Speaker 1: Hi, sheep Pivots listeners.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to share with you that we've been
Speaker 2: nominated for the second year in a row for Signal
Speaker 2: Awards Listener's choice for Most Inspirational Episode for this season's
Speaker 2: episode with Ukrainian refugee Tetiana Podle. But in order to win,
Speaker 2: we need your vote. To vote for our episode, visit
Speaker 2: the link in our Instagram bio at sheep Pivots the Podcast,
Speaker 2: or search for sheep Pivots when you go to vote
Speaker 2: dot Signal Award dot com. Tetiana story is truly incredible.
Speaker 2: As a Ukrainian refugee, she's dedicated herself to volunteering in
Speaker 2: the war, and her story starts long before she was
Speaker 2: even born as she recalls the experiences of her grandparents
Speaker 2: in a post Soviet Ukraine. She carries us through an
Speaker 2: emotional retelling of how she went back to her home
Speaker 2: country just weeks after the war, started to care for
Speaker 2: her family and eventually leading a grassroots effort to transport
Speaker 2: supplies to her father's U unit on the front lines.
Speaker 2: It is truly an amazing episode, so please vote and
Speaker 2: share it with your friends. Welcome to she Pivots the Podcast.
Speaker 2: Where we talk with women who dared to pivot out
Speaker 2: of one career and into something new and explore how
Speaker 2: their personal lives impacted these decisions.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman.
Speaker 3: Today.
Speaker 2: I'm thrilled to be sharing our live she Pivots recording.
Speaker 2: We did this summer with the phenomenal Bobby Brown. You
Speaker 2: know that Bobby Brown in full transparency. Bobby has been
Speaker 2: a long time dream guest of mine. Okay, I know
Speaker 2: I say that a lot, but her pivots always fascinated me.
Speaker 2: From building a massive beauty empire to recently founding Joe
Speaker 2: Road Beauty, I wanted to know if the pivot into
Speaker 2: something smaller felt more fulfilling.
Speaker 1: So a quick refresh before we hop into the episode.
Speaker 2: Bobby founded and built the now household beauty brand Bobby
Speaker 2: Brown in the nineties and sold it to Estey Lauter
Speaker 2: shortly after and signed the infamous non compete clause that
Speaker 2: prevented her from starting another beauty brand for twenty five years.
Speaker 2: So she stayed on with the company for over twenty
Speaker 2: years and built it into a billion dollar brand. Then,
Speaker 2: almost twenty five years to the day after she signed
Speaker 2: her non compete. She launched her own brand again, Jones
Speaker 2: Road Beauty. She also started a handful of other ventures
Speaker 2: over the years, like Just Bobby dot com, a digital
Speaker 2: editorial content site, The George, a thirty one room boutique
Speaker 2: hotel in Montclair, and two podcasts, The Important Things and
Speaker 2: Beyond the Beauty. I want to take a moment to
Speaker 2: say thank you to the Church, our local center for
Speaker 2: the arts, creativitying community, for hosting us. This was truly
Speaker 2: the perfect backdrop for a She Pivots live recording.
Speaker 1: Let's jump right in. My name is Sherry Pasparella.
Speaker 4: I am the executive director of the Church, on behalf
Speaker 4: of myself and our lovely board and all of our
Speaker 4: team would like to welcome you warmly here today. I
Speaker 4: was thinking a lot about the ways in which she
Speaker 4: Pivots and the idea of empowered and empowering women connects
Speaker 4: with the spirit of creativity, which is what we do here.
Speaker 4: And I think Emily and Bobby embody the notion of
Speaker 4: a contemporary creative woman as somebody who's able to define
Speaker 4: on their own terms how their voice and vision can
Speaker 4: exist in the world. I'm very pleased to introduce you
Speaker 4: guys all to the lovely and awesome Emily Tish Assessman.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for joining this live podcast
Speaker 2: of she Pivots. I was just chatting with Bobby in
Speaker 2: the back before. We've only done a handful of them.
Speaker 2: So we've done. We've interviewed live on stage Stacy London
Speaker 2: from What Not to Where, Robin Arzon from Pelotony launched
Speaker 2: her book, and Vice President Kamala Harris and today Bobby Brown.
Speaker 2: So I spent about fifteen years as a political strategist
Speaker 2: working in Washington on federal policy, and then I had
Speaker 2: three kids in three and a half years and went
Speaker 2: into a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: And you know what you can't do.
Speaker 2: With three kids in three and a half years in
Speaker 2: a global pandemic anything at all, And you definitely can't
Speaker 2: work on an upcoming presidential campaign which will determine basically
Speaker 2: the next wave of your political future. So I saw
Speaker 2: my career falling apart before me, and it.
Speaker 1: Was out of my control.
Speaker 2: So when Cherry and I were chatting about we could
Speaker 2: potentially do together, she's so generous and said, well, who
Speaker 2: were your dream guests?
Speaker 1: Maybe we can try to get them.
Speaker 2: The next thing I said is that I've actually always
Speaker 2: wanted to of you, Bobby Brown, because she exemplifies for
Speaker 2: me this idea that you can have a vision of success,
Speaker 2: of what looks like success having a big business, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to assume a little bit here, but maybe
Speaker 2: finding a different kind of happiness potentially more in changing
Speaker 2: your version of success with the business that she has
Speaker 2: now in so many other ventures. So the church as
Speaker 2: a cultural center is the perfect place to have this conversation.
Speaker 2: I'm a full time resident here. Bobby is also a
Speaker 2: part time resident here. This is the first place that
Speaker 2: we have found community. This is the place that we
Speaker 2: have chosen to raise our family. So it also feels
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure that we're actually in our own
Speaker 2: community here.
Speaker 1: We were just chatting that before.
Speaker 2: But so I'm so excited to bring up the incredible
Speaker 2: Bobby Brown. Bobby, your resume is long, extensive. We'll get
Speaker 2: to some great highlights. Why don't we just start every interview?
Speaker 1: What is your name and what do you do?
Speaker 3: My name is Bobby Brown. It's always a weird thing.
Speaker 3: I'm a makeup artist. That's what I think of myself.
Speaker 3: I'm a makeup artist. I'm a serial entrepreneur, I'm a wife,
Speaker 3: I am a mother, and I am a grandmother.
Speaker 2: So let's go back. Let's start from the beginning. We're
Speaker 2: going to do a little chronological here. Then we're going
Speaker 2: to get more interesting. But I want to start back
Speaker 2: to when you were a teenager and you decided to
Speaker 2: go well, you didn't know that you were going into.
Speaker 1: Makeup, but you loved it. What was it about makeup
Speaker 1: that drew you in?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: I had gone to two colleges, didn't like either of them.
Speaker 3: Told my mom I wanted to drop out. I thought
Speaker 3: it was really boring. It was really boring, it wasn't interesting.
Speaker 3: And she said, you can't. You have to go to school.
Speaker 3: And I said, but I don't know what I want
Speaker 3: to do. She said, forget what you want to do
Speaker 3: for a living. If today's your birthday, you could do anything.
Speaker 3: What would you want to do. I could have said
Speaker 3: go to Paris. I could have said, you know, eat brownies.
Speaker 3: I said, I want to go to Marshall Fields and
Speaker 3: play with makeup. She said, why don't you be a
Speaker 3: makeup artist? And I said, all right, I'll find a
Speaker 3: college that will allow me to do makeup. And I
Speaker 3: found em they didn't have makeup, but they had a
Speaker 3: degree called an interdisciplinary degree where you could make your
Speaker 3: own major. I still don't know what inter interdisciplinary means,
Speaker 3: but I made up my major and I figured I
Speaker 3: learned how to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: Well, you have said that when you were when you
Speaker 2: were younger, when you were a teenager, that you thought
Speaker 2: you would always be.
Speaker 1: A teacher and a mother.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you continuously kept coming back to
Speaker 2: that throughout your career or do you feel like you
Speaker 2: went on different paths.
Speaker 3: I have been a teacher and a mother, and so
Speaker 3: I have accomplished that, and you know, and I also
Speaker 3: have accomplished way more than I ever dreamed or thought possible.
Speaker 3: I mean, never in a million years would I have
Speaker 3: thought that I have experienced and accomplished what I have.
Speaker 3: And if there was a crystal ball that said this
Speaker 3: is going to be your life, I would have said, no,
Speaker 3: thank you seriously. Yeah, it's a lot. I love it,
Speaker 3: but you know, my what really defines me is not
Speaker 3: work and success, even though it's amazing what I've been
Speaker 3: able to accomplish, but it's being a wife, a mother,
Speaker 3: and a friend. Like my dear friends are here and like, honestly,
Speaker 3: like that makes me choke up, because that's what matters.
Speaker 2: What did you think your life was going to look like?
Speaker 2: You say, you know, you weren't really sure, But what
Speaker 2: did you think it was going to look like?
Speaker 3: I mean, I thought I would live in the suburbs
Speaker 3: and marry a Jewish guy. I did both of those things,
Speaker 3: you know, I thought I would I don't know, work
Speaker 3: in a I don't know, a department store. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I never thought. I don't think about things before I
Speaker 3: do it. I know that sounds really weird. I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 3: that sounds interesting, that looks interesting, and I just dive.
Speaker 1: In and dive in.
Speaker 3: She did.
Speaker 2: It was the nineties and Bobby saw a gap in
Speaker 2: the makeup industry and decided to fill it by going
Speaker 2: against the mainstream trends and releasing a makeup brand with
Speaker 2: neutral tones. It took off and became the household name
Speaker 2: for accessible and natural makeup. What did success look like
Speaker 2: to you at that point? Like, what were you trying
Speaker 2: to get to?
Speaker 3: Well, I was trying to be able to pay my
Speaker 3: four hundred dollars rent. That was by far the number
Speaker 3: one thing, seriously, and you know, my father for a
Speaker 3: graduation from college, gave me my rent for a year,
Speaker 3: and I'll never forget. I called him up and he
Speaker 3: gave me a credit card. He said, you have two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty dollars to spend on this credit card.
Speaker 3: And I said okay, and I could never ever do it.
Speaker 3: And then I kept getting like I kept owing money,
Speaker 3: and so the interest built up, and I called my dad.
Speaker 3: I said, Dad, I cannot figure out how to like
Speaker 3: figure out how to save money, how to pay this off.
Speaker 3: He said, stop, just go find a way to make
Speaker 3: more money. I said okay, and I hung up the
Speaker 3: phone and I put an ad in the village voice.
Speaker 3: Someone called me to do makeup. It was a guy.
Speaker 3: It's another story I'll say for another time. Remind me later.
Speaker 3: It was quite something.
Speaker 2: You did an interview on one of your podcasts with
Speaker 2: Mickey Drexler from the fashion industry, and you talked in
Speaker 2: that interview a lot about work ethic and asking where
Speaker 2: you thought his came from. So I'm going to flip
Speaker 2: that question to you. What do you think your work
Speaker 2: ethic looks like and where do you think it came from?
Speaker 3: Well being from Chicago yay. Everybody like we're you know,
Speaker 3: we're Midwestern people, like we're solid people. I watched my grandparents' work.
Speaker 3: I watched my parents' work. Everybody worked hard to get
Speaker 3: where they were, and I watched Papa Sam build all
Speaker 3: his businesses, not realizing I was learning. Honestly, most of
Speaker 3: the things I learned about now I know it's called
Speaker 3: marketing and pr I learned from watching Papa Sam. How
Speaker 3: he treated people, what were their businesses. I mean, his
Speaker 3: last business was a car salesman. He was known as
Speaker 3: Cadillac Sam in Chicago, and he was on the side
Speaker 3: of buildings, and you know, he had a lot of
Speaker 3: famous people. He was five two I think. I don't
Speaker 3: think he was five to five, Papa Sam. And you
Speaker 3: know he sold cars to al Capone and Meyer Lansky
Speaker 3: and you know, and the best story Papa Sam ever
Speaker 3: told me is one day he was in his car
Speaker 3: dealership and some guy walked in with an overcoat and
Speaker 3: two bags. He looked like he was a homeless guy.
Speaker 3: No one would go wait on this guy. So Papa
Speaker 3: went over and said, hey, doc, how you doing. And
Speaker 3: the guy said, I want to buy a car. And
Speaker 3: Papa said, all right, let me show you. The guy
Speaker 3: had bags of cash and bought a car just like that.
Speaker 3: And so you never know what someone you know, what
Speaker 3: their background is until you really, you know, give someone
Speaker 3: the time. I mean, honestly, some of the most successful
Speaker 3: people you would never know they were that successful. And
Speaker 3: you know, look, i was the one that would walk
Speaker 3: around Barney's with a backpack and I'd be followed and
Speaker 3: I'm like, Okay, I'm wearing sneakers or clogs or whatever,
Speaker 3: and it's like, yeah, I'm not going to steal anything, guys.
Speaker 1: So and now that look would be very chic.
Speaker 3: Now it's finally back. Yes, fanny packs and backpacks and clogs.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm happy you led the way. I'm telling
Speaker 3: him you definitely did.
Speaker 2: So. You started Bobby Brown Cosmetics because you were mixing
Speaker 2: your own on set. You found a partner at the
Speaker 2: beginning of that partnership. How even you started with the partner,
Speaker 2: How did you decide to launch the line under your name?
Speaker 3: Well, I didn't really decide to launch the line under
Speaker 3: my name. So I met a chemist and I asked
Speaker 3: him what he did, and it was at Keel's Pharmacy
Speaker 3: and he told me he makes lipsticks on the side.
Speaker 3: I said, I've always wanted to make a lipstick that
Speaker 3: wasn't dry, wasn't grease. He didn't smell, it just looked
Speaker 3: like lips. He's like, I could do it for you.
Speaker 3: So he did and I after sending it back a
Speaker 3: couple times with changes, we had a deal that we
Speaker 3: would sell it and he would get seven fifty. I
Speaker 3: would get seven fifty. I would have to sell it,
Speaker 3: you know. He would give it to me, and I
Speaker 3: thought it was the greatest thing. I thought, everyone's going
Speaker 3: to love this lipstick. Then I realize everyone has different
Speaker 3: color lips number one and some people like red, some
Speaker 3: like pink, so I thought of ten colors. He said, okay, great.
Speaker 3: He would send me makeup, you know, the lipsticks. I
Speaker 3: would sell it. My husband would run it to the
Speaker 3: store to mail it. And then it got really popular.
Speaker 3: We had to get my sister in to do the
Speaker 3: books because I don't know how to do that stuff.
Speaker 3: And then we had a business, and then it got
Speaker 3: serious and we got into Bergdorf. Not because I pitched Burgdorf,
Speaker 3: because we were invited to a party at someone's house
Speaker 3: and I asked her what she did and she was
Speaker 3: a cosmetics buyer at Bergdorf and that's how we launched
Speaker 3: Bergdorf Goodman and then we had to get a real lab.
Speaker 3: The seven fifty seven fifty in business didn't really work.
Speaker 3: It didn't really work out anymore.
Speaker 2: So at that point, did you decide this is my business,
Speaker 2: I'm going out with it and he didn't fit into
Speaker 2: it anymore. I am very interested in the idea in
Speaker 2: kind of coming back to this question about putting yourself
Speaker 2: on the brand, because right now people defining themselves as
Speaker 2: brands is the name of the game, Like that's the.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what a brand was.
Speaker 4: To me.
Speaker 3: A brand was Kleenex. Okay, I mean it's like that's
Speaker 3: a brand, Like all of a sudden, I'm a brand.
Speaker 3: But no, I mean I remember at the time learning
Speaker 3: that you can't this is not a normal business model.
Speaker 3: And this guy couldn't really understand that. So one day
Speaker 3: in an elevator, I smiled someone and I said what
Speaker 3: do you do? And she said, oh, I work at
Speaker 3: a cosmetics lab. I said, oh, I need someone to
Speaker 3: have a card and man a cosmetics in Long Island
Speaker 3: City and they made all the lipsticks. And that is
Speaker 3: the truth. Met him in an elevator.
Speaker 2: So the fact that you did launch it under your
Speaker 2: own lim and you said, now this is my business.
Speaker 2: How did your version of success? What was your version
Speaker 2: of success? At that point?
Speaker 3: I paid the rent, you know, my husband, and I like, look,
Speaker 3: I started this business not by myself. I couldn't have
Speaker 3: done it without him. He's sitting here and I don't
Speaker 3: want to embarrass him, but I'm really smart. And this
Speaker 3: is why I'm smart. I make sure I have someone
Speaker 3: around me that knows what I don't, and so, you know, besides,
Speaker 3: you know, he's just the smartest guy I know. He's
Speaker 3: also he always encouraged me and supported me and would
Speaker 3: tell me things like, don't worry, we can do this.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, we got this. You know where I come
Speaker 3: home and be like, she's doing this. Okay, calm down.
Speaker 3: We're not going to talk about this at ten o'clock
Speaker 3: at night. Okay, calm down, you'll be better in the morning.
Speaker 3: It's always important to have a partner. So we really
Speaker 3: we did it. We've done everything together.
Speaker 2: I think a key piece, whether someone's launching a business,
Speaker 2: making a change, even staying the course, is really who
Speaker 2: their personal kitchen cabinet is has yours stayed the same
Speaker 2: or has it changed?
Speaker 3: Oh? It's completely changed, completely changed. I mean, I you know,
Speaker 3: in this new brand, I don't have anyone from the
Speaker 3: old country.
Speaker 1: But so you sold pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: We sold I guess four and a half years after
Speaker 3: we launched. Yeah, yeah, wow, was right. We were thirty
Speaker 3: two years old. Thirty four years old. Again, I'm not
Speaker 3: good with numbers. I guess thirty four. But we had
Speaker 3: two kids only at the time, and yeah, we sold.
Speaker 2: Now, I feel like there's so much like a big
Speaker 2: decision to go from founder to collaborator to of what
Speaker 2: kind of investors you bring in?
Speaker 1: What was the decision for you?
Speaker 3: Well, there wasn't those words back then. The decision was
Speaker 3: Leonard Lotter called. And anyone that knows Leonard in this room,
Speaker 3: he's the most wonderful human being. And when he called
Speaker 3: and said, you're beating us in the stores, because we
Speaker 3: were beating ste Latter in the department stores, he said,
Speaker 3: we can't beat you anymore, so we want to buy you.
Speaker 3: And you know, there was some issues with partners that
Speaker 3: we had that we were not getting along with. That was,
Speaker 3: you know, a little rough and my husband and I
Speaker 3: you know, it was more money than we could have imagined.
Speaker 3: And we said, yes, you know, And honestly, when Leonard said,
Speaker 3: I know, I know that you know you're so amazing
Speaker 3: at what you do, but I know you don't want
Speaker 3: to spend your life doing the things you don't want
Speaker 3: to do. What if I promised you that you could
Speaker 3: do what you love and what you're good at, and
Speaker 3: I trusted him.
Speaker 2: I want to hop in here to provide a little
Speaker 2: context at this point. It was nineteen ninety five and
Speaker 2: the language around business acquisition and non.
Speaker 1: Compete clauses was new to Bobby.
Speaker 2: And quite honestly not part of the mainstream conversation as
Speaker 2: it is today.
Speaker 1: So did that.
Speaker 2: Feel like your version of success at that point that
Speaker 2: you could focus on the part you liked and not
Speaker 2: the part you.
Speaker 3: Didn't absolutely yes, yes, oh yes, And you know, and
Speaker 3: to be able to do things that you could not
Speaker 3: have imagined, you know, I mean, we sent our nieces
Speaker 3: and nephews to college and a few other people, so
Speaker 3: you got to do things that you know, that matter.
Speaker 2: What was the core piece of the business that you
Speaker 2: really wanted to maintain for yourself and what areas were
Speaker 2: you able to grow in because of this partnership.
Speaker 3: Well, I certainly am happy to never do hr, to
Speaker 3: never do finance, to never do operations, and you know,
Speaker 3: getting one thing to another place and where it goes.
Speaker 3: I don't care. I just I just like everything else.
Speaker 3: I like the product, I like the marketing, I like
Speaker 3: the messaging and the creative part of it. I care
Speaker 3: about those other things and I want to know about them,
Speaker 3: but I want someone else to deal with them.
Speaker 2: When you were entering that partnership, you end up staying
Speaker 2: with the company.
Speaker 3: Twenty two years.
Speaker 1: That is really unheard of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when I hear that's what I hear, it's a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 2: At the time, when you entered into the partnership, did
Speaker 2: you think that you would just say, Okay, great, this
Speaker 2: is it. I'll just stay with this forever or did
Speaker 2: you think what did you think?
Speaker 3: No, I don't remember how long our first contract was
Speaker 3: how many years, but four three, three years? So and
Speaker 3: we kept signing three years, two years, and I just
Speaker 3: I didn't know. And you know, Steve would always ask me,
Speaker 3: are you ready? And honestly, I went to work every
Speaker 3: day thinking I own the company, and I realized at
Speaker 3: the very end. I didn't because things changed for them too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that are better known parts of your story.
Speaker 1: And this was the non compete? Right and how long
Speaker 1: it was?
Speaker 3: Yes? We my husband, I'll never forget he called and
Speaker 3: he said, all right, we have a deal. He said,
Speaker 3: there's only one thing. They want you to sign, a
Speaker 3: twenty five year non compete. Okay. I counted on my
Speaker 3: fingers at the time because I was I thought I
Speaker 3: was thirty two. I looked thirty two, but I was
Speaker 3: thirty five. I said, I'm not going to want to
Speaker 3: work on them in my sixties. Who cares? Let them
Speaker 3: have it? So we signed and I didn't think I
Speaker 3: would want to work in my sixties. And I launched
Speaker 3: this new brand at sixty two? Was that the right
Speaker 3: age you could do?
Speaker 2: The math Jones Road launched the month her non compete ended.
Speaker 2: One had to wonder if she had been waiting for
Speaker 2: this moment. Was there something specific that where you said, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm done, because I do think this is, you know,
Speaker 2: like your big pivot, Like was there something that said
Speaker 2: that I'm done here?
Speaker 1: Or it seemed like maybe it coincided at the end
Speaker 1: of the of the non compete.
Speaker 3: No no. When I left, I hit four and a
Speaker 3: half years left on the non compete, which I bought
Speaker 3: a charm with an ampersand on it with the date
Speaker 3: ten dot twenty when my non compete would It was
Speaker 3: a really long four and a half years, let me
Speaker 3: tell you. But I you know, that's kind of kept
Speaker 3: me going. So so, you know, I just I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just I stayed because I cared and it was
Speaker 3: time to leave, probably for four years before I left.
Speaker 3: And I didn't leave because I'm someone that thinks I
Speaker 3: could make things better, I could fix things. I know
Speaker 3: exactly what to do. But I guess I wasn't really
Speaker 3: able to do what I thought I would do. So
Speaker 3: it really took my aunt Alice, who I believe was
Speaker 3: ninety at the time, maybe eighty eight. She's ninety one now,
Speaker 3: and she said, stop. All I do is hear you
Speaker 3: complain about things that are broken. I think you can't
Speaker 3: fix it. I'm like, Aunt Alice, you're right. So it
Speaker 3: took her to kind of say it's time. I was
Speaker 3: fifty nine point something years old when I left the
Speaker 3: brand and my kids were out of the house. You know,
Speaker 3: I think it's when Duke went to you know, college.
Speaker 3: But that's what I remember, like we had foreign exchange students,
Speaker 3: we had nephews, we had and all of a sudden
Speaker 3: everyone was gone and I wasn't working. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: can you imagine what that was like? Where you wake
Speaker 3: up at the morning and you're like and I wasn't
Speaker 3: at Liberty to really talk about things until we had
Speaker 3: a you know, an exit agreement. So it was a
Speaker 3: couple tough months. And if it wasn't for my friends
Speaker 3: who are sitting here that came over with tequila, you know,
Speaker 3: the first couple days it was. It was an interesting time.
Speaker 2: You define yourself at the beginning as an entrepreneur. This
Speaker 2: is not your only venture, not by a long shot.
Speaker 3: And I think when I lived in corporate America, I
Speaker 3: became an entrepreneur because I you know, I started a blog.
Speaker 3: I went to work at Yahoo to start a magazine.
Speaker 3: I just I need things to keep busy. And you know,
Speaker 3: you know, when you're on Instagram and you get to
Speaker 3: write like what you're feeling, sometimes I say I'm bored.
Speaker 3: Now I'm so busy, but I get bored. I'm just bored.
Speaker 2: So is that how you thought of all these different
Speaker 2: ventures like does it come quickly and then you run
Speaker 2: after it?
Speaker 1: Did you plan ahead? Like how did you think it?
Speaker 3: I just things happened. Well, you know when I called
Speaker 3: Stephen and said I just you know, I'm just I
Speaker 3: left the company, he said, why don't we a hotel?
Speaker 3: I'm like, out of left field, Okay, I'm like, sounds
Speaker 3: like a good idea.
Speaker 2: Okay, And so the George Hotel was born, a fun
Speaker 2: and unique adventure that allowed Bobby to explore her husband,
Speaker 2: Stephen Plofker's world of real estate development.
Speaker 3: It was a project, and it was the first real
Speaker 3: development project that Stephen and I got to do together.
Speaker 3: We had no plan, we had no budget, we had
Speaker 3: no anything. It was you know, driving to home goods
Speaker 3: to see what they had, going like I'm like going
Speaker 3: on wayfair like figuring it out, going on restoration hardware outlet.
Speaker 3: And we furnished this hotel like really throwing stuff in
Speaker 3: the back of a truck that Steven's guys would pick
Speaker 3: up and we'd figure out where it goes. And it
Speaker 3: was a really fun project.
Speaker 1: It has built up so much in Montclair.
Speaker 2: You are a pillar in that community in so many ways,
Speaker 2: and the hotel has become a community. I mean sort
Speaker 2: of like the church, like a place where people can build,
Speaker 2: a place that is a part of a part of
Speaker 2: the community. How much has that been a factor in
Speaker 2: your thinking about your time, your bandwidth, and your identity.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean Montclair is we moved to Montclair before
Speaker 3: we had kids. I love Montclair. It's the closest, you know,
Speaker 3: cool place to live outside of New York City. We
Speaker 3: also have a photo, TV and events studio called eighteen Label,
Speaker 3: and Steven's got a soccer bubble there. So we have
Speaker 3: a pretty big footprint in Montclair. And we're you know,
Speaker 3: some a bunch of our Montclair friends are here. A
Speaker 3: couple people left, but you know, we're still Montclair family.
Speaker 3: It's just, you know, it's a wonderful community. And I'm
Speaker 3: so it's like it's like being from Chicago. Seriously, right,
Speaker 3: It's just really nice, down to earth, interesting, eclectic, mixed community.
Speaker 1: You even moved your business there.
Speaker 3: Yes, Jones Road is there. Why would I want to
Speaker 3: commute to New York City? But you know, I started
Speaker 3: working Mondays and Fridays from home when I was part
Speaker 3: of that big corporation. I didn't ask permission, it just
Speaker 3: made sense for me. And then I get to do
Speaker 3: things like drop my kids off at school, pick them
Speaker 3: up from school, go to the grocery store. I was
Speaker 3: the woman in the grocery store with a kid in
Speaker 3: my arms, on the phone with an editor talking about
Speaker 3: how fabulous you know, the new whatever it is, and
Speaker 3: you know, buying groceries at the same time. Like I
Speaker 3: was gonna say, micro tasking, multitasking, there's nothing micro tasking
Speaker 3: about me.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like you were thinking and executing on
Speaker 2: the way that people think about work now, but you
Speaker 2: were doing it fifteen and twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: I'm telling yes, and it just makes sense because I
Speaker 3: would always make sure that I exercised because it made
Speaker 3: me a better person. It gave me more energy, you know. So,
Speaker 3: And honestly, even like I've always been someone that really
Speaker 3: kind of underdresses for events, I'm kind of known as
Speaker 3: you know, like I wore jeans to the White House
Speaker 3: with the blazer and nice jewelry. No one knew I
Speaker 3: was wearing jeans, and you know, once Obama did say
Speaker 3: to me, nice kicks.
Speaker 2: You know, when I think about going through new ventures
Speaker 2: and talking with women as are thinking about them, I
Speaker 2: think the biggest value that I keep coming back to
Speaker 2: if it's a value, But evaluation is what do I
Speaker 2: want to keep?
Speaker 1: Like, what am I driving towards? And what can I
Speaker 1: get rid of? As you've gone.
Speaker 2: Through all these chapters, especially as you came through you're
Speaker 2: out of corporate, you're going through your four and a
Speaker 2: half years of your non compete thinking about your new business.
Speaker 2: What were those values that you were driving towards. What
Speaker 2: do I want to keep and what do I want
Speaker 2: to get rid of?
Speaker 3: Well, it's easy to say what I got rid of.
Speaker 3: I got rid of corporate meetings that you prepare six
Speaker 3: or eight months and hire a lot of people to
Speaker 3: come in and give you their opinion, and then after
Speaker 3: the meeting you realize it was a waste of time.
Speaker 3: I don't do that, you know. I got rid of
Speaker 3: fancy parties, you know, clicking our heels together, spending a
Speaker 3: lot of money, and just started sending product to editors
Speaker 3: asking if they wanted it. So, you know, things change,
Speaker 3: things shifted. It's so much easier, and I get to
Speaker 3: do all the fun stuff, you know. So it's not
Speaker 3: all fun stuff. There's plenty of aggravation and plenty of
Speaker 3: growing pains and you know, but it's like it's like
Speaker 3: night and day. But I'm so glad I had the
Speaker 3: first experience. It's like going to you know, grad school
Speaker 3: and makeup. Like I really got my master's in business
Speaker 3: at s D.
Speaker 2: Latter when you were thinking about what your next chapter
Speaker 2: was going to be, was it always beauty?
Speaker 1: Like? Did it have to be beauty? Do you always
Speaker 1: come back to that.
Speaker 3: I did not think I was going to launch another
Speaker 3: makeup company when I left. I really had no idea.
Speaker 3: So I did the hotel, I worked on eighteen label,
Speaker 3: doing the marketing and social and then I had an
Speaker 3: opportunity to open just Bobby Department at Lord and Taylor
Speaker 3: because I called my dear friend Richard, he owned Lord
Speaker 3: and Taylor. He said, we need traffic in the store.
Speaker 3: Do you want to do this? I said, all right.
Speaker 3: So I called my neighbor Lynette, who came and helped me.
Speaker 3: Now you know, we still work together. She does all
Speaker 3: my pr and we built a team, a creative team,
Speaker 3: and it was really fun. Did it for a year
Speaker 3: and then we brought it in house digitally, then just
Speaker 3: started adding and then I really didn't think I was
Speaker 3: going to go back to beauty. But I kind of
Speaker 3: discovered this little teeny thing called miracle bomb and during
Speaker 3: the pandemic I would call my girlfriends and I would
Speaker 3: give them a little bit and then a week or
Speaker 3: two later they'd say, I need more, Please, can I
Speaker 3: have more? So it kind of started Jones Road.
Speaker 1: It's like in Harry Potter, the one shows you.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, you know, I'm like, wow, that worked, okay,
Speaker 3: and then you did the next one. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: that worked. But you know, the interesting thing about Jones
Speaker 3: Road is nothing is what you would think it should be.
Speaker 3: It just it's different. I mean our CMO, who honestly,
Speaker 3: when he joined us, we quadrupled our business. He is
Speaker 3: our second son and he used to be a strength
Speaker 3: and conditioning coach and just learned all this masterful marketing
Speaker 3: and he has done a great job. And his wife
Speaker 3: is now our head of brand. She was our head
Speaker 3: of social. Really interesting, that's for another podcast working with family,
Speaker 3: but amazing.
Speaker 2: It could be there because you've had three podcasts so far.
Speaker 2: But one of the things that I loved listening to
Speaker 2: your episodes in a rows you have three different shows,
Speaker 2: three different podcasts, and I loved listening to the way
Speaker 2: you defined yourself at the beginning of each of them.
Speaker 2: In the first show, you said, I'm a makeup artist
Speaker 2: and I'm so many other things, Like you.
Speaker 1: Were saying, like, don't define me that way. Your second
Speaker 1: show is about beauty, You're like, all right, I'm a
Speaker 1: makeup artist.
Speaker 2: And then you're a third show, You're like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: a makeup artist, but what are.
Speaker 1: The important things?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I kind of loved seeing your evolution over the last
Speaker 2: five years.
Speaker 1: What do you think you've gotten out of them?
Speaker 3: I don't like to do the same thing once I've
Speaker 3: done it, I want to do something differently. But I
Speaker 3: love people's stories because everyone is a story. Like not
Speaker 3: everyone you meet someone and you think, oh, that's what
Speaker 3: they are. Everybody comes from something, and everyone's got a story,
Speaker 3: and I find it really interesting. And the more you
Speaker 3: get to share these stories, the more other women and
Speaker 3: other people get to learn and say, ah, I never
Speaker 3: thought of that. Wow, I bet I could do that too.
Speaker 1: How are you defining success now with Jones Road? Like?
Speaker 1: Is it world domination?
Speaker 2: I had to find for you before this thing that
Speaker 2: I wanted to interview you because you had world domination
Speaker 2: in beauty and now have a different brand.
Speaker 1: Do you see it that way?
Speaker 3: I don't need to even think about it that way.
Speaker 3: Been there, done that. I've gotten some of the most
Speaker 3: incredible awards, you know, it's amazing, and I keep thinking
Speaker 3: there's nothing else, and something comes up. So I mean,
Speaker 3: what is success for me? Honestly, success is happiness, you know.
Speaker 3: And yes, I'm happy. I love what I'm doing. It's
Speaker 3: what I choose to do. I don't golf, I don't
Speaker 3: play tennis, I don't garden. I find work in business
Speaker 3: really interesting, especially if you could do it, you know,
Speaker 3: in your way. And by the way, I don't work
Speaker 3: like eight to seven, like I don't. I have a life,
Speaker 3: you know. I meet my friends, I have lunch with
Speaker 3: my family. I you know, I call people, So I'm
Speaker 3: not I'm able to squish a lot of things in
Speaker 3: and have a life. Yeah, and that's what happened to me,
Speaker 3: that success.
Speaker 1: So this has been so wonderful.
Speaker 2: I could ask you one hundred more questions, but unfortunately
Speaker 2: for me, we do have to end. So I have
Speaker 2: one final question for you, which is what is something
Speaker 2: that along the way, at the time you thought it
Speaker 2: was such a negative alow. You thought, I'm never going
Speaker 2: to get myself out of this, and now in retrospect,
Speaker 2: you look back and you realize that it really launched you.
Speaker 3: I mean honestly, when I stopped working for S. D.
Speaker 3: Lauter and Bobby Brown, I mean, that was a it
Speaker 3: was a tough time. It was it was a loss,
Speaker 3: and it was you know, I had a mourn this
Speaker 3: company that I built, and you know it was hard.
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't I couldn't speak to anyone for
Speaker 3: a couple months, and that was really hard. And I
Speaker 3: had to deal with myself, right. I was so busy
Speaker 3: with things and you know, I had things on my
Speaker 3: calendar for years and all of a sudden I had nothing,
Speaker 3: and guess what, I had to deal with myself. So
Speaker 3: it was a hard time, and you know, there was sadness.
Speaker 3: And if I didn't have my doctor Jeff chiropractor that
Speaker 3: helps get He helps get negative energy out of the body,
Speaker 3: like I didn't go to a shrink because I didn't
Speaker 3: want to talk about my mother, you know, but doctor
Speaker 3: Jeff really helped. So yeah, But honestly, if that didn't happen,
Speaker 3: could you imagine if I was still driving into the
Speaker 3: city to go into meetings.
Speaker 1: No, no, well do you think you'll pivot again?
Speaker 3: I would surely think so. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm sixty six and I don't know what
Speaker 3: I'm going to be doing when I'm eighty six or
Speaker 3: ninety six. But I plan on always doing something interest,
Speaker 3: something interesting. Whether I could do it and make money. Yeah, yeah, Bobby, Thank.
Speaker 1: You so thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thank you to the church for hosting us. Thank thank
Speaker 3: you so much.
Speaker 2: Bobby still lives in Montclair, New Jersey, where Jones Road
Speaker 2: is headquartered. She doesn't seem to have any plans of
Speaker 2: slowing down, and in fact opened another Jones Road brick
Speaker 2: and mortar store in the Hamptons this summer. To learn
Speaker 2: more about Bobby and Jones Road Beauty, you can find
Speaker 2: her on Instagram at just Bobby Brown dot com and
Speaker 2: on TikTok at just Bobby Brown. Thanks for listening. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening to this episode of She Pivots, where I
Speaker 2: talk with women about how their experiences and significant personal
Speaker 2: events led to their pivot and eventually their success. Be
Speaker 2: sure to follow us on Instagram at she Pivots the
Speaker 2: podcast and leave a rating in comment if you enjoyed
Speaker 2: this episode to help others learn about it. A special
Speaker 2: thank you to our partner Marie Claire and the team
Speaker 2: that this episode possible.
Speaker 1: Talk to you next week.
Speaker 2: She Pivots is hosted by me Emily Tish Sussman, produced
Speaker 2: by Emily eda Veloshik, with sound editing and mixing from
Speaker 2: Nina Pollock and research and planning from Christine Dickinson and
Speaker 2: Hannah Cousins.
Speaker 3: I endorse Che Pivots.