Next up in our Small Business Inspirational Series is Angela O'Brien, co-founder and co-owner of Esteem Lingerie & Bra Fitting Academy, a family-run, professional bra fitting boutique and training business based online and in West Kelowna, BC. Angela shares how a devastating natural event affected their business and how they emerged stronger and more agile than ever before on the other side.
"In Aug 2023 our community of West Kelowna was devastated by the McDougall Creek wildfire. Many homes, structures and businesses burnt to the ground. In the first 72hrs of the fire I helped evacuate my daughter summer camp just before it burned, we were evacuated out of our home and due to an emergency order we temporarily closed our business as we waited to see the next turn of events. Three days later I was allowed to re-open our business only to discover that we had lost all of our stock to smoke damage. Esteem Lingerie is a high-end lingerie boutique that has been fitting women for over 18 years. We maintain a large and carefully curated inventory of quality bras, post-mastectomy bras & prosthetics, lingerie, swimwear and nightwear largely from the top quality manufacturers in Europe. In the 3 days our store was closed, our HVAC system sucked in large amounts of ash & soot and distributed it liberally through all the garments, contaminating them to the point of being "unsaleable". For a brief moment, I cried in "panty section" fearing that 18 years of creating and building a business from the first customer and the first bra, was all lost.
Thankfully we have always maintained amazing insurance coverage, and we went to work with our insurance company and our restoration company to start over. We created a plan that required us to close down for 7 weeks while we inventoried and boxed up the damaged stock for the insurance company, got the store cleaned and restored by the restoration company and then had to re-order and receive hundreds' of thousands of dollars worth of stock. For most small to medium retail businesses a 7 week closure regardless of insurance could take years to recover from. We looked at the situation as being a beautiful gift in "shitty wrapping paper"! If we had to start our business from scratch then we were going to use every ounce of knowledge we had acquired over 18 years to re-start our business in a more streamlined, simplified and efficient model. We went through every process, filing cabinet, and computer system and DECLUTTERED, simplified and re-envisioned our business. We focused on all the technological efficiencies we could embrace that would free up our "human resources" to focus in on what technology cannot do, which is fitting bras on women and provide customer service based on education and authentic human service.
We also took the time to look to the future of our business, we invested in new branding, websites, and a realignment of our social media channels. This has led to retraining our staff in new and exciting ways to bring our education & service efforts out of the change room and further out online. While not 100% recovered - I can say that we are well on our way and heading in the direction of being able to say we bounced back twice as high. We also decided to share our knowledge and experience with other small/medium sized business owners by developing by a free masterclass on the 5 key steps to making your business disaster proof. The class highlights the "real boots on the ground things" required for business recovery, that often aren't taught in business school. The class will launch next month on the Esteem Bra Fitting Academy website."
-Angela O'Brian
Thank you for sharing your story Angela and the ways you overcame the wildfire impact on your business.
🎀 Connect with Esteem Lingerie or Bra Fitting Academy
🧯 Free Masterclass "How to Disaster Proof Your Business"
📌 Visit Angela & Florenda in West Kelowna, British Colombia
📚 Empowering insights on bra fitting, lingerie care and other tips through Esteem resources
Please share your thoughts, comments, questions, encouragements or congratulations with Angela and the community below!