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9 Ways to Overcome Catastrophic Events with Kelly Nishimoto


wasn’t love item it is I’m always
looking for strong talent that can bring
a different type of value to everybody
as well as somebody that brings
entertainment as well this next host
that’ll be doing shows on Saturdays for
the next few weeks I am very excited
about because my good friend Kelly
Nishimoto she’s worked with many
celebrities in Hollywood in the retail
side fashion side you’ll be surprised
who she’s working when she tells you
this and she’s gonna give you the
perspective of what it is to be an
entrepreneur as a woman entrepreneur in
the retail business and how she went
from Atlanta Georgia to Miami to LA and
making a name for herself in fashion so
here is my good friend from cute booty
Kelly Nishimoto I’ve always bartended in
cocktails pretty much since I was 18 and
that’s kind of in my mind how I was
gonna generate money to start my own
business and obviously my business was
gonna be in fashion I just didn’t quite
know what area I was gonna do so I was
part something at the Spanish kitchen in
Los Angeles and I really started
focusing on my designs I started making
corsets I was making corsets for
celebrities and Gwen Stefani Madonna
Dave Navarro Anastacio somehow someway
the contacts I was making bartending it
just brought me more and more clients so
in 2005 I wanted to really turn it into
a business so I found an investor great
guy he invested initially $250,000 and
here we are ready to go to the races I
launched a mercedes-benz Fashion Week
I’m on top of the world her first season
in business we sold I want to say about
$600,000 that’s in a six month period so
for the year you know we did over a
million dollars in sales but I’m kind of
new to the business I’m learning the
manufacturing process I wasted a lot of
money and we didn’t ship a lot of
merchandise cut to season two and then
season three I believe season three we
sold about 750,000 my business partner
at the time just did not want to put in
any more money into manufacturing we
were losing our
houses in manufacturing that was
devastating you know you’re brand new in
the fashion industry you’ve only been
doing it for a year and a half and your
very first business partner throws in
the towel Here I am I’ve got a beautiful
office space I have four employees how
do I close the doors in my mind I’m
thinking I’m not closing the doors I’m
gonna continue my business so what did I
do that was my first catastrophic event
my partner pulled out what do I do
well first of all I had to reconfigure
my budget I don’t have any money I’m a
bartender you know I made good money I
probably made I want to say $2,000 a
week that $2,000 a week had to pay the
bills it had to pay my employees I had
to pay to rinse my home rent in my
office rent so I really felt like I had
to hustle so what did I do i
reconfigured my budget I got a smaller
space that cost last I picked up another
bartending shift so I could make sure my
employees were paid I tightened up my
product line I decreased my amount of my
number of products and I kind of honed
in on what my best sellers were and I
took that Avenue and that’s the only
thing I produce I produce my best
sellers I ended up rebranding and
relaunching my brand what does this do
it gives you the chance to kind of see
what’s important what’s selling how
you’re gonna do it how much money you
have but another thing that it does is
it reinvigorates people’s excitement for
what you’re doing so when you read
launch or rebrand it’s an opportunity to
have an event and invite all of the
people in your circle to come and
support now you have to turn that
support into sales so what do I do
I rebrand to cute booty I have a big
launch event and I make sure I have
merchandise to sell cost me $5,000 to
relaunch and to throw that event and I
generated $10,000 that night so I paid
for what it cost me to throw the party
and I had an additional $5,000 in
capital you always have to be constantly
reinvesting your money and when you’re
using your own money you’re constantly
chasing your ass when it’s your own
money you have this much you know
whatever that amount is and you can’t
spend it all at one time you have to
make sure you have enough so in the
fashion business it’s important to have
inventory but I’m not gonna spend my
whole nugget on inventory at one time so
the idea is to reinvest your money on in
less
basis all right so second catastrophic
event what happened in 2008 economy
crashes stores are going out of business
left and right people can’t pay their
bills Here I am I’m in the luxury
clothing business
my main wholesale accounts were Macy’s
Equinox and go boards guess what
I lost all three Macy’s went into
reconstruction they cut all of their new
vendors and they put all their money
into a new marketing campaign for that
Christmas that right there was probably
$250,000 in sales for that year alone if
not more all the boutiques that I was
selling through the small boutique
they’re all going out of business
they’re all struggling so I start
counting my money how much money do I
have out there a hundred and forty
thousand dollars of uncollected money
from the small boutiques no one’s
answering their phones emails aren’t
being answered even when you walk up
some take some days I would just go do a
casual visit doors closed close out this
just it was just out of control
no one was paying their bills which
means I had no money to continue to run
my business what do you got to do you
got to think outside the box you have to
think about what you can do to generate
income to keep your business going so I
started an online store this is the
perfect opportunity to switch over from
wholesale to retail your profit margins
are higher you can get more creative
with your marketing you can deal with
your customers on an individual basis to
me it was an exciting way to still have
my business but rethink it think outside
the box what can I do that’s new what’s
going on now in the world what’s going
social media had just started up so
we’re really utilizing those areas to
just read launch the brand once more
this was more of an internal relaunch
because no one really knew on the
outside what was going on it was just me
and my staff but it was so important and
just to learn from our mistakes and
continue on and figure out what the new
or what the next step is you know my
thing always is Lord show me the hustle
and I’ll go hustle it you give me the
opportunity I don’t need you to work for
me I don’t need you to give me money I
don’t need any favors or handouts show
me a hustle show me a job show me a way
that I can go make money and I’m gonna
go do it so I’m thinking to myself okay
I bartend who do I know and how can I
utilize that information to make me
more money than just bartending so I
started making uniforms for all the
nightclubs and restaurants in Hollywood
I mean that alone generated an extra
twenty thousand dollars a month I mean
that’s huge and all I was doing I was
doing the same thing with in my realms
I’m manufacturing clothing and I’m being
creative so you just have to think of
what you can do that’s just a little bit
different that can also help you
generate income the number three
catastrophic event in my life this is
this is uh this one was a big one yeah
this one was big so I had kind of just
got my business back on track after the
economy crashed I started looking into
more ways to generate income and a big
swimwear company beach bunny swimwear
approached me about kind of a
private-label line for them now private
label basically means a company orders
white label from you they order your
product I manufacture it but I put their
label on it I actually told them those
three or four times and they kept coming
back we love your stuff it’s a great fit
please work with us we think your
products would go well was our swimsuit
line so finally after we talked about
the money and they said you know we’ll
pay your wholesale prices it’s no big
deal we just want our own colors and we
want your product okay great so their
test order I want to say was about 175
thousand dollar test order you know who
yes I’m excited let’s do it $175,000 I’m
thinking you know my business has been
in the crapper from the economy of
course I want this account so we started
working together for nine months ten
months everything was amazing we made
all of the merchandise for them with
their label on it they sold it I got a
paycheck you know we did a million
dollars in business that year that was
2000 and kind of halfway between 2009
2010 well about that 910 month mark
their orders were getting bigger their
collections that I was creating for them
got bigger and bigger and bigger they
called me in for a meeting and they
literally tried to bully me for three
hours into giving them lower prices why
would I give them lower prices why don’t
I just come and work for them why can’t
I just be their designer and you know
they oversee everything and maybe we use
their manufacturers and like look guys
I’m I’m a clothing company
this company for years cute booty is an
established known product you know so
for them to corner me into that and to
try to get lower prices you know I was
willing to budge a little bit and I
budged a lot but they were trying to get
30 and 40% cheaper pricing out of me
which means that I that there’s no
profit in there for me there’s no way
that I would be able to run my business
and keep my employees going so obviously
I said no and they agreed to continue on
we love we still love your stuff we’re
gonna see what the sales are and they
did you know and then they strung me on
for about three months I want to say
they can’t give the samples back because
they’re in a sales meeting in Dubai
they’re selling here they want to get
all their sales numbers together for me
but the owner can confirm that all
styles and all colors will be bought
great to me that’s a that’s an agreement
that’s a contract so finally after the
third month of us asking hey where’s the
order where’s the purchase order it
should have been the biggest or should
have been about a five hundred and fifty
thousand dollar order we get an email
saying that beach bunny swimwear has
decided to no longer would have I don’t
even remember the words they use employ
or contract Kelly Nishimoto for our
collection and I’m like what are you
talking about you didn’t employ me and
and it’s my collection I created that
that’s my brains my design
and then the next day it was everything
was on their website and I hadn’t
produced one stitch of it it was all my
designs on their website they had
actually gone over to you buy in China
and knocked everything off it’s a hot
design they’ll basically take it and out
the back door and they’ll manufacture
hundreds of thousands of pieces and it
ends up in the Chinese market so
eventually one of my designs it just
ended up in all kinds of negative places
that I didn’t want it well at the same
time we got robbed we got robbed while I
was out of town and they actually stole
everything they took everything
TVs microwave clothes bags I mean
anything you can steal it was just gone
they ransacked the house
and we lost our house we lost our house
the same we lost our house first and
then we moved into a smaller place and
that’s when we got robbed so it’s just
all these things piling on top of you
how do you handle it how do you deal
with it so great news I booked the TV
show I booked something borrowed
something new on TLC so here we are
don’t really have a house all of my
money’s being sucked into a lawsuit
because I ended up having to take beach
money to court I mean it just how much
crap can you pile on one person oh well
then I’m pregnant
so you know it’s just one thing after it
I don’t even I really sometimes I don’t
even know how I got through it there’s a
lot of things that I learned after the
fact and what I learned is I had a
pattern of how I dealt with things and
when I really broke those down it was
almost its survival but it’s a smart way
to deal with catastrophic events in
business and in life and it makes so
much sense and so when I sat down to
write them down I’m like yes this is
this is the list whether it was
conscious or unconscious this is what I
did every single time I had a major fail
in life number one you have to process
the info if you don’t process what’s
going on and you ignore it it’s never
you you just have to face it you’ll
never get anywhere if you don’t process
the information number two you have to
assess your options okay some crazy
just happen now what do I do how do I
get through it what what what is this
what do I do and how do I get through it
what are my options
number three examine your resources who
do you know get creative it’s you’re not
you’re not trying to pull a favor for
nothing you’re trying to survive and
grow and and get past this I move past
this catastrophic event number four
think of a hustle think of your hustle
get to think outside the box
what is your hustle what are you good at
what can you make money at while you’re
helping your business to survive what
can you do elsewhere
to bring in income to generate that
money number five you want to create a
strategy to move forward is that
rethinking how you’re going about your
business is it rebranding what what can
you do to create a strategy to move four
what are the possibilities of moving
forward number six cut your losses and
don’t do well cut your losses trim the
fat this isn’t work you suck your you
didn’t support me you took advantage of
me you tried to take a piece of my
business when you didn’t deserve it cut
your losses cut your losses know your
Worth and don’t dwell on the situation
number seven this is a very hard one to
do sometimes it takes many years to get
to this step and that’s forgive yourself
and others forgive yourself for making a
mistake or for miss stepping or for not
having that contract I think that’s
that’s a very personal one and that’s
something that you really have to sit
within yourself and do the forgiving
others is what takes the time forgiving
others you know not judging them for
their actions or blaming them or you
just gotta let it go you gotta let it
trust me you’ll free something inside
you is freed when you don’t when you
just let that energy go number eight
acknowledge what you’re thankful for I
mean my life sucks right now my
business sucks I can barely pay my bills
but what are you thankful for do you
have a healthy family are you thankful
for the lessons that you’ve learned you
know what doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger what are you thankful for look
around something you just maybe you’re
thankful for a breath gee that’s like
some people can’t even breathe it sounds
cliche but yeah I’m thankful for my
creative brain I’m thankful for my
family and I’m thankful for the ability
to be able to move on number nine and
this is one of my favorites wipe off
your face and keep on moving wipe those
tears so in 2012 Katy Perry had this
movie maybe some of you saw it maybe
some of you didn’t she’s a friend of my
sister so we went to the theater and we
watched her movie what was it a part of
me and I just remember she was going
through her breakup or her divorce with
Russell Brand and you you could just
feel her pain you could feel every
emotion inside of her came through on
this big screen so here you’ve got Katy
Perry preparing for one of the biggest
shows of her life
she literally is so distraught from her
relationship she can’t even get into the
makeup chair and it was almost like it I
mean it was almost like a wounded animal
I mean just thinking about it makes me
tear up so here’s Katy Perry in the
makeup she’s literally balling her hair
her hair girl and her makeup girl are
just trying to do her face get her ready
for this show and she peels herself out
of the chair just moaning in pain an
emotional distress she gets onto this
elevator thing that lifts her up to the
stage and you see you see everything in
her body transition so here she’s crying
tears are streaming down her face that
girl literally wipes her face and stands
up straight and shakes it off and when
that elevator hit that floor she stepped
out with those gorgeous legs and her
little shiny flapper girl outfit and she
sang the hell out of that song and you
would have never known that she was
basically laying on the floor dying over
what was going on in her life so that’s
it those are my personal ways on how to
get over catastrophic events in your
business life and your personal life and
you know sometimes they they mix
together and you really have no control
over it
and it’s you know it’s not know how many
times you fall I fall in a hell of a lot
of times it’s how many times you can get
up and you just keep getting up you keep
getting up and it’s all about
persistence and that’s pretty much it
that’s my my lesson for the day I’d love
to hear you know some of your stories
feel free to reach out to me on the
comments below and even though this was
a little bit of a sad episode I think
it’s gonna be super helpful for you guys
so don’t forget to subscribe to value
tame it and you know what the goal is a
million subscribers guys alright see you
later [Music]
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