Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: On this episode of Lady Boss, we meet Dana Rebecca Gordon, who used her savvy social media skills to sparkle and scale her family's jewelry business to new heights.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Dana, I think it's so wonderful to be sort of inspired by your dad, because I think, you know, that that was a big part of my inspiration, too. What about your dad made you want to be an entrepreneur?
[00:00:22] Speaker C: I think the way that I grew up with just the idea that you could make your dreams happen and that you could work hard, my dad is a perfect american dream.
I've learned a lot about my dad's past and where he came from, and I think it's inspired me to make sure that I always go for everything I've ever hoped for. I grew up very differently than he did. My dad was born in the mountains of Morocco, escaped anti semitism, and made his way to Israel with his family, where they rebuilt their lives. I grew up in the suburbs of know. My dad had forged his path, and so I'm very inspired to be able to keep up that momentum for my family, because I know how lucky we are that he paved the way for us 100%.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Well, gratitude is something that we can never have enough of. And I know you have a similar kind of business model to him, but, I mean, in my view, jewelry has got to be, like, the hardest business to ever pick.
So is that true, or.
It's actually easier than it looks, and it's a great way to make a living.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: So the jewelry industry, I think, has really grown, and there have been a lot more women who've joined the industry. One of the challenges that I always experienced and heard about was that it was like the person who sold you the last line of bullshit, because diamonds are some things you have to be educated on. And when you look at it and you see a certificate, it's very confusing, and it can be overwhelming. And someone can tell you another thing about the four C's of diamonds and grading, and I wanted to simplify it. I wanted people to feel like that they could sit down and trust what was coming out of our mouths. And I feel very lucky that my father had built such a great reputation in the jewelry industry. But I felt like women were missing really good, everyday jewelry that they could change the same way you maybe would change your jacket. Right, or your handbag. And so, for me, I really had a different model than my family's business because I wanted to have more everyday jewelry. I wanted you to be able to buy multiple pieces a year, whereas his business was, you bought a pair of diamond studs for your 10th anniversary and potentially didn't buy other earrings for many years. And so my mom was the perfect person because she had beautiful jewelry but didn't have a lot of different pieces to change. And so we've changed that for my mom, because now she gets to change her jewelry when she goes out to dinner, and she gets to have more fun with her jewelry at a price point that you could self purchase.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Right. So we are a huge consumer country, and I think it was only natural we started buying as many clothes as we did and shoes. That jewelry became the next fashion item, so to speak. And I know you're coming off a big wave of positive growth over Covid. So the real short version. Why do you think Covid? Nobody's dressing up. Nobody was going out to dinner. Why did they buy so much jewelry?
[00:03:39] Speaker C: Jewelry makes women feel special. And I think at the end of the day, we all needed something that made us feel good. We lived in our sweats. We were living in a robe, barely leaving the house. But to be able to look down at a beautiful ring that you bought yourself, I think, made women feel really good. And it's funny because our ring sales over the two year period, 2020, all the way through 2022, were astronomical. They were the highest we've ever seen. And it's because it was something that you could look at. Whereas earrings and necklaces as a category still were growing. But when you want to celebrate yourself or feel good, you're buying yourself a bracelet or a ring. And I was talking a lot about that because you could see it on yourself. I can't see the earrings that I'm wearing right now. I could see your earrings. I could see your necklace. But I think a lot of what people wanted was to celebrate or to be proud of themselves or a milestone in their career or whatever it was. But they felt good in Covid. And maybe we were just, like, all in our computers, typing and texting with our friends, and you could look down at your ring, but I think we all were looking for something to feel good and to like. Jewelry just makes people feel happy.
No, you're right. As a sweater, it is not.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: The other benefit you have is that you don't have sizing issues. Really?
[00:05:03] Speaker C: That can be true. I mean, sometimes your rings don't fit you. Sometimes my rings don't go on in the morning because I'm swollen.
That is true. I think people also had money to spend because they weren't taking a trip or there was a lot of canceled plans. But I also think for our business, specifically, when Covid happened and I suddenly became a full time mom without any help at home, I started sharing my life. I started sharing who I was. And I think people started to be like, we never really knew who Dana Rebecca was behind the camera. And I started sharing my life as a mom and the struggles of being a mom and being very open and vulnerable and honest. And I think it changed our business also because we realized that there was a community of other women that wanted to see that it wasn't so glamorous and glossy, and that when I had a struggle at work, I shared it, or when there were issues with my children or whatever it was. And in Covid, it was really when I turned the camera on myself to show what it was like to be in a family business, to work with your father, to share all of this.
And it really completely changed our business. So I think there's a couple things that happened in Covid, but I think specifically from a business perspective, I think me showing who I was as a person and my family and working in a factory and all of my life, it really did make an impact on the business.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Okay, so that's your marketing, your social media, maybe even your own team. You were more vulnerable. You shared the good, the bad, and the ugly, which I really appreciate about you, because I think entrepreneurship looks one way a lot of times online. People with their cars and their toys and their jewelry after they've won a big deal, but nobody, not a lot unless you're doing it, really realizes the blood, sweat, and tears to get to the cars and the jewelry and the trophy. So what kind of things do you think your team was surprised to know about you during that time? Your team, specifically, that maybe you had held the shield down.
[00:07:26] Speaker C: I am super vulnerable with my team.
I can potentially give an error that I don't care. But I think what my team has learned a lot about me is how personal everything is. I'm really good at disconnecting customer service issues. I remember at the beginning of my career, somebody being upset would eat me alive. I wouldn't sleep for days. And now I've gotten to a point where I've seen someone berating an employee of mine, and I'm like, my hands are on their shoulder. And I'm like, it's okay. We're going to be okay. Don't get upset about it. And I know that feeling from them. I think sometimes they see me being like, I don't give a shit attitude. I do give a lot of shits.
I actually really care. But the way I've learned to sort of change that care from eating me alive inside to sort of pushing me forward to say, how do we be better for that customer? Right? Of course, there's the person who you can't help them under any circumstance, but I think that they probably got to learn a little bit more about my vulnerabilities and just truly how much I do care. But the way that I've really, in my career in 16 years, changed how it makes me want to lead, also how it makes me want to grow the business.
I think they've also gotten to watch me be a mom, which pre Covid, I would say I was involved in my kids life for sure, but I got to change the way that I thought being a present mom was. Like, I would always say I might have read my kids a book and then walked out the door and been like, I have no idea what that book was about because I was so focused on what was happening, what happened in my day, right? Because I got home at six and then bedtime, and now I feel like Covid got me to slow down, it got me to be present. And when they're telling me a funny story, I'm so in the story. And so I think they've seen vulnerability from a work perspective, from a mom perspective, and they've got to see me flex who I want to be. And I think that that ability to sort of share that has probably been more interesting to them. But I'm also super snarky and self deprecating at times. And I swear a lot and genuinely, I care what people think, but I am who I am and I will never change that. It's a little bit of the moroccan in me and I'm proud of it. And so I think a lot of people want to shape themselves for what.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Someone expects, who they should be crowdsourcing their identity.
[00:10:17] Speaker C: I couldn't care less.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Cool.
So how do you measure. So is the jewelry business profitable?
[00:10:24] Speaker C: It is, yes.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: And your business specifically is profit year over years a metric that you focus on?
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: And why?
[00:10:34] Speaker C: I have a lot of people on my team. I'm 39 years old. I started my first company in collection at 16. I want to build a business that's successful, that can support a lot of families.
I guess my question is, why have a business that isn't successful?
[00:10:52] Speaker B: I define success as EBITDA, but there's lots of people I talk to. One of the successes, not only, but I think there are a lot of people, especially in today's world, where they're private equity backed, where they don't maybe have the same gun to their head and they're growing for a future return. But I am just a massive proponent of, you know, you're successful if your EBITDA year over year is increasing, period. There's no other excuses.
I don't think as the leaders, we have to take the excuses out of the game. So how do you stay accountable to yourself and to your team to make sure on years where you have jewelry that has a quality issue or customer issues or whatever happens that can eat up profitability in your world, how do you keep yourself accountable to make sure that you end up with the right results?
[00:11:40] Speaker C: Well, first of all, I surround myself with really smart people who can help me do that. I don't do that on my own. I have learned to step into what I'm best at, which is the creative side of the business. I think I differentiate myself from a lot of creatives in that I do care about the business.
I would never say, well, that piece of jewelry is so beautiful, but it hasn't sold. I'm like, if it hasn't sold, there's a reason it hasn't sold. Let's move on. Where I think some of my designer friends are like, people haven't figured it out yet. I'm like, well, I don't know if it hasn't sold the writings on the wall.
I came from a family business background that manufactured jewelry. And so I have been really smart in terms of who I've partnered with. But I've also been very conscious from a price point perspective that we've been able to sort of weather storms of different economic times because our price point is really vast.
So I think we've had some, obviously, like we talked about earlier successes in Covid years. I think it's been a more challenging year this year. But I think we've seen a lot of our return back to our bread and butter basic price point, which is what the business was known for pre Covid, too, that we're sort of stepping back into because people are spending less. But that's such an important price point for us. But I surround myself with people who make me want to be better. Right. And I have never been motivated by money, but I am motivated to grow. I'm motivated to see the business change and develop. We've had a lot of interest from investors, and at the end of the day, I like working for myself. I don't want to report to anybody.
I think the business is in a great slow and steady pace. And that's good for me. Right. I think there are a lot of businesses that they want to see year over, year x amount of growth. We are continuing to grow at a great pace, self funded. And I think for me, that slow and steady world and mindset has been just what I need. I can't imagine having investors or having a push for different.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Well, let's pick the scab a little on that could just from an outsider, don't know a thing about jewelry other than I like it. Know buy lots of little trinkets. And I don't I look like on Instagram. And I see these people, Melinda, and I can name a lot of people. I told you, I have a friend that's in the business in high school. And while everything you're saying is great, and I think that you have set yourself up for choices, have you ever really considered why you wouldn't sell this model of Dana Rebecca and start something different at 39? And here's why. Here's just like a thing to think about.
Yeah. You built this business. It's profitable year over year. Awesome. That gives you opportunity.
But the business is going to get harder. You're going to have to decide. You're going to go into a broader line or a lifestyle or put it in retail more than you have or sell globally. Because at some point it just seems as if there's so much competition. Like, how do you differentiate when a lot of times it's the 23 year old influencer on, maybe you're not old, obviously, but your market, you might be wanting to sell to younger people, and now you're getting in your 40s. So sometimes I like people to just think about, have you ever thought about taking those meetings, seeing, well, what would your company rolled into somebody else's jewelry company as a fashion brand where they can take out costs, leverage things, take out the back room and make it profitable. And you starting something else with this massive nest sig, right?
[00:15:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
I would never turn away a conversation. I think I've had a lot of really awesome conversations.
I think it depends at the time in life. But, yeah, I would never shy away from learning more about that opportunity.
I still think that there's more to do with this brand currently myself, but time will tell.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Well, let me just plant the seed. So I had a visual merchandising business in 2006 and seven, we serviced people like Victoria's Secret, Club Monaco, Ralph Lauren, top brands who were growing 20 to 50 stores a year and needed what we produced. Okay. They risers and custom tablecloths and trees. And do you remember what happened in 2008?
[00:16:28] Speaker C: Of course. I started Dana Rebecca in 2007. Okay.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: So we hit massive headwinds. And let me tell you something. Nobody was changing the tablecloth in retail. They were all trying to stay open. I've been through a lot of recessionary periods in my career, but never as an owner. And I was like, wow, nobody's going to be buying seasonal custom decor for retailers when we have a massive recession on our hands. So I pivoted, and I started leaning back on my packaging experience and got us into Amazon and some big ecommerce where we could use that business that could grow, because then ecommerce got big and stores got smaller. And then I got the knock on the door in 2011 about the company, a real serious, very vested acquirer, being interested in buying. And I had always planned to sell, but here was my logic. I could see serious headwinds in retail. I didn't know that we were all going to start shopping online. I did not know malls were going to go out of it. I didn't know anything like that. I had the feeling, and I saw my habits changing. And to be 39 or 40 something, early 40s when I was, and to have basically secured our future allowed me to go, okay, what do I really want to do now? Well, it turns out I didn't want to work for anybody. Like you were saying, I was in a public company. I was some big shot with lots of people reporting to me, not what I am into. I like building stuff. I'm like a builder. I want to start forest fires where I see opportunity and where customers have problems, fix problems, and start companies. So I went back into entrepreneurship and doing what I'm doing today. So I just think that a lot of times there's a timing to everything. And I love when people are thinking, like, ten years down the road, not knowing what you're going to be doing. But do you see yourself running? Dana Rebecca, in ten years, and what would that look like? And what other markets would you have to be on, and what other things would you have to be on? Or are you going to be on this flywheel of, I've got to continue to do a new collection and launch a new collection and get my same people to buy more?
Have you thought about any of. And that's sort of to me why I thought a really good forum for you would be like a business group.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely. I think that that's, for me something that is on my mind is really getting myself out of the business from a day to day perspective and more into a place of getting to talk more about what happens in the next five years or the next ten, because I do feel like a part of me is really stuck in the next collection, the next year, the next holiday, the next sort of, like, business yearly milestone. That it would be nice to be able to spend more time thinking about what the future looks like for me and my family. My brother and my sister are both my partners. I'm the youngest of the three of us. It is my name. They joined the business, but we have the most amazing partnership. And the one thing that I know is that wherever the next 510 years leads us, I think we've built this really awesome trio.
I think that if I were to just guess the next thing, it wouldn't have my name in it. It's been probably one of the bigger challenges is being able to separate myself from my business, which is named after me. But I love that my brother, sister, and I, who are all so unique in our own way and have had obviously raised under the same roof, but are so different. And our business sense is such a great compliment that I hope, truly, that that next thing is still us together, because it's been such a joy to work with my siblings. Coming from so many awful family business stories, I think we haven't even tapped together the cool things that we could do.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Do you have a partnership agreement?
[00:20:28] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: Oh, smart girl. Okay, now I feel better.
I have a personal experience with that, and I think it, to me, is where families go really wrong. Absolutely.
And the workers say that your brother and sister, I don't know if they're partners or whatever, but the worker not asking for that creates unclarity. So I am so happy to hear that you have an agreement, because then your family will be intact regardless of what happens with your business.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good. We all have really distinct parts of the business, too, and I think that that's also part of the success, is that we stay in our lanes because we all have such different experience or understanding of that segment of our business. And so it's really special. I think it's really interesting from people who grew up, who know us, that we have this family business and how successful it is together. Also, working with our dad, we do produce a lot of our jewelry inside of his factory, but our businesses are absolutely separated. But I just think that it's such a unique story for us that my sister and I were five years apart. I was always her little sister. We had those struggles as kids, and in our 20s, we developed this amazing relationship that I think if you knew us back then and you're like, how are they? They're so close, and they run a business together. It really is like, the happiest part of my day is getting to work with them because there's so much respect and love that it's great.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: I just think that especially because you're 39, you are going to wake up when you hit 40 and realize, holy fuck, this is like a short ride. It's just happened to me. And then it was worse at 50 and 50. And then your people start dying and you're like, oh, my God, I got to get my shit done. So this idea, like, oh, it's great, and it's okay.
We got to just pick this gap. We got to get a little fire under your ass about some of that, because I think that this business climate is not complacent. This business climate is rolling. So I'm not looking at your business or you as a business person saying, I see headwinds because I know a thing about how you run your business. I'm sure you're an awesome CEO. What I'm saying is you sound like you don't have a plan.
And I know because I was in vistage being held accountable by those people whether I wanted a plan or didn't have a plan, I was shown because I saw people without a plan and I saw what happened to their businesses. And you never think it can be you, right?
[00:23:24] Speaker C: I wouldn't say that I don't have a plan.
I'm definitely more present. And I think that maybe that could be a problem that I'm living for now. But I also think that there's been substantial changes from COVID that I'm sort of riding that roller coaster of big change. Right. Because we went through some drastic growth that we probably wouldn't have seen for many, many years to sort of seeing, like, leveling out. So remember now, our data for the last three years seems really bleak. But compared, if you take out Covid years, we're still growing, but we have to sort of recalibrate. And so it might seem like I don't have a plan, but I'm really focused on sort of turning the times around and trying to figure out where our best ways to grow our business are. We are in a lot of different segments of the jewelry industry. So we have Nordstrom, which is our largest retailer and our only department store. That we chose to be exclusive with. We're in independent jewelry stores around the country and in the UK, but we also have an extremely successful web business that, over Covid, has really grown. I've spent a lot of time working on how to build a website that makes people feel immersed in the experience because shopping online is so like we're used to Amazon, which isn't pretty and it's not. Not user friendly, but it's very simplified. Jewelry is so hard to shop for online, so we're working on more virtuals and how to sort of bring the customer into the experience. And so a lot of where I see our growth is working on our.com. And it doesn't mean that I want to be direct to consumer, but I think it's also really important to be able to have a website that can speak to all of those different segments of your business. Our biggest growth opportunity is our bridal side of our business. Engagement rings, wedding bands. We have a really large diamond inventory and we've really taken 2023 as a year to step into that, to put it online. It's always felt like something that feels a little custom because everyone thinks that I'm going to change my ring. But then when it comes down to it, so many people want solitaires with beautiful diamonds and they want to feel good about where they purchased from. So a lot of sort of what we're working on in the next couple of years is how to bridge that gap between what you can say when you sit down with a bridal associate and you sit down and talk where a lot of people don't want to talk to anybody, but they want to learn it in person and buy an engagement ring online. So how do you meet the customer in a place that they felt like I got pulled in and I feel good and I can express it. So our business is really spread out.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Across through a lot of different diverse channels.
[00:26:14] Speaker C: Diverse channels that we're learning to figure out how to rein it in and focus on the things that are really important, which our bridal business is huge and it just needs to be something that we put our feet on the ground and put a stake in the ground for.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: So something you just said, maybe. Of all the places to step into, while I understand the price point so high on engagement without retail, that sounds like the absolute hardest thing to tackle online is that not people will buy engagement rings online.
[00:26:45] Speaker C: I saw an engagement ring on Instagram. Wedding bands through direct message. Wow, you're meeting customers today where they are and everyone is in a different place. There's always going to be people who are going to need to come in. But our home base is Chicago. We have a New York showroom as well. You see clients all the time, but there are people who live in Texas who can't make the trip up. So we do a lot of virtual appointments. We are constantly talking to our clients, know, zoom, facetime, whatever, or just text message. So we do have to meet the customer where they are in a lot of different places. And to be a national brand does mean that you have to figure out what all those channels are.
But a vast majority of our engagement ring business is not people who are local.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Wow, cool. Fun fact. All right, well, if you close your eyes and look out five years, what does Dana and Rebecca look like?
[00:27:42] Speaker C: I think that there's some more collaborations that I think would be really beneficial for the business from a bridal perspective. I think that's something could be with a bigger retailer with our name on it.
I've thought about licensing. I think that there is a lot of growth for us, like I said, in the bridal segment of the business. But again, it's getting down to what do people want to know, what do people want to learn and really simplifying it, because I think this space is really noisy. We now have lab grown diamonds that have entered the space, which is complicated a lot. And so again, a lot of it is coming back to center of what is most important for our business. We have not stepped into lab grown diamonds. We will stick with natural earth mind diamonds. And I have for sure put my.
That will never change. And I think a lot of people are like, she's going to eventually do it. I am not going to do it. But I do think that there is an opportunity for me to use the name in a little bit of a different way.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: That's fun.
[00:28:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Very cool.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: Dana, this is really fascinating. I loved really, the focus on coming from a family business and creating a family business and the part about all the opportunities that you have ahead while balancing being present. I think that's something that you should be proud of. Certainly all of us, through Covid, learned a different lesson. And being a more present business person, mom, wife, is something that you will never, never regret. So I appreciate the time. I wish you all the best luck at Dana, Rebecca, and can't wait to see the big bridal next.
[00:29:26] Speaker C: Thank you.
