Pivoting during COVID-19
Interview with Becky Galvez, CEO of a Chicago-based family-owned business called Shop4Ties.
“My father went into the world of entrepreneurship in 1982, when he founded Shop4Ties that designs and manufactures custom apparel. He was working with Korea at that time and everything he did was done through a fax machine. I don’t know what the world was like at that time because I was born in 1981, but the first memories I have are the fax machines and lots of noise going off at night. If at the beginning he was doing a lot of print advertisements, for example, in airlines magazines, in early 2000s it all kind of changed. He jumped on the Internet, and his website became accessible to anyone in the US.
Shop4Ties is a family-owned B2B-oriented business. When COVID-19 happened in January, we had a huge demand from different customers, but we couldn’t fulfill the orders because our supplier in China was shut down. When things started getting better over there, it was pretty much the opposite here. The demand completely dropped. It has been a challenging couple of months. In March, we had to let go of all of our employees, except one. I have been living day-by-day. After all, if I worry about every single next day, I won’t be able to function. I know I just need to pivot and pivot quickly, adjust and keep adjusting, while making decisions along the way.
I feel fortunate to be in the position we are in now: we were able to rehire back all of our employees. We launched a campaign selling Hawaiin shirts and ties with all the proceeds going to healthcare and frontline workers in the form of meals from local Chicago restaurants. Up to date Shop4Ties has donated 900 meals. When LA announced a mandate on face masks, we saw another opportunity. For three nights we had in-depth discussions on a new product and came up with a prototype. Now we are focusing on Chicago-themed masks and have increased our revenue 4 times.
Shop4Ties was my father’s baby. It has been important to me to carry on his legacy and keep a lot of values that he instilled within me. I really enjoy growing the business and being part of an amazing team of dedicated people. We are invested into our customers: making sure we build long-term relationships. After COVID-19, I think we will become stronger. When we come out of this pandemic, we will have a lot more people to work with and create new cool ideas.”
Big Stories Small Businesses interviews small and local businesses, currently focusing on the effects of COVID-19.
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