Chelsea Grayson
Appearances
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
So first, American Apparel, and then True Religion, and then Spark Networks, which owned a bunch of huge dating apps like JDate and Elite Single and Silver Single and Christian Mingle. And now in the third chapter of my career, I'm sitting on boards of directors, mostly public company boards, but some private.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
You know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It takes a minute to, you know, get things turned. But that's the key. spotting that iceberg from really far away and starting to turn and starting to switch the engine. So I think the key to being able to be entrepreneurial and to getting things done the way you want to get them done is to have long, long-term strategizing and planning.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Again, like I say, stay in touch with your board so they're very prepared to make decisions as you plop it on their laps, you know, so they're not surprised and they don't when you ask them to approve something, you know, come back with 20 questions and 20 diligence requests and 20 information requests and that slows you down for the next four weeks.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Prep them way ahead of time so they're prepared to make that decision and then you can act on it. you know, have your strat plan laid out way ahead of time. That's not always, you know, that doesn't always happen in a startup because things are moving day to day.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
But at a big company like that, if everyone sort of sees what you're planning for this year and they understand the tactical plan that went under it and they understand what their part is, then they're all sort of growing in the same direction the whole time. And it won't take, you might not even have to turn away from anything because you've been planning it this way the whole time, you know.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
So again, it just comes back to Communications and long-term planning. It's a necessary evil that comes with getting bigger and we all want our companies to grow and get bigger, right? We don't want to stay on a jet ski forever.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Weekly. I was constantly visiting stores. I was always on these little pedal jumpers to different places in the middle of the country. And yeah, just, I would pop in sometimes with no warning. Sometimes I wouldn't even, they wouldn't even recognize me necessarily, you know, as I was walking around.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Or sometimes I would say, yes, I'm taking a big, you know, I'm going to look at 15 stores in the middle of the country and I'd let everyone know I was coming so that they knew that we were going to have meetings behind the scenes. But we, I was, I was hardly ever in my office. Yeah. When I was running retail.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
it's harder than it should be, you know. But I think the more disciplined you get, you know, with your, in particular, your marketing department, you know, the more you really reinforce the messages, then they'll start to do the work for you. They'll really start to care about it, you know. But it is very difficult. And that's why you need to have boots on the ground everywhere all the time.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
So I currently sit on the board of Exponential Fitness, which owns Club Pilates and Pure Bar and Rumble Boxing and Lindora and Stretch Lab and a whole bunch of other fitness and wellness companies. boutique fitness brands. I also sit on the board of Beyond Meat, which fits in with that whole health and wellness theme.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
You know, that's why you've got to have a really good visual merchandiser at the top of that department. Just to make sure that, you know, just even the windows are constantly going to be consistent and the floor planning is going to be consistent and where we're going to do sail racks is going to be. All those little details are really important.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
When you walk into an American Apparel here, it should be the same as when you walk into an American Apparel in Dubai.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Exactly. It's like if you're a Soho House member, you know you're going to walk in to a Soho House anywhere. There might be some local flair, but the same general cocktails, the same general, you know, sort of food, the same vibe, right? And they've done that perfectly.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Yeah, so I mean, you know, basic first, I'm on Instagram, Chelsea Grayson. I'm Chelsea Grayson everywhere. You can always find me there. But LinkedIn is probably the best place. You can message me there, follow me, and I'm generally really good at being responsive. And on LinkedIn, you'll see that there's a link to my intro. And so you can also book sessions with me over intro.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
And I've just joined the board of Sunrider International, which is a big MLM company privately held in the nutraceutical space. Previously, I was on the Morphe Cosmetics and Sugarfina board, also the Delta Dental board and a whole bunch of other boards. And Here I am, born and raised in Los Angeles, Los Angeles strong. I've got two kids who are up and out of the house, and that's me.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Yeah, you know, I will say that I think first and foremost, the thing that I learned, the most important lesson I learned was that communication is key. Frequent, regular, transparent communication. with all of the stakeholders. So if it's a public company, that means the market and the investors. It means your lenders as well.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
And with any company, it means your customers, your clients, your vendors, your suppliers. But most importantly, with any company, but particularly with big companies, especially if you're dealing with, yeah, 10,000 employees globally, it's your employees.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
you know they are your absolute most important asset i don't have a different way of characterizing it i don't like the word asset so much in that sentence but they are the most important thing that you've got in your company they are the folks that can make or break you and no employees like to hear about their company and what's happening with their company and what's going to happen with their company from a press release or a leak in the media or on social media
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
spotting that iceberg from really far away and starting to turn and starting to switch the engine. So I think the key to being able to be entrepreneurial and to getting things done the way you want to get them done is to have long, long term strategizing and planning.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
or from the CEO being interviewed on some TV show. They want to hear it as much as possible, first and foremost, from the leaders within the company. Because people don't like to feel like fungible billing units or cogs in a machine or use whatever analogy you want. They want to feel that they're in the know, that they're at the center of where things are originating.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
And then they feel like they want to participate in the initiative that you're attempting to implement. And you should lean into that as a leader.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Try to communicate with your employees first, whether it's town halls, whether it's a quick email before the press release is about to go out, you know, whether it's just walking around to the different factories and, you know, different locations that you've got, even retail locations to try to communicate with folks as much as possible, you know, before it hits the public airways.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
That's not always a perfect system because with public companies, as you know, if there's material non-public information, there's things that you have to disclose publicly at the same time that you're disclosing it internally. Otherwise, you've got a security abroad situation. But people mostly want to hear about it first so that then they feel like they're part of the solution. Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Yeah. I mean, listen, they are the most natural brand ambassadors you've got. Whether you're a big public-facing brand, you know, or whether you're just a B2B, you know, supplier and vendor or whatever.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
I mean, the salespeople, right, the people in the stores, the people that are flying around, the people that are participating on social media, if you can weaponize them as brand ambassadors, weaponize them with as much information as possible, they will want to be cheerleaders. They will be much more engaged in their jobs. And when the water rises, all boats float. Yes, I love that.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Yeah. First, I want to key on something brilliant that you just said, and I don't want to let it go past because it's a hugely important part of your day-to-day life as a CEO, which is at some point you get big enough where you can't, as the CEO, have 18 direct reports, right?
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
You can't have your fingers in every single pie in the company, even though it's your baby, you created the baby, you raised the baby, right, to teenagehood or whatever, in young adolescence, you know, whatever it is. You've absolutely got to learn the art of delegation. And that means, generally speaking, you've got to hire a great number two. So you'll always have your CFO reporting to you.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
If you have a chief legal officer, for sure they should report to you. And probably your chief, whoever's in charge of your human resources, whatever title that is, CHRO normally. Yeah. But then you should have one person, maybe it's a COO or a chief merchant or whatever, to whom everybody else reports at the next level.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Because if you're constantly taking meetings with 18, 20 direct reports, you're never going to get anything done. And by that, I mean a high-level sort of strategic thinking that the CEO should mostly be consumed with all day long. Not meaning that you should be sitting in your chair all day long. That's certainly not what a CEO should be doing.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
But you shouldn't be consumed with micro details all day. Somebody else should be in charge of the nitty-gritty of the business and operations of your company. So you should be, as a CEO day-to-day, linked arms with your CFO. Period. End of sentence. That's one of the very most important things.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
You guys should be in and out of each other's offices in reality or virtually, however you're running your company. You know, you should absolutely be talking all day long and you should make sure that you've got a strategic CFO who's not just a bean counter. You've got your controller for that or whatever. You've got to have a strategic CFO who understands, all right, it's time to acquire.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
I should always be looking for targets to acquire. What should I divest myself of? Or we don't really need these locations anymore. Let's dissolve those entities and we can let those folks go. Or, hey, you know what? This product line that's been our moneymaker for all these years, this actually shouldn't be in two years when we grow up. This shouldn't be what we're focusing on any longer. Right.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Think BlackBerry. You don't see those devices any longer, but you know that company makes a heck of a lot of money just licensing out its IP.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
And the other thing I think as a CEO every single day should make sure to check in again with their chief legal officer and their, call it your CHRO, whoever's running your HR department. Not all day long, and you don't have to get super involved there, but they should be letting you know, generally speaking, all right, the culture of the company is good.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
The culture of the company is turning to toxic. We're getting more and more claims through HR with respect to this one particular issue, so a theme is developing that we need to nip in the bud. Whatever the case is, they can give you a general sense of how things are doing and whether your tone from the top is good, is healthy. It's...
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
resonating throughout the company and people are continuing to be happy and productive or not. They're really on the front lines of, you know, are people happy or not? And if not, that's no bueno because that leads to lawsuits and claims against your insurance policies.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
And then, look, as you're getting bigger and bigger, since we're talking big brands here, and all entrepreneurs want their companies to go from a seedling to being Apple. Yeah. You know, you got to check in with your board, at the very least your chair once in a while, not every single day, but your board should be in the loop.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
The last thing you want is to surprise your board of directors with anything. Boards of directors are, and listen, I'm speaking in the first person here because this is what I do for a living now, were crotchety people. cranky, you know, we've been doing this for a long time. We're sort of grizzled. And when we get surprised by something, we get scared. And when we get scared, we get mad.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
You know, we don't stay scared for too long. We're angry and we're irritable. So don't surprise us with stuff. You know, give us previews of coming attractions. Things that in three weeks you might need approvals on, you can't drop it on us in three weeks. You've got to start to lay the foundation for things.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
And listen, the bigger you get, there are things that are going to require board approval. You can't ignore that. So I would say stay in touch with your chair, you know, regularly as a CEO.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
You're never going to be able to be as entrepreneurial. And the best of CEOs say, oh, I want to maintain that entrepreneurial spirit within the four walls of this company. And, you know, it's like trying to turn the Titanic away from the iceberg. You know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It takes a minute to, you know, get things turned. But that's the key.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Thank you, Rudy. I'm really privileged to be here with you. Yeah, so I'm Chelsea Grayson. I guess I can divide my career up into three chapters really quickly for you. First, I was a lawyer. I was a partner at a big firm. Now I'm a recovering lawyer. So I'm still weaponized, but no longer super dangerous. And I transitioned from that to become the CEO of three big brands.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Yeah, and to your point, you haven't always handpicked your whole board, right? Some folks you may have handpicked, but others, sure, shareholders who put a lot of money into your company, they'll have rights to appoint one or two directors, and you really don't have a whole heck of a lot of say in it, you know? So, yeah, you've got to learn right about that. Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Yeah, absolutely. Boy, once you go public, if you're going to do that, you do that to avail yourself of all the dry powder in the capital markets, of course, and that's great, but it certainly doesn't come without its issues. Then you've not just got a board of directors, some of whom were designated as independent, so they're there just to represent all the shareholders.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
But you've got big shareholder meetings. You've got folks weighing in constantly. You've got directors who know that they're being scrutinized by the public markets. And so they're really watching it. And then it becomes much, much more difficult to move things along or change things or switch up. And you're going to start to wonder why you went public in the first place. Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Key Lessons From Building Household Brands With Chelsea Grayson
Yeah, you know, right, you're never going to be able to be as entrepreneurial. And the best of CEOs say, oh, I want to maintain that entrepreneurial spirit within the four walls of this company. And you can to a certain extent, right? You know, you can hire folks that have that spirit. But yeah, you know, it's like trying to turn the Titanic away from the iceberg.