We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Trudy Hankins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Trudy below.

Trudy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

Confidence Shoppe has been a family business from the onset. Both of my daughters have been heavily involved, however, one of them, Camry, decided to stay the course and make it her career. Camry is currently the CFO of Confidence Shoppe and really out does herself!

Being a mom and daughter at night, while being business professionals during the day can cause some bumps in the road for us relationally sometimes. We work hard to make sure we keep the right hat on for the right discussions. If we’re being chill during the day and having regular, relationship conversations then that’s mostly a mother/daughter hat that’s being worn. However, we also have to change hats often and wear our CEO/CFO hats instead. The longer we work together the easier it gets. But just like working with someone who is not related you have to manage the relationship by being kind, walking in forgiveness, being relational, and being professional too.

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

Confidence Shoppe is a women’s boutique curating clothing S-3XL. We are committed to creating a world where everyone wears confidence! Founded by Trudy Hankins in 2016, Confidence Shoppe has always been a dream of this lifelong entrepreneur. We provide personal styling sessions, in-person shopping, online connections and shopping opportunities!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Probably one of the hardest lesson’s to unlearn was, what I called, my Wall of China. Because of childhood trauma with a cousin who took it upon herself to always one up me, tells lies about me, and basically be a bully, I learned to not be vulnerable. I learned being vulnerable gets you into trouble with your parents, teachers, etc. Basically being vulnerable means you get hurt. So over many years I built a Wall of China. No one gets in. No one gets past the gates.

I spent my first years of my business as an online store, and it was easy to hide behind the screen, but as my business grew it became very apparent that hiding was no longer an option. After some pretty deep counseling and time to process I was able to readjust my belief system and bring down the Wall of China I had built.

Now, I openly talk about my size, my weight, whether or not my nails need to be done, my imperfect hair, etc. I have learned to talk about real life issue and real life concerns. I have learned that a virtual world of perfection is exactly that, virtual. Nothing in this life is perfect, but everything we do, can be done with confidence. Confidence and perfection are 100% NOT synonymous.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In Feb 2021 I met another boutique owner through an online social group. It turned out we were both in the same town. I was online, she had a store front. On a random day, I happened to be near her store (with my daughter, Camry) and decided we should drop in and put a face to a name. We did drop in, she happened to be there, and in that conversation she offered me the option to use her downstairs space that was being completely unutilized. Two months later we shifted from being online only to having a storefront as well.

It was a HUGE shift and pivot! I completely underestimated the change that was going to take place. I had always allowed shoppers to stop by my house to shop in person since I had space for a showroom. In my mind, we were just relocating the showroom. I was so, so wrong!

Over the last year, we have learned about in person merchandising, how to plan for in person shopping and purchasing inventory. We have learned how to overcome in person obstacles, (like getting them to walk down the stairs) and so much more. Having a store front is great and I love it, but I certainly was not prepared for all the (positive) change it would end up bringing to us!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://confidenceshoppe.com
• Instagram: @confidenceshoppe
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/confidenceshoppe