We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Berris Henry Jr a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Berris, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

The best risk I ever took was around 2016-2017. I was working towards my Business and Marketing degree at Buffalo State University in my third year. This was a very frustrating year for me, seeing as my friend had passed away that summer and I was unable to focus. We may have been one month into the semester and one morning I woke up and withdrew from all my courses. After that I kind of isolated myself and felt it was a necessary step for me to heal. I always say to myself “When you aren’t feeling your best, take a break and come back better”, and that’s exactly what I did. For some reason, the word “club” was stuck in my head and I’m from Buffalo, NY, the city of good neighbors. I combined good neighbors with club and that’s when the brand was born.

Berris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Berris Henry Jr I am 26 years old and I started the brand when I was 21. I got into designing and selling clothing because I was apart of a creative collective and I wanted to start making money by selling merch. There was big discrepancy because I did not create the name and that is when I created Good Neighbors Club. The type of products I offer are sweatsuits, graphic tees, shorts, hats, bags, and socks. What sets me apart is quality and exclusivity, for every clothing drop I never rerelease the same color way twice. I’m most proud of the following I have built. The main thing I want potential followers to know about my brand is that I do a lot of volunteering and I plan on starting a non-profit that helps young adults.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When we first started we would just repost our friends, local creatives, and global artist/models. By just showing love it helped us gain 1k followers in just a few months. Keep in mind you have to be proactive we were doing events and handing out business cards. For advice I would say give the audience something they want to follow. When we came out we did a lot of cool things. We held events, and we involved everyone that wanted to be involved. Making people feel like the brand is theirs definitely helps when you want the word spread because then you have people doing the promotion for you.

Any advice for managing a team?

Managing a team is probably the most difficult part. Egos, attitudes, and actions of other people are super unpredictable and you can only prepare for so much. The best advice I could give would be to find people that love the brand as much as you do, if not more! Also, you have to be willing to listen. You have to be consistent with your vision because people admire steady growth the most. As long as they feel they have a great leader they have no problem following you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.goodneighborsclub.com
• Instagram: goodneighborsclub
• Facebook: Good Neighbors Club
• Twitter: Goodneighborshq

Image Credits
@carsonjransom on instagram