Ship Spotlight Series: JoJo & Jordan

We’re excited to introduce our first ever Ship Spotlight Series! For the month of July, we’ll be featuring the trailblazers of our online entrepreneurial landscape, revealing the intriguing stories behind their successes, understanding their motivations, and revealing the hurdles they've managed to overcome!

Today, we're setting sail with a particularly inspiring duo who's truly made their mark in the online small business world. We'll explore their journey and extract the invaluable lessons that brought them where they are today.

Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner in need of a fresh perspective, or simply fascinated by the dynamism of online businesses, this post promises to be insightful, engaging, and full of inspiration.

Introducing JoJo and Jordan of (you guessed it!) JoJo & Jordan, an online-based women’s clothing and accessories boutique, based just outside of Rochester, NY.

JoJo and Jordan are husband and wife duo with three beautiful daughters (Marley 9, Maya 7, Mina 5), two dogs (Riley & Samson), and 3 Maine Coon kittens (Thor, Marvel, & Loki)! Talk about a full house!

JoJo is a former Exercise Physiologist turned boutique owner and Jordan is a former Science Teacher & Track Coach turned stay-at-home dad and background business supporter. He now works full-time for LEGO, but still stays up-to-date with the boutique!

Ready to dive in? Let's do this.

Ship: How long ago and why did you launch your business?

JoJo & Jordan: We launched our business just about 7 years ago, running most of it out of our garage! We started this crazy journey out of necessity; living off of a teacher’s salary and wishing to continue growing our family, we knew something needed to change. At the time, JoJo was running a personal training business out of our home after being laid off from her corporate personal training job and Jordan was a teacher, coach, and photographer to make ends meet.

We took the leap into the boutique world and haven’t looked back! As a result, it brought Jordan home full-time while the girls were young and not all in school, and helped us move twice to better fit the needs of our growing family!

Ship: What were the biggest challenges you had launching your business and how did you overcome them?

JoJo & Jordan: Frankly, we had no idea what we were doing (Ship: Don’t we all when we are just starting out?!), but we loved the product and went for it! My husband was so supportive and helpful with all of the background setup, marketing, finances, and so on, so that I could focus on getting to know the product and selling. The business blew up faster than we ever could have imagined so we teamed up with a social media manager that could provide us with some Virtual Assistant services and some social media tips and tricks. The first few years were a lot of trial and error, learning about the small business side of taxes and expenses, battling Facebook/IG changes, and learning how to continue prioritizing each other without letting the business fail as a result.

Ship: How do you identify and prioritize opportunities for growth in your business?

JoJo & Jordan: Small business revenue, visibility, and motivation ebb and flow like the wind. One day you’re riding high on great sales and feel super motivated, and the next day you’re feeling defeated and like you should throw in the towel. Our focus, however, is always on the needs of our family and being able to provide our daughters with great opportunities. As our main source of income, this business is a constant focus for us. We’ve become more and more comfortable taking risks, trying new things, and “just doing it” instead of hesitating and potentially missing opportunities.

Ship: What strategies have you used to build a strong and loyal customer base? How do you approach marketing and promoting your business?

JoJo & Jordan: Being our genuine selves has attracted our tribe and kept those who genuinely like us around. We’ve never believed in the fake social media life, so we let it all out, going Live together, bantering and flirting like married couples do, sharing life stories with our Facebook Group, involving our kids in sales and marketing at times, and asking our customer base for advice or feedback on various topics.

Ship: How do you stay up to date with industry trends and changes, and how do you incorporate them into your business strategies?

JoJo & Jordan: Our wholesaler is the primary driver of industry trends, but at the same time, we’ve gotten to know our customer base very well, making it relatively easy to predict what our core customers will gravitate towards, and which products it’s worth taking the risk on. There’s even a hashtag that occasionally comes up in our Group as core customers encourage others: #trustjojo

Ship: How do you stay ahead of the competition in the market? What sets your business apart?

JoJo & Jordan: Competition is great. However, it’s also easy to get sucked into. Keeping an eye on the competition is important, and adapting ideas from others is a great resource as well, but allowing the competition to drive your business is simply not healthy. We’re better at this sometimes than others, but we try very hard to ignore the competition as much as possible and just do what we do.

Sticking to your core values and trusting that your customers are there for YOU more than the product will get you through the hardest times. That doesn’t mean that sales are just going to happen naturally; it will take plenty of hard work, but customers have a keen sense in detecting when you’re pushing a product for the purpose of sales vs when you’re pushing a product because you genuinely love the product and know that they will too.

Ship: What was your biggest business mistake? We’re all human - mistakes

and mishaps happen!

JoJo & Jordan: Our first 4 months of business (We launched in September 2016), we were told to build our inventory and reinvest 100% of our profits into growing. No one told us that keeping a huge inventory counted against us tax wise and we ended up owing a TON in taxes that year. The bittersweet part is, Jordan had gotten in an accident one year prior and had just received a settlement from it, so that thankfully allowed us to stay in business instead of drowning in tax debt!

Other mistakes along the way involved time and money management. My advice? Always check multiple options for those who manage your money (both accounting and investments). I’m scared to even look at what we hemorrhaged moneywise, because we didn’t compare our options. Thankfully we learn and grow with each of these experiences!

Ship: What are your long-term goals for your small business, and how do you plan to achieve them?

JoJo & Jordan: As long as the business is profitable and providing for our business, we will keep it going. Genuinely, that’s our only objective right now. Our long-term goals aren't necessarily for our business, but rather for the opportunities that we’re able to provide for our daughters through it. Our schedule is extremely flexible, our bills are paid, and they are in the activities and sports that they enjoy! If any of those slip, we will consider adjusting the business plan, but for now, we’re happy and love what we’re doing!

Ship: What’s the #1 piece of advice would you give to someone just getting ready to launch their business?

JoJo & Jordan: Don’t expect to do it all or learn it all at once. Take steps to grow your business in manageable chunks that best fit your lifestyle. And never forget your WHY! Your purpose! Mine is to be able to have the flexibility to support our family and be with our sweet girls and animals while we have the chance as much as possible, while serving others and making them feel beautiful! It’s my favorite thing!

And that wraps up our first ever Ship Spotlight Series Feature. We especially love the WHY behind it all - why an entrepreneur decides to take a leap of faith (and keep going!) to build a business and life that they’ve been dreaming of. That’s what keeps us here at Ship motivated day in and day out. Be sure to check back next week for our next Ship Spotlight Series Feature!