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

Hi Nolan, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?

Recently, a customer asked if we were going to restock a hoodie because her little brother lost his hoodie in a house fire. We responded back and told her that we will make her little brother the hoodie and send it to him for free. This was a moment when I realized that our customers really cherish their pieces, and it was the least we could do for someone who loved their hoodie that much.

Nolan, 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?

7 years ago, I was a year out of college looking for full-time jobs in the ad agency industry. Every interview I had, they told me that I didn’t have enough experience for the job. I was crushed after each no, but realized that they were basing their opinion of me off of a short interview and a piece of paper.

I then realized that my whole life has been like that. There are plenty of things that I loved to do when I was young, but let the outside noise from other people get to me, leading me to give up on those passions. I was tired of living my life based off of what other people thought of me, and that is how the name Opinion was born.

I had absolutely zero experience when it came to clothing. I like to say that I tossed myself into the ocean and learned how to swim. I knew that I would have to teach myself all the skills that the ad agencies said I had no experience in, so this journey would not only benefit me growing as a brand, but as a person as well.

2 years into the journey, I decided to leave my full-time job that I currently had, and take the chance of doing Opinion full-time while taking part-time jobs in the clothing industry so I could learn more about what makes a brand stand out.

I worked at a screen printing shop, a retail store, and in the warehouse of a major MN based clothing brand. These years were important to me because I got to see every aspect of a clothing brand and how I could implement them into Opinion.

The journey of running this clothing brand has been full of ups and downs, success and failure, but it’s made it the brand that it is today.

We will continue to strive to create a brand that encourages others to be exactly who they are to the core, and never let anyone’s opinions dictate who they are.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Social media is a huge way our customers get in touch with us, and it’s one of my favorite things to manage as well.

We get a lot of DM’s on Instagram asking about products, wether it’s for sizing, returns, or if we have extra stock of a product.

I make sure to answer these questions as quickly as possible, because I feel that lots of brands take days to answer a simple question, and I want that to set us apart.

We are still a small brand, so our customers are extremely important to us, because they have helped get this brand to where it is, so they deserve to have any questions or concerns addressed immediately.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Last year I lost my full-time job that was helping me fund Opinion. I was unemployed for almost a full-year, and I had to take a break from Opinion so that I could afford my monthly bills without knowing if the next month I would find a job or not.

After not running Opinion for almost a year, I didn’t know if anyone actually cared about the brand, I felt like I was starting completely over, but I looking back at it, I needed to go through that and have Opinion “taken away form me” to understand truly how much I love running this brand.

I now have a full-time job and have the financials to put money into Opinion, so this will be a big year for us.

I truly believe that you can never fail if you never decide to give up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.opinionclothing.org
• Instagram: opinionclothingcompany
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/opinionclothingcompany/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/89811310/admin/dashboard/
• Twitter: opinionclthing
• Youtube: opinionclothing
• Other: TikTok: opinionclothing

Image Credits

Keaton Greene
Bobby Perez