-->
|
|||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Founded in 1876, Jockey International Inc.® returned to its direct selling roots with Jockey Person to Person®, its 3-year-old direct selling division.
Samuel T. Cooper, a retired minister, founded Jockey when he discovered that the lumberjacks in his area were suffering horribly from blisters and infections caused by poor-quality socks. Recognizing a need, he began his own business in a converted stable, making socks and selling them almost door-to-door as S.T. Cooper & Sons. His business boomed when word got out that quality and service were not just slogans for the company, but an important part of its culture.
A Culture for Women
The culture that has remained a mainstay at Jockey for more than 130 years continues with the company’s foray into direct selling. And for Founder of Person to Person and Chairman and CEO of Jockey International Debra S. Waller, that culture is an especially good fit for today’s busy woman. “Jockey Person to Person was born with the desire to help women find an appropriate balance in their work and their home lives in a fun and creative way,” she says. “Personally, I’m a mom and I’m a wife and I walk in some of these ladies’ shoes. Whether you’re working or you have a family you need balance, and I know that women struggle with this all of the time.”
Providing people with the opportunity to build businesses on their own terms is one of the cornerstones of direct selling, and Waller believed that the culture at Jockey International was a natural fit with the industry. “We felt that our company was in a perfect position to take Jockey Person to Person into this realm and help these women understand that they can have a social life, they can take care of their children, but they can also still run their own business,” she says. “And that’s how Jockey Person to Person came about.”
Choosing direct selling also fit with Jockey’s focus on the customer. “Obviously, a lot has changed in the world since this company started, but some things remain constant, and one of those things is our desire and ability to sell product in a consumer-centric manner,” says Michael S. Lapidus, Jockey President of Consumer Direct. “We believe direct selling is a great way to do this because of the level of interaction that our comfort specialists have with our consumers. We love this business because of all it can provide our consumers and our comfort specialists.”
Capitalizing on the Brand
Known around the world for its underwear, Jockey found in its Person to Person brand a new way to reach consumers. “If you ask people about Jockey, usually you will get a smile and you may get a little tug on the belt loops,” Waller says. “It’s a highly recognized brand.”
That high brand recognition drew consultants to Jockey Person to Person from the start. “To them, it’s the brand name and the chance to be on the ground floor of this great opportunity,” says Diane K. Nopenz, Vice President of Sales. “They are very focused, and we have found that they are very interested in their guests and hostesses, making sure they come first.”
At the beginning, Jockey sought to capitalize on that brand recognition with a similar product offering. Now, though, Person to Person, by listening to its customers and consultants, has branched out.
“We thought we would sell a lot of the same products that we sell with the Jockey brand,” Lapidus says. “Over time, customers told us that while they liked our bras and panties and other undergarments, they really love our active and casual wear mix.” Jockey listened and moved its product catalog in that direction. Today, Jockey Person to Person offers more casual and classic sportswear made from high-quality fabrics. The company created styles that move easily through a working woman’s day, from office casual to yoga to her son’s baseball game.
A Focus on People
Lapidus says Jockey Person to Person’s comfort specialists (as it calls its consultants) are the heart and soul of its business, offering feedback about products and services as well as being the faces of Jockey Person to Person. “One of the biggest successes, and the thing that we are most proud of, is the team that we have assembled in the field and the corporate office,” Lapidus says. “We have a very talented and passionate group of people who are extremely focused on making this business—and their businesses—a success.” With backgrounds from corporate America to direct selling, each person brings something special to the table, building the most important aspect of their success—the people.
The company prides itself on truly listening to employees, customers, guests, hostesses and comfort specialists and respecting everyone’s opinions. “Jockey’s culture, not just in our Person to Person business but in all of the other businesses, is really one based on teamwork,” Nopenz says. “It’s truly family-oriented, both here as well as in the direct selling industry, and because of its adaptability is very much a family.”
Lapidus says Person to Person’s family-oriented culture has helped result in the development of strong team leaders. “We’ve got people who have built teams and significant businesses and they are doing it the right way,” he says. “When they build a team, we want that team to be strong, we want those people to understand our culture and our values. We are a family-owned business with family values, and we make sure that every one of our teams has those same values.”
Up-to-Date Training
Many of Jockey Person to Person’s comfort specialists are new to direct selling, and the company provides them with extensive training. “Training and development are critical to providing our comfort specialists with the necessary tools that they need to achieve their dreams,” Nopenz says. “We provide training right via individual leadership coaching. We have gone out into the field for personal field seminars throughout the country and then, much like other direct selling companies, we hold conference calls and training calls.”
Nopenz says Jockey Person to Person is in the process or redeveloping parts of its training to take advantage of all of the tools and technology available today. The company also invested up-front in the infrastructure necessary to support rapid growth, including the systems, processes and resources needed to deliver high-quality customer service to comfort specialists and consumers alike.
Attending Direct Selling Association meetings provided Person to Person’s executive team with a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of launching a direct selling business. Now, the company even lends a hand to newer direct selling companies as they navigate the tricky process of starting a business. While the privately held company cannot disclose either distributor numbers or earnings, the executive team says Person to Person is “growing at a very rapid rate” and that they are “very pleased” with the continuous progress that has been made in its relatively short history.
Changing Lives
Waller says watching a Person to Person comfort specialist grow personally and professionally has been the most gratifying aspect of launching a direct selling business. “We have women make changes to their lifestyles based upon the financial opportunities and the flexibility of person to person,” she says. “And we’ve had others feeling more confident, sharing their stories and getting very comfortable talking in front of people. They are getting more confident in managing their own businesses. We love the positive changes that we are seeing in our comfort specialists. I think that is the one thing that resonates with us the most.”
With quality products, an exceptional salesforce and a commitment to the consumer, Jockey Person to Person is going strong and anticipates further growth. Its comfortable, fashionable products and the close relationships available through direct selling will allow the company to get back to its roots, further honoring the Rev. Cooper and what he built so long ago.
Related Entries
