We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ernest Ruffin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ernest below.

Ernest , 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 started out painting on tee shirts for friends at school and quickly realized people enjoyed the brand and the things I created. So after sometime I decided to start a clothing brand originally called, “Status Clothing” and now know as, “High Status by Ernest Ruffin”. The Brand is made to represent people from all walks of life who have been able to create their own version of Royalty. Hence our mission statement,”We believe in creating a high quality of life in everyone possible. By being unique, strong and bold. We believe Royalty is just not something your born into, but something you can create. We created Royalty”.

We want our customers to feel no matter where you stand in life you are your own version of Royalty. Someone is looking at what you have accomplished and pushing to get to where you have made it. We want our customers to not only look good wearing our brand, but mentally feel like Royalty when you walk around wearing our brand. We had one customer actually tell us,”Man I wear all kind of sneakers and clothing, but I have never received as many compliments from random people when I wore my hat and shoes”. This is the feeling we want each and everyone of our customers to feel and experience.

We’re most proud of the fact that our brand has been able to connect to our customer in a deeper way. When someone opens up about how our brand made them feel this is the most rewarding thing of all. We don’t just sale clothing, We’re Creating Royalty.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Back when I first started my brand it was tough trying to balance business, career and life. So I had to make the choice on how bad I wanted my brand/business to succeed. So I started putting in extra time working on my brand and networking for my business to get it to where it is today. At the end of the day it will come down to how bad you want your business to be successful and are you willing to make the changes to get it to where it needs to be.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I worked up enough back about 15 years ago to place one small order of shirts and made I deal with the owner that if I could come back with at least 50% for the next order he would give me a Net 30.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ernestruffin.com
• Instagram: @ernestruffin_
• Facebook: ErnestRuffinClothing

Image Credits
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