We were lucky to catch up with Lauren Montgomery recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Besides the basics of how you run a business in the bridal gown industry (samples, appointments, etc.) we run our business very differently from others in the industry. In an industry where shops have started charging for a “bridal experience” and offering up a tip field on the receipts for their consultants to make more money, we have opted to provide a very top-of-the-line shopping experience for no extra or hidden fees. Where other shops search for product lines that they can glean a deep markup, we look for high-quality, ethical products, from companies that align with our values. In an industry that is still very much about a BRIDE and GROOM, we only use verbiage to make any type of love feel comfortable and welcome in our shop. We have taken so many sales classes talking about how to close sales and it just doesn’t feel comfortable to us in this industry. A bridal gown is a very emotional purchase for someone, and any amount of pushing or “hard closing”, though typical in the industry, will only make more work for you when a client regrets their decision.

So while all these things sound like they would bring in more profits for our business we have come to realize that we get paid back tenfold by only working with companies that actually care if there is something wrong and go above and beyond to make the client thrilled with their gown. Brides are more likely to give our shop a try first if we don’t charge for a top-of-the-line appointment, and then they remember that when they have to pay for an appointment with the same perks we gave them for free. While a tip field on a credit card receipt is great for employees to get a little extra, not having one takes a layer of awkwardness away from the transaction when a customer wasn’t expecting that expense and ends an amazing appointment full of celebration with a bad taste in their mouths. Obviously, in today’s world, it is absolutely ridiculous to continue this industry in with traditional constraints on what makes a marriage (i.e. one man and one woman). By conveying everything needed to know about our shop but changing it to a more inclusive language and imagery we have gained so many customers who look at our website and social media and think, “yes, I will be welcome there”! Last, by not adhering to traditional “closing” methods, we avoid many issues that arrive when a customer has buyer’s remorse from being pushed into something they weren’t 100% ready to commit to. In the wedding dress industry, once an expensive order is placed with the manufacturer, it can rarely be canceled. Which makes the need for no-refund policies. If you have to battle this out with a customer that has buyer’s remorse it ends up with bad reviews, angry clients that will spread the word, and a customer that may not be able to afford something else and be stuck with a dress on their wedding day that they are unhappy with. By encouraging customers to be true to their feelings, and not pushing the sale, we have nearly none of this issue!

We love the way we run our business, an average of 5-star reviews over multiple platforms, we think our customers appreciate it too.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Couture Closet Bridal Boutique opened 16 years ago as a high-end bridal shop that offered one-of-a-kind bridal appointments. We wanted to catch brides heading to Cincinnati to shop for their high-end wedding gowns and keep them shopping locally. Right after our shop opened we hit the big recession and had to scramble to fix our business model to a wider range of price points but continue giving our clients the experience we had given in the past. Over the years, we have fallen into a rhythm that feels true to us. Love, encouragement, empowerment, and celebration have become second nature to us, and making sure the customer comes before our bottom line. Our gowns are generally affordable (between $1,400 – $2,500), very well-made, ethically sourced, and size-inclusive. We are welcoming to anyone no matter their, color, age, size, or preferences. We celebrate everyone and the way they are unique!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We became business owners at a very young age (23 and 24). When we first had the idea to possibly open a business, we had a third business partner that said she had some capital to start this venture. We started working on a business plan, and a financial plan and looking at a place to set up shop. As the venture started getting more and more official the third business partner got cold feet and disappeared! A few weeks later Tera and I got back in touch with each other and decided we wanted to press on. We were going to have to start from scratch and find 100% of the capital. So we started writing a new and very detailed business plan. We used free resources like S.C.O.R.E (score.org), to connect with mentors in our area and then we started to shop the banks. We took our business plan to dozens of bank appointments and each of them said the same thing: Our business plan and financial plan were incredible but we were too young and had no collateral, so they weren’t going to be able to lend us money.

After we had exhausted all bank possibilities and started researching grant possibilities, a tech investor heard about our business plan. He reached out to us and said he would like to set up a meeting. We very nervously went in with our business plan and pitched our shop idea. He listened, took our plan, looked over our financial projections, and asked us to flesh out the projections for him. We set up a second meeting to go over those and he said her would loan us the startup but he was to be a third (silent) partner. We took it! He ended up being the best investor and mentor to us for years and years. He let us pay him back slowly and then buy him out completely when the loan matured. We are so thankful for him and the opportunity he provided us to become business owners when more traditional options were not possible for us.

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

For us, the most effective strategy for growing our clientele is to give each and every client top-of-the-line customer service. Old-fashioned customer service is dying today. With so much automation, big box, and over-manufactured experiences nowadays, it is refreshing for our clients to be immersed in a personal, hand-crafted experience with loving and caring humans. We go above and beyond to bring this level of care, trust, and service and our clients tell EVERYONE. They write reviews, they tell their friends, they tell their hairdresser, and they tell people who may just have an engagement ring on their finger. Our clientele is mostly due to very loyal referrals because they want others to have the amazing experience they had.

There is a reason we have 5-star ratings on nearly every platform! And when we ask clients how they heard about us, they will either tell us who referred them or tell us they googled Bridal Shops and we had the highest ratings. We love hearing both, but the customer service speaks for itself!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CoutureClosetBoutique.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/couturecloset_ky/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoutureClosetBridal/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-couture-closet-la-grange-4?osq=couture+closet
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/couturecloset/

Image Credits
Susan Jordan with Love Hunters Jess Mahorn Beth Michiemo