Build-A-Bear CEO, Sharon Price John: The Mindset Behind a Billion-Dollar Comeback | E134

Wow, this show is going to be incredible. So buckle up, and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. But before we get started, I want to ask you for a favor. See, it's really, really important for me to help millions of people elevate their career. fast track to leadership, land dream rules, jump to entrepreneurship, or create portfolio careers. And this podcast is all about enabling this for millions of people.

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Sharon Price-John is the president and CEO of Build a Bear Workshop, where she led one of the most remarkable transformations in retail and beyond, honestly. I was handed a billion dollar brand that didn't know how to get to a billion dollars. How do you even start turning something like this around? You've got to get the organization to stop doing stupid stuff.

before you start doing smart stuff. How do you see storytelling? Storytelling is just a big part of my upbringing. Much of the stuff that we do comes down to the stories we tell ourselves, if those stories are empowering or disempowering. And I encourage you. to find empowering stories. 2019, COVID, I mean, these were hard moments for the company as well. Do you ever, you know, sit and wonder, like, can I do this? Crisis creates clarity or not. than not.

Hey everybody, I am so excited about the interview today. My daughter will be excited as well because this is absolutely one of her favorite brands. And as a mom, I adore this brand as well. Sharon Price-John here is the president and CEO of Build a Bear Workshop, where she led one of the most remarkable transformations in retail and beyond, honestly. taking the company from a loss of $49 million to a record profitability.

In fact, their stock is up roughly like 60% year to date and is fast approaching $1 billion market cap. And all of this while keeping the magic of the brand and expanding its impact. She's also the author of Stories at Heart. an artist, a film producer, a first chairwoman of Toy Association. She's joined the board of FIRST Book. We'll talk more about it. But Sharon, first of all, it's so great to have you here. Thank you. I'm excited. It's going to be fun.

It's going to be so fun. So tell me, look, when somebody hears this kind of an introduction, it feels like it's so easy for her. why is it so hard for us, right? Like it just feels like, so can you tell me? Is it really that easy for you? Or have you had moments where you said, oh, my God? I think every introduction makes everything sound easy. That's the point of an introduction. I think that we all can rest assured that hardly.

any introduction captures the real journey. In fact, one of the things that I tell people who have continued to persevere and find a path and maybe do something worth being introduced in their life is to share the ups and downs. I think that people are confused and disoriented because we speak about our past as sort of the way you'd write a CV or a resume.

That's just not the truth. And that's not helpful to young people. Young people need to know that it was tough and you fought through it. Just because we highlight, you know, just the good spots because...

That's just the way you do a job interview. That doesn't mean there weren't downs. I think sometimes we compare ourselves to somebody else and that comparison can actually drag us down. inspire us, but it can also hold us back from trying anything. 100%. And I think that's happened in my career. I'm sure it's happened in yours. Oh, yeah. More than I'm on account. So let's take you back in time. You are a kid.

Yeah, I grew up in Tennessee, right? And I think in your book, Stories in Heart, you actually share a lot of these stories and you actually start the book by a story, which is very naive, basically about climbing a tree and what that taught you. Can you share a little bit about that? It's a fun story. And I speak about how it haunted me. The whole story, I would relive it until I figured out what its meaning was very, very late in life.

in that it was a tree that was too big for me to climb. And I fought it, fought through it. I became very tenacious. I was going to get to this big limb and climb this tree. It was something I wanted to. conquer. It was an important summer in my life. My grandmother died, a lot of changes in my family and my family life. And I finally, you know, after a lot of...

planning and a few falls, got to this big limb, and I recognized that I could not get down. I didn't have a plan past that. Like, now what? And I ended up... finding a really fun way to get down but it was really scary it was getting dark i'm in the middle of the woods i don't know what to do and i shimmied out to the end of the limb and swung down and bounced until i got low enough to like fall into some pine needles and ran home

But here's the thing. There's a bunch of stuff in there that's all about having perseverance and being tough minded. But there's also the part about. If it doesn't work or even if part of it doesn't work, you know, can you believe in yourself enough? And I was in a position where I had no choice to find a solution. And for me, I found a solution that ended up being more fun than the pursuit of the goal. So I would continue to climb the tree because I liked to.

streaming to the end and swing down and bounce out of the tree so in some weird way that odd experience taught me not to be afraid of challenges because I might get stuck and get in trouble and never be able to figure it out. I found out that even the toughest challenges, even if it didn't work out like you thought, you can find a way to get out where it.

might be more fun than the journey itself. And so it changed my whole mindset, I guess, or I never even have a mindset. It created a mindset on tough goals are fun, even if it's... bumpy, even if you're stuck, even if it's getting dark outside and nobody's there to yell to help you, there's an answer if you believe. And sometimes that answer is the fun part.

of the journey, not getting to the top. When I heard this story for the first time, I absolutely love it because the challenges are inevitable.

Our suffering is a choice, right? What we do with these challenges is our choice, like how we decide to take it. And you decided to take it as fun. And I guess maybe also as a gymnast, as a cheerleader, you're used to, I don't know, falling and getting back up. Is that part of it? With injury.

So tell me, because I mean, that pattern keeps on going in your life of keep getting back up, even if it's really hard. And I think you have an incredible story about moving to New York was a very lofty goal. Can you share a little bit? Because I think it shows who is Sharon. Yeah, so that is a funny story. And I didn't even realize how funny it was until I got old enough and wise enough to go, what was I thinking?

Completely. But, you know, clearly at this point, I had a pattern of picking ridiculous objectives. But it was all kind of based in this idea, though, of... Sometimes we talk ourselves out of stuff because it's a human tendency to consider outcomes that are often much more negative than the reality of it. Like sometimes we jump to the worst possible outcome and we anchor on that outcome. When the odds are completely ridiculous, that outcome is going to happen.

It's the same as it being like miraculously wonderful. You know, it's a bell curve. Like any other thing that you do, the truth is it's probably going to land somewhere in the middle. And the somewhere in the middle is usually not that bad. So I wanted to work in the average. industry. And for me, I'd already set these goals early in my college career.

because I was in this marketing meeting where we were learning about price values, side story, and then this will all make sense. And price values, I got home that night and I'm like... my last name is Price. Maybe I can have some Price values, you know? So I got right. So I'm like, let me think about like, what is it that I want to become? What are my values? And I had.

core values, you know, for my parents or whatever, and some of these lessons I'd learned, but I wanted to put words on these things. I wanted to create filters that I would use to make decisions in life. How this came to mind. I don't know. But I ended up with Price being, my life's going to be about being not afraid to persevere, being respectful, intelligent. operating with creativity and having goals for excellence.

As I kind of like started living my life this way, decisions were easier, objectives were easier. And because I had this crazy one in there called excellence, I was always going to shoot high. So I'm like, all right, I've got this. I'm in advertising. I've got. this ad degree. If I really want to be excellent at advertising, I have to move to the Becca, but just not a choice. So I don't know anybody. How old are you at this point? 24, 25. I just graduated college.

So I'd been out working in an ad agency in Knoxville for a year or so, something like that. And so I thought, well, I don't know anybody, but I have to try this. And I'm like, so literally, what's the worst thing that could happen if I give this a shot? The worst thing that could happen, and this is where people get kind of off track, is I don't get the job.

Right? And I'd probably have a fun trip to New York and maybe see a friend or whatever. Is that really that bad? I mean, is it really that bad? I'm really just back where I was. And I don't have this nagging feeling anymore. So let's do that. So I work really hard and make all these crazy calls. I call people because we don't, it's not internet. I can't email anybody.

calling people early in the mornings, trying to get them to pick up the phone before their admin does, you know, like silly stuff. And I end up with 15 interviews in a single week. So three a day. I'm like, Manhattan's a small island. How hard could that be? I got this. Of course. Literally, I've got this big day timer. It's all written down. All the addresses are literally written up.

I mean, it's crazy when you think about it. And I went through this process and I had a goal. I was going to get a job in a top 10 global agency in a single week. Which is unbelievable. It is unbelievable. It's right smack in this idea of you got to do stuff like this before you know better. Like, God bless.

We should never be the old humans that say, do you know the odds of that? Just shut it. Let a young person, you know, what the odds are, it's going to be in the middle of that bell curve. They won't get the job. So what? You know, there's something to be learned from that. That's okay. But I went up there with this knot.

understanding how ridiculous that idea was. And I ended up with an 11th interview on that Friday afternoon with Dede B. Needham, which is a top 10 global ad agency still to this day. And I got... offered a job for the DDB Needham training program. And she said, you know, we're considering you for this and, you know, we'll call you back. And I'm like, oh yeah, no. Why can't you just offer me the job right now? I got a call and it's Friday. She was like, well, I guess we can. Paperwork.

I mean, it was really just that bold. But again, those are kind of things you're like, what's the worst thing that can happen? This woman really wants this job. She's, you know, she's asking respectfully. She's quit her job. Tennessee and she wants to know she's making you know choices you know it's what's the difference between for me a week or so a week versus now a week later and

And sometimes you just got to follow your gut. But that's the crazy story. And it did work out. And it was a tremendous experience. I love it still. And I know many of the people that I was in that training.

group with to this day but uh it was a fun experience and again like i think you know in my world there's a word chutzpah which i think sometimes you have to be bold like you have to do the things that are Maybe people are not, maybe it didn't, you know, tick the boxes of the super silent, polite, you know, but that's not probably what they're looking for anyway. Not in the app industry. They want somebody to make things happen.

But tell me then, from this point, what brought you to Mattel? Why Barbie? How did that become part of it? Well, at some point during my ag career, I was the account supervisor on this big account, and one of the brand managers said, you know, you should consider getting an MBA. And that's a whole entire story where I didn't know that I wanted to do that, but ended up.

waiting for the last day of the last round to turn in my application. Because I was scared to death. That's the true story. I think I was... Ultimately, looking for an excuse for them to say no, that would be self-protective. This is terrible when I look back on it.

Again, what are the odds that I'm going to get in Columbia? Well, I actually know those odds. They're very low. And I'm like, well, if I don't turn it into the last day of the last round, when they say no, I can say, well, you know, I didn't turn it into the last day of the last round. What do you expect? But I got in. And then when I went through all of that and got in on the other side, it's a very quantitative school. You know, I came in with more of a creative.

background, a lot of soft skills, as they say, versus hard skills, walked out with a lot of hard skills. But none of the people in the companies that were really... consistent in terms of coming to interview on the Columbia campus were really things that I wanted to do, whether that was... venture capitalism or investment banking or high-level management consulting or any of that stuff, being an analyst, things like that. So I had to forge my own path on my interview process.

This is probably not going to be helpful to a lot of people, but my number one criteria was I want to go somewhere that's fun. Yeah, I love. that like I think that's what life is about like come on you know something I enjoy something that interests me something that I maybe loved as a kid you know so I had this short list and Mattel was on the short list and that's how i ended up going there i sent i used sort of the same playbook that i had done

We'd go into New York where I would call them and say, hey, you know, I'm going to be in New York anyway. Can't we just meet for a cup of coffee? I just want to learn about your company, you know, things like that. And I went ahead and got my ticket to New York before I had one interview. I did the same thing to LA. I went ahead and got a ticket to LA and called them and said, hey, I'm going to be in LA on this day, that day, this day. Three companies out there I was looking at.

And it really increases the odds that somebody's going to say, well, sure. I mean, you know, fine. Mattel, though, did not call me back. And I was going to leave. I had my plane ticket. I had these two other interviews. And so I called them. I'm like, I want to find out what about my resume was not appealing to these people. Because I think I'm perfect.

for the Barbie brand. And I called them. And I'm like, hey, just wondering what, if you could walk me through what I could do better the next time. Because I was really... excited about your company, about being on the brand team. And they said, okay, wait a minute. And the guy was gone forever. I could hear like all the shuffling and stuff. And he comes back, he goes, oh, I found your resume. It's in the finance pile.

And I'm like, well, I don't want a job in finance. He goes, but you graduated from Columbia. I'm like, yeah, I know that, but I don't want a job in finance. I want a job in branding and marketing, preferably on Barbie. And he goes, oh, well, you're perfect for that. And I was like, yeah, I know. I know. Oh, my God. I love this. Well, come on. And then I'm like, all right, this is good. So again, it's a lesson in we weave all this stuff in our heads about the whys.

oh, why I didn't think, oh, I must have done, or I must not have, I didn't have this experience, I wasn't right. And I honestly, all I wanted to do was like, well, I'm not going to sit and weave these whys together when I can find out. What I, you know, somebody will tell me that. And I was in the wrong pile. That tiny little thing.

And somebody looking at her as a Columbia put her in the finance pile. In fact, they had like somebody that was a big deal in the finance area that was from Columbia. So that was probably just a natural thing to think. And it's a quantitative school. I totally get it. The entire path would have been shut down without that one inquiry. It's really fascinating.

It's a classic Steve Jobs moment, right? Of like, you can't see it until you look back and connect the dots. That one blows my mind, to tell you the truth. If you're feeling stuck. underpaid or unappreciated, or you're simply ready to take your career and life to the next level, I have the perfect solution for you. We have a program that helps you fast track and leap your reputation and career.

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I think what you just said, I think it blows my mind. I hope the listeners are hearing this because so many times you're going to be in the wrong pile if you don't be bold. I was just like. Get out of that pile. I just love how you did that. Like, it was so good. But then you're kind of moving into being in Hasbro. And I'm sure all of these.

moments have built you to who you are today. And I'm just trying to weave some of these things through. How did that build you as well? Because at that point, you were a GM and SVP. And again, they do all these things that I didn't even know of. Talk to me a little bit about that experience. I did not start there as a GM or an SVP. I started there after my company failed. I started my own company.

called Dawn Dolls Chuckerboard Toys. And we had a container of Dawn Dolls on the water coming from China when 9-11 happened. And that container was on the way to Toys R Us, my first national distribution of my new endeavor. And they canceled the order. Oh, my God. Tell me about that moment. Oh, it's. So, I mean...

As an entrepreneur, a startup, because I had moved to Chicago, my husband had an opportunity. He was one of those management consultants, by the way. I had an opportunity in Chicago, and I left Mattel because of this. had my first child and I'm like, well, I can't just do nothing. I mean, I'm not going to work out. So I started this doll company and we had some good feedback. Like I was.

interviewed on national television and we got some good collector interest and we pitched this to Toys R Us and we did a test market and they were going to take a full distribution for that holiday. And when you're just in the startup phase, you're pretty cash poor. You know, there's not a lot of cash flow. And sometimes there's home mortgages involved in this. all sorts of risks that you take and i had a little bitty baby but we ended up

selling the inventory to a company called KB Toys. They're no longer in existence, but for cost. So it saved us from, you know, flushing it all, but it was a do-over for real. And I called some folks in the industry and got some interviews. And someone that I still know to this day said, would you be interested in going to Aspro? Because I think you're perfect for what they're doing over there. And I'm like, well, what are they doing over there?

Before you go there, like we have a lot of our listeners either lost their job or lost their company, especially now they're trying to kind of reinvent themselves. There's a lot of licking the wounds, if you will. And there's a lot of. healing that needs to happen. And sometimes you take that lack of confidence with you. How did you recover or how did you tell the story despite the loss or despite all of it?

Look, the shoulda, woulda, couldas on something like that can actually drive people mad. And it does. I've been there. I've been there. And, you know, you have to have a lot of... personal discipline to compartmentalize and not overanalyze. It's sort of the same thing with, should I sit here and overanalyze? Why doesn't Mattel pick me? You know, oh, it must be because I wear my shoe size is too big. I don't know. You know, like the things that you hear people make up that create these.

ridiculous, self-limiting beliefs that then hold you back from doing just the rational thing. If I want to know why Mattel wasn't big in me, well... I'm not going to make it up. I'll just call them and ask them. So as many times as people say, that was crazy, I'm like, really? Is that more crazy than making up a bunch of stuff and never knowing? That's actually not the crazy path. The crazy path would be, well it must be because I was born in a small town.

It must be because I didn't go to XYZ school. That's what's crazy. Find out. So it's the same thing here. We ruminate. create stories here's the thing whatever happens in your life you're going to wrap a story around it and the reason you're going to wrap a story around is because you're human sorry we're all in the same bucket together the game

is to wrap an empowering story around it because it's all made up anyway. Go with me here. And even if I'm wrong, it doesn't matter. Think about that one. Because the story... you will more fit over time. The data's out there that about 60% of the junk we think we remember didn't even happen. So you might as well make up a bunch of stuff that you're going to choose to remember that empowers you.

So that's the real game of it all. And in this situation, I could have chosen to go back through everything that I could have done different, or maybe I shouldn't have done. There was a national disaster. That changed the trajectory of what I hoped would have happened. And I couldn't recover from it in that moment. Amazing. Right. But that's not the end of the game. That was just an ending. The game doesn't end until I say it ends. And that wasn't the end. If anything, I'm better suited.

To be a manager of a toy department or a company or a brand than I was before. Not anybody at that company. big company that I was going to go to or a handful, maybe a handful, had ever taken a product by themselves with the help of my spouse helped me set up the company and did the accounting and things like that. But by themselves, from concept to

one shelf on their own, gone to China, make it, figure it out, all the ins and outs, the backstory, the legal, the naming, everything, the engineering and the packaging. So I wasn't, you know, like disastrous goods. I was now a frightening executive because there's not going to be any department that I haven't somehow touched. So that's... Which you have to do, right? And so I wrapped that story around this. And I ended up becoming the vice president of Tiger Toys. It was a remarkable journey.

Because I did understand all the underbelly that you don't learn in a really big company often. It's very rare. Usually you're pretty, you know, you're kind of in your box, your space, you're doing, you learn what you do. It's very vertical oriented. And because of that multi-hat experience, it made me a much more... articulate and well-rounded executive at a young age, still in my 30s. And I tell you, it was because of that failure that I moved the system so quickly at Hasbro.

And I love that, Sharon, because I think a lot of people are feeling either like generalist. It's amazing how many times I heard that. Like I've done too many things. I'm a generalist. And in fact, I don't believe that. Like, I believe there's like all this combination of skills, expertise, the things that you've achieved, kind of what you're sharing. Like that is your zone of genius. Like if you can lean on that, you're actually.

more special than anybody else, right? So you just need to lean on it. And I just love how you did. And yes, we are Incredible meaning-making machine, so at least let's make some good stuff. We're going to work so hard to rationalize. When you go to sleep, it's going to sit here and try. But there's a difference between ruminating and rationalizing.

So one is out of control. It's a spin, spin, spin, spin, spin. You keep going back over the same things and that can be devastating. But once you get through that, weave your empowering story.

Again, I ended up going from the vice president of the Tiger Division to the general manager of the Tiger toy arm. So a billion dollars worth of business in about five years. And again, I cannot give Mattel or Hasbro more credit. for just wonderful experiences, tremendous opportunities, amazing leadership where I got to learn so much and do so many things. But, you know, I also leaned in. It's not all up to them.

It has to be both. And that was a big hand raiser. Like, you know, oh, let me try that. Oh, sure. I'll take that. I even would bring brands to the team, like my boss. Of course, still no. And like I dig them out of the vault and go, what is that? Why don't you guys do anything? Give it to me. Let me do it. What's the worst thing? Again, what's the worst thing that could happen? You know, because you're not including NERF and Baby Alive.

It just, you know, I was given a lot of latitude, but I learned in all of that too. This is kind of a big, deep secret that I always don't share with people. If you can become a master at turnarounds, you will always have a job. Just think about it. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants like...

The underdog thing. They want to be on the big brand. And even on Barbie, I was on the ridiculous, nobody cared about division of Barbie. I was on Barbie fashions. And I doubled it in a year. But here's the thing. People get kind of like uptight, like, oh, I don't matter. I'm on this little brand. If you fix it, you write your ticket. And if you don't, nobody cares. So I kind of learned to just.

What's the thing that I think I could impact? And Nerf had fallen to like $20 million. It used to be $90 million. Now I don't even know. I think it's like a half a... billion dollars i guess 500 i mean i don't even know what it is anymore and we did the same you kind of get in this cadence of can i recognize latent equity is there something about that that is fundamentally not broken

And we just don't have it figured out yet. Because again, if you're willing to take that risk on something like that, if you don't fix it, there's no downside. And if you do, the upside's massive. And that skill set. I would not be sitting in a CEO seat if I hadn't gotten a reputation for change agency and turnarounds. So tell me maybe the...

one, two, three main component when you're trying to turn around something? Because sometimes it's harder to turn around something than to just build it. So I have a two-pronged strategy. It is in the book. I know. And that two strong strategy is SDSS times two. It's called stop doing stupid stuff. Followed by start doing smart stuff in that order.

You have to do it in that order. And I usually have a caveat here of the people that are doing the stuff are not stupid. It's probably something that somebody like you told them to do. The issue is humans, companies, organizations get in habits. Habits are a good thing. Habits can be a good thing.

That's why there's bad habits and there's good habits. Habits are things that you can do where you don't have to think, and that's a good thing. It'd be an exhausting day if you had to think about everything you did. You wouldn't be able to make it through the day. But companies get into habits.

And then they don't know why they were doing what they were doing. And sometimes over time, those things are not creating value. In fact, they likely are destroying value. There's a reason why you need to turn around. been called in to do things like this, whether it's a brand or a business unit like StrideWrite Children's Group or a company like Build-A-Bear. It's not because people haven't tried to find the quintessential silver bullet.

They've been looking for that forever. This is not going to be a situation where there's a, oh, there it is, so obvious. It's something where there's money, there's value, there's something trapped on every link of the value chain. It's a really disciplined approach to find this stuff. And the first thing you have to go through is what are we doing that's bad?

Whether you work your way down through the P&L, where's the money, how much is flowing through, what's the problem, you know, you've got all these percentages in your head about what should be your going in margin, what my SG&A should be as compared to my, like all this stuff that you kind of do.

It's no, but this idea of working the company through every day, every week on a quarterly basis, what are you doing that's not creating value? So stop doing that. Just stop it. Stop printing out those reports. Stop doing this. This is a waste of time. Are you learning anything from that? Is that really insightful? Is there any information there that's actually giving you any insight to anything? Well, then stop doing that.

And here's why you have to stop first. One, the process of getting people to focus on what they're doing actually matters. And then the focus on getting them to ask the question, does what I do matter? That actually makes a difference because you start to ask the right questions. That's why it sounds so simple, but it's not. You get kind of get everybody in this. So what are we trying to do then? Well, what do you mean? How do I know if it's creating value? Is there an ROI?

It's a measure. Then let's measure it. Then if you don't know if it's creating value, you're not measuring it. Oh, maybe we should have metrics. So you just keep pulling the string. The reason you have to stop first. is because if you don't, you can't start doing smart stuff. And the mistake that current people make is if they do try to start doing the smart stuff.

by hiring a bunch of smart, new smart people. They're going to blow up their SG&A and all they're doing is hiring people to undo what these people keep doing every single day. It's never going to work. It's never going to work. So you've got to get the organization to stop doing stupid stuff. before you start doing smart stuff. You can even know the strategy going in. You're certainly going to know the financial answer going in.

Like, you know you're going to need to be, I need, depending on your category or your industry, I really need this kind of profit or I need this kind of four wall or I need this kind of, you know, you know what you're looking for. These are not hard things. To know, they're just hard things to do. But I love this because I tell this to people all the time, even in their own personal challenges. 95% of the time.

The stuff that you're probably in the back of your mind or when you're writing your journal, something you're complaining about, something you wish you could do, whether it's a fitness goal or a work goal or anything. you're probably doing some stupid stuff that you probably already know what it is. So let's start there. Oh, so powerful. It's so silly.

But these are the things that are hardest to do. Sometimes they're scary or there's something. There's a reason why you're probably not taking action as well. So I agree. And some of that stupid stuff is the same thing we've been talking about. What is going on in your mind? mind that's keeping it. Well, just stop that. Stop it. That's so powerful. Stop waking up every day and say, I'm just too dumb to do that, or I can't do that because I'm this, or I did that when I was seven.

Really? You think that's really why? I think that's stupid. And maybe I'll tap just one thing into that. One of the things that we see is a lot of times people waste time learning something or they do busy work, but it's not the productive work that you need anyway. So stop doing the busy work. So talk to me because, and just for the listeners to have the full story. So in 1997, Maxine Clark founded Build-A-Bear.

And in 2013, she was looking for somebody to take over or somehow ran into you. And one of the things that we talk about in Leap Academy is how do you...

play in the hidden market? Like, how are you being known for the opportunities that are not in a typical job board or anything? Like they, you know, like that was not a job board type of opportunity, I assume. Sharon, how did you... get into that world of vaccine clark and to build a bear and it's a lot about what you just shared because you started being known for the person that turns around things right so talk to me a little bit about how that happened

Oh, I, uh, I don't know. Sorry, I didn't, I wasn't looking for a job.

The only way that would work, I think, is that, you know, you do a good job and it is important to make these connections. I had met Maxine at one point in my career when I was at Hasbro. And I remember the moment and I went out of my way to go over and shake her hand. and congratulate her wow and tell her what a remarkable you know business i thought she was running and that it was meaningful and she remembered that and that had been years prior and so

When I was in the Strideright Children's Group, we really did have an incredible run. It was a three-year turnaround, and we were 12 comping and had... I mean, every single aspect of the business. And I worked for some remarkable people that were very proud of what we had accomplished. The Build-A-Bear had hired a recruiter, and when my name came across the desk, I was recognized. That didn't get me the job, but it did get me the interview.

But you're deciding to join at a time that is hard for Build-A-Bear. Again, you're kind of known as the turnaround gal at that point, I guess. But especially in these domains, like, I mean, it was a classic pick, I assume, but... Talk to me about the beginning. I mean, 2013 was not a good year. I mean, it's been really, really hard. I think a few years even prior. Eight years.

Right. So you came in, everything shifted in terms of digital and everything. Like, how do you even start turning something like this around? 20% of the stores were unprofitable and the four wall was like 9%. you know it it was rough and you know mall traffic was really in decline but they had a very clean balance sheet and like most vertical retailers

If they do have a clean balance sheet with little to no debt, they had a nice cash flow. So, you know, you sort of like before I took the job, I kind of figured I had about three years before. It would all fall apart, you know, with this kind of cash flow if I don't take on debt two to three years. And then I knew the board would give me at least two to three years. I mean, that's just a reasonable, rational thing unless.

It'd have to be something unbelievably extraordinary for that not to be the case. You know, I kind of worked my way through that. And, you know, there was a lot more decisions than just me deciding to come to Build-A-Bear. This is now a family with my husband. move from Boston where we in the New England area where we've been for 11 years, three kids to the Midwest, you know, this is a big life choice. And, you know, we.

decided to do it. It's actually, oddly enough, St. Louis is almost to the mile, equidistance between the two small towns where my husband and I grew up. He grew up in, yes, South. And I grew up in Middle Tennessee and he grew up in the southeast corner of Nebraska on a farm. And it's like he thought that was a sign. And he's not that kind of guy. He's like, oh, my God, it's equidistant.

I'm like, who even uses that word? So, you know, let's go. And so we, the kids were good and we did this and we made a promise to each other that we were going to stay there until my youngest child graduated from high school. We wanted them to have the benefit of growing up and having a hometown. We moved a lot at that point from all in New England, but town, little town, little town, like stuff like that.

and my littlest one who's now in college was going to start second grade so this was going to be a long haul for me we basically burned the boats is to use a an old columbus analogy So there's one thing in there that's deep about, is your heart really in it? I was going in, all in. How scary was that, Sharon? Frightening, horrified, terrible. Because not only was I going into this thing and I made a promise to my family, I'm following a force of nature founder.

dynamic, amazing, beloved still by this organization. You know, those are difficult scenarios when you're thinking about being the turnaround person. Often with a very bad breath. Fear can be numbing. How scary is that? And how do you react to fear? I think I have a weird relationship with fear. I'm more of a fight versus a flight.

I think that that might be innate. I don't know. Even in physical environments, when I'm afraid, I tend to... punch something before I run let's not get into that and I learned that the hard way my immediate reaction is not cowering And that's the same thing, sitting up on that tree limb. The fear did not overtake me. I always think if I'm put in it, I can get out.

I believe that deep in my heart. And even if I don't, it's still not the end of the road. It's this creation of a belief structure that enables, I guess, success. I guess, if you want to call it that. I remember the first, you know, I put together this strategy. Look, I understood the value of the brand. The brand's so powerful. It was even more powerful than I thought after I looked at the data.

From awareness numbers to affinity numbers, we were sitting on, I mean, you mentioned it earlier that we're getting closer and closer to a billion-dollar market cap. We're sitting on a billion-dollar brand. We just weren't sitting on a billion-dollar business. You talk about how sometimes turnarounds are harder than starting from scratch. Not in this case. I was handed a billion-dollar brand that didn't know how to get to a billion dollars.

It's innate value. It's tracked equity. It was at least that. I worked on brands at these other companies with less awareness and less affinity. that were generating more revenue. So there was something fundamentally wrong about the things that are more fixable than a brand. And that was very heartening to me. I like that challenge. But talk to me, because at that point, you're at, what is it, $49 million loss or whatever that number that I heard. Yeah, the prior year.

You need to literally turn around this bigger thing that is already, like you said, is already functioning in a certain way. And you need them to change their ways, but without thinking that. Again, they love Maxime. They love the company. They love the culture. And you might be looking like you're ruining it. How do you navigate all of this?

For me, and this isn't always the case for somebody that has done turnarounds, I'm a big believer in getting the fundamentals right and returning to profitability before you start trying to build things where you're going to drive new revenue. I'd like to get in a situation where I'm maximizing the value of every dollar that comes in the funnel. People have different, other things work. I just, that's what I do.

And so we had to stop losing money. And now that $49 million, I want to be fair, some of that was write-offs and write-downs. It wasn't all just, you know, true business results. Because they'd been doing so, you know, having so many challenges, they had to take some. some of those. But by the time I got there in the middle of 2013, they had lost $6 million that year. And I will tell you that with a very disciplined approach.

to cost cutting mostly that's not really all I could do at that juncture and we were able to cut out some money-losing marketing programs or, you know, some promotions that probably were not going to pay out and not ordering products that didn't hit the margin goals, things like that.

and getting us to look at our payroll at the store level and not renewing leases where we were losing. I mean, just this kind of stuff. I had to let some vendors go and take us a middleman, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We ended up making money that year. For the first time in many years. And this is what I got the team to do. Well, first, I had to get the team to understand I had no intention of ripping the heart out of the company. That you can still have.

this amazing culture and be a winner. Those things are not incongruent. You still be everything that you want us to be, but be financially viable. And here's the thing. We're a publicly traded company. If we're not a valid going concern. Winning. Yeah. You're not going to keep doing it. Whatever you think magic is going to happen, this will not exist. Here's your trajectory. I don't know how else to say it. And I can't do it by myself.

We have to go together. And look, I'm open to all kinds of ideas, but I'm also going to humbly suggest that I've done this a couple of times. So can you try? to go this way. And I'm also saying, and I'm not going to get upset with anybody. If you don't think you can do that, that's okay with me, but you can't not do that here.

And I think you talk about it beautifully. You talk about looking in the rear view mirror and you're talking about like, who's going to be on my bus or in the car or whatever. Right. So talk to us a little bit about that. I really did have to get the team. to come with me I mean any good CEO leader whatever you there's nothing happens because you came up with some brilliant idea that's a joke or your strategy was superior or you understand the financial road to success. Everything takes a team.

And the more you bring people with you, both intellectually, but more importantly, emotionally, the higher the degree of potential success. That just is what it is. And that was a really important part of unlocking this. Not basing the future and the strategic roadmap on, okay, here's what we're going to do. First, we're going to return to profitability. And then we're going to do this. And then we're going to do this. You had to flip the whole story of.

Guys, you've built this, and this is true. You've built this extraordinary brand. It's remarkable what you have done. But if we can't be profitable, we'll never be here for... the next generation. And that's where we are right now. We're about to become a multi-generational brand. I have to ask you, is the world a better place with or without Build-A-Bear? Does it matter that we exist?

Because if you say, yes, it matters, we exist, then we have to go on this journey together because we will not. So if you're grounded in the fact that you want to work here and you love this place. Because of what we stand for, you have to be willing to fight for its existence. And that stopped the crowd. Incredible. And that's how you get, again, results because now everybody's all in.

Not everybody, but enough. Well, the right people are all in. That's an everyday journey. You find your mission statement. We then crafted that to add a little more heart to life. That evangelization process that you have to do as a leader in your entire executive team, that is nowhere near a one and done.

You know, it's repetitive. It's just the consistency. You have to live it. You work it. You breathe it every day and every way. And then people will eventually believe you because it takes a little bit. But we started to unlock the value. And when you try to break it down in its simplest form, it really was based on, look, we've put all this.

value you every single heart ceremony at a time scattered around the world millions of times. That's all equity. That's all the way this brand makes somebody feel. And that's amazing. But what we've done is we have this mall-based retailer for kids that accidentally built a brand, right? A brand that's so much bigger than the place. We've got to pivot to be an intellectual property company.

that just happens to have vertical retail as one of its revenue streams. And we build a platform to monetize this beautiful thing you've created. But the only way you do that is to make sure that this piece of the puzzle this arm that should be throwing off cash left and right, is profitable. So we can invest in the future of the company. And that made sense.

That is so powerful. Like I just love because, again, I can see all the different verticals and things that you're looking into doing, but you can't do that if the base is sick or is broken. Right. But talk to me then about, I think, 2019 COVID. I mean, these were hard moments for the company as well.

You have a lot of people leaning on you. Do you have somebody to lean on or do you ever, you know, sit and wonder, like, can I do this? Because obviously you tilted around in a way that is actually hard to imagine, like Sharon. But talk to me about that moment, because when it's hard, it can get really, really lonely and hard. I have a wonderful team and we've been through a lot together. So it's based on trust at this point and truth.

Like, I'm not right all the time. I get reminded that not only every day here in my company, but also at home around the dinner table, you know. And sometimes people ask me, I don't know how you stay so real. I'm like, I go home and clean up cat doo-doo. That's how I stay so real.

It's not that hard. And my husband's also a business person. I'm picking that partner that you pick in life is important. It's so important. You know, in the times that I thought I couldn't even share some of my fears with my... teammates, I could share them with him. And he also has just great counsel most of the time. COVID was just a moment of clarity for us after you get over the initial shock.

Of course, you have to put aside, and I am going to ring fence this. COVID was, I mean, it's still, you look back on the lives that were lost and impacted and the devastation around the world. So I'm going to. put that over there with respect you know because and and talk about it just you know in terms of what it then forced us to do without disrespecting that situation crisis creates clarity

Or not. The not puts you out of business. I've forgotten who has this quote, but it's like, you always utilize a great crisis, right? That's why I'm so careful about what I said, because this was a terrible situation. But when you're really forced to get down to what matters, I mean, I did not know until that very moment. what how much cash I actually needed every single month to operate you know it's a good thing to know what you're willing to give up what you're willing to work for what

How fast can I shut down an entire fleet of stores around the world? The answer is 48 hours in case you need to know. I hope I never need to know that again. Oh, my God. You get in lanes. You know who's going to be with you through the thick and thin. We didn't have everybody come with us on this journey. And, you know, you watch that stock price go to a dollar. It gets pretty creepy.

Everything that we had done up until that point was in danger of being flushed down the toilet. We were being priced as if we were going into bankruptcy. We had... A lot of scenario planning, willingness to make bold decisions. We got behind each other on the things that needed to happen. And we were very serious about it. You focus on this, you focus on this, you focus on this and has strategic trust because we didn't have time for us to bring these.

situations or this scenario planning into a big room and write it on a whiteboard heck we couldn't even be in a big room to write it on a whiteboard so you had to go all right you're the expert in that area i'm trusting you that you're making the right choice here

Because that's how fast the decisions needed to be made. And then we would get on these big calls. We usually have what we call bare quarters meetings. They usually like once a month, once a quarter, something like that when we were back in a building. We call them VBQs, Virtual Bear Quarters Meetings. And we were on once a week. And I would write like a big, hopefully, they say now, inspirational.

And I would tell people, I don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm going to be as honest as I can with you about what's happening. And here's what we're doing. And here's why we're doing this. And we popped out of that year, 2020. better off than we've ever been. Incredible. And it forced our hands on so many things, like finally becoming really integrated from an omni-channel perspective.

flipping the switch of turning on our buy online ship from store, buy online pickup at store. And some of it was miraculous luck. Like we had just flipped the switch on a new warehouse management tool that enabled us to do that. We've been fighting through understanding the real-time inventory at stores, which is what keeps you from being able to do that for years at that point. In January of 2020, we flipped that switch.

There's no amount of planning that can be that magic. Sometimes you just have to get lucky. And we also had the Mandalorian product, the Baby Yoda, as they call it, already on the water. If we hadn't already gone ahead and shipped that, it was getting cut down. China was being shut down. And then somewhere in February, we had a call with the leadership team.

Because we have the relationships with China, we're like, something's just not right. Something's not going on that's right in January, December, somewhere in there. And we decided to not ship Baby Yoda out to the stores. We're like, something's going wrong. It was really an intuition. And we're like, because if we ship this out to the stores and this whole thing goes south really fast.

It'll be tracked at the stores. But if we keep it at our warehouse, we can stay alive with the cash flow from e-com. And that is exactly what happened. But it's, you know, that's people listening and trusting the team and getting together and really thinking about the if then, then this, if then, then this, if then, then this. And it was a crazy journey.

But that's also the way we operate all the time. When you operate like that all the time, when crisis comes, even though it shocks the system, you don't look at it as like, we look at things like that like, so what are we going to do? And you do get very creative. I agree. I think you said crisis create clarity. I usually talk about creativity. Like when you're back against the wall, you freaking need to get creative. Like it's just like there is 100 percent. Right. I mean.

And again, if somebody checks your stock, at least at the moment that we're talking, I think we're at 70 plus dollars. I mean, it's just incredible to see what what happened. And I think you are also looking at other. angles now and a lot of different really innovative ways. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that, but I also want to talk about like you being a chairwoman in Toy Association, the Board of First Books.

Walk me through because I want to make sure that we touch all these incredible things. The team knew this early on. It was innate to them that this brand was more than. a mall-based retailer that makes teddy bears. They understood that. And us articulating that and really elevating that construct has been an unlock.

for the organization because when you get down to what then what you really mean which is love and friendship and hugs and sharing moments in time and emotional connections and all that stuff If you get like the essence of your equity, then it opens up all kinds of avenues for revenue, right?

from other products to outbound licensing outside your category. Clearly, a hug is understood in every language, which is something Maxine said years ago. So global expansion, there's no reason to believe why you can't just... make stuffed animal products and sell them to other wholesalers. You don't have to be even trapped in your own channel. And we proved that point by the amount of product that we could sell through our dot-com.

Because what was happening there is there was a halo effect. You only need to have that experience once in your life and it stays with you. It stretches into other experiences with the brand. But we use that dot-com business to drive. The adult business, because we knew they would be people that had already experienced Build-A-Bear in the stores. So still to this day, we over-index in the stores with kids and we over-index with collectors and gifters and adults and teens online.

But 40% of our sales are now to teens and adults. Wow. That's huge. So with all this knowledge, and again, like, I wish I could talk to you for so long, like, how do you make decisions and whatever, but you also became the first chairwoman. of the Toy Association. And that is huge. I mean, this is such a historic moment. What does it mean for you personally? How are you looking at shaping this kind of an industry?

Well, it's an industry I deeply care for, and I feel like I grew up in the industry, even though I started in the ad industry and I had that little stint in the footwear space. I'm so grateful, again, to the companies and the people that have been a part of my career and my life. And so it's been an honor to do this. And I didn't think about it in terms of, oh, I'm going to be the first woman chair. I didn't even.

That would not have been on my radar. I was asked to be part of the executive committee, and I did that. During COVID, it was asked by the chair at the time, Skip Kodak, who absolutely worked for Leet for Lego. And I agreed to do that. And then it just, the way it unfolded, I just ended up becoming. The chair. And we all sort of went, oh, my God.

This association has been around for 100 years, and there's never been a female at the head of it. So it was a special moment, more so for the industry. I think the guys were almost more excited than I was. But again, we had a lot to do. The industry's going through an evolution right now, and there's so much change and excitement that's happening, but it's amazing.

One, to work with such incredible people, smart people, driven people. And the industry is unusual in some ways in that we're more collaborative than competitive. even though on paper we're definitely competitive. And by that, we hold dearly the importance of play for children and childhood development. and the safety aspect of that. And we hold ourselves accountable to very high standards. And that's bigger than us scrapping and fighting for a half an inch of space at XYZ retailer.

Now, at the end of the day, we'll fight tooth and nail if we need to, but we can go into these meetings and have truly open conversations about where this industry is. can go, what we need to be doing to help the greater good, how can we help our partners, and how can we help the members, whether that's through having our toy fairs or

putting together seminars or helping people through the tariffs and COVID and also being advocates for this industry in government. It's a really important organization and I'm just blessed to be part of it. And I also love that I've had this amazing chance to be a part of First Book for many of those same reasons. Kyle Zimmer, who runs the First Book organization, her heart's so big. But if you're looking for...

I would argue one of the very best ways to make a difference, teach a child to read. The data is overwhelming. Illiteracy is not a good path. And teaching a child to read is not. a one-time thing that it is done for life. And it changes their life in that moment. And I think I can look at you and feel fully confident to say,

would being illiterate have taken you down a different path? It's not even close. It's unbelievable. And these kids don't even have their own book, not one book that they own. That's why it's called First Book. I can't even imagine that in the household I grew up in. And the gift that that provided so many, and probably everybody that's listening is innumerable. You can't even put a value on that. We can fix this. I'll just give you a shocker just to end this part of the conversation.

I'm not sure if it still happens, but I do know that there have been that in the past, the government would also often use grade level literacy for like the third or fourth grade as a predictor for how many prison cells they were going to need to build 20 years from then. That's how accurate this data is. You want to change a life? Make sure a kid gets a book. I had no clue.

that it's even common here. So I appreciate that, Sharon. And you also wrote your own book. I did. That's because I can read. And it's called Stories in Heart. And it's incredible. you know, what you can do with the power of stories and how critical it is in leadership and everywhere in life and how it can change lives. So talk to us like.

How do you see storytelling and what do you wish you knew earlier on in your life, in your career? Storytelling is just a big part of my upbringing, but the book is really an exercise for the reader. Every single part of this book is broken down into something where there's what I learned. What was the insight for me during this time? And there's exercises for the readers to kind of work their way through. It's not a free ride. Sorry. You're going to have to work.

No magic wands. No magic wands. No magic wands. And it's all the way to, you know, things from dismantling perfectionism, getting over fear. dealing with negative self-talk. So when people say this was an easy journey, read the book, you'll know it's not. I had to work through, I can't possibly explain, you know, that I had to come up with these tools and approaches and things where I could do this if I hadn't done it myself. It's not a natural state.

It's an everyday evolution. Coming full circle on this discussion, first of all, try not to assume that just because somebody's doing X, Y, and Z, that that all just came easy to them. But I would also say that that, again, when you're thinking about the stories to tell yourself, that story is not empowering to you because it gives you an excuse to say, oh, well, I just wasn't built for that.

Or I just wasn't meant to do that. Or I just can't do that because of this. Hardly anybody is. This takes work every day, inside work, about... every single aspect of what you bring to the table and what we talked about here today of getting over your own hurdles that you probably put there yourself, which is...

The thing nobody wants to say. Possible to work through these things. And I try to provide people tools to do it. Again, much of the stuff that we do comes down to the stories we tell ourselves. If those stories are empowering or disempowering. And I encourage you to find empowering stories.

Oh, that's such a good one, Sharon. Because again, we see it in Leap Academy all the time. People kill their own dreams. You know, one of the things that I say, killer of dreams, it's... honestly it's not even fear it's delay it's the tomorrow i'll start tomorrow i'll start next week i'll start in a month right it's that constant like not taking action and convincing yourself that you can't or you shouldn't or

all of that. And there's tons of tricks. They don't have to do that. Sharon, thank you for changing the world and continue to do incredible things and bringing smiles into all of this. Been great. I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. If you did, please share it with friends. Now, also, if you're feeling stuck or simply want more from your own career, watch this 30-minute free training at leapacademy.com slash training.

That's leapacademy.com slash training. See you in the next episode of the Leap Academy with Ilana Golan Show.