Today we’d like to introduce you to Zoë Ried and Tyana Deloras.
Hi Zoë and Tyana, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
As best friends and roommates, during our time at Michigan State University, we had ample time to do pretty much anything we wanted. We struggled with the idea that we were suck in a college town as students who didn’t exactly enjoy normal student activities. Our passion was in fashion and just the idea of living a luxurious lifestyle and just an overall appreciation for beauty. We often sat and planned how we wanted our lives to look, taking phs from social media and adding them to our prayer journals, just hoping that we would achieve and attain those things.
Over Thanksgiving break 2019, we came up with the idea to start a business organizing closets after a casual conversation about cleanliness being prime an aspect of feeling and living in luxury. We began to ideate and came up with the idea to pretty much leave nothing behind when decluttering closets besides the things our clients genuinely wanted to keep and put use of. At the time, we were both heavily into the luxury resale market. As students that was our go to for affording some of the things we wanted. We knew that the clients we wanted to work with would have plenty of luxury goods that they didn’t necessarily want to donate or discard, so we developed the idea to offer a consignment option.
Due to COVID-19 that following year we weren’t able to be as active organizing closets as we would have liked. However, we used that an opportunity to research more and plan for the future. We studied resell trends, became keen on luxury brand knowledge and how to properly care for items that are in almost every woman’s closet. We took a lot of time to learn business acumen, develop SOPs, and even established roles for ourselves within our business. People always say that the first year of business is the toughest and that was true in our case, but we knew everything would eventually work in our favor. So, we kept faith in things working out even in the unknowing times of COVID.
The next year we were able to completely rebrand, which happened organically considering the amount of things we learned and growth we had individually in our lives. Once Tyana graduated and moved to Atlanta, we took those first four months to work on building our clientele there. Since we have built a strong following of supporters. And clients in both Detroit and Atlanta.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For the most part, most of our struggles had a lot to do with confidence and balance. We had to grow comfortable talking about our business to others and understanding that even with 1,000 “no thank you” could be a possible “yes”, or a person interested. Rejection is a hard pill to swallow but as a business owners, we had to become comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Starting off as students, we had to find balance and still to this day, working normal jobs, finding a realistic balance has been a learning experience. We know that in order to do our best in life health and rest is a priority, so getting acquainted we planning and setting weekly task has helped a lot. And with that comes with a lot of sacrifices. We don’t party often, we wake up before sunrise and live by intention– and probably take in too much caffein at times.
We’ve been impressed with Lot 19 Luxury Consulting, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Lot 19 is a consulting agency that specializes in wardrobe organizing and luxury consignment. Our organizing process is defined by four steps; a consultation, wardrobe edit, closet organization, and conclusion. During the closet conclusion, we will conclude on the unwanted items that will be consigned, discarded, or donated. We will dispose of all clutter and donate all other items to a center of choice.
Lot 19 not only accesses what’s best sold or kept but also what market needs to be targeted, the proper way to advertise per product, appraisals for efficient pricing strategies, and forecasting. Lot 19 offers full on consignment for luxury handbags, shoes, accessories, fine jewelry, and timepieces. Our special services include the set-up on selling platforms that can be run by one of our consultants in the case that a client would like to sell their clothing items.
One of our passions happen to be clienteling. Our business is sustained through creating and building genuine trust with our clients. A lot of our drive comes from what we want our ideal lives to exude. The beauty of well-curated spaces. The sort of scenery that exceeds expectations and provokes euphoria.
To us, maintenance is about innovation and being creative with our client’s spaces. And finding the best possible solutions for each unique case. A part of our job is being problem solvers and making it look glamours. We are more than just ‘organizers.’ We prioritize opulent experiences to enrich lives.
Luxury is not defined by lables, luxury is a state of mind. You create your own reality so why not create something luxurious for yourself.
One of our main core values is community. We do our best to donate as much as possible and leave our network open to growing more relationships with donation centers and homes that house women in need.
We are most proud of our growth as team and the dedication we put into building a brand. We have no competitors because a huge part of our brand identity is who we are as people and values in life.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
For us, COVID-19 was a period of reflection and growth. We used that time to strengthen our knowledge on the services we were providing and just overall training our minds to keep faith and striving during times of adversity.
When classes went online, we sort of split up to be with our loved ones, but having a strong bond as friends definitely saved our business. All of our goals always aligned, which always bought us back to what we are trying to build.
We learned that the best thing is to walk by faith and not by sight and just knowing that one way or another as long as we continue to work toward our dreams, they’ll come to fruition.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@lot19consulting.com
- Website: www.lot19consulting.com
- Instagram: lot19consignment
- Facebook: lot19consignment
Image Credits
@jadenshotyou
