Woman Entrepreneur Spotlight: Janie McQueen

March is Women’s History Month, and to honor women’s contributions as entrepreneurs and business leaders, the UPrinting™ Small Business Blog is featuring bios of various women entrepreneurs throughout the month of March. The woman entrepreneur featured in this week’s article is Janie McQueen, the President of Susu & John, an American producer of baby bonnets, hats and clothing.

Susu & John is a mother-daughter family business. Mary Patrick, Janie’s mother and co-owner of Susu & John, is an expert seamstress who carefully oversee the workmanship and fabric quality of each of Susu & John’s bonnets and hats. All bonnets and hats are handmade and made in the U.S.A.–Beaufort, South Carolina to be exact. They had a good product and they’d been selling it, but the problem was getting distribution. Although Susu & John was producing quality products, retailers were not carrying their line of baby apparel in stores.

Looking to expand their business, Janie turned to the internet to boost sales. Unfortunately, they were not able to generate the buzz and brand awareness they were looking for through the internet alone. It wasn’t until Janie worked with sales representatives that got Susu & John into retail stores.

One of the firms Janie partnered with in her expansion efforts was Bridget New York. Bridget New York is the firm of fashion industry veteran Bridget Hogue, whose career has focused on product development, branding, marketing, retail and wholesale for prominent brands such as Bersey Johnson, Furla, and Prada. With Bridget New York’s help Susu & John’s products were introduced in high-end New York City boutiques. Janie McQueen credits the reps she’s worked with for bringing their unknown brand more credibility.

“Bridget has a literal lifetime of retail expertise and a really firm grasp of our brand and how to present it to the New York market,” Janie McQueen said. “Her experience speaks for itself, but her personal connection to our style and branding needs makes this a very important and exciting direction for us.”

This goes to show that though the internet is a powerful tool, there is still no substituting human connections and word of mouth. In fact, even online, Susu & John was helped by established sites with a loyal following like Stroller Traffic, a website for NYC moms with young children, to gather a following–not to mention the media attention Susu & John got after the twin daughters of Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker were photographed wearing Susu & John bonnets.

When trying to expand don’t underestimate the power of straight person-to-person interaction. Cold calling retailers can work wonders. Sometimes cold calling works better than building a strong website and spending on campaigns and SEO. Don’t get me wrong, cold calling retailers will undoubtably lead to your fair share of “we’re not interested” and hangups, but if you have a good product and good sales pitch, you will get people who like what they hear and take you up on your offer. In cases where you can’t get in touch with retailers, you should do like Janie did and turn to reps. Exhibiting your product at trade shows is another good strategy for expanding your products.

How your business should proceed depends on your company and product. Is your brand or product established? What are you selling? What are other companies selling similar products doing? Who are you selling to? Where are people most likely to purchase your product? Can you think of any other uses for your product? Are there any other people who may be interested in your product? These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself–and answering.

Sources:

• Susu & John Press
• Getting Goods on Store Shelves
• Susu & John Expands to NYC with Bridget New York

If you’re a UPrinting customer and you’d like a spotlight article written about you and/or your company, apply to become a UPrinting Featured Business.

Follow me on for up to the minute updates.