We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shanobia Stovall a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shanobia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
My idea to execution moment was ignited when I completed a project opening a brand new $177 million hospital (a 32-acre master-planned campus with over 81+ beds). As a lead healthcare IT project manager, I had the responsibility of managing a project with over forty department groups, which consisted of the information technology teams, clinical departments, business departments, third-party vendors and working with various construction project managers.
The construction site for the new hospital was an hour and a half away from my home with traffic. During the driving commute of working months on end for the project, I would spend my time in my car asking God how is he going to use me for this particular project as it was by far the largest project I had ever encountered at the time.
During the go-live day, I arrived at the campus early morning at 3:00am as I wanted to be the first to arrive prior to the first patient, and to make sure all of the processes and planning for the systems we had worked on went smoothly and successfully for activation. I worked over 20 hours that day making sure the plan was executed efficiently and making sure I had the opportunity to witness the community be so excited and thankful to now have a state-art patient care facility be of service to their growing community. The go-live was a success and til this day, I can go inside of the hospital and see my name on a wall amongst hundreds of team members being a part of it’s opening day.
This was my tipping point to trust in my own idea execution and have faith to go after one of my passions, which was fashion. It was the idea to not let fear stop me from manifesting something that I always loved. From there, I launched Major & Main, my styling and fashion brand.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
As I began to further trust in my own idea execution, my tipping point was also amplified further while playing runway at home with my daughter, who simply stated “Ohhhh my mommy is a fashionista!”
Major & Main is a styling and fashion company established for women to feel great style while wearing multi-functional, professional, casual and ready to wear fashion. My mission focuses on womenswear and creating great style statements.I want my clients and consumers of my brand to be able to walk into a room and create an impact because they feel so majorly beautiful and confident in what they are wearing and their style.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
No formal fashion design school or training. No access to local fashion design powerhouses in areas such as New York or Los Angeles. And No fashion roadmap to having it all together and figured out.
My resilience stems from my passion, my grit, and me consistently telling my dream to others. I was praying to God that if I took a leap of faith to just start, that he would always send me the help and guidance that I needed. I also spent a lot of time researching on Google and You Tube University! And from there, I created my initial plan.
The first item in my plan was to create my mission statement/scope. Second, I narrowed down what styles I wanted to present first, my target audience, and the initial capital I could afford to design my clothes and or work with various vendors on selected styles. Third, I learned about e-commerce platforms for setting up websites for your business and other business administration items (i.e. sales, LLCs, taxes, business tools & techniques for accounting, etc.). Fourth, I researched what local events and fashion pop-ups were available to present my fashion brand and continued to work on creating an online social media presence.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I am still learning that the fashion industry is all about being able to be resilient and being able to pivot! During the pandemic caused by Covid-19 in 2020, there were so many environmental factors that were beyond anyone’s control. My initial business model consisted of styling and designing for women in the workplace, and when cities shutdown and working remotely became the new normal for many industries, I had to pivot to continue to incorporate more casual wear sectors to meet the demand. I am constantly learning and staying connected with my consumer’s needs and requests that impact their daily lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.majorandmain.com
- Instagram: @majorandmain