Vicki 0:05
Do you consider yourself resilient? And what does that even mean to you? In this podcast resilient entrepreneurs with Two Four One, we chat with business owners about what resilience means to them. And we go, deep.
Laura 0:19
What we've learned running our own businesses, you're never alone even when it feels like it. So tune in anytime to this podcast. We're always here for you celebrating resilient entrepreneurs just like you. We're Laura and Vicki from 241, a marketing company for early stage business owners who want to launch, grow, and be resilient.
Vicki 0:39
Rose Zuill was fired from her first job, and you'll never guess why. She later built a career in corporate HR and took the plunge of quitting her job to be full time in her own business. Now she's celebrating her 10th anniversary as a co-founder of a leading luxury jewellery studio, DavidRose, based in Bermuda and doing business internationally,
Laura 1:00
We talked to Rose about what resilience means to her as a woman of colour and get this, Rose still has a decade-old piece of paper that's so important to her business. Without it, she wouldn't be where she is today. So let's jump right in.
All right, welcome. Welcome. We are very excited today to have my dear friend Rose from DavidRose Studio in studio podcasting with us today to talk about resilience in entrepreneurship and her experience as an entrepreneur. Rose, thank you so much for joining us.
Rose 1:33
You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me.
Vicki 1:35
It's wonderful to have you here Rose, and we're really excited to hear about your entrepreneurial journey. What we want to start with, if you can remember this far back, what was your first ever job and what age was it? Wow.
Rose 1:49
Okay, so I do remember because it was quite exhilarating. So I was 14 years old. I'm originally from Toronto. And so it was at our local mall. I was so excited to get this job. It was at Cinnabon. And so that was my first job.
Vicki 2:04
However, of Cinnabon, I have to confess one of my favourite fast food,
Rose 2:10
Me too, however, I got fired within the week. That's the story. Apparently you can't lick the icing, and I actually licked. My boss at the time pulled me aside and was like, so you're doing something very inappropriate. And I was like me inappropriate. You know, I've been great at the cash. And I'm just walking everything through my head wondering where I could have gone wrong. My first ever job I was on my p's and q's. He's like, Yeah, well, when you're icing the cinnamon buns, you cannot lick it. If it comes on your finger, you have to actually walk to the back, wash your hands, put new gloves on and come back. And I was like, Oh, I don't know if I could do that. That's that's a hard ask. So you know, I did get fired a few days later, because I couldn't stop licking this icing.
Laura 3:04
It's my favourite part of the cinnamon buns. Like that's the whole reason for working there.
Rose 3:08
And the bonus was amazing. You get a cinnamon bun every shift. And it was just the most amazing job and I was absolutely heartbroken to be fired. Fast forward to now I'm best friends with Cammelah Cannoneer, who owns SweetSak. So I'm like, keep them coming.
Laura 3:26
Oh my gosh, I love it. I love it. I love it.
Rose 3:29
That was my first story of heartbreak and getting fired?
Laura 3:34
Well, it's good because you know, as an entrepreneur, like failures, part of the experience. So you kind of got that first one out of the way, like nice and early.
Rose 3:42
Absolutely I realised the heartbreak of getting fired, and then also realised that the food industry is not for me
Laura 3:49
Good lessons early. Yes. I love that. So most of our members and clients that we work with, and people probably listening to this podcast are in the early stages of their business, right? Because we're inspiring those sorts of early entrepreneurs. So take us back to like the beginning of your entrepreneurship journey. Can you tell us like about those early days, those first few months in business? What were all the feelings? What happened? Maybe you can give us a little bit like how you became an entrepreneur, because everybody's story of becoming an entrepreneur is generally pretty unique to them. Yeah, absolutely.
Rose 4:20
So the first six months of being an entrepreneur was actually crazy because I was working a full time job as most entrepreneurs do. So I actually have a whole life prior to being a jeweller in HR and in the corporate world. So I used to work for Fidelity prior to becoming full time DavidRose, I was in their HR department and the first biggest hurdle was, when do you quit your job? When you quit your full time job? I feel like a lot of people do it prematurely. There's two different spectrums. You do it either too prematurely, or you're too scared to do it at all. And they're both such big decisions. If you do it prematurely you don't have the funding, and you don't have that support that you think that Okay, I'm ready to go and you could potentially fail. And then, you know, it would be harder that way. And then on the other side of it, do you believe in your dream big enough to actually take that plunge? So it's all scary things. Both ends are very scary. But for me, personally, I have a partner who I'm married to luckily. So David was doing it full time while I was kind of doing the 'Okay, are we ready' dance. So for the first six months, one of the biggest hurdles for us was coming up with our name, a name that embodies our brand embodies who we are as people, and something very memorable day we came up with the name, it seems so simple at this point, because it's our names put together. But at that time, that was one of our biggest like, oh, I don't know about that. What about this, and you want to make sure that it's short and sweet, you could have a nice.com to it. And it's internationally brandable. That was one of those two pieces, one of the biggest parts of our first six months, and then trying to figure out location and all that other stuff kind of comes together later. But those to me, memories are the biggest, heaviest memories I have of my right to quit my job that pays me quite well. And has health insurance? And is this the plunge you were willing to take? And it's a lot of stuff that you have to actually sit down and be honest with yourself? Is your business viable? Are you making money? Are you able to cover your overhead all your living expenses, as well as kind of pay yourself a little bit and I know, the first five years, everyone always says the first five years, just give yourself some grace period, you're not going to see green until you hit that five year mark. Sometimes it's earlier, which is great. And you know, that's a successful business those first six months.
Vicki 6:51
And I didn't know can we ask you? Did you have an investor? Or was it all bootstrapped on your own funding
Rose 6:58
Our investors were family, a lot of people who initially invested in our dream were people that believed in us. And to be honest, I actually have in my office now a list of people with the money that they've given us handwritten from that day. So it's like a 13 year old piece of scrunched up paper that's framed because I always would like to remember the people who initially believed our dream. So it was family who was like, let me give you a couple 1000 here a couple 100 here, like what can we do to help. I also had two amazing friends who were entrepreneurs themselves and came from families of entrepreneurs that saw what we were doing and was like, Hey, I know it's hard. Here's some money to get you initially started. Those are the people that are my people, you'll always, always, always remember the people that initially supported you being it financially, mentally, just that extra chair, when the whole world's like, Oh, DavidRose, I've never heard of you. And you were like, No, you wouldn't just believe in you. I even have a list of customers that are our first customers international as well as in Bermuda, but take a chance on us. We're not perfect. We were learning the ropes, we're trying to figure it all out, we did make mistakes that people gave us the opportunity to make those mistakes and fix them.
Vicki 8:14
And do you think there was ever a case where people were believing in you more than you believed in yourself when you were at that point of deciding whether to go full time or not? Is that something that you think entrepreneurs face when they're at that point?
Rose 8:27
That's always yes, when you have a tangible product, as well as a service, and people actually see that you're amazing at it. People that you know, personally, people who've raised you, for example, my uncle and my family, they were very supportive with this journey. Because I've always been very interested in jewellery, and in design. And from a young age, I would be sketching and not consciously knowing that I'm practicing for a bigger picture. But from a children of immigrants, because my parents immigrated to Canada, it was very much so get that full time job, get something stable, get something that will have RRSPs and you'll have a retirement fund and all of that. So in the back of my brain, I was like, nope, gotta be corporate got a cut out the creative side, because that can be a great hobby, but not realising that that kept calling me.
Vicki 9:17
How did you get past that Rose? Took the plunge?
Rose 9:18
It was very scary. So in 2008, when we had that huge recession, I was in HR, then that day, my job was to fire. I want to say 10 to 15 people and then I was the last one to get fired that day. Definitely kick me in my boots and I was like, okay, it doesn't make me feel happy anymore. I don't like this feeling of have to terminate so many people. I don't like it. And that was part and parcel of my beginning of my story into entrepreneurship. I wanted to do what I love. I want to wake up every morning and be excited about going to work being excited about doing what I do. And at a certain point HR, wasn't it.
Laura 10:01
I think that's like the ultimate irony too, is that people think that having that job brings you the security and stability in your life, when the reality is you're completely dependent on somebody else for your stability. When you think about it, and you change your mindset to as an entrepreneur, I'm responsible for my, you are so much more driven for success when it's all on you. It's my favourite thing to tell people is like, that's the thing about entrepreneurship. It's all on you. And it's all on you. So it's about how you take it right. But for me, that was a driving force. And I too, have just been celebrating my 10 year anniversary as an entrepreneur getting to 10 years as an entrepreneur, only 30% of businesses survive to the 10 year mark. So yeah, a lot to be celebrated. When you get eight, I didn't realise that it's hard. It's not an easy thing to be an entrepreneur. But you know, there are so many rewards. So for you what has been like the best part about being an entrepreneur,
Rose 10:57
There's so much amazing things about being entrepreneur. So I'm a young mom to get to spend time with my family is the most precious thing. So most people have a maternity leave. I didn't really have one, but it's an extended maternity leave. So as soon as I had my first kid, I was like, Okay, great. You know, at the hospital, David even has a picture of me on my computer, literally, hours giving birth, like I'm like, oh, okay, Whose wedding is it? What engagement, you know, all of that trying to make sure that all our customers are dealt with the stores. Okay? Luckily, we have an amazing staff. But it's still DavidRose. So my name is always in the business. So I want to make sure that every single customer has that excellent level of service. However, coming back to what I love about being an entrepreneur, the flexibility of it all, I was able to take my kids to Kaleidoscope for our class during the day, spend key moments with them constantly travel, when my oldest was young, we traveled a lot, forget all the money in the world. And I know that sounds absolutely crazy on an entrepreneurship podcast. But time you can make money again, you can lose money, but you can never get time back. And for me being able to spend key moments with my children. Arya and Alia has been the most precious thing to me and my husband, we've also grown, we'll be celebrating 10 years of being married next year. So just spending time with each other, having lunch dates, just whatever we want. We're day people. So we'd like to do adventures in the day just going for walks and just having time to ourselves. That has to be one of my favourite parts about being an entrepreneur.
Vicki 12:40
Yeah, there's so many great things. And I love the feeling that I get when I hear you talk about having the time and having the flexibility to have the lifestyle with your family that you want. And that's what's important to you, Robert, it's not always the bright and shiny glamour, right? That it looks like on the outside. Has there ever been a time when you've really felt the hardship of entrepreneurship or there's been a dip that was so low that you maybe contemplated going back to full time work or quitting what you were doing? Or is there ever been that moment in your journey of 10 years?
Rose 13:16
Absolutely. So the most recent would be COVID. Every business felt the brunt of COVID but I can only tell you my personal story that having no tourists having no weddings, jewellery is a luxury purchase. While the grocery stores are making triple I would say of what they would usually make because everyone's home eating chips and watching TV and wine. We were scared. It was a scary time we had two locations that were closed. We had staff that we had to terminate, which was horrible because their family COVID was one of the hardest things I think we personally had to go through. We have some amazing clients that we're still supporting us because we do have an online presence. We do have an online store so we were still shipping items to the states to Canada in a worldwide but not at the capacity as we usually would or regular summer we would have you know cruise ships in port we would have multiple weddings, people are getting engaged. So balancing custom pieces with collection pieces keeping up with production. All of that came to a halt for two years but bills were still coming so you know rent was still having to be paid the same level of payments have to there were a lot of outgoings and not a lot of incomings. And so it was very terrifying being entrepreneurs looking every which way for support. That was hard as well because you're like, oh my god, what are our options? So that definitely was in the back of our head like oh my god, what do we do and we decided to end up closing one of our locations, which was something that was we were thinking about prior to COVID and then COVID Kind of just came in and the seal the deal on that one, which was our first one occasion.
Vicki 15:00
Oh, yeah, that's heartbreaking. And what kept you in the game? What stopped you from just winding down completely,
Rose 15:08
I had a customer, a really, really amazing customer and placed an order online. And it was a big, big piece. And the notes were just like hope you guys are doing work. And it kind of broke me, because she didn't know that we were not doing well. But her sale made me feel amazing. And actually just saw her a few weeks ago. And I told her and I said, I don't think you know, but I wanted to tell you that when you place that order, it literally made my month because it was a scary time. And she was like, I didn't realise that at all. And it gave me a big hug. But there's a lot of behind the scenes as an entrepreneur that you kind of have to keep it all in and bolted together for your children's sake for your partner's sake, you know, for everybody's sake, really. But when someone shows you that level of kindness, when you realise what you do, can't be replicated, and it's needed in the market. That's kind of the keep pushing, feeling.
Vicki 16:03
Yeah, do you start doing it for others more than yourself. And when you say keep pushing is that a level of resilience? I mean, we're called resilient entrepreneurs, for a reason. That sounds to me like a pretty serious level of resilience.
Rose 16:16
Absolutely. When you come into a market, especially what we do, everyone does joy to fill loves love jewellery, everyone works with different pieces. But jewellery in a blanket statement is jewellery, I'm in a very particular market where it's a luxury market. So it makes my client base is smaller. And then I'm in a smaller market because of who we are as a brand. So we only do conflict free pieces. So our stuff is more expensive. Right off the bat. That's who we are, we want to ensure that everyone gets paid along the way. And that's part of our branding to have an ethically created piece. So we gain customers by just saying that right off the bat, and we lose many customers. And that's okay. I think part and parcel of resilience is to also know who your customer is and who your demographic is. If some people say, Well, that's a lot of money, I can go anywhere else and get it done. And you're like, hey, that's that's okay. That is okay. I think that's a big part of being an entrepreneur to realise your worth. Because 10 years ago, if you spoke to me about that, I would have been like, oh my god, okay, let me reprice my structure, and am I competitive enough. And now fast forward 10 years now, I'm like, really amazing at what I do, and not tooting my own horn, but I've had customers say, and we have returned customers. So that's always a good thing. But you always have to step into knowing what your products and services are and knowing that you are worth what you're charging. So I think resilience that is a big part of it.
Laura 17:42
Yeah, absolutely. Knowing who you are your values, standing strong in your values makes such a big difference to and obviously make it very clear, and then you attract exactly the right target to you so easily. That takes experience, right, that comes with time and experience, like you said, 10 years ago, you probably would have been more worried and more desperate and more like, let me keep tweaking until you know, I get it right. That's very normal, I think part of entrepreneurship, you know, another thing we know is normal as failures, right? And you know, the more we fail, the more we learn and believe very strongly and failing forward and learning and growing. So like looking back, maybe before COVID, were there any failures that you experience that really learned from grew from sort of how did they affect you and your business?
Rose 18:24
Yeah, so when we initially launched David Rose, we put a lot of time, effort and money, a lot of money into websites 10 years ago, again, online shopping is not what it is now. So we were I don't want to say the word progressive in the way of let's put all this money into an online shop and not have a physical location. That was definitely I would say a learning curve because I don't like saying failures. I think everything is you learned from us little hiccups in your story, little speed bumps in your story. So we spent all this money we had the best website thanks to the IT people and it looked amazing, but it was people want to feel and see our piece, especially as a new brand. No one is spending a couple $1,000 on a website without knowing where their money is going and seeing the person and tangible products. So that was definitely a big learning curve for us. However, I mean, a website's a website. So we still had the website, we still have a web presence and also just all the hiccups with launching a web product. Oh my god just that I'm so glad I don't have to do that again.
Vicki 19:33
That's another conversation for a whole other episode. I think isn't it launching
Rose 19:38
Oh my God launching a website making sure the you know the articles are all correct spellings are all correct. Everything directs them to the website, the correct web link, and then the website actually launching on time which did not happen. So that was a learning curve. That was definitely a learning.
Vicki 19:58
I like that you see a failure as a learning curve, we obviously follow a lot of business people. And there's someone who we follow that they used to sit around the breakfast table, or the dinner table, Laura tells the story better than I and, you know, they ask each other, what did you fail at today, and I just I love that, you know, it's, let's embrace it, let's see what we could have done better. And it sounds like there were a few things in the early days. And it's those early days when we can be most discouraged by those hiccups or road bumps. So hopefully hearing this from you will help some of our listeners or viewers feel like they're not alone in that and just keep being resilient and pressing on with it.
laura 20:39
Exactly. And that's the thing about speed bumps, right? You just got to keep going over and like you said, it's just speed bumps, you got to keep going over him, right? You can't slow down over him, you got to kind of push faster over them to get over them quicker. It's kind of important to keep that going. Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. And yeah, this story around the dinner table, it's about like taking risks. That's the thing about entrepreneurship, you have to be able to take risks. And that's the scariest part, you know. But as you get more mature as an entrepreneur, I think you've take bigger and bigger risks, and you reinvest into yourself and your business investing in a website I can imagine 10 years ago was in a beast of a project compared to today where you can hop on Wix and create yourself a website in a couple of hours, right? It's a whole different game. But I'll tell you, we knew a lot of people two years ago, when the whole country shut down for COVID. And all the retail stores were shut had no online presidents had no store to sell their retail items. And they struggled. So you had even though you went through that so much further ahead, and the others who were struggling to get online at that time, and they were racing to catch up, you know, and losing probably months of time and sales. So that was a good thing to go through. Have you redesigned your website much since? Or is it still the same?
Rose 21:52
No, no, we have redesigned I think keeping an online fresh presence is very, very key. Even with social media, I think it's almost like we have three different stores, you know, your online store will be open 24 hours, it has to always be starred, I always think that it has to be a reflection of your brand. If there's incorrect prices or anything like that, you kind of like, gotta fix that. But having an online presence is so key because you can make money when you're sleeping. Yes. And social media, I think social media is so important. So we started our Instagram 2012. So we were one of the first businesses locally to be on social media, and we were all freaking it out, we didn't know what we were doing with it. However, now our social media has grown exponentially. And a lot of our younger demographic it was on our social media gets inspiration. And that's how we create pieces for them.
Vicki 22:46
And viewers how they can find you on social media,
Rose 22:49
So on Instagram, we're DavidRoseStudio, as well as Facebook, but yeah, putting effort into social media is very important. Very, very, very important. And also a properly branded social media, I find that is the best dress reflection, and people can hop on, take a look at what you're about what you're doing currently, what you're designing what's available, and how to find you oh like that,
Laura 23:13
Yeah, because people try to find you first on social media, you know, if they hear of you, that's probably the first place they're gonna go to find you. That's the first touch point with your brand. So it is really key to have that right. And then maybe they'll hop to your website, and then maybe into the store. So a lot of times, especially younger, millennials and younger people like that sort of how they interact with the world. Now they're so used to researching a business before making a purchase. That's just sort of generally how they do it. And their first stop is always going to be social media. So it's yeah, it's really key and a good thing to share with others, we're
Rose 23:41
Dealing with a whole different level of consumers. Now they're very informed consumers again, 10 years ago for engagement rings, we'd have to sit down with the groom to be explained to them about all about a diamond and it was more of an education point first and then we'll get into actually creating a ring. Most of my clients now have spent hours online, they know what they're talking about. So which is amazing. So they've already done their homework and they come to me and which is great. So we're all on the same page when it comes to knowledge and they understand prices because they've already figured out what a one carat diamond costs. So they're not, their jaws aren't dropping, telling them prices.
Laura 24:22
Well, that's good, actually probably doing business a little bit easier for you. That's cool. I love that. So the time you would have spent with them in a chair and a conversation like an hour long conversation in the store now is just happened on social media, like you just share that knowledge, share that information online. That's fine.
Vicki 24:37
I think you raised a good point, not to belabour it on the social media piece. But what you've just said Laura, about the time you used to spend with them sitting in a chair, you're now spending the same time maybe not you know, the same number of hours but you the same exchange of energy through your social media, which speaks to the importance of having a relationship and building relationships through that platform, which is something that we, you know, often yarn on about with our clients and members. But I just wanted to highlight that point because obviously it is about relationships and time is ticking on this podcast. We could sit and chat with you all day. It's fascinating digging into your business and your entrepreneurial journey rose talking about time, I'd love for you to jump in a time capsule with us, take us back 20 years and tell us knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Rose 25:31
Wow, keep at it. I think it's funny, you asked me that question. Because David and I, we talk about that a lot. When you're in the thick of it, you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a lot mentally or a younger person to be an entrepreneur. It takes guts to do something like that. It's scary. But I would love to tell my younger self that you're successful. And keep at it, whatever you're doing, follow the right path. And I always think for me personally, as well as David, we truly, truly believe in energy. And what is for you will always be for you. Anything that comes easy, also is a good thing. Entrepreneurship, you'll find a few speed bumps, but the end goal is always a beautiful thing. And the end goal was no time and flexibility and happiness. If you're happy with what you do truly wake up and say amazing. I love what I do. I'm so excited to go to work and make sense of sponsors ring or create a piece that people will visiting our island take and it's a special piece because they will always remember or bring back memories for their time that they were in Bermuda. It's amazing. The 360 of it all.
Laura 26:38
Oh my gosh, yes. I love that. And that's so inspirational. If I was flashback me 15 years and hearing you say that I be like, Okay, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna jump, I'm just gonna take the risks and go for it. Because it is amazing. On the other side, it's very true. And it is what you make it and wealth is whatever is important to you. If it's enough time to travel or time with your family that is well, right. And that's what you get to build for yourself. Whatever success looks like to you as an entrepreneur is my favourite thing about it, too. So one final question. Before we wrap up today, what does resilience mean to you?
Rose 27:14
So resilience I find is a very heavy word especially being a woman of colour. Being a woman from immigrant parents, resilience was part and parcel of who I am, like Rose Resilient Zuill, that would be me. Mental resilience to me is coming from a different country in France, understanding a whole different culture resilience would be to keep at it to keep being true to yourself and still understanding that it's okay. Resilience is such a heavy word I find because it almost means that failure is not an option in my brain. And so resilience, that's what it would be because failure is not an option.
Vicki 27:53
Thanks, Rose. That's deep. We appreciate the candour too. And resilience is a word that does mean different things to different people, which is why we like to explore it and, you know, show the different shapes and definitions of it from different people's perspectives. And I think from the sound of it, that's something that has carried with you for a lot of your life, to me a person of colour being an immigrant. So as you mentioned, these things can weigh on us. So thank you for sharing that with us.
Rose 28:24
You're welcome. Thank you for allowing me to share my story.
Vicki 28:27
It's a beautiful story, and it's great to have you with us on resilient entrepreneurs podcast. We look forward to our listeners tuning in for the next week for yet another resilient entrepreneur.
laura 28:40
Thanks for joining us on resilient entrepreneurs. We're Laura and Vicki from Two Four One. We love supporting entrepreneurs, especially with mindset marketing and motivation, which is why we built an incredible community of business founders who meet weekly in The Level-Up League. If you'd like to know more about it, look us up at www.twofouronebranding.com
