We recently connected with Margot Adams and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Margot, thanks for joining us today. How do you think about cost-management? Growing a business is always exciting, but often businesses run into issues when costs grow faster than revenue – have you experienced such an episode? Any advice for other operators around how to keep costs in line?

As a family run business with no current outside investors, we have a limited budget. As we’ve grown, the costs of production, shipping, rent, you name it, have gone up. With a lean team we all wear several hats and have to be efficient in the way we work and spend our dollars.

The way we’ve cut costs primarily has been by keeping things in house as often as possible. There are only three of us, myself and my parents, involved in the business besides the factory and mill we work with for production. We each bring different skillsets to the team which has benefited Luxeire tremendously. Honestly, we are lucky.

I personally take all of our on model and lifestyle photography and am the model on our website, which saves us thousands of dollars quarterly. We also don’t work with any ad agencies. We create and manage all of our own ads. And, we don’t work with any PR agencies at the moment. Last year we gave one a go, but ultimately weren’t getting the return we needed to make it worth our while.

The things we outsource are things that require expertise that we personally aren’t trained in or have time for. As we grow there are more and more aspects of the business that we are beginning to outsource. We have been very picky about this and if we don’t see tangible results, we cut it and move on.

The most valuable lesson I have learned is, if you want something done right (and for the right price) learn to do it yourself. Learn about each aspect of your business so that when it comes to hiring, you better understand what and who you are looking for to fill a role. If you can grow your business without needing to hire more people or outsource tasks to agencies, you are more likely to be profitable and will have the upper hand when you speak to potential investors.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have always loved fashion, dressing up, shopping, all of the things. While my dad was encouraging me to go to college for math (boring), I ultimately decided to attend Parsons School of Design in New York. While I was in my senior year of high school, my mom, Gina, started her own clothing brand, Luxeire. She had no previous experience in the fashion industry. But she was looking for a product and couldn’t find it, so she decided to make it herself. I had no intention of joining her in this endeavor until my senior year at Parsons. At this point I had a couple years of experience interning at a start-up DTC shoe brand and realized the potential Luxeire had but wasn’t reaching. Luxeire was basically my mom’s “side project” while she was a school pyschologist and things just weren’t picking top traction. So, in 2019 I quit my internship and joined her at Luxeire. We took a pause in 2020 due to COVID, but picked things back up at the end of this year when I decided the answer to our problems was switching to DTC and running ads. I had some modeling and photography/video experience so started taking videos with my iPhone of me in our shirts, showing the stretch and fit. And, to my mother and my surprise, this actually worked.
At Luxeire, we design garments to meet the needs of the modern woman, offering a perfect blend of luxury, versatility, and durability. What makes Luxeire different from competing brands is the quality and function of our fabrics. We source from a mill in Italy that specialized in sustainable technical fabrics and produce in New York. Our best seller is our Classic Button Up – a fitted button up that has the same technical properties as athletic wear. I believe this is what set our ads apart and convinced women to click “purchase”. I am proud to say that the women who buy Luxeire keep coming back for more.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

When we decided to “relaunch” Luxeire at the end of 2020, I was really pushing for us to run social media ads. I had no experience in social media advertising and my mom was very hesitant. She had spent a lot of money in other areas and there was not much budget left to risk on potentially ineffective ads. I kept pushing and eventually was granted a small budget to get things rolling. I watched YouTube videos on how to set up an account, took out my tripod and started filming. Failure was, at least to me, not an option here, as this is my family’s business. If this didn’t work, I knew we would have to shut down the business. Honestly, it was very stressful. I was, and still am not, our target demographic but was about to run ads of myself as a 22 year old targeting women in their 40s-50s. But, with the right video and verbiage, it worked. Like I said before, if you want something done right, learn to do it yourself.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

My mom and business partner at Luxeire is great at this. To this day, she is still handles all of our customer service. When customers reach out with a question, return or exchange, or really anything, they get a response from Gina, Luxeire’s founder and co-owner. I think customers really value the interacting with the owner of the company. It makes their experience more personal. We have received several 5 star reviews mentioning how good our customer service is, and I can credit it all to Gina.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.luxeire.com
• Instagram: @luxeire_ny
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/luxeire
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_RTJnupcvdfPCqfvJElXug

Image Credits
took myself