“Legacy of Leaders” is an inspiring TV show featuring interviews with successful entrepreneurs and leaders around the world. The show focuses on business leadership, motivation, and success stories, with the goal of sparking inspiration and igniting success in the audience. Today our hosts, Captain Rick Hoffman spoke with Eddie McClain.
Eddie McClain
Professional Clothier at Tom James Clothiers
Website Address: Www.tomjames.com/eddiemcclain
Short company description:
Tom James Clothiers is the world’s largest custom clothing company, operating in over 100 locations. Featuring custom business and casual attire for gentlemen and ladies by appointment.
How do you define success?
Helping others define and achieve their goals.
How has your business changed in the past 12 months?
In the startup stage.
Tell me a time you failed forward and what you learned from the experience
Pivoting toward the business casual movement in the early 2000’s.
What are your biggest obstacles and barriers to success?
Keeping a continuous flow of new client development.
What is the proudest moment of your leadership career?
Helping new colleagues build their careers.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome back to Legacy of Leaders, where we interview the brightest and most interesting leaders around. I’m your host, Whitney Mincey, joined by my very special co-host, Captain Rick. And we’ve got a great guest with us here today, Mr. Eddie McLain from Tom James Clothiers. Welcome.
Speaker 2
Thank you. Very good to be with you.
Speaker 1
Yeah, we’re happy to have you here, partially because you have such a long history in the industry, 40 years. Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2
Well thank you. My career with Tom James Clothiers. The years began in Atlanta in 1985. I was newly married, full of ambition and surrounded by great leaders who believed in me and the start of my sales and leadership career. So after a year and a half of apprenticeship in Atlanta, I moved here and opened Jacksonville. So I founded this office in 1987.
Speaker 2
And when I did, we were doing a business in about 45 U.S. cities. And fast forward to 40 years later, we’re now the world’s largest custom clothier and six countries worldwide with 100 locations.
Speaker 3
Wow. Well, and here in Jacksonville, how many folks do you have in your in your.
Speaker 2
Office in Jacksonville? We have eight clothiers ourselves, professionals who are called clothiers because we go on appointments to clients offices and homes and curate their wardrobes by appointment. So eight of us serve in this market from Jacksonville to, all the way to Saint Simons, Tallahassee and, Saint Augustine.
Speaker 3
Okay. Well, that’s in fact how you and I first met a few years back. Right. Those of us who served on active duty, who know exactly what they’re going to wear each day, could use guidance like yours to prepare ourselves for going out in the civilian, civilian world, well dressed and, well, a cooter for sure. So thank you for that for sure.
Speaker 2
One of the joys of my career is helping people to look their best for all aspects of their career and social life, whether it be a business suit or sport coat to go on a vacation or some formal where somebody is getting married or just some casual golf clothing. You know, a lot of gentlemen are very especially gentlemen, experts in the career make million dollar decisions all day long.
Speaker 2
But not all but a few. More than a few. When it comes to matching a suit, shirt and tie that they they enjoy some expertise. Yes.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 2
Our latest wear ladies professional attire currently accounts for about a third of our annual business. Really? Nationwide. And the ladies, they have no problem matching and coordinating their ensemble. They just want fresh new looks that fit great and save them some time from shopping.
Speaker 1
Yes, you’re speaking my language. Absolutely. Yeah. So you. You’ve got such a wealth of knowledge with your experience and your time in the industry. Tell us a little bit about how you’re mentoring and kind of developing the next generation that’s coming behind you.
Speaker 2
That’s been a very key component of my four decade long career, is building our company by building our sales professionals and their careers.
Speaker 3
Your clothiers.
Speaker 2
Our clothiers. So we’ll hire a new clothier, let’s say fresh out of college. Got a business degree, for example. We’ll bring them in for a three month long training program. And it’s not just, oh, here’s a book and a manual. Read it and, you know, get ready and go start selling. Now we take them out on appointments with us for a month.
Speaker 2
Show them how to interact and transact business. And then there’s, more on that training in our corporate office in Nashville. So by the time we hand them a tape measure and say, you’re ready to go build a client, they’re they’re very experienced and wise to the business. So building those people’s careers. And I just gave a speech in Tampa, a month ago at our international conference to all 500 of our clothiers and our sales team, of which I would say 20% or new.
Speaker 2
So I was encouraging them to take that long view focus of building a career and a clientele instead of just a short term job.
Speaker 1
And that’s got to make you think of the mentors you had when you were making the transition to Jacksonville and then coming up in the industry. So can you tell us a little bit about those mentors and kind of what stuck with you from that?
Speaker 2
For sure, one of the most influential mentors I had was the gentleman who hired me in Atlanta. His name is Naresh Khanna, and his success story is amazing, came from India. And to do it, you know, Indiana University got a master’s degree and instead of going into mechanical engineering, he became a Tom James clothier in Atlanta. And he quickly rose to the number one sales and leadership position in our company.
Speaker 2
So when he hired me, he had been with the company about 15 years. So I learned and trained with the number one clothier and sales and leadership. As far as hiring and building a sales force, he was the master of both. So the skills he taught me of how to serve someone long term instead of short term was very important.
Speaker 2
How to lead and manage people individually instead of just in a group, throw a softball out. And that was important. And other leaders in our company, Spencer Hays, who passed away about four years ago at age 81, in Nashville. He founded this company 60 years ago, and his influence ranged throughout 17 other companies that he owned. And he was his characteristic that I learned from was humility.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so important.
Speaker 3
Well you two guys share something.
Speaker 1
Florida State that’s very true. Yes. Go Noles.
Speaker 2
Yes for sure.
Speaker 3
Big game tonight
Speaker 2
Yes yes we hire a lot of self professionals out of Florida State University. There’s about 12 universities in America that have a sales program and entrepreneurship. They can get a degree in sales not marketing, management, sales. So those professionals come into our company with a burning desire to hit the ground running and do well straight away. Yeah.
Speaker 3
Wonderful.
Speaker 2
Speaker 3
I think of sales, marketing and leadership as flip sides of the same coin, but I call them all collectively applied psychology. You’re taking the, the, the, the cognitive processes that we’ve evolved over millennia and, and, and understanding how to, to cut through certain biases and to influence people’s decision making process in a positive way. So, so that’s been sort of my journey on the leadership side, but I can see application in so many other areas influence and, helping people, make up their mind in a positive way.
Speaker 3
So, yeah, I mean, you’ve you’ve done applied psychology for your entire life for sure.
Speaker 2
That work that works in sales and leadership. And the best thing I, counsel our new sales professionals to think about in terms of is to provide solutions to a person’s problem, want or need. And if you have a product or service that meets that, then that’s a win win. Yeah. Not always. Is the timing right to transact business that day, but it might be in six months.
Speaker 2
Okay, so building a relationship through communication and follow up on a timely basis, that helps. But then the other thing that I’ve noticed with let’s say you have a team like we have eight sales professional clothiers, not everybody has the exact same goal for their annual income or the car they want to drive, or the house they want to build, or what their spouse is interested in.
Speaker 2
So sitting down with a person for a half an hour, a couple times a week and exploring these things and letting them talk, share, vent, frustrate, celebrate. Yeah. Regularly has been a very vital part of how we build people, as we say.
Speaker 3
Well, it seems to me, I mean, you’ve described a fairly large investment in each of the new clothiers that you bring on at the beginning, to the point where you let them launch on their own. So it would make sense to me that you would want, want to protect that investment as best you can through solid leadership practices as you’ve described.
Speaker 2
That’s correct. Yeah. No sales industry is ever going to have 100% retention rate of employees, but ours is well over 85%. Yeah. And has been for a long time.
Speaker 1
And so were you doing something right? Yeah.
Speaker 2
We’re very proud of that. 40 years is a long time and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen a lot. And the, approaches and attitudes of college graduates over the decades, what their expectations are, what their drive and focus and ambitions are. I’ve seen a lot of changes in the fashion industry. Big changes. You know, when Business casual came on board some 25 years ago now, a lot of retailers were scared to death of that.
Speaker 1
Speaker 2
Our company on the other hand says we own ten factories in the US. We just retooled three of them to build only business casual clothing. So we stayed ahead of that curve as we went through challenges. I’m sure that both of you faced challenges in your lives and careers, you know, and the clothing industry sort of mirroring business at large across various industries, big ones, we hurdles, I call them.
Speaker 2
We had to jump through Gulf War, early 90s, 911 last year and a half speed bump. That little recession of 2009 and ten or so, the speed bump, then, Covid, we used to go, I don’t even want to say speed bump. Well, speed bump. So having a resolve, a mental resolve that says, I’m a champion, I can get through this.
Speaker 2
I can weather a storm. Coming from the military, you’ve probably preached that day and night for decades yourself. Yeah. And that’s how we sort of expect and train our, company as well. So. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Well, it sounds like you’ve got it figured out. You’re doing a great job over there. Unfortunately, we are out of time here today. Oh, that was fast. I know it’s quick. It’s quick. But if you want to learn more about Eddie and Tom Jane’s cold years, make sure you head over to Daily News network.com. All of his information will be listed there.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2
Thank you Whitney, and thank you Rick. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3
Good, Eddie.
Speaker 1
We will see you next time on Legacy of Leaders.
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