Becoming business partners with your spouse can be an interesting ride. When Josh (my husband) and I first opened RSG Sales we had some shall we say interesting discussion on roles, responsibilities, and how to run the company. It took me about 18 months to finally realize all of my years as the stay-at-home parent gave me an insight and organization that wasn’t his strong suit. His strength is all things sales. It was then I really began to step up into the leadership role of RSG Sales.Since returning to RSG Sales after the sale of E by Design, my husband calls me the Wizard Behind the Curtain. It is my responsibility to make sure our team has all of the support, resources, and knowledge to execute effectively. In other words, I make sure that the team can make the magic happen.In addition, I regularly meet and speak with our current customer base (Wayfair, Overstock, etc…) We pride ourselves on staying current and on top of the constant changes in the E-Commerce Sales Channel.I have gone kicking and screaming into the world of marketing and social media. You may have seen some of the educational videos that I do on YouTube or www.rsgsales.com. In 2020 one of our goals was to give suppliers quick, easy, and digestible tips to improve their sales on Wayfair, Overstock, and others. Our clients may not see me on a regular basis but, they all know I’m behind the scenes working with our team driving growth for their E-Commerce business.

With the impending sale of my company, E by Design, I was offered the opportunity to create a new growth and operational plan with Bunny Williams Home. The company had recently been through several transitions in its Leadership Team. By the end of my tenure a new permanent President had been hired. Our sales had increased 20% and our gross margin had doubled.

After spending years helping our RSG Clients with not just their e-commerce sales but also product development, I began to see a gap in the market. High-end textile companies hire designers to create unique, handcrafted designs. Mid and Entry-level companies don’t do that, instead they used licensed designs. There was a gap between curated quality designs and affordable products, so I created E by Design to fill that gap for the decorative throw pillow category.E by Design also allowed me to use my operational strengths to create and implement automated systems for order processing, invoicing, and inventory management. Everything flowed seamlessly which kept our overhead and head count down.I learned first hand the financial nuances of building a product-based business. This is completely different from RSG Sales which is a service-based business. E by Design hired designers to create our designs but, I set the vision and direction of each collection we produced. My own stamp was on every design in our extensive catalog (35,000 SKUs).I got to experience first hand the joys and challenges of working with the major e-comm players (Wayfair, Amazon, Walmart.com, One Kings Lane, Houzz, BedBathBeyond.com, Target.com, HomeDepot.com, Overstock, Kohls.com, and Macys.com). This time from the supplier’s perspective. It made me a much stronger negotiator with Wayfair and the like.All of this gave E by Design incredible momentum resulting in years of multiple million-dollar sales and becoming a top 10 pillow supplier at Wayfair within 4 years of founding the company.After a successful exit from E by Design I returned full time to RSG Sales where I was able to take a whole new perspective and skill set. In turn, I was better able to teach our team how to approach the E-Commerce Sales Channel from the Supplier’s standpoint which has made us a much stronger partner with our clients and helped to grow our business and our clients’ business.