We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zack McLarnon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Zack thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?
You will always remember your first. First kiss. First love. First home. First Client. For better or worse, these experiences mean something to you. They shape you and will forever be a part of your identity. Our first client not only shaped us – it inspired us and gave us the confidence that we needed to grow into the company that we are today.
We launched Parker & Hyde on December 19th, 2016. I will always remember this date because that’s when our son Parker was born. Looking back now, starting a company with a newborn child probably wasn’t the greatest idea but I guess hindsight is 20/20. We had experienced some early success with various home shows, pop-up shops and sales from our website but honestly, we weren’t generating enough income to feed a cat – and we didn’t even have a cat. We needed to do more. We needed to find a way to market our brand and showcase it to a wider audience. For us, the best way to do this would be to start wholesaling our bags to retail stores.
I immediately started making a lists of stores in Dallas that I felt would carry our bags and the list grew to over 100 stores. Before I could turn the page the phone rang. It was one of my favorite stores, Saint Bernard Sports – and serendipitous – they wanted to inquire about placing a wholesale order. I was beyond excited. I don’t remember the first half of the conversation but the second half was them asking about our “line-sheets”, “MOQ”, lead times and if we would accept “net 30 terms”. I had NO idea what this wholesale lingo was but I’m pretty sure my response was “Yes, “absolutely”, “we can handle that” and “can we meet in person on Friday”? I spent the rest of that day putting together our line-sheets, searching the internet for “wholesale lingo” and going over my pitch. Sure enough, Friday rolls around, I meet the team at Saint Bernard, the pitch went without a hitch, they fell in love with the product, and just like that, we secured our first client. Fast forward to present day. Saint Bernard Sports remains one of our family’s favorite stores to shop at, our products are still selling well in there 4 brick and mortar locations, and we have gained friends for life with the owners, Charlie and Ashley.
I don’t know if there are any life lessons from this but the main takeaway would probably be to never doubt yourself, take risks when they need to be taken and jump off that cliff and grow wings on the way down, because depending on where and how you land, you may just land your first client.
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
Lauren and I are a Texan couple through and through. Though we didn’t grow up together – I’m a native Dallasite and Lauren was born and raised in Abilene – we found each other as soon as we could. We met after our respective time at TCU and SMU and immediately connected over our deep Texas roots – bonding over our shared love for easy weekends on the ranch, a comfortable pair of boots, and a great margarita. I proposed, we got married, and “settled down”. Soon we found ourselves expecting our first child – a sweet little girl named Molly.
This is a time in a young family’s life when most people would consider the “settling down” portion to go into full swing. But I, never one to be comfortable with too much free time, decided to invest in a leather company out of Brazil – without telling Lauren. I had a vision of selling cowhide rugs to décor minded Dallasites. I thought I’d sell a few hides as a bit of a “hobby” “side hustle” and maybe Lauren would never even find out. But Lauren did eventually find out because as the demand for the cowhides grew, it was a secret that I could no longer contain. Lauren and Molly found themselves enthusiastically part of “Team Cowhide”, providing ideas and brainstorming ways to update the classic cowhide rug.
Soon, I was busy working with local designers and clients to choose the right flooring for their spaces, and I realized another love and talent – customizing furniture. As I began to refinish and design furniture, even incorporating the hides from time to time, word of our pieces started to spread and demand grew. It was around this time, now expecting our second child, Lauren began meeting with handbag manufacturers, with an idea to create a cowhide clutch. After seeing the demand for an updated, personalized and unique take on an arguably enduring design piece – the cowhide rug – Lauren felt inspired to translate that notion to something all women love – a fabulous bag! So from the color, to the texture, to the tassel – that is exactly what she designed. Once the first few options were ready to launch, just a few weeks before we were about to welcome our son, Parker, Lauren and I took a risk and officially found ourselves in the business of selling purses. Much like the cowhides, where our “hobby” began, the purses were a hit. Between the hide rugs, furniture, and fashion – we realized that we could no longer call this a hobby- it was a business- and it needed a name. So in honor of our newest family addition, our hobby-turned- business was founded in 2016 and called Parker & Hyde. Now more than 5 years into it, we’ve added on to our family, with the arrival of Preston in 2019, and of course have continued to expand our offerings with the ever-popular, all purpose neoprene tote bag that is continuously updated and is being sold in over 3,000 stores across the country.
If you asked Lauren and I way back when what “settling down” would look like, it probably would not have included running a handbag business while starting our family. But, ask us now, and we will tell you, that while we’re still two Texas kids at heart, and we’re less likely to be spending weekends on the ranch, we’re happy to fill our days figuring out the right pattern for our newest tote bag or dreaming up the next “it” accessory, with Molly, Parker and Preston at our side.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
We made the biggest pivot in business and probably the biggest pivot of our lives in the spring of 2020. The year of the dreaded coronavirus. It’s actually hard to imagine that the virus started its spread over 2 1/2 years ago – it almost feels as if it was all a bad dream – but in reality – it was a living nightmare. A nightmare that I felt was certainly going to sink our business. I was in panic mode.
It was the middle of March when I started seeing our e-commerce and wholesale orders decline. What was projected to have have been a record setting 1st quarter for Parker & Hyde was wiped away faster than a TikTok video. Is this really going to be the end of our company? To make matters worse, people are dying from this virus. Could this really be happening ? Hell no. I was determined to do something. I had no idea how I was going to save the company and try and save the world but I had a wife and three young kids to face everyday and they were counting on me to get them thru this.
Then it hit me. Lauren’s elbow hit me right in the ribs because apparently I was snoring. I woke up from my slumber and stumbled to the guest bedroom and turned on the local news. I couldn’t believe my eyes. People were fighting over face masks at Sherwin Williams – a local paint store. That’s when the light bulb went off and the juices started to flow. I called my manufacturer and told him to get out bed and to meet me at the factory. We were going to make masks.
After some trial and error and a few cups of coffee we had our first prototype. It wasn’t anything fancy but fancy wasn’t what I was going for. I had a sense of social responsibility and I felt that my duty was to literally save lives. I was trying to save lives first and then maybe… just maybe…save our company. By midday we had sewn a couple hundred masks and I immediately gave them to our close friends and family.
Word had started spread and the demand for the masks started to increase significantly. However, my core business was at a complete standstill and wasn’t generating enough income to live off of. I knew that if I was going to continue to make masks for the masses I had to start charging something, but the last thing I wanted to do was overcharge for something so simple yet in such high demand. So we set the initial price at a humble $5 per mask. I told my sewing team to make as many masks as they possibly could and I then posted an ad on our neighborhood Facebook page. The next morning I had a line of people at my door and by the afternoon I had 2 Dallas police men directing traffic from Preston Rd to my doorstep. I took a deep breath, stepped back from the my front door and said to my wife. “I guess this is what a pivot is and I guess we’re officially in the mask business”. Little did I know, this was just the tip of the iceberg.
We decided to start selling the masks on our website, mainly to scale the business but it was also to alleviate the traffic on our front porch. The following week we were asked to tell our story on WFAA Daybreak with Cleo Greene. Little did we know that this would be the same day that Clay Jenkins made it mandatory to wear masks in Dallas County. During the interview, we vowed to donate masks to a frontline worker or healthcare professional, for every mask purchased. As you can imagine, our online sales went thru the roof and we made good on our commitment. Over the course of 3 months, we sold over 500,000 masks and were able to help out the heroes that worked tirelessly to keep us healthy.
As Covid cases started to decline and when masks were readily available at every retailer and gas station, we decided to halt mask production and start focusing on our core business.
I will always remember this time in our business. It was definitely a time of panic and uncertainty, but In uncertain times, don’t panic. Pivot. In other words, when something is no longer possible in your life or your business, find a new way to do it or do it differently. For a little while, life is going to be different. But if we pivot instead of panicking, we will get through.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
One thing that we have learned about building (and maintaining) a solid reputation is that good news travels fast and bad news travels 100 times faster! The internet and social media have ensured that wherever you go, your reputation will proceed – and reputation in business is everything.
Customers trust and engage with your business based on what people say about you. Whether these conversations take place on social media, review hubs, or on your own website, other people’s opinions form the bulk of your business’s reputation. Unfortunately, this means that your reputation is easily damaged, and this can impact your bottom line – but the truth is, you will never be able to please everybody.
In the end, no business, no matter how hard you work at it, is 100 percent perfect. Think of all the restaurants you’ve visited in your life where the food was good, the service was good, but you just didn’t feel a pressing need to return. The same will be true of your business. If you treat every customer fair, even the people who don’t come back will still be happy they came, and when you do run into a situation where you receive a bad review or negative feedback, use it as an opportunity. With the right approach, a critic can become a loyal customer and greatly affect your business or personal reputation. For example, a company could follow up with a customer who left a poor review online or offer a refund to a patron who had an unpleasant experience. These customers might respect the gesture and try that business again or talk positively about the reaction and response to their friends and family.
Keep your promises. Follow through on commitments and timelines, whether it means meeting deadlines, reviewing a colleague’s work or resolving a customer service issue. Both your reputation and credibility grow when you fulfill commitments, and you can become known for dependable, reliable and trustworthy work.
Be humble and admit mistakes when they happen. Consider openly acknowledging an issue rather than finding an excuse or hiding it. Possessing responsibility is an act of integrity and can increase your reputation more than the error can harm it.
At the end of the day, there are several ways to build and maintain your reputation in the market, but (in my opinion) as long as you listen to your clients, are always fair and transparent, admit when you’re wrong, go the extra mile and try to turn any negatives into a positive, your reputation will be just fine.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.parkerhyde.com
- Instagram: @parkerandhyde