We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Biggars a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeff, thanks for joining us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

I started in my industry when I was 19. By 20 I was in management, and I will always enjoy having that opportunity at such a young age. I had many employees who were much older than me and certainly had more experience. There were definitely many challenges, but I wouldn’t have learned as much as I did if I hadn’t have started so early. At 23 I became the Manager at a high-end custom hat store where I also began making hats. Again, my employees were much better at what we did than I was. There is a loss of respect for sure when you know more than your boss does. So, I made it a point to not only learn how to do every single job but to also be the best at it. It took a very long time of course, but it has helped me to train scores of people how to do the more than 20 jobs it takes to complete our hats. At 26 I became the production manager of a large manufacturer. This is where I really began to not only learn the production but also the ins and outs of accounting and running the business. At 31 I took over as the General Manager. In 5 years we had quintupled our first year of the business. It was quite a ride. However, I was only second in command and there were a lot of things that I felt we could do better, but didn’t have any control over. So I left to start a new adventure. It was very difficult the first year. I was extremely arrogant and felt that with my experience that I could get a job anywhere, but with no college education and my unwillingness to travel made that near impossible. I went to work for my father-in-law in an industry I had no clue about. Once again I was tasked with telling people how to do their job when they had far more experience of doing it than I did. In an chance conversation around my father-in-law, another employee suggested that I open a new store. I explained that would take a vast amount of money that I didn’t have, and only enough credit to get me a quarter of the capital needed to start. My father-in-law perked up and said how much? I said I don’t know but I will tell you in the morning. After showing him the spreadsheet that I had stayed up all night creating he said let’s do it and a new journey began. We have endured many ups and downs, and although we had great sales and increases every year, it took a very long time to become profitable. We are thriving now. A lot of people ask me if I wished I had started sooner. I think mine is a unique situation because I had so much help. My mother-in-law does our books and essentially manages the store. I am extremely fortunate for all that has been given to me. With all that being said, I just don’t think I would’ve been ready if we had started this venture earlier. I learned quite a bit at my previous job and I have taken a lot of that with me. It would be hard to imagine having near the amount of success that we have enjoyed without all of the previous experience that I have gained prior. I have retailers who have opened stores in their twenties and they are doing very well. I am extremely proud of them and look forward to doing business with them for years to come. I believe our business is different with the manufacturing side of it, and I am glad that I had the patience to wait until I had all of the ingredients before baking my cake.

Jeff, 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?

I left Texas for Mississippi right out of high school to be a cowboy. Kind of backwards you might say. I came back to Texas, and although I didn’t ask for much money at all, I couldn’t compete with the low wages that riders were getting here. I got a job at a Western store and I still trained horses on the side. The Western store soon took over most of my time and I began working up to 80-95 hours a week consistently. This quickly lead to management, which lead to being the manager of a custom hat store in the Fort Worth Stockyards after 4 years. The owner of that store bought a major hat company 3 years later. I began driving down to Conroe (by Houston) on Sundays and coming back on Thursdays, and then working at the store Friday and Saturdays. I did this for a year and a half and we finally moved the company north of Fort Worth and much closer to home. I learned many things there including more in depth production of hats by truly skilled craftsmen and craftswomen that have been building hats for 20 years or more. I also learned how to manage a multi-million dollar company with up to 30 employees. We had an increase every year for the 8 straight years that I was there. I received a raise and a promotion, but with the travel demands and other situations I decided to leave after being with my boss for 12 years. I did not have a plan. I was extremely confident that because of my resume I would not have any trouble finding a new home. I was wrong. A lot of people wanted to hire me but with even more traveling and weeks and months away from home. Others required 70 to 80 hour work weeks. When I exhausted all of the Western careers I turned to jobs outside of my industry that I had come to know and love at that time of 16 years. With no college education I could not begin to find a job making similar money. I did find a way to continue my love for hats by designing hats for another company but it barely compensated me near enough to make a living. I ended up having to work for my father-in-law in whole new industry that I knew nothing about. It was very humbling. I received the samples that I designed at my new job. In a chance conversation, my father-in-law overheard my conversation with another employee regarding me opening up my own hat store. He asked how much it would take and I said a ton of money and he sat up and looked at me and asked how much money? I said I didn’t know but I would tell him in the morning. I stayed up all night putting together two spreadsheets. One with a very conservative amount that we would build on over the years accumulating equipment and raw materials. The other one was a very considerable investment that would give us a huge head start. He chose the latter, and we began building what we have achieved today. Even with all of the financial advantages it has never been easy and we continue to look forward.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

In the beginning we relied on radio, magazine, social media, newspaper, and tv ads. Eventually the word-of-mouth about our new business spread, and that’s where the most and also best new clients come from. We have a decent following on social media and do sell quite a few hats there and also to people from places that we would have never met otherwise. However you just can’t beat word-of-mouth. Sell a great product with excellent and knowledgeable customer service and they will tell everyone about you.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

STAY POSITIVE. Even when things are bad and low, you have to show that you still have a plan and are still looking to the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.biggarhats.com
• Instagram: @biggarhats
• Facebook: facebook.com/biggarhatstore
• Linkedin: biggarhatstore
• Twitter: biggarhatstore
• Youtube: biggarhatstore
• Other: Snapchat: @biggarhatstore TikTok: @biggarhatstore

Image Credits
Jesse Schofield