This week, the CEO of Stormy Kromer, Bob Jacquart starts a discussion with us about mentorship. With 50 years of being in business, this humble man takes the time to explain how mentees can attract a mentor and make sure they are doing the work to make their mentor proud.
Bob: Oh, it’s an absolute pleasure to be here and especially now that I can see your smiling faces, too!
Ruthie: We have our videos on for this one! Makes it fun!
What Do You Do as an Entrepreneur?
Bekkah: Yeah, so could you tell us what do you do?
Bob: I really make things out of fabric. I think that’s the best way to explain me. I don’t like to say I’m a CEO or an entrepreneur or whatever. When you say I started in my dad’s business when I was 19 in September it will be 50 years ago that I was 19 and it just doesn’t seem like that at all! I mean you know your poor audience and say, “Oh, my god. There’s a 68-year-old man talking here. It’s going to be old and boring!”
Bekkah: You’re not old and boring at all!
Bob: It’s really interesting to think that because I don’t feel that at all I mean. I don’t even come close to feeling that and just so you know when I’m done with this I’m going to spend an hour with my virtual trainer to keep me in really good shape so I feel like it. He’s 30 and keeping me young and alive so anyway. What I discovered early on in my life was when I was in high school I was academically strong so I was on the university path of going to get a degree.
I was good at math so my whole life was focused on me becoming an engineer and when I got to school it just didn’t fit and then I really, really struggled for what that was and what was what was the mismatch. I couldn’t see myself as a mechanical engineer with a lab coat on working for an auto company or something like that. It just didn’t fit right. I still don’t know what it was but my dad had this little, alteration shop and sewing shop that he didn’t even work full-time at because he had a full-time job. He did this as a hobby and what I realized when I went to work there was kind of calling a timeout to my life, I realized that I loved making things but I had never been to a shop class because I was on this academic track in high school. I never had the opportunity to do that but I just that was me a thousand percent. I’d love looking at things and figuring out how they’re made and everything like that.
How I Taught Myself Upholstery and Became an Entrepreneur
That love went from learning and I taught myself how to make boat covers and then I taught myself how to upholster. I was actually pretty good at that. Got lots of fun stories about how good I got to be and won some national awards and all that fun stuff. Then one of my boat cover customers asked me if I ever had done production work because he needed a production sewing shop. I had never done production work and I said, “I’d like to try it,” and he said, “If you put as much energy into producing a lot of product for me as you did on working on my boat and let’s start something together.”
We started together and then all of a sudden I realized that I loved employing people. I didn’t see that one coming! I didn’t see the fact that I could put something together that would have an influence on families and people. All the while this is happening, I’m not getting any education through the traditional manners.
Ruthie: You’re just going for it!
Bob: Yeah but I’m needing to learn! I’m needing to learn accounting. I’m needing to learn business manners. I’m new needing to learn how to buy fabric and how to negotiate and how to sell. I was lucky enough to realize how uneducated I was by university standards and so I completely opened myself up to learn anything I could from anybody. One of the lucky things for me was that I was a good upholster and boat cover maker and we lived 40 miles north of let’s call it – I live in Michigan but I live 40 miles north of Wisconsin’s vacation land.
It would be Minnesota’s boundary waters area or Michigan’s Traverse City area but I live really close to the area of Wisconsin which is Milwaukee, Madison, and Northern Chicago folks. Imagine being, I think I was 21 years old and walking in to the president of one of the major insurance companies – and I know this is his third house and it’s worth about three million dollars and I can’t believe that anybody could have a three million dollar home as a third home!
Bekkah: Right!? As a third home?
Hard Work and Eagerness Are Signs of a Promising Mentee
Bob: I’m puzzled with that, but he picked up on my eagerness and so I became a mentee to him. Imagine, I talk about I’d work boots on and blue jeans on and I’m a worker and all of a sudden I’m sitting with Al who he’s, you know long retired and everything like that but he’s in his late 80s and I still try to have breakfast with him once or twice a summer. But imagine somebody like me, you know my dad worked for the city.
He had this little shop and I didn’t have much at all and he’s sitting and I’m sitting at his kitchen table. He’s treating me like an equal. Treating ME like an equal! Not talking down to me at all. That scar was such a positive influence on my life and then I realized that I could ask, if I put myself in the right humble position, I could get advice from just about anybody. So that’s how I grew and that’s what our subject is but I’ll go back to my growth in the business. I started making things.
Ruthie: You’ve got to tell us the name of your company! We kind of glossed over that.
Bekkah: You didn’t say anything about it yet
Bob: It’s Jacquart Fabric Products which ended up buying Stormy Kromer which half of your audience should know who Stormy Kromer is. The story of how I got there and how I lucked out and all this and you know, you bounce around and from idea to challenge back to idea again. We started making things in the 80s and really the 80s was the time when China took all the sewing work out of the United States. Here I was with this grand vision of becoming a sewing factory and I didn’t even know that it was all leaving. I was too young and ambitious to know but what we ended up doing, if you can imagine, I was a craftsman so I made a boat cover.
How I Competed With Manufacturing From China During the 1980’s
I made a grill cover. I upholstered a couch, a chair, a motorcycle seat, all have really different dynamics. If you’re making something in production and you like making things you learn how to make them! At the same time, there’s an inside scoop with the guy that sells the sewing machines because the people that sell sewing machines are in everybody else’s factory. If you want to learn how to make a sleeping bag, call the sewing machine guy up who sells you the sewing machine because he sells the sewing machine to the sleeping bag guy, too! You can learn from him what sewing machines he sold to the sleeping bag company.
That company and I started finding odd work that China couldn’t do. We started finding that work and it came and it went. We had a very large account in the early 80s making products for a motorcycle company and then they made the decision to take that product to Mexico and so we lost it. We made dog beds for a company that got bought out by another company and then we lost that account. The contract business became something that would have almost like farming, having good years and bad years.
Then this little opportunity came called Stormy Kromer which was a 98-year-old business. I wore a hat. Back in 2001 when I bought it, I wore a hat and the opportunity came that we could possibly buy it and basically keep it from closing completely. I’m the third owner of that business which started in 1903 and Stormy sold it to Dick in 1964 and then I bought it in 2001. What we were able to do is put a lot of things that I had been training for into it; a lot of things and it depends on how much we talk tonight but we can talk about all the things that had helped me grow as a person and all the things that I had learned.
I put it together with Stormy Kromer at the beginning and then of course seven years into it Gina my oldest daughter came back and put a lot of expertise in marketing and things like that. That’s what we’re doing now. Then there’s this one term that if I tell my story, one day I was telling the story to somebody out in the retail store. Like 10 feet on the other side of this wall is a retail store and if it wasn’t for Covid I’d be out there looking for anybody I can talk to and I love that. I love when somebody drove someone I came from Minneapolis! That’s four hours away! “Why are you traveling through here?” “We came here to see your store!”
Ruthie: Awe, cool!
Business Pluck: When Something Good Goes By You And You Grab It
Bob: Four hours to do it so then I love talking to them. It’s very endearing and stuff and I was telling the story to somebody who wanted to know the story and I said, “You know, I’ve been so darn lucky! I mean so many nice things have happened to me!” and he said, “That’s not luc! That’s pluck!” So that’s the term! I use that once in a while! It’s when something good goes by you and you grab it. You’re smart enough or dumb enough or whatever you want to say but I think a lot of people have left opportunities go.
I mean when our local dealers said, “They quit making Stormy Kromer hats you better do something about it!” I could have said, “I don’t know anything about making hats! I never made a hat. I never made a coat. I never made a jacket. I never made a shirt,” but I kind of said, “Get me the number and I’ll buy the company” and I went after it. So maybe there’s a little bit of that too!
I’ve Owned a Business for 50 Years, and I’m Still Be Mentored
Honestly, go back to how many years ago I started, I still can’t believe how much I love being here. Imagine 50 years in a business, and I look forward to coming here and I look forward to working! We’re having challenges with a printer and I was on my back about an hour ago looking at the bottom of the printer and loving every minute of it. I’ve been really blessed to have that much love and that much passion and that much desire. I’m still learning. I’m still a mentee. I have this magnificent man from Wayzata, Minnesota that a friend of a friend hooked me up with. We talk for about about two hours a month and he has a list and he challenges me and he pushes me like I was 18 years old.
I do that here for my employees and I actually do it for anybody else that calls. In fact, yesterday, I got a call from a guy looking for stone products and he was from a bigger city. I won’t name any names. It’s not in Minnesota so don’t worry about that because Minnesota’s not like that, but people from that city have a real reputation for being just cold and stiff. It’s all business and so I told him I couldn’t help him. I wasn’t interested in sewing his product but I’d help him in any way to find what he needs and he just couldn’t believe that. We ended up with a half hour conversation and I think he’s going to end up buying his own sewing machines and doing it himself when I told him how easy it would be for him to invest then he doesn’t have all the disconnect of having another factory do it and all that stuff.
I’m still trying to do that as well, mentoring people. I’m at a point where I still work more than eight hours a day. I don’t know maybe my average is 10 hours a day now or something like that but it’s not full of the day-to-day stuff so I have the time to talk to people and spread the love I guess or whatever. Spread my knowledge I mean think about how much experience I’ve had in 50 years. I could tell stories for through the night easily.
Bekkah: I know we were just talking about that we’re like this is gonna be a two-episode interview!
Bob: So there! That’s fine, whatever I’m glad to be here whatever!
How Do You Find Your First Mentor?
Ruthie: Well, I want to backtrack here you mentioned that you reached out to this guy who was the president of this insurance company but how did you find him? Tell us about that because I think it’d be valuable for our listeners to know how they can go about finding a mentor like that.
Bob: You know, it’s worth telling them a deeper part of that story and how really meaningful it was for me. Ironwood is a mining town. You know, Ironwood. We have iron mines and in 1964 taconite was discovered in Northern Minnesota and Ironwood went from 16 to 8,000 in a decade. Half the people went to Northern Minnesota and the other half went to the auto industry because they couldn’t find a job here anymore and Ironwood had railroad tracks and iron mining towns back in the 50s and 60s had a reputation for being two-class towns with no middle class.
It was the miners who were poor and the upper people who were the business people. You know, we and we lived on the tracks. I didn’t know it. I didn’t care or anything like that but I went to a party one time. Fortunate for me in high school, I wasn’t wounded because I was an athlete then and so athletes got little special privileges and I went to a party at a house on the other side of the tracks and I was told about a week later by that girl’s uncle that they would rather and folks like me don’t show up at their parties.
It wasn’t negative for me. I didn’t feel insulted at all. I always felt good about myself so I didn’t really think of that as an insult. I just thought that that was the way of the world and that’s fine. If that’s the way it is, I’m fine with that because I’ve got plenty of friends over here!
Ruthie: No skin off my nose!
Bob: Yeah, I really wasn’t! Honestly, I wasn’t insulted or anything. I didn’t know any better or whatever but then think about maybe six or seven years later, imagine that you see commercials on TV for this insurance company and now you get a call from the SEO of this insurance company. He found out that I did a good job making boat covers and he collected 1930s, wooden Chris Crafts. Those gorgeous, colored boats and he was a collector of them and by the time I got done with them actually, I had done all seven of his boats – covers and interiors.
Then his daughter, Amy, her wedding party instead of cars with cans banging around behind them they did these Chris Craft boats. I had done the interior on them so I was respected by him because of my trade. The guy whose sailboat I was working on when he said, “Would you like to start making products for physical therapists,” he kind of said, “I love your energy!” I’ve had that happen half a dozen times. I’ve got quite a few stories where people say, “I love your energy! I want to work with you!” I think that’s another thing that we can do as mentees is show that energy, show that enthusiasm, do the follow-ups.
What to Follow Up With a Mentor?
Bekkah: What does that look like to follow up?
Bob: Well, like Mark now, I mean I put myself in the mentee side, he’s retired and he’s down in Florida now but he says, “Get in the car. Well, next time you’re driving somewhere let’s schedule it.” So I get to sit in the car and it’s just lovely conversations. It’s never about him, it’s always focused on me. Developing me and he’ll go through these things.
In fact, here’s the list! It’s really funny but the list is right here from our last conversation. We’re talking about my transition out of the business right now and so he’s given me follow-up things. I want to make him proud and I want to get an A on my homework. Because it’s precious to have somebody like that in your life and so you don’t want to disappoint them. I mean the first worst thing you can do is you know make them angry or disappointed. I make sure I do that as well.
Ruthie: A couple of things that I’m hearing you say, the first one you were talking about when you got this insurance agent or president of this insurance agency he really liked what you did. You were honorable and had integrity in how you did your job and then he saw you as worthwhile to mentor, but also you have kind of interwoven this into everything you were like making things for physical therapists like whoa! Where did that come from?
I was reading this book recently and they said “people who have big ambitions pursue even the smallest opportunities everywhere. The more outlandish and unlikely the better,” and I just think that that’s consistently what I hear you saying is just like “Oh! this thing came up and so I did that.”
Being a Good Mentee is Not Acting Like a Know-it-all & Wanting to Learn
Bob: It’s all about people! I have this funny expression about myself and it’s like, “I think they see my tail wagging all the time!” Like, “Can I learn more? Can I learn more? Please, please, please?” You know like a dog would, right? “Can I have another treat?” I try to give that. I try to be warm and accepting. I know that you know when I’m doing it the other way, when I’m trying to mentor someone I think that for me the most difficult block in trying to help somebody or talk to somebody is when they’re listening and nodding and that kind of natural reaction word is “I know, I know, I know,” and their heads nodding and up and down. It’s like, “You’re supposed to be listening and I can’t imagine you know this!” You don’t have to act like a know-it-all.
I think the humbler and the more open and the more you kid about yourself and the more you leave yourself open, I’ve done that so many times and people! Like one of my mentors, I hit a certain benchmark in the company and he looked at me, we were having breakfast and I remember he had a pad in his hand, he put the pad down and he looked at me says, “I want you to do me a favor.” And I said, “Okay,” and he says, “Look what you’ve done,” and he says, “I want you to do me a favor and quit, from this day forward, I don’t want you to ever tell anybody that you didn’t finish college, because you’re belittling yourself and you are doing a lot more than a lot of people who have ever finished college. So don’t do that.”
But I kind of continue to have a tendency to let people know that. For me, the 69-year-old, 68-year-old owner of Stormy Kromer meeting somebody your age, somebody in their 20s, I don’t want them to be intimidated by me. I want them to be relaxed. I want them to feel like an equal because that’s the way I feel about them, but this dang title I have doesn’t allow that opportunity to happen right away. You know, it just doesn’t.
I mean people are just immediately intimidated by the CEO and the guy that owns Stormy Kromer and all that stuff. I work really hard at leveling that playing field so I can have a conversation like we’re two equal human beings like Al did with me. That’s really important because I really detest anyone thinking that I think or that they think that I’m better than they are.
Prepare for a Mentorship Meeting By Being Open
Ruthie: Yeah, so in your preparation for meeting with these mentors that you have, these really cool people who have taught you, how do you prepare for that?
Bekkah: To either approach them to ask them to be your mentor or to prepare for a meeting with them when they are your mentor.
Bob: Well, there’s not much in preparation because I just go there with my questions and open myself up. Maybe it’ll change as I think about this but because I didn’t see that question coming but there’s another part of my life that I think I should share and that is a phone call to someone that you don’t know or getting a message to someone and saying, “You know a lot more about exporting,” or “I see that your company exports. I own Stormy Kromer and I don’t know anything about it, could I buy you lunch and learn from you?”
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask People to Lunch in Order to Be Mentored By Them
I’ve done something like that I know 200 times in my career. It got so easy that Michigan had at one time about six or eight years ago, we had a state senator named Carl Levin and he was the oldest senator in Washington. I got to know his aide, the representative that represents his office in the Upper Peninsula and please don’t take this as a political endorsement or anything it’s just that this guy was really cool and I called Amy up and I said, “Amy, it’s January 7th. There are 360 days left in this year. I want to have lunch with Senator Levin one on one and I will fly anywhere in this country to meet up with him. If he’s ever alone I’d just like to be in that environment, but one-on-one I don’t want to be in a group or anything like that.”
Some day in April that year I got a call, “He’s going to be in St. Ignace, Michigan,” which is five hours from here and I had a one-on-one lunch with this elegant man, who was kind and soft-spoken and I could just feel the Washington history. And he had lunch with me. I mean I got to buy him dinner so I’ve done that. I’ve done that a lot.
Ruthie: 200 times! That’s a lot of Perkins!
Bob: Yeah, you know I did this. You heard me at UMD and I kind of had this conversation in my speech at with the UMD folks and I think I talked to seven people after that. It’s not difficult for me and I’ve had really good success doing that. I’ve only been turned down, after I did the senator I actually tried a vice presidential candidate but I got turned on by him so I have been turned down.
Bekkah: Well, we are going to do two episodes of this so if you guys are listening and you’re like “Oh! I wanna know more about this!” There’s gonna be another one coming out next week!
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