We recently connected with Stephen Ezell and have shared our conversation below.
Stephen , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
The driving force behind the creation of Truly Free began with my firstborn child. Soon after bringing him home from the hospital, a routine bath turned into a life-changing event. When I undid his onesie, he was covered in a head-to-toe raised rash and was bright red. After numerous appointments with pediatricians and dermatologists, the cause was still unknown. It wasn’t until my aunt called me with the question that would change my life: what laundry detergent are you using? We went home, stripped his clothes and sheets and made a homemade laundry detergent. In less than 24 hours, without any medication, my son was fine. But the incident made me question everything. If laundry detergent could make my son sick, what else in my home was affecting our family? Later, I met a grandmother selling homemade laundry soap at the local farmer’s market that supported everything I believed in. I invested in her product, and Truly Free was born. Today, we are the fastest-growing eco-friendly cleaning company in the country and are on a mission to free over 10,000,000 homes from harmful toxic chemicals and excess plastic waste. Our products are innovative, powerful and family-safe, delivered in refillable and reusable packaging to empower families to protect themselves from harm and reduce their environmental footprint. But it doesn’t stop there.
At Truly Free, we believe that giving back to the world is a responsibility for any company and a necessity for making our planet a better place. When consumers purchase Truly Free products, they’re not just choosing safer alternatives for the whole family but are also supporting several social enterprise projects they can be proud of. Take our Dryer Angels, for instance – a fully reusable product that replaces a dryer sheet. Dryer sheets are toxic and can contain as many as 14 documented carcinogens per sheet. Our Dryer Angels are instead packed with corn cob material and scented with essential oils, and every purchase helps better the lives of women and communities around the world. Funding from more than 150,000 Dryer Angels purchased has helped generate over $500,000 back to global communities. Each Dryer Angel is hand-sewn by women rescued from poverty and human trafficking, now employed by Healing Hands International and Meridian Lee , or the Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf, whose focus is to employ the Deaf of Jamaica. Since our partnership began in 2015, the unemployment rate in Jamaica has decreased from 92% to 64%. Through safe houses and underground shelters, hundreds of trafficking survivors have the opportunity to relearn skills in a secure environment. Truly Free continues to break the cycle of exploitation while following our mission to end poverty and human trafficking.
Truly Free is destined to show that a mission-driven company can scale. We are very selective in who we work with across the lifecycle of our business. We want to build strong bonds with our suppliers and ensure they’re as dedicated as we are to building sustainable, mission-minded companies and quality products. Social impact is about changing the landscape for future generations and that happens with each choice I make as a business owner.
Stephen , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am the CEO and founder of Truly Free, an all-natural cleaning and laundry subscription that helps consumers detox their homes from harmful chemicals and toxins. Before I began my conscious capital journey, my background was in the restaurant industry. I was building and flipping restaurants for Food Network stars in the heart of New York City. As much as the work was exciting, it wasn’t fulfilling. In fact, my career felt empty. There was no purpose, just money, and I wanted to chase something more. In 2009, I found myself having to start over when we lost everything. While it was hard, it was also a blessing to take a step back and re-evaluate what I wanted out of life. I wanted to do something that would change the world. That’s when I started Truly Free, and we’ve since been on a mission to free over 10 million homes from harmful chemicals and excess plastic waste. To date, we’ve helped free over 280,000 homes from harmful chemicals and toxins and eliminate 7.8 million single-use plastics. This is exemplary of our ongoing mission to give back to the world and continue to create innovative, family-safe products in refillable and reusable packaging, empowering families to protect themselves from harmful chemicals while reducing their environmental footprint.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Brand loyalty is essential to any business, but so is fostering a community. Your customers are the ones who decide whether your business thrives or dies. If we as entrepreneurs do not create a company culture that “wows” customers and exceeds their expectations, your competitor will eat your lunch as you sit on the bench looking at your bank account erode. Fostering brand loyalty begins with the very first transaction. Creating a superior customer experience from the first touchpoint creates inherent reciprocity. It’s like a relational bank account. If you impress a customer on the first three experiences or purchases, and “life happens,” meaning you drop the ball on the fourth, most customers will look past that blunder and look forward to the next experience. It’s just like having three amazing experiences at your local restaurant – the food and service are spot-on, and you always walk away thrilled. You return for your fourth dinner and have to wait 45 minutes for your reservation, and the entrees come out cold. You’ll likely chalk that up to a bad night and give the place another shot because of the consistency and loyalty you’ve built since the first transaction. It’s also imperative to find ways to create value for your customers outside your core product or service. For example, if you sell a physical product, provide content, how-tos and recipes that empower your customer to embody your brand. For us, our Facebook group, content strategy, group buys, Marketplace and beyond empower our members to live a Truly Free life above and beyond what our products can do.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
My personal and professional transformation took a significant turn when I started pursuing more than just financial gains. I was in search of purpose and fulfillment. This pivotal moment marked the beginning of my journey with Truly Free. I had to pivot once more in business when I started the company. I built Truly Free from nothing, and it was not easy. In 2015, we were on the verge of losing everything again. In an effort to sell more products locally, I drove to the local grocery stores and asked them to include our product. One of the major grocery chains in the area refused, saying no one would buy it, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I rented a Penske truck and rounded up abandoned pallets to make a display out of reclaimed wood. I showed up at one of the chain’s stores, created a POS display without their knowledge and left it there. The store owner found out when customers tried to buy the laundry soap, only for it not to ring up in the system. Needless to say, the store owner was not impressed. While this type of ‘cowboy entrepreneurism’ was a mistake, I find there’s some poetic justice in it. After all, their main supermarket closed 8 years ago, and now, the same building where I set up that display is our new headquarters.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://link.trulyfreehome.com/aff_ad/?hostNameId=22948&aff_id=2638&utm_source=_tfaPR&cerebro_prxy=clean&campaign_id=3884&sc_id=162&utm_campaign=productpage&utm_content=5116845449&utm_medium=PRarticle&utm_term=storefront
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trulyfreehome/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trulyfreehome
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trulyfreehome/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/trulyfreehome
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MyGreenFills/featured
- Other: Dryer Angel: https://trulyfreehome.com/products/dryer-angel Healing Hands International: https://www.hhi.org Meridian Lee: https://meridianlee.com Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf: https://www.cccdjamaica.org
Image Credits
Truly Free