83. Are you selling too early? The succession model most founders have never heard of | Victoria Stapleton

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture.

0:30What does it mean to build a business you don't want to sell? And how do you grow while staying true to your values? Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Victoria Stapleton, founder of Brora, a British fashion and lifestyle brand that has grown from Scottish cashmere into a multi-category business rooted in craftsmanship and long-term thinking. In this episode, we discuss how retail has changed, why slower growth can be a strength, and what happens when you choose legacy over exit.

1:06Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Victoria Stapleton to the studio. Victoria is the creative director and founder of Brora, which is a wonderful British fashion brand specializing in luxury cashmere and beautiful clothing. Brawra is known for combining traditional British craftsmanship with bold colors, patterns, and contemporary designs. And I know, Victoria, that you're a strong advocate for ethical production, sustainability, and I'm pleased to say British manufacturing. So thanks so much for coming in to talk to me today. I am, in fact, wearing Brawra. Thank you.

1:44I'm a longstanding customer of yours, an admirer of your brand and your work. I'd love to begin at the beginning, really, with the origin story, because you started the company in 1993, I believe. Yeah, it was sort of an accident, a happy accident, as it turns out. But I was made redundant. So I have also had that experience. I know what it's like to be made redundant. From where? Doing what? I was working for a tweed mill in Scotland called Hunters of Brora. Hunters of Brora had been going since 1901. It went into receivership in 1990. And my father, amongst other people, decided to save it from going down the pan.

2:21It was in the village of Brora, which is right up in the northeast of Scotland. And he asked me to come along. I've been working for an interior designer in London. I was probably 22. And he said, can you come and revamp the shop in the village? Let's make it into the Harrods of the north. You know, this little shop in the station square in Brora. And fill it with lovely things. use the tweed from the mill, but also find other Scottish produce. You know, here's a really great guy I've met along the way who runs one of the best cashmere mills. You know, fill it with lovely things and we'll do a mail order business.

2:56And I was like, oh, can I really work for Dad? You know, this is a very strong personality. But it was also really exciting and tempting as, you know, a creative journey and something to do my next bit of my career. And basically, the retail got so much bigger so quickly, and they needed the cash flow to keep the mill going, to keep the tweed being on those machines. And the mill was employing 100 people in the village of Brora. And that was the essence of why they saved the mill in the beginning, was to keep that intact. And as you'll know, with retail, you need a lot of money for stock. And so they decided to close down the retail operation, which I was head of.

3:44Right. And that's why you were made redundant. And that's why I was made redundant. But you obviously retained a love for Brora. Yeah. So I just turned around and went, God, do I start, do I go and try and work for somebody else doing something totally different? Or actually, I've really fallen in love with all these Scottish textiles. I think there's something really exciting here. And if I can take this concept to London and make it a bit more groovy, because we were doing quite a lot of country kit. and I'd have my own you know control and DNA and I just had met all these amazing suppliers I suppose it had been two years I thought okay I think I can do this and I went to the mill and said do you mind if I call the business Brora after the village and I really had no idea how good a name that would be because it's sort of one of those names that people go Brora what's that where's that yeah it's something they repeat once or twice and actually the two r's either side of the o and the o's now a thistle and it's sort of symmetrical so yeah so that's the beginnings so you you mentioned that you sort of brought this thought to london so you were relying on your supplier from the mill yeah and so what did you begin with what did you make first well i think that the cashmere was the key thing that's where i saw the market that's where I saw there was a possibility because I did a bit of research and everything in London that was cashmere was behind glass doors in a very small shop in somewhere like the Burlington Arcade and a lovely lady of some age where you'd come in and she'd say, oh, well, I mean, it was like getting the crown jewels out of the glass doors and putting it on the counter and you couldn't open it up or try it on.

5:25It was like, would you like this very precious piece? And to be honest, they were pretty much the same price as they are now. You know, you paid several hundred pounds for a sort of Burlington Arcade navy blue round neck jumper. And they were very much navy, black, cream, camel, maybe a bit of red. But there was nothing in green, burnt orange, turquoise, fuchsia, primrose yellow, ochre, you know, all the colours that Brora is so synonymous with. So what was the first thing you sold then? Well, we very early on, I did this little thing called a cashmere cropped cardigan, which was tiny wee. And it's still in the collection today.

6:05So that was aimed at women? It was aimed at women. Yeah, yeah. Not kids. No, it was just, it was a very sassy. The original one was from the 1950s. So it was very high-waisted, tight-waisted little cardie, high neck, neat fitting with three quarter length sleeves. And the original one was a vintage one. And I also used to raid my mum's wardrobe because we were brought up in Cumbria. So we were very near actually all the mills in the Scottish borders. So quite often we'd go and have a rummage in the mill shop. So I sort of knew about cashmere from an early age, not from a spoiled point of view, just because I lived very close to where it was all happening.

6:44And so mum had some great vintage cashmere pieces in her wardrobe. So I'd take some of those up to the mill and the guy who ran the mill would be like, oh my god I remember making this you know 20 years ago or it was an original 70s piece or whatever and this was 1993 so we slowly basically started with the cashmere and I can't tell you James it was the easiest business I pretty much had one supplier now I've got about 100 and you're dealing you're firefighting with production all the time but this was a beautiful relationship one supplier working very well for you and more and more customers by the sound of things.

7:23Yeah, and somebody very supportive, actually. He was a bit of a mentor and he's sadly not with us. He died very suddenly of a heart attack about age 75, I think about eight, maybe 10 years ago now. And he was, you know, godfather to one of my children. And he was a guy called James Sugden and he got an OBE for his, what he did for textiles in Scotland. So he helped you and advised you a bit. He was unbelievable, yeah. So that's interesting. So it was good to have a mentor. Yeah, it was really good to have a mentor on not so much the financial side and the business side, because I was quite savvy on that.

7:55Dad had been brilliant on that. So I'd been brought up with gross margin and profit and loss and how you ran a business. So what business was he running, your dad? He did lots of different things. But his big one that I remember, because it was during my teenage years, was he started a sign called Pinnies of Scotland, which was a smoked salmon business. And because, again, we were on the border of Cumbria and Scotland, it was in Scotland. It needed to have the Scottish address. And I understood that thing of the authenticity and something coming from Scotland and Scottish smoked salmon. So it was like Scottish cashmere was a sort of natural lead on from that.

8:25Scotland has a very strong brand, actually. Yeah, very strong. Around the world. I mean, everyone wants to go to Scotland more than they want to go to England. Yeah, well, they've been clever at marketing it. I mean, they've been. And your brand is consistent with that. Yeah. No, it's key that we have. We have two shops in Edinburgh, one in the airport and one in the city centre. and that people want to come to Scotland and take something home that's made in Scotland. So you started this business before the internet, which is interesting to me. So establishing a brand and building a customer base before the internet.

8:58How did you do that? I think it was maybe easier in some way. We were very, the press really mattered then. If you got something in the paper, your phone rang off the hook and I had the most exceptional moment. You know, you remember in a business your lucky moments, those turning points. And basically it went from being Hunters of Brora to Brora on the 1st of March, 1993. And it was going to be in my home in London, in a room. I mean, nothing grand at all. Cardboard boxes all around me. And I got a phone call from somebody who was assisting Lucia van der Post at the time. and she was writing an article on the best cashmere around.

9:43And she had met dad over the years, knew about Hunter Sabrora. And I said, well, actually, Lucia, we just made a change and it's now going to be called Brora and all the cashmere is the same. It's from the best mill in Scotland. And she wrote an article that Saturday. Literally, I'd launched the business on the 1st of March and it was something like the 2nd of March. And it said, this is where you buy your cashmere. And a black cashmere jumper costs£99 and this is the phone number. and it was my home phone number and literally my flatmates were going mad. It was ringing off the hook, was it? No, it was just me.

10:17Where did this article appear? It was in the FT. Oh, fantastic. It was in the Financial Times. The How to Spend It section or whatever. And I literally took orders. This is 1993. I took orders for£10 ,000 worth of cashmere jumpers just from that little paragraph. And they all just said, can I have the black cashmere jumper that Lucia Van der Poz talks about. Right. Well, it's just like, literally my children would be amazed by that because it's just, that does not happen today. No. Now, to do that sort of business, you need Claudia Winkleman to wear it on the traitors. Right. And she has. I thought you might say that.

10:58I thought that might have been coming next. So Claudia Winkleman wears it on the traitors. Yeah, I mean, that's the modern equivalent. She's at a Scottish castle. Exactly. What else could she possibly wear? I completely see this. But it's the influencer now. It's the sort of, you know, it's digital, you know, it's who's wearing your kit is the most influential bit. Yes. And making people aware of that, I guess. Yeah. So your brand grew. When did you open a shop? When did you move out of your sort of home? Yeah, I was really nervous about opening a shop. So basically, once these, Afro said, flatmates got fed up of the phone and the cardboard boxes and stumbling into, you know, things as they came through, drunk through the door.

11:40I said, okay, I think I better get a studio. So I then got a studio, which was sort of by appointment, but I did all my mail order there. It was still sort of over the phone. Hello, you know, Mrs. Smith, yes, I can send you this today. And I got the first shop in 1996. So three years later, but for those first three years, what's really one to remember is every day at five o 'clock I got in my car and I drove to the post office with all my parcels that I'd packaged up myself. And if you were behind me in the queue in the post office, you really knew it was a bad day. Because I was there for hours wearing each one, putting the stamps on.

12:18And you know, so just doing all that stuff. So you did everything. I did everything until I'd been going for six months. And then I employed one person. And she was with me for the next 15 years. Did you know that there are nearly 1 million 18 to 24 year olds who are currently not in education, employment or training in the UK. This is simply not good enough and I want to do something about it. That's why REED is launching a new initiative giving£20 ,000 to young entrepreneurs to help them grow their small business. Visit reed.com forward slash entrepreneurs to find out more. We want to support and encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs.

13:03But it's really, I think that sort of doing everything is very valuable, isn't it? In terms of understanding your own business and especially understanding your customers. I mean, you obviously were talking to the customers. You speak to everyone, you speak to all of them and some of them become real friends, you know. And actually, it was one of the things I was talking about the other day, you know, on the phones now. We don't get nearly so many phone calls because 90 % of people are going to, if they're ordering to get it sent to their home, they're ordering online. but 10 % of people ring and they really want to talk about what the weather's like in Cornwall and what their grandson would like for his birthday or you know so you have people to talk to them yeah we do we have six ladies again most of them have been with us where are they?

13:46they're in our lovely head office in Stevenage right I live in Hertfordshire so we opened our head office we bought an amazing big warehouse in Stevenage I like to see all the goods going in and out I don't want a distribution center. I like to know it's all in one building. You know at a glance what your stock situation, you can look at your stock on a bit of paper, but there's nothing like walking around the warehouse to know what you're short on. So your office is in the warehouse. Yeah, so the office is upstairs. We've got a photographic studio. We've got a design studio. We've got finance.

14:16We've got marketing. We've got the web team. We've got buying team. All together in Stevenage. Yeah, all together. Pattern cutting rooms, you know, amazing, amazing space that we bought about maybe 15, 18 years ago. Right. So you walk around the warehouse? Yeah, love it. Love it. So when did you last walk around and how was it? Yesterday. I walk, I see Ian. Ian comes in the earliest. He comes in, I don't know, about 6.30. He loves an early start. Right. And he'll probably clock off at 2.30. People do different hours. They do, we're very like flexible. As long as they do their day, they come within reason.

14:54Yeah, if you're in distribution, it's good to start early before with traffic. Yeah, exactly. So do you think something's been lost in the way we do business today with so much of it going online and so much of it being sort of impersonal in a sense? Yeah, but I think it's amazing for the consumer that they can, and online's become so good. So if you look at our online, there's going to be at least six images of the thing you're going to buy. You've got front, back, you've got video, you know, you've got information, all the colors. You've got customer reviews. So you know exactly. You can look down at the bottom and see seven people have bought it.

15:27If they've needed to size up, size down. So you've got so much information at your fingertips. And I think that's, you know, amazing for the customer. Your business is a blend of shops and online now. We love that. We love, I love that. I love a shop. I mean, I love walking. I would say, invariably, what you think you're going to choose by looking online will end up being totally different if you come to the store. You might like that, but you might try it on and go, it's not quite what I wanted, but actually I love the look of this dress or I love that jumper. And so I just think that nothing beats coming and seeing, feeling, trying on.

16:06Also, I'm rather proud that our products all feel so good. So, you know, a brand might photograph something and it looks great in the picture and you get it and it's as stiff as a board and the fabric's not nice and they haven't lined it properly. Like we have lots of secrets in our clothes. Quite often we put lace trim on the bottom of a lining of a dress. So it's lined and then you like a proper petticoat. But we don't show that online. We can't show that online. So that's like a little surprise. Or we hand sew these tiny copper beads on the hems of our dresses and it weighs them down and gives them a swish.

16:42But you can't really see that online. So people discover things. I think the clothes should look as good on the inside as they do on the outside. Sure. So the shops are very important for that. Yeah. Yeah. And relationships. And from what you're just saying, obviously, the brand has moved from jumpers to a whole clothing range. Yeah. Which is really exciting. Yeah. I mean, when did that occur? Yeah. It happened quite a bit. I mean, that's a funny old story, because obviously, as I said, it was very simple running a business with one fabulous supplier, a guy who I got on with so well. and we made from wrist warmers to snoods to hats to jumpers, men, women, you know, started doing children's things when I had my first baby who's 28 now.

17:23But we had to put something with the jumpers in the brochure. The models had to wear something. They couldn't just be in their knickers or we couldn't have every shot cropped off. That's a very good point. Yeah. So it's like, what are they going to wear? Well, they couldn't really wear other people's brands because otherwise that would seem a bit… Who are you selling? Oh, exactly. so I used to go to vintage markets and I'd go to portobello and vintage markets and flea markets and I'd buy maybe one season I'd buy great big tutus or I'd just buy beautiful lace skirts and dresses and I'd put all these vintage pieces with the cashmere and then people started saying oh I'd really like to buy the dress in the picture I'd like to buy the skirt I want to buy everything she's wearing so I was like oh maybe I've got a bit of an eye for this well good for you so that's So you sort of developed your range.

18:12So yeah, and I knew nothing. I mean, that's complicated, James. I mean, the jumpers is easy. That is complicated. Cutting, patterns, the right fabric for the right design, the lining. There's so many components in a bit of clothing. So knitwear is, you know, it goes on the machine. It's, you know, the specs done and it's the yarn. But of course, sometimes on cardigans, you have grosgrain ribbon and buttons and things. but a knitwear is it's just a much simpler thing so how did you learn this whole new well trade trial and error and quite a lot of errors right i did get an amazing production manager in the end who had had his own cut make and trim factory on the outskirts of london he's still with me today he's called gary and he his factory made for gene muir who was an amazing designer and he was he was making all her stuff in the 80s and 90s and then when gene muir went under, his business went under because I think they owed him 30 grand or something.

19:13So I just saw his CV came onto my desk at exactly the right time. And I rang this guy and he lived in Hertfordshire. And we were still in London at the time. And I said, Gary, I promise you the business is going to move to Hertfordshire, but can you come bare to start commuting into London for the first five years? And he's been a godsend because he understood it right from the beginning. So he has founders factories. You know, he works with the pattern cutters. He works with the production. So good recruitment there. Very good. Good plug for recruitment. Recruiting someone who knows. Yeah, it was really brilliant.

19:50It was a lucky. I think a really good highlight that makes a huge difference. And you're just sort of illustrating. And I think actually that's maybe been, it's really funny because I'm quite slapdash actually. But I'm quite good on people, I suppose. I take quite a gut feeling about somebody in an interview process. I'm not that interested in their CV because they wouldn't be there if their CV hadn't got them there. You know, they've got the skills. I know that. So I sort of need to know if they're going to be a good fit with me and with the team. And they've got some integrity, some loyalty.

20:24And over the years, you've built a strong team, it sounds like. I've got amazing. I mean, my head of buying, who is really exceptional, she's been with me nearly 25 years. Right. um my finance director's been with me over 20 years um yeah my my md at the moment's just done 10 years and i had somebody before him who did about 15 years so yeah it's been i've got some really fabulous people who know the business very well that's so important i think so so you decided to grow this business organically yeah i didn't really know any other way so was that a conscious choice or was it just sort of just happened i think it's a strategy i subscribe to but what was your thinking scary isn't it um if you're not very greedy if you're not if money's not the key thing if it's not your key performance indicator whatever you'd say um then it's a very nice way to grow organically because you sort of can keep up with the customer demand the quality doesn't let you down.

21:28You sort of know everybody who comes into the business who's working for you. You can grow their strengths and train them up properly because you've sort of got that time. You know, I don't know, there just seem to be so many benefits. The other huge thing is you don't need to borrow money from anyone. So we never had to borrow from the bank. We never had to get outside investors. And hence why I've always been the 100 % owner of the business until recently. and we can talk about that later. But it means that you have 100 % control of your business

22:06and you're not answerable to anybody. Nobody's ringing you up every three months and saying, how are the accounts? What's it looking like? And we all know with business, you have ups and downs. You have bad times. You have good times. It's certainly true. That's certainly true. So retaining your control and not putting the business in jeopardy was an important part of your thinking, it sounds to me. Yeah, I think I just, you know, as much as anything, Brora is quite a lifestyle business. You know, I really wanted to spend time with my children as well with my family. I'm, you know, they probably say I am a workaholic, but actually, I like a good game of tennis or anything else in the middle of the day as well.

22:44So, you know, I wasn't going to be one of those people who didn't have a life outside work, I had really wanted the balance. Yes. And I think growing a business organically means that you sort of are more likely to get that. So that's worked well for you. I mean, you've been in business now more than 30 years. Yeah. So how do you balance sort of staying timeless? You talk about clothing for decades rather than seasons with, you know, the need to keep up with trends and being sort of relevant. It's funny, James, isn't it? It's sort of, so much of what you do is innate. So much of it, what you do is in your sort of DNA.

23:24So I think it's very difficult to do things when they don't come naturally to you. So I suppose I just, the way I was, where I started Brora with the Scottish cashmere, I mean, the sort of people who make at the mill alongside me are Chanel and Hermes and Louis Vuitton, Burberry, you know, it's very high end, Parisian couture brands and Brora. So by its very nature, our cashmere is incredibly high quality, which does mean unless the old moth get hold of it, it lasts for years and years and years. And especially if it's well looked after. And a lot of people buying cashmere do actually wash it and put it in zip bags and they care for it because it's expensive.

24:06so I suppose that in turn meant that it needs to be fairly classic what you're doing otherwise people are going to look at it in five years time go I don't really feel like wearing that zany stripy jumper now but over the years we've done some amazing statement pieces as well and I think I suppose that nowadays because the cashmere has become more and more expensive for all the obvious reasons um the clothing's where we might make more of a flash thing or more of a seasonal thing but i still see people who keep their clothes and then they go back to it like 10 years later they look in their wardrobe and go god i'm or it gets passed down to their children i mean there's a massive raid on mother's wardrobes of brora as you probably know in your family that's that's the ultimate compliment is that the next generation want to wear it honestly that's a good sign honestly i have to put pictures of me wearing something you know that i suddenly think where has that gone i put it on the family whatsapp group and say i've got five daughters so i mean so you're losing stuff five daughters yeah the raid's big well they're probably quite good as a sort of customer sort of input for you as well honestly design input yeah it's they're so stylish in all in different ways and they're 23 is the youngest and 37 is the eldest the first two are my stepdaughters and then i've got three daughters with johnny together um but you know they all dress in a different way and i really notice what they wear so i know the next generation yeah sounding board is a good thing so you've you've mentioned that the importance of your suppliers and you mentioned that you had one right at the beginning but now you said over a hundred um how what do you think about in terms of relying on you know supplies what you look for in suppliers you obviously use traditional crafts people this is a very important part of your sort of business ethos how do you make sure that that sort of works for everybody um i think i mean when i say over a hundred i i mean it's not an exaggeration because you might get buttons from somewhere and lining from somewhere but they're not what i call sort of key suppliers right we We probably have, you know, 15 really key suppliers.

26:28So we do try and give quite a lot of work to one manufacturer because it really builds a sense of loyalty and partnership. And I think that's quite key. It's sort of like, you know, if you want to trade in season, which I have learned is pretty key to your bottom line. You know, if you see something that you don't know, we do not know, there's no crystal ball that tells you that is the dress that's going to fly. You know, you can make a bit of an assumption based on past seasons, based on history, based on the data, that it's very difficult to make a judgment as to what piece is going to be the one that season.

27:11So if you can remake within season, if you can see that trend very early on and say, okay, we're going to take a punt and we're going to order another 300 of those or whatever it is, then that can be very crucial to your figures for that season. So working closely with good partners where you are quite a big part of their business means that they're more likely to turn things around quickly for you when they need to. So you're an important customer for them. Yeah. We're not everywhere. And I noticed the difference between somewhere where we only make a few things and we're slightly bottom of the pile, our production might get delayed a bit.

27:53They're very good at what they do. let's say i don't know we don't do let's say a lot of suede and leather so if we do one jacket with somebody we might be the person who the you know if they've got to delay one thing because things are not going quite right it might be us whereas another supplier you know where 50 percent of what they're producing in their whole factory so we are like top dollar what i'm hearing i think is that in your customers demand is unclear you don't know it from season to season what are going to be the real star products so you need a supplier who can respond quickly and make you more of something which which favors the british over yeah i mean that that that is that right um well it can it sort of depends on the supplier but it is amazing you know the mill in scotland and what is so incredible about them.

28:46I mean, last winter, when we were on the traitors a lot, and our cashmere wrist warmers, these fingerless gloves we do, again, we've done since day one, these fingerless gloves. And, you know, Claudia wears them in almost every scene on the traitors. So suddenly we needed, you know, another 300 in black. And the milk turned that around in a week. Yeah. And you really need that. You can't wait a month or two months because people lose interest. No, interestingly, there's a limit. I know the limit. You know, if something's really good and it's quite near the beginning of the season, people will wait six weeks.