond traditional interior design. Like, someone hires you, you design, you install, you move on. So in addition to design, your business includes Stouffer Home and the Bradbury Cafe. How did the ideas for these ventures come about? And I'd love to know in that timeline from Grace 2016 joining where those other elements and arms of the business came about.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: Okay, that's a really great question. In 2018, in April, we went to market in High Point, Grace and I, and we discovered that if. Well, two things. We. In 2017, we had completed our first two whole home projects together. And I talk about this a lot in my book.
We. When it came to the decoration phase, we honestly were just like, grasping at straws. So Target home goods. Like, we didn't feel like we could go to these shishi places that were. Because our. The budgets weren't there for that.
Plants, you know, and after two of them, and we used every single item that was good in both of those places, we're like, what are we going to do for the next one? And then we went to market and started talking about, well, what's this discount schedule? What's this discount structure? And realized having a brick and mortar gives you the opportunity potentially to have a much better discount at all of these brands that we were specifying for interior design. We needed an office because now we were a team of five and we were sitting around my kitchen table in a little house.
And so we needed an office space. We thought maybe it. If we get this brick and mortar, we'll get better percentages. We'll have an opportunity to have decor at our fingertips because we'll own it as inventory. And that was really the thinking for the store. And so we decided at that time to start looking intensively for a place to lease. And we leased it in August and opened in December. And it was. Our inventory room, could fit on one Costco shelf, you know, and, and, and we had no E Commerce that came where we. It became very obvious that that would have to be a piece if there was any hope of being viable.
So by June of The next year, 2019, we opened E Commerce very minimally. We had no experience.
And that same time we. I think what happened is a lot happened to us really fast. And we got a lot of opportunities to do jobs, nice jobs all over the country, like jobs that I probably spent a lifetime hoping to have. All of a sudden we got the opportunity to do them and pretty ones and nice budgets.
And so we were kind of increasing our viewership on Instagram. And then the store opened and E Commerce seemed natural because we had a lot of followers that weren't ever going to come to Grand Rapids to purchase anything. And at the same time, we had a lot of people following us that wanted our.
Wanted kitchens designed by us.
And the way I had always done. It was very personal and very on site and I had to come up with a way or I tried to come up with a way of doing it in doing kitchen design and providing cabinetry in a way that did not require going to each project 10 times. And so Covid hit six months later or so and it gave me the time and the opportunity and also the situational opportunity with everyone went virtual to really craft a way of doing a business, a kitchen design and cabinetry business in a way that had never been done before because it's always been a showroom based business.
Always. And people are dealers for cabinetry lines or there's the small custom shop that someone comes in and they just make cabinets for them. But this way of having a very specific design aesthetic, you know, our British design and quality cabinetry and personalized service that was virtual took many months to figure out how to get it going.
But it has turned out to be the most important piece of our business.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: Yeah. As far as like revenue streams go, is that the largest percentage of your revenue at this point?
[00:51:23] Speaker B: It's actually interesting because all three branches of the business, the full custom, this very specifically kitchen and not in person. Design and retail, whether it's E commerce plus in person, they're all equal revenue but they're not equal as far as profit margin, which leads us to retail. And it's a tough business, Anastasia, and I'm so glad we do it.
I have no intention of ever, you know of, but it's tough and you need people that know what they're doing and extremely careful attention to expenses and purchasing things. Right. And inventory control and warehousing and how you package things and your return policies.
It is a bear and it's. It's not.
You have to be so careful with it. You could. Yeah.
[00:52:32] Speaker A: I also feel when, I mean your launch, you launched E Commerce, you said June of 2019, then June of 2019. I also feel like at that time there wasn't as much of a saturation in the E Commerce world of home decor brands brought to us by interior designers different than people who had collaborations or collections with large retailers, someone who's retailing their own product.
And I think that that's a huge thing that people listening need to consider too. I mean what 202019 was feels like light years ago in the, in the E Comm space. And so that's a huge portion of it. I'm wondering, Gene, if there, if you would feel as much conviction in saying you have no intention of scaling or scaling back or Rolling back your retail E commerce. Would you feel that way if you didn't have the stove for home cabinetry and kitchen side of things as well as the design firm? Or do you feel like the fact that there are these three equally successful arms of this business that give you a little bit more flexibility or just like a little extra peace? Peace of mind. Or if someone doesn't have this amazing semi bespoke kitchen cabinetry concept as well and they're really balancing just design studio and potentially E commerce, do you feel like you would maybe be a little bit more apprehensive towards it?
[00:54:03] Speaker B: I do, yeah. I think there's an incredible synergy for us with all these things and one needs the other all the way around. One needs the other. We all use each other's branch of the business. Yeah. But I think it's been crucial for us that we have all three.
[00:54:25] Speaker A: I'm curious just like foundationally and functionally, how your corporate structure set up. I know that one branch of the business helps feed and funnel business to the other. Does your team also work across branches of the business or do you have very designated separate employees for each of those?
[00:54:45] Speaker B: We have very specific employees on the retail side and in marketing, but the design side is very blurry. We have a lot of collaboration between the full custom in person team and the distance custom design that is I would say cabinetry centric.
So we do a lot of design for lots of parts of the house in that cabinetry centric division, including lighting fixtures and hardware and so forth. But we don't deal with any soft goods unless they then ask to be involved on the custom side. But there's a nice. There's a nice collaboration and we all often. We're actually building out, enlarging our office space now and one of the keys to that is putting that whole design team together so that there can be more collaboration.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: Now I know that we are running out of time and I could have 17 more episodes with you, so I'm kind of just going to scroll through my remaining questions and get the key points. You've answered so much, so generously already. I can't let us wrap up the show without talking about the established home on Magnolia Network. How has being on TV impacted your business and what was that experience like?
[00:56:06] Speaker B: It was a different. It has been a different experience that I could have imagined.
It is a job in itself and it. Because I think it's over a hundred days of filming a year. Wow.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: That. That's a lot.
[00:56:22] Speaker B: It's a whole lot.
And as a result, you know, we had to beef up our team in a lot of ways to be able to continue to do our business in areas that I was very involved in and Grace was.
But I'm very glad we did it and have done it because it gave us, you know, the kind of attention nationally that made these things possible. The people heard about us and saw stuff in real, you know, in action and could understand our design philosophy and how we. How we like to deal with people and how we consider them. And I feel like the way Magnolia has done the show, they've allowed people to get to know us.
You know, we never see any of the episodes until they air, so we have no. I mean, we can. We have an idea of like. But we never see the end cuts. We never see any cuts actually until it's aired. But I feel like they've done such a beautiful job with us, and I'm so thankful for it, and it's really made a difference for us.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: So I think a number one question people have when it comes to book deals or TV deals is, does this make money? Does this generate business? And having both an incredible book as well as a fantastic TV show on a very specific network that I do think has built something really beautifully for people listening. Can you say with confidence towards one or the other, either the book or the show, that, yes, this has propelled our business?
[00:58:00] Speaker B: I can say for me, it has.
I don't. I can't say for anyone else, but I can say for me, it has. Or us it has. The book is more. You know, it's a. It's my memoir. It's not a. It's not a design book, although there's design in there and tips and stuff, but it's not like you would imagine, filled with pictures.
And that has been one of the most wonderful things that I've been so thankful to have the opportunity to do because I feel like, you know, I'm. I'm probably old enough to be your mom, Anastasia. And so I feel like a lot of women in the. In our business are about your age.
And I am, and my age too, honestly. And I feel like it was an incredible opportunity to speak to things that are more important and encouraging voice and. And I'm still waiting for that opportunity to do the. Actually the big coffee table book with our designs. But I'm just incredibly thankful for the opportunity for. To. With the establishing home book.
[00:59:16] Speaker A: I know from being a part of the community who is someone who could be your daughter, to have the stories to look at people who have really laid the foundation for what the industry is now and what women are capable of doing in this industry. We're really grateful to you for starting with it with a memoir.
Two final questions looking forward.
Where, now that you're able to look at things more than just one year ahead. This year will be the first year you're looking at things five years ahead. Where do you see Jean Stouffer Design moving to? And what are your hopes for the future of the business and your family's involvement in it?
[00:59:57] Speaker B: Well, since we haven't had our meeting yet, I think we'll see.
We have always felt so thankful and felt led by the Lord in our next step. And as I said earlier, we've never looked further than a year ahead. So it's always like, we like to plan for the future, but you never exactly know what might happen.
And so you know the builder plans, but there's things that happen and you have to adapt. So tbd, I love.
[01:00:38] Speaker A: I love that philosophy of putting yourself in a position to receive what the universe is going to give you, but to make sure that you are open to receiving that. And so, final question. As you know, we like to end every show with some sort of secret. 2024 was the. Was a big launch for you. There was a lot of things you guys dropped this year. Are there any surprises or little teases you can share with us as we head into 2025?
[01:01:03] Speaker B: Can I share any of these?
[01:01:05] Speaker A: I know there's so much like legality to this, so I always put everybody on.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: Well, I don't know when this is airing, but we are doing something very exciting for us at High Point and October coming up, and that is that we actually are showing our vanities and a piece from our freestanding collection in a showroom with Cambria.
And it is on the ground floor of Market Square, right by the escalators, just in front of Eastern accents.
And I'm thrilled because people that learn about our vanities, designers that learn about our vanities, are so excited because they fit so many needs that they have. It's like. And honestly, the genesis of that whole line was Grace and the other girls in the office saying, I just need a good vanity. And so we're like, all right, let's design a line. And so we did, and now we're showing it at High Point, and we're pretty excited.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: That is so exciting. I know just from doing my own homes, you put all your money into the kitchen. You. You're redoing the bathroom. You don't have budget to go custom or your timeline's running out and you just gotta get something going. And even back one of our very first episodes with Julia Miller, she was talking about how we just really need great made to order semi custom vanities available to the market and nobody was able to.
[01:02:39] Speaker B: We're there for you.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: You are there. Well, Jean, thank you so, so, so much. I know I've just like soaked up all of your time. I can't wait to have you back because there's a lot we didn't get to get covered. Congratulations on the upcoming line. Have a fabulous time at your family leadership meeting where you get to dream about more than just a year from now.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Anastasia.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: This was the best day ever. So thank you so much, Jean. And I'll talk to you soon for more in depth analysis of this interview, including exclusive downloads, examples and more. Don't forget to subscribe to the Interior Collective on Patreon. We are building an amazing private community of interior designers and industry experts open to candid conversations and answering questions. Join us on Patreon in the show notes
[email protected] the Interior Collective thank you so, so much for tuning into this episode. Producing this show has truly been the honor of my career and I cannot believe I get to have these conversations. The biggest thank you to you our listeners. Your sweet notes, DMs and reviews mean so much to us as we work to keep our show free and always accessible. Until next time, I'm Anastasia Casey and this is the Interior Collection, a podcast for the business of beautiful living.
