Build-A-Bear CEO, Sharon Price John: The Mindset Behind a Billion-Dollar Comeback | E134

Summary

Podcast Summary: Leap Academy with Ilana Golan

Episode: Build-A-Bear CEO, Sharon Price John: The Mindset Behind a Billion-Dollar Comeback | E134

Date: November 18, 2025
Host: Ilana Golan
Guest: Sharon Price John (President & CEO, Build-A-Bear Workshop)

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Overview

In this powerful and candid episode, Ilana Golan sits down with Sharon Price John, President and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, to explore the mindset and strategies behind one of retail’s most astonishing corporate turnarounds. Sharon shares actionable lessons from her journey—growing up in Tennessee, taking bold “leaps” in life and business, reinventing herself after failure, and ultimately leading Build-A-Bear from a significant loss to record profitability and a nearly billion-dollar market cap. This conversation is packed with insights on resilience, leadership, storytelling, and what it really takes to leap forward in your career and life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Storytelling and Mindset

• Key Theme: The stories we tell ourselves shape our outcomes.

• Quote:

  "Whatever happens in your life, you're going to wrap a story around it. The game is to wrap an empowering story around it, because it's all made up anyway."
  — Sharon Price John (00:36)

• Sharon ties her life and leadership philosophy back to finding empowering meanings in every challenge—an idea deeply woven into her upbringing and detailed in her book, Stories and Heart.

• She explains how pivotal moments, such as a childhood struggle to climb (and then get down from) a tree, taught her the value of perseverance, improvisation, and seeing challenges as opportunities for unexpected fun and growth.

  "I found out that even the toughest challenges, even if it didn't work out like you thought, you can find a way to get out where it might be more fun than the journey itself." (06:13)

2. Early Bold Moves and Defining Personal Values

• Sharon’s tenacity and willingness to take risks were illustrated by her decision to move to New York to break into advertising without any connections.

• At a young age, she created her own framework for life decisions using her last name: PRICE—Perseverance, Respect, Intelligence, Creativity, Excellence.

  "I had core values from my parents... but I wanted to put words on these things... create filters that I would use to make decisions in life." (09:10)

• Her story about landing a job at a top ad agency demonstrates the value of boldness and reframing failure.

  "What's the worst thing that could happen? I don't get the job, and I have a fun trip to New York... Is it really that bad?" (10:39)

3. Turning Missteps and Setbacks into Fuel for Growth

• Sharon’s dogged follow-up with Mattel (after her resume landed in the wrong pile) highlights persistence and self-advocacy:

  "I want to find out what about my resume was not appealing... 'Oh, I found your resume. It's in the finance pile.'... 'I don't want a job in finance. I want a job in branding... Well, you're perfect for that.'" (17:55)

• She candidly shares the sting and lessons from a failed startup (Dawn Dolls/Checkerboard Toys) derailed by 9/11, and how she leveraged that experience into landing and accelerating at major toy companies.

  "I could have chosen to go back through everything that I could have done different ... but a national disaster changed the trajectory ... that's not the end of the game. That was just an inning." (26:00)

4. The Value of Being a “Generalist” and Taking Turnaround Opportunities

• Sharon pushes back on the idea that being a generalist is a weakness. Instead, her diverse experience became her superpower—she knew “the underbelly” of the toy business, making her a more well-rounded executive.
• Secret to Career Longevity:

  "If you can become a master at turnarounds, you will always have a job." (30:14)

• She encourages listeners to embrace “unsexy” assignments (e.g., turning around small brands/divisions) for big career leverage.

5. Sharon's Tactics for Corporate Turnarounds

• Her two-pronged strategy:
  SDSs times two:
  • Stop Doing Stupid Stuff
  • Start Doing Smart Stuff—in that order
• Reasoning:

  "If you don't stop first, you can't start doing the smart stuff... You're hiring people to undo what these people keep doing every single day." (34:47)

• Practical advice for companies and individuals: Identify what’s draining value and simply stop—before piling on new initiatives. This applies to both business and personal habits.

6. Landing the Build-A-Bear CEO Role & Early Challenges

• Sharon’s name came up for the Build-A-Bear CEO role due to her reputation as an effective turnaround leader. A genuine earlier connection with the founder, Maxine Clark, also helped.

  "I had met Maxine at one point... went out of my way to go over, shake her hand and congratulate her... She remembered that." (38:41)

• Build-A-Bear was facing store losses, declining mall traffic, and shrinking performance, but had a clean balance sheet and a powerful, under-leveraged brand.

• Approach upon starting (45:44):

  • Return to profitability first, then invest for growth.
  • Preserve company culture and mission while enforcing the reality of financial discipline.
  • Get the team emotionally and intellectually aligned:

    "If we can't be profitable, we'll never be here for the next generation... If you're grounded in the fact that you want to work here and you love this place because of what we stand for, you have to be willing to fight for its existence." (48:31)

7. Crisis Leadership During Covid-19

• Sharon describes the chaos and intense clarity Covid forced on her team.

  "Crisis creates clarity or not. The not puts you out of business." (53:17)

  • The pandemic forced ruthless prioritization, adaptability, and agile teamwork.
  • Sharon relied on her trusted team and her husband for support during the darkest hours.
  • Miraculous “luck” played a role (e.g., timely IT upgrades, right inventory decisions for Baby Yoda/Mandalorian launches) but came from a culture of readiness and open communication.

8. Expanding Build-A-Bear Beyond the Store & Shaping Play Industry

• Articulating Build-A-Bear as a brand rooted not just in product but in emotion—hugs, moments, and connections—has unlocked new markets (teens/adults now 40% of sales!), digital channels, and licensing opportunities.
• As the first Chairwoman of the Toy Association, Sharon is focused on advocacy, industry evolution, and the societal importance of play:

  "We're more collaborative than competitive... We hold dearly the importance of play for children... teaching a child to read is not a one time thing that... changes their life." (61:32–65:44)

  • She is also deeply involved in First Book, highlighting the transformational power of childhood literacy.

9. The Power and Practice of Storytelling (and Her Book)

• Sharon’s book, Stories and Heart, is not just memoir, but a workbook for readers to construct their own empowering stories and reframe adversity.
  • Addresses overcoming perfectionism, negative self-talk, and granting oneself permission to keep leaping.

  "Whatever happens in your life, you're gonna wrap a story around it... The game is to wrap an empowering story around it." (66:21)

  • She urges listeners not to delay action “for tomorrow.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On comparison and introductions:

  "Every introduction makes everything sound easy. That’s the point of an introduction... Hardly any introduction captures the real journey."
  (03:12)

• On failing boldly:

  "You have to do stuff like this before you know better... God bless. We should never be the old humans that say, 'Do you know the odds of that?' Just shut it."
  (12:01)

• On lessons from failure:

  "That was not the end. If anything, I’m better suited to be a manager... than I was before. Not anybody at that company... had ever taken a product by themselves ... from concept to on shelf on their own."
  (26:08)

• On being a turnaround expert:

  "If you fix it, you write your ticket. And if you don’t, nobody cares."
  (30:43)

• On leadership and team building:

  "Everything takes a team. And the more you bring people with you, both intellectually but more importantly emotionally, the higher the degree of potential success."
  (48:31)

• On fear and risk:

  "The fear did not overtake me. I always think if I'm put in it, I can get out. And even if I don't, it's still not the end of the road."
  (43:08)

• On crisis as a clarifier:

  "Crisis creates clarity or not. The not puts you out of business."
  (53:17)

• On what keeps people from acting:

  "Killer of dreams, it's not even fear, it's delay. It's the tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow... It's that constant like not taking action." (Ilana, 68:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 00:36 | Empowering storytelling as leadership & self-management | | 04:48 | Lessons from childhood adversity (the climbing tree story) | | 09:10 | Defining personal values and early career moves | | 13:57 | Boldness in job interviews and early advertising career | | 17:55 | The mishap and recovery with Mattel job application | | 21:29 | Startup failure, entrepreneurship lessons, and pivot to Hasbro | | 26:00 | Reframing setbacks and the necessity of empowering stories | | 31:52 | Sharon’s turnaround playbook: SDSs times two | | 38:41 | How Sharon landed the Build-A-Bear CEO role (hidden market, connections) | | 45:44 | “Stop the bleeding” approach on joining Build-A-Bear | | 48:31 | Building emotional buy-in and culture while enforcing financial discipline | | 53:17 | Covid-19 response, crisis creates clarity | | 59:35 | Evolving Build-A-Bear into a brand of emotional meaning and their product expansion | | 61:32 | First Chairwoman of the Toy Association—shaping a collaborative industry | | 65:44 | First Book & the lifelong impact of childhood literacy | | 66:21 | Importance and practice of storytelling in personal growth & leadership |

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Tone and Language

This episode blends Sharon’s forthright, often humorous southern charm with deep candor and gritty truthfulness. Ilana’s enthusiasm and curiosity guide the discussion, frequently interjecting with personal analogies and affirmations familiar to Leap Academy listeners (“chutzpah,” "playing in the hidden market," etc.). The conversation is full of encouragement, practical wisdom, and a sense of vulnerability as strength.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in:

• Corporate transformation and leadership
• Resilience after career setbacks
• Navigating executive “leaps” and reinventions
• Women at the helm of major brands
• The real emotional and strategic work behind visible successes

Sharon Price John's journey is a case study in how to “wrap empowering stories” around even the toughest circumstances—and how that practice, combined with operational rigor and emotional honesty, can drive enduring, billion-dollar results.

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Transcript

[Sharon Price John]

Wow.

[Ilana Golancho]

This show is going to be incredible. So buckle up and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. But before we get started, I want to ask you for a favor. See, it's really, really important for me to help millions of people elevate their career, fast track to leadership land, dream roles, jump to entrepreneurship, or create portfolio careers. And this podcast is all about enabling this for millions of people to see a map of what it actually takes for big leaders to reach success. So subscribe and download so you never miss it. Plus, it really, really helps me continue to bring amazing guests. Okay, so let's dive in.

[Sharon Price John]

Whatever happens in your life, you're going to wrap a story around it. The game is to wrap an empowering story around it, because it's all made up anyway.

[Ilana Golancho]

Sharon Price John is the president and CEO of Build a Bear Workshop, where she led one of the most remarkable transformations in retail and beyond.

[Sharon Price John]

Honestly, I was handed a billion dollar brand that didn't know how to get to a billion dollars.

[Ilana Golancho]

How do you even start turning something like this around?

[Sharon Price John]

You've got to get the organization to stop doing stupid stuff before you start doing smart stuff.

[Ilana Golancho]

How do you see storytelling?

[Sharon Price John]

Storytelling is just a big part of my upbringing. Much of the stuff that we do comes down to the stories we tell ourselves, if those stories are empowering or disempowering. And I encourage you to find empowering stories.

[Ilana Golancho]

2019 Covid. I mean, these were hard moments for the company as well. Do you ever, you know, sit and wonder, like, can I do this?

[Sharon Price John]

Crisis creates clarity or not? The not.

[Ilana Golancho]

Hey everybody. I am so excited about the inter today and my daughter will be excited as well because this is absolutely one of her favorite brands. And as a mom, I adore this brand as well. So Sharon Price John here is the president and CEO of Build a Bear Workshop, where she led one of the most remarkable transformations in retail and beyond, honestly, taking the company from a loss of $49 million to a record profitability. In fact, their stock is up roughly like 60% year to date and is fast approaching $1 billion market cap. And all of this while keeping the magic of the brand and expanding its impact. She's also the author of Stories at Heart, an artist, a film producer, a first chairwoman of Toy association, she's joined the board of First Book. We'll talk more about it. But Sharon, first of all, it's so great to have you here.

[Sharon Price John]

Thank you. I'm excited. It's going to be fun.

[Ilana Golancho]

It's gonna be so fun. So tell me. Look, when somebody hears this kind of an introduction, it feels like it's so easy for her. Why is it so hard for us? Right? Like, it just feels so. Can you tell me, is it really that easy for you, or have you had moments where you said, oh, my God?

[Sharon Price John]

I think every introduction makes everything sound easy. That's the point of an introduction. I think that we all can rest assured that hardly any introduction cap captures the real journey. In fact, one of the things that I tell people who have continued to persevere and find a path and maybe do something worth being introduced in their life is to share the ups and downs. I think that people are confused and disoriented because, you know, we speak about our past as sort of the way you'd write a CV or a resume, and that's just not the truth. And that's not helpful to young people. Young people need to know that it was tough and you fought through it. Just because we highlight just the good spots, because that's just the way you do a job interview. That doesn't mean there weren't downs.

[Ilana Golancho]

I think sometimes we compare ourselves to somebody else, and that comparison can actually drag us down. It can inspire us, but it can also hold us back from trying anything 100%.

[Sharon Price John]

And I think that's happened in my career. I'm sure it's happened in yours.

[Ilana Golancho]

Oh, yeah. More than I want to count. But. So let's take you back in time. You are a kid and grew up in Tennessee, right? And I think in your book, Stories and Heart, you actually share a lot of these stories, and you actually start the book by a story which is very naive, basically, about climbing a tree and what that taught you. Can you share a little bit about that?

[Sharon Price John]

It's a fun story, and I speak about how it haunted me the whole story. I would relive it until I figured out what its meaning was. Very, very late in life. In that it was a tree that was too big for me to climb. And I fought through it. I became very tenacious. I was going to get to this big limb and climb this tree. It was something I wanted to. It was an important summer in my life. My grandmother died. A lot of changes in my family and my family life. And I finally, you know, after a lot of planning and a few falls, got to this big limb, and I recognized that I could not get down. I didn't have a plan past that, like, now what? And I ended up finding a really fun way to get down, but it was really scary. It was getting dark. I'm in the middle of the woods, I don't know what to do. And I shimmied out to the end of the limb and swung and bounced until I got low enough to like fall into some pine needles and ran home. But here's the thing. There's a bunch of stuff in there that's all about having perseverance and being tough minded. But there's also the part about if it doesn't work, or even if part of it doesn't work, you know, can you believe in yourself enough? And I was in a position where I had no choice to find a solution. And for me, I found a solution that ended up being more fun than the pursuit of the goal. So I would continue to climb the tree because I liked to shimmy to the end and swing down and bounce out of the tree. So in some weird way, that odd experience taught me not to be afraid of challenges because I might get stuck and get in trouble and never be able to figure it out. I found out that even the toughest challenges, even if it didn't work out like you thought, you can find a way to get out where it might be more fun than the journey itself. And so it changed my whole mindset, I guess, or I didn't even have a mindset. It created a mindset on tough goals are fun, even if it's bumpy, even if you're stuck, even if it's getting dark outside and nobody's there to yell to help you. There's an answer if you believe. And sometimes that answer is the fun part of the journey, not getting to the top.

[Ilana Golancho]

When I heard this story for the first time, I absolutely love it because the challenges are inevitable. But our suffering is a choice, right? What we do with these challenges is our choice, like how we decide to take it. And you decided to take it as fun and I guess maybe also as a gymnast, as a cheerleader, you're used to, I don't know, falling and getting back up is.

[Sharon Price John]

With injury.

[Ilana Golancho]

So tell me, because, I mean, that pattern keeps on going in your life of keep getting back up, even if it's really hard. And I think you have an incredible story about moving to New York was a very lofty goal. Can you share a little bit? Because I think it shows who is Sharon.

[Sharon Price John]

Yeah. So that is a funny story. And I didn't even realize how funny it was till I got old enough and wise enough to go, what was I thinking? Completely. But you know, clearly at this point I had a pattern of picking ridiculous objectives, but, for example, all kind of based in this idea, though, of sometimes we talk ourselves out of stuff because it's a human tendency to consider outcomes that are often much more negative than the reality of it. Like, sometimes we jump to the worst possible outcome and we anchor on that outcome when the odds are completely ridiculous that outcome is going to happen. They're the same as it being, like, miraculously wonderful. You know, it's a bell curve like any other thing that you do. The truth is it's probably going to land somewhere in the middle. And the somewhere in the middle is usually not that bad. So I wanted to work in the advertising industry. And for me, I'd already set these goals early in my college career. It was because I was in this marketing meeting where we were learning about price values, side story. And then this will all make sense. And price values. I got home that night and I'm like, my last name is Price. Maybe I can have some Price values, you know, So I got right. So I'm like, let me think about, like, what is it that I want to become? What are my values? And I had core values for my parents or whatever, and some of these lessons I'd learned. But I wanted to put words on these things. I wanted to create filters that I would use to make decisions in life. How this came to mind, I don't know. But I ended up with price being. My life's going to be about being not afraid to persevere, being respectful, intelligent, operating with creativity, and having goals for excellence. So as I kind of, like, started living my life this way, decisions were easier, objectives were easier. And because I had this crazy one in there called excellence, I was always going to shoot high. So I'm like, all right, I've got this. I'm in advertising. I've got this ad degree. If I really want to be excellent at advertising, I have to move to the Becca. That's just not a choice. So I don't know anybody.

[Ilana Golancho]

How old are you at this point?

[Sharon Price John]

24, 25. Had just graduated college. So I'd been out working in an ad agency in Knoxville for a year or so, something like that. And so I thought, well, I don't know anybody, but I have to try this. And I'm like, so what's literally, what's the worst thing that could happen if I give this a shot? The worst thing that could happen, and this is where people get kind of off track, is I don't get the job right? And I'd probably have a Fun trip to New York and maybe see a friend or whatever. Is that really that bad? I mean, is it really that bad? I'm really just back where I was and I don't have this nagging feeling anymore. So let's do that. So I work really hard and make all these crazy call. I call people because we don't. It's not Internet. I can't email anybody. I'm calling people early in the mornings, trying to get them to pick up the phone before their admin does. You know, like silly stuff. And I end up with 15 interviews in a single week. So three a day. I'm like, manhattan's a small island. How hard can that be? I got this, literally, I've got this big, you know, like daytimer, you know, back up. It's all written down. All the addresses are literally written on. I mean, it's crazy when you think about it. And I went through this process and I had a goal. I was going to get a job In a top 10 global agency in a single week. And this is.

[Ilana Golancho]

Which is unbelievable.

[Sharon Price John]

It is unbelievable. It's right smack in this idea of you gotta do stuff like this before you know, better. Like, God bless. We should never be the old humans that say, do you know the odds of that? Just shut it. Let a young person, you know, what the odds are? It's going to be in the middle of that bell curve. They won't get the job. So what, you know, there's something to be learned from that. That's okay. But I went up there with this, not understanding how ridiculous that idea was. And I ended up with an 11th interview on that Friday afternoon with DDB Needham, which is a top 10 global ad agency still to this day. And I got offered a job for the DDB Needham training program. And she said, you know, we're considering you for this and you know, we'll call you back. And I'm like, oh, yeah, no. Why can't you just offer me the job right now? Because back in my mind, I'm like, I got a call and it's Friday. She was like, well, I guess we can make the paperwork. I mean, it was, it was really just that bold. But again, those are kind of things. You're like, what's the worst thing that can happen? This woman really wants this job. She's, you know, she's asking respectfully. She's quit her job in Tennessee and she wants to know she's making choices. You know, it's. What's the difference between, for Me a week or so, a week versus now a week later. And it's sometimes you just gotta, you know, follow your gut. But that's the crazy story. And it did work out and it was a tremendous experience. I love it still. And I know many of the people that I was in that training group with to this day, but it was a fun experience.

[Ilana Golancho]

And again, like I think, you know, in my world there's a word chutzpah, which I think sometimes you have to be bold, like you have to do the things that are maybe people are not, maybe didn't, you know, tick the boxes of the super silent, polite, you know, but that's not probably what they're looking for anyway. They want somebody, right? You want somebody to make things happen. But tell me then from this point, what brought you to Mattel? Why Barbie? How did that become part of it?

[Sharon Price John]

Well, at some point during my ad career, I was the account supervisor on this big account and one of the brand managers said, you know, you should consider getting an mba. And that's a whole entire story where I didn't know that I wanted to do that, but ended up waiting till the last day of the last round to turn in my application because I was scared to death. That's the true story. I think I was ultimately looking for an excuse for them to say no. That would be self protective. This is terrible when I look back on it. And so, you know, because again, what are the odds that I'm going to get in Columbia? Well, I actually know those odds, they're very low. And I'm like, well, if I don't turn it into the last day of the last round, when they say no, I can say, well, you know, I didn't turn it into the last day of the last round. What do you expect? But I got in. And then when I went through all of that and got on the other side, it's a very quantitative school. You know, I came in with a more of a creative background, a lot of soft skills as they say, versus hard skills. Walked out with a lot of hard skills. But none of the people and the companies that were really consistent in terms of coming to interview on the Columbia campus were really things that I wanted to do, whether that was venture capitalism or investment banking or high level management consulting or any of that stuff, being an analyst, things like that. So I had to forge my own path on my interview process. And this is probably not going to be helpful to a lot of people, but my number one criteria was I want to go somewhere that's fun.

[Ilana Golancho]

Yeah, I love that. Like, I think that's what life is about. Like, come on, you know, something I.

[Sharon Price John]

Enjoy, something that interests me, something that I maybe loved as a kid, you know, So I had this short list and Mattel was on the short list. And that's how I ended up going there. I sent. I used sort of the same playbook that I had done with going to New York, where I would call them and say, hey, you know, I'm going to be in New York anyway. Can't we just meet for a cup of coffee? I just want to learn about your company, you know, things like that. And I went ahead and got my ticket to New York before I had one interview. I did the same thing to la. I went ahead and got a ticket to LA and called them. Say, hey, I'm going to be in LA on this day, that day, this day, three companies out there I was looking at, and people had really. It really increases the odds that somebody's going to say, well, right, sure. I mean, you know, fine. Mattel, though, did not call me back. And I was mapped. I was going to leave, I had my plane ticket. I had these two other interviews and I. So I called them. I'm like, I want to find out what about my resume was not appealing to these people because I think I'm perfect for the Barbie brand. And I'm like, hey, just wondering, what if you could walk me through what I could do better the next time? Because I was really excited about your company, about being on the brand team or. And they said, okay, wait a minute. And the guy was gone forever. I could hear, like, all the shuffling and stuff. And he comes back, he goes, oh, I found your resume. It's in the finance pile. And I'm like, well, I don't want a job in finance. He goes, but you graduated from Columbia. I'm like, yeah, I know that, but I don't want a job in finance. I want a job in branding and marketing, preferably on Barbie. And he goes, oh, well, you're perfect for that. And I was like, yeah, I know, I know.

[Ilana Golancho]

Oh, my God, I love this.

[Sharon Price John]

Well, come on in. Then I'm like, all righty, this is good. So again, it's a lesson in. We weave all this stuff in our heads about the whys. Oh, why didn't they go, oh, I must have done or I must not. If I didn't have this experience, I wasn't right. And I honestly, all I wanted to do was like, well, I'm not Going to sit and weave these whys together. When I can find out what I, you know, somebody will tell me that and I was in the wrong pile. That tiny little thing. Somebody looking at Columbia put her in the finance pile. In fact, they had, like, somebody that was a big deal in the finance area that was from Columbia. So that was probably just a natural thing to think. And it's a quantitative school. I totally get it. But the entire path would have been shut down without that one inquiry. It's really fascinating. It's a classic Steve Jobs moment, right? Of like, you can't see it until you look back and connect the dots. That one blows my mind, to tell you the truth.

[Ilana Golancho]

If you're feeling stuck, underpaid, or unappreciated, or you're simply ready to take your career in life to the next level, I have the perfect solution for you. We have a program that helps you fast track and leap your reputation and career. Become the best version of yourself, get the dream role you deserve, move up to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship, or even build a portfolio career. This program helps hundreds a year, and it will help you gain the income, influence, and impact that will transform the second part of your life. Watch our free training [e-mail] free training. The link is in the show notes. Now back to the show. I think what you just said, I think it blows my mind and I hope the listeners are hearing this because so many times you're going to be in the wrong pile. If you don't love that analysis, be bold. Right? Like, I was just like, get out of that pile. Like, I just love how you did that. Like, it was so good. But then you're kind of moving into being in Hasbro. And I'm sure all these moments have built you to who you are today. And I'm just trying to weave some of these things through. How did that build you as well? Because at that point, you were a GM and svp. And again, they do all these things that I didn't even know of. But talk to me a little bit about that experience.

[Sharon Price John]

Oh, I did not start there as a GM or an svp. I started there after my company failed. I started my own company called Dawn Dolls, Checkerboard Toys. And we had a container of Don Dolls on the water coming from China when 911 happened. And that container was on the way to Toys R Us, my first national distribution of my new endeavor. And they canceled the order.

[Ilana Golancho]

Oh, my God. Tell me about that moment.

[Sharon Price John]

Oh, it's so. I mean, as an entrepreneur, a startup. Because I, I had moved to Chicago with my husb. An opportunity. He was one of those management consultants by the way. Had an opportunity in Chicago and I, I left Mattel because of this and I had my first child and I'm like, well, I can't just do nothing. I mean I, I'm not going to work out. So I started this doll company and we had some good feedback. Like I was interviewed on national television and we got some good collector interest and we pitched this to Toys R Us and we did a test market and they were going to take a full distribution for that holiday. And when you're just doing in the startup phase, you're pretty cash poor. You know, there's not a lot of cash flow and sometimes there's home mortgages involved in this and all sorts of risks that you take. And I had a little bitty baby. But we ended up selling the inventory to a company called KB Toys. They're no longer in existence but for cost. So it saved us from, you know, flushing it all, but it was a do over for real. And I called some folks in the industry and got some interviews and someone that I still know to this day said, would you be interested in going to Aspro? Because I think you're perfect for what they're doing over there. And I'm like, well, what are they doing over there?

[Ilana Golancho]

Before you go there, like we have a lot of our listeners either lost their job or lost their company, especially now. Now they're trying to kind of reinvent themselves. There's a lot of licking the wounds, if you will, and there's a lot of healing that needs to happen. And sometimes you take that lack of confidence with you. How did you recover or how did you tell the story despite the loss or despite all of it?

[Sharon Price John]

Look, the shoulda woulda, coulda's on something like that can actually drive people mad. And it does.

[Ilana Golancho]

I've been there. I've been there. Yeah.

[Sharon Price John]

And you know, you have to have a lot of personal discipline to compartmentalize and not over analyze as it's not, it's sort of that same thing with should I sit here and over analyze? Why doesn't Mattel pick me? You know, oh, it must be because I wear this. My shoe size is too big. I don't know. You know, like the things that you hear people make up that create these ridiculous self limiting beliefs that then hold you back from doing just the rational thing. If I want to know why Mattel wasn't picking me, well, I'M not going to make it up. I'll just call them and ask them and doesn't that. So as many times as people say that was crazy, I'm like, really? Is that more crazy than making up a bunch of stuff and never knowing? That's actually not the crazy path. The crazy path would be, well, it must be because I was born in a small town. It must be because I didn't go to XYZ school. That's what's crazy. Find out. So it's the same thing here. We ruminate, create stories. Here's the thing, whatever happens in your life, you're gonna wrap a story around it. And the reason you're gonna wrap a story around it is because you're human. Sorry, we're all in the same bucket together. The game is to wrap an empowering story around it because it's all made up anyway. Go with me here. And even if I'm wrong, it doesn't matter. Think about that one. Because the story, you will morph it over time. The data's out there that about 60% of the junk we think we remember didn't even happen. So you might as well make up a bunch of stuff that you're going to choose to remember that empowers you. So that's the real game of it all. And in this situation, I could have chosen to go back through everything that I could have done different or maybe I shouldn't have done. There was a national disaster that changed the trajectory of what I hoped would have happened. And I couldn't recover from it in that moment.

[Ilana Golancho]

Amazing, right?

[Sharon Price John]

But that's not the end of the game. That was just an inning. The game doesn't end until I say it ends. And that wasn't the end. If anything, I'm better suited to be a manager of a toy department or a company or a brand than I was before. Not anybody at that company, that big company that I was going to go to, or a handful, maybe a handful, had ever taken a product by themselves with their help of my spouse helped me set up the company and did the accounting and things like that. But by themselves, from concept to on shelf on their own, gone to China. Make it, figure it out. All the ins and outs, the back story, the legal, the naming, the everything, the engineering and the packaging. So I wasn't, you know, like disastrous goods. I was now a frightening executive because there's not going to be any department that I haven't somehow you don't understand. So that's what you have to do, right? And so I wrapped that story around this and, and I ended up becoming the vice president of Tiger Toys. It was a remarkable journey because I did understand all the underbelly that you don't learn in a really big company. Often it's very rare. Usually you're pretty, you know, you're kind of in your box, your space, you're doing, you learn what you do. It's very vertical oriented. And because of that multi hat experience, it made me a much more articulate and well rounded executive at a young age, still in my 30s. And I tell you, it was because of that failure that I moved through the system so quickly at Hasbro.

[Ilana Golancho]

And I love that, Sharon, because I think a lot of people are feeling either like generalist. It's amazing how many times I heard that. Like, I've done too many things. I'm a generalist. And in fact, I don't believe that. Like, I believe there's like all this combination of skills, expertise, the things that you've achieved, kind of what you're sharing, like that is your zone of genius. Like if you can lean on that, you are actually more special than anybody else. Right. So you just need to lean on it. And I just love how you did. And yes, we are an incredible meaning making machine. So at least let's make some good stuff.

[Sharon Price John]

We can't. We're going to work so hard to rationalize. Your brain's gonna do when you go to sleep, it's gonna sit here and try. But there's a difference between ruminating and rationalizing. So one is out of control. It's a spin, spin, spin, spin, spin. You keep going back over the same things and that can be devastating. But once you get through that, weave your empowering story again. I ended up going from the vice president of the Tiger division to the general manager of the Tiger Tire toy arm. So a billion dollars worth of business in about five years. And again, I cannot give Mattel or Hasbro more credit for just wonderful experiences, tremendous opportunities, amazing leadership and where I got to learn so much and do so many things. But, you know, I also leaned in. It's not all up to them.

[Ilana Golancho]

It has to be both.

[Sharon Price John]

And I was a big hand raiser, like, you know, oh, let me try that. Oh, sure, I'll take that. I even would bring brands to the team, like my boss, who's I still know and like I dig them out of the vault and go, what is that? Why don't you guys do anything? Give it to me, let me do it. What's the worst thing again? What's the worst thing that could happen? You know, because you're not including Nerf and Baby Alive. And it just, you know, I was given a lot of latitude, but I learned in all of that too. This is kind of a big, deep secret that I always don't share with people. But if you can become a master at turnarounds, you will always have a job. Just think about it. Nobody wants that. Like, nobody wants, like, the underdog thing. They want to be on the big brand. And even on Barbie, I was on the ridiculous. Nobody cared about division of Barbie. I was on Barbie Fashions, and I doubled it in a year. But here's the thing. People get kind of, like, uptight, like, oh, I don't matter. I'm on this little brand. If you fix it, you write your ticket. And if you don't, nobody cares. So I kind of learned to just, what's the thing that I think I could impact? And Nerf had fallen to like, $20 million. It used to be $90 million. Now I don't even know. I think it's like a half a billion dollars, I guess $500 million. I mean, I don't even know what it is anymore. And we did the same. You kind of get in this cadence of, can I recognize latent equity? Is there something about that that is fundamentally not broken? We just don't have it figured out yet. Because again, if you're willing to take that risk on something like that, if you don't fix it, there's no downside. And if you do, the upside's massive. And that skill set. I would not be sitting in a CEO seat if I hadn't gotten a reputation for change, agency, and turnarounds.

[Ilana Golancho]

So tell me, maybe the 1, 2, 3 main component when you're trying to turn around something, because sometimes it's harder to turn around something than to just build it.

[Sharon Price John]

So I have a two pronged strategy. It is in the book.

[Ilana Golancho]

I know, I've seen that.

[Sharon Price John]

Right. And that two pronged strategy is SDSs times two. It's called stop doing stupid stuff, followed by start doing smart stuff in that order. You have to do it in that order. And I usually have a caveat here of the people that are doing the stuff are not stupid. It's probably something that somebody like you told them to do. But the issue is humans. Companies, organizations get in habits. Habits are a good thing. Habits can be a good thing. That's why there's bad habits and there's good Habits. Habits are things that you can do where you don't have to think. And that's a good thing. It'd be an exhausting day. If you had to think about everything you did, you wouldn't be able to make it through the day. But companies get into habits and then they don't know why they were doing what they were doing. And sometimes over time, those things are not creating value. In fact, they likely are destroying value. There's a reason why you need to turn around. And when I've been called in to do things like this, whether it's a brand or a business unit like Stride. Right. Children's Group, or a company like Build a Bear, it's not because people haven't tried to find the quintessential silver bullet. They've been looking for that forever. This is not going to be a situation where there's a. Oh, there it is so obvious. It's something where there's money, there's value, there's something trapped on every link of the value chain. It's a really disciplined approach to find this stuff. And the first thing you have to go through is, what are we doing that's bad? Whether you work your way down through the P and L, where's the money? How much is flowing through, what's the problem? You've got all these percentages in your head about what should be your going in margin, what my SG&A should be as compared to my, like all this stuff that you kind of let's know. But this idea of working the company through every day, every week on a quarterly basis, what are you doing? That's not creating value. So stop doing that. Just stop it. Stop printing out those reports. Stop doing this. This is a waste of time. Are you learning anything for that? Is that really insightful? Is there any information there that's actually giving you any insight to anything? Well, then stop doing that. And here's why you have to stop. First one, the process of getting people to focus on what they're doing actually matters. And then the focus on getting them to ask the question is, what does what I do matter? That actually makes a difference because you start to ask the right questions. That's why it sounds so simple. But. And so you get kind of get everybody in the. So what are we trying to do then? Well, what. What do you mean? How do I know if it's creating value? Is there an roi?

[Ilana Golancho]

It's measure, it's a met.

[Sharon Price John]

Then let's measure it then. If you don't know if it's creating value, you're not measuring it. Oh, maybe we should have metrics. Like, so you just keep pulling the string. The reason you have to stop first is because if you don't, you can't start doing smart stuff. And the mistake that people make is if they do try to start doing the smart stuff by hiring a bunch of smart, new smart people, they're going to blow up their sga and all they're doing is hiring people to undo what these people keep doing every single day.

[Ilana Golancho]

It's never going to work, going to happen.

[Sharon Price John]

It's never going to work. So you've got to get people got, get the organization to stop doing stupid stuff before you start doing smart stuff. You can even know the strategy going in. You're certainly going to know the financial answer going in. Like, you know, you're going to need to be I need, depending on your category or your industry, I really need this kind of profit or I need this kind of four wall or I need this kind of, you know, you know what you're looking for. These are not hard things, things to know. They're just hard things to do. But I love this because I tell this to people all the time, even in their own personal challenges. 95% of the time, the stuff that you're probably in the back your mind or when you're writing your journal, something you're complaining about, something you wish you could do, whether it's a this, a fitness goal or a work goal or anything, you're probably doing some stupid stuff that you probably already know what it is. So let's start there.

[Ilana Golancho]

Oh, so powerful.

[Sharon Price John]

It's so silly.

[Ilana Golancho]

But these are the things that are hardest to do. Sometimes they're scary or there's something, there's a reason why you're probably not taking action as well. So totally I agree.

[Sharon Price John]

And some of that stupid stuff is the same thing we've been talking about. What is going on in your mind that's keeping you? Well, just stop that. Stop it. So powerful. Stop waking up every day and say, I'm just too dumb to do that or I can't do that because I'm this. Or I did that when I was seven. Really? You think that's really why I think that's stupid.

[Ilana Golancho]

And maybe I'll tap just one thing into that. One of the things that we see is a lot of times people waste time learning something or they do busy work, but it's not the productive work that you need anyway. So stop doing the busy work. So talk to me because. And just for the listeners to have the full story. So in 1997, Maxine Clark founded Build a Bear. And in 2013, she was looking for somebody to take over or somehow ran into you. And one of the things that we talk about in Leap Academy is how do you play in the hidden market? Like how are you being known for the opportunities that are not in a typical job board or anything? Like they, you know, like that was not a job board type opportunity, I assume. Sharon, how did you get into that world of vaccine Clark and to Build a Bear? And it's a lot about what you just shared because you started being known for the person that turned around things. Right. So talk to me a little bit about how that happened.

[Sharon Price John]

Oh, I, I don't know. Sorry, I didn't. I wasn't looking for a job. The only way that would work, I think, is that, you know, you do a good job and it is important to make these connections. I had met Maxine at one point in my career when I was at Hasbro. And I remember the moment and I went out of my way to go over and shake her hand and congratulate her.

[Ilana Golancho]

Wow.

[Sharon Price John]

And tell her what a remarkable business I thought she was running and that it was meaningful. And she remembered that. And that had been years prior. And so when I was in the stride, right. Children's group, we really did have an incredible run. It was a three year turnaround and we were 12 comping and had done, I mean, every single aspect of the business. And I worked for some remarkable people that were very proud of what we had accomplished. But the Build A Bear had hired a recruiter. And when my name came across the desk, I was recognized. That didn't get me the job, but it did get me the interview.

[Ilana Golancho]

But you deciding to join at a time that is hard for Build A Bear, again, you're kind of known as the turnaround gal at that point, I guess. But especially in these domains, like, I mean, it was a classic pick, I assume. But talk to me about the beginning. I mean, 2013 was not a good year. I mean it been really, really hard. I think a few years even prior, eight years, Right. So you came in, everything shifted in terms of digital and everything. Like how do you even start turning something like this around?

[Sharon Price John]

20% of the stores were unprofitable and the four wall was like 9%. And you know, it was rough and you know, mall traffic was really in decline. But they had a very clean balance sheet. And like most vertical retailers, if they do Have a clean balance sheet with little to no debt. They had a nice cash flow. So, you know, you sort of. Like before I took the job, I kind of figured I had about three years before it would all fall apart. You know, with this kind of cash flow, if I don't take on debt two to three years and then I knew the board would give me at least two to three years. I mean, that's just a reasonable, rational thing. Unless, I mean, it have to be something unbelievably extraordinary for that not to be the case. You know, I kind of worked my way through that and, you know, there was a lot more decisions than just me deciding to come to build a bear. This is now a family with my husband and moved from Boston in the New England area, where we've been for 11 years, three kids, to the Midwest. You know, this is a big life choice and, you know, we decided to do it. It's actually, oddly enough, St. Louis is almost to the mile equidistance between the two small towns where my husband and I grew up. He grew up in, yes, south, and I grew up in middle Tennessee, and he grew up in the southeast corner of Nebraska on a farm. And it's like he thought that was a sign. And he's not that kind of guy. He's like, oh my God, it's equidistant. I'm like, who even uses that word? So let's go. And so the kids were good and we did this and we made a promise to each other that we were going to stay there until my youngest child graduated from high school. We wanted them to have the benefit of growing up and having a hometown. We'd moved a lot at that point from, you know, all in New England, but town, little town, little town, like, stuff like that. So. And my littlest one, who's now in college, was going to start second grade. So this was going to be a long haul for me. We basically burned the boats, to use an old Columbus analogy. So there's one thing in there that's deep about is your heart really in it? I was going in, all in.

[Ilana Golancho]

How scary was that, Sarah?

[Sharon Price John]

Frightening, horrified, terrible. Because not only was I going into this thing and I made a promise to my family, I'm following a force of nature founder dynamic. Amazing. Beloved still by this organization. You know, those are difficult scenarios when you're thinking about being the turnaround person, often with a very bad rep.

[Ilana Golancho]

Fear can be numbing. How scary is that and how do you react to fear?

[Sharon Price John]

I think I have A weird relationship with fear. I'm more of a fight versus a flight person. I think that that might be innate. I don't know. Even in physical environments, when I'm afraid, I tend to punch something before I run. Let's not get into that. And I've learned that the hard way. My immediate reaction is not cowering. And that's the same thing sitting up on that tree limb. The fear did not overtake me. I always think if I'm put in it, I can get out. I believe that deep in my heart. And even if I don't, it's still not the end of the road. It's this creation of a belief structure that enables, I guess, success, I guess if you want to call it that. I remember the first, you know, some. I put together this strategy. Look, I understood the value of the brand. The brand's so powerful. It was even more powerful than I thought. After I looked at the data from awareness numbers to affinity numbers, we were sitting on, I mean, you mentioned it earlier that, you know, we're getting closer and closer to a billion dollar market cap. We're sitting on a billion dollar brand. We just weren't sitting on a billion dollar business. You talk about how sometimes turnarounds are harder than starting from scratch. Not in this case. I was handed a billion dollar brand that didn't know how to get to a billion dollars. It's an eight value. It's trapped. Equity was at least that. It was just. I worked on brands at these other companies with less awareness and less affinity that were generating more revenue. So there was something fundamentally wrong about the things that are more fixable than a brand. And that was very heartening to me. I like that challenge.

[Ilana Golancho]

But talk to me, because at that point, you're at, what is it, $49 million loss or whatever that number that year. So you need to literally turn around this bigger thing that is already, like you said, is already functioning in a certain way. And you need them to change their ways, but without thinking that again. They love Maxim, they love the company, they love the culture. And you might be looking like you're ruining it. How do you navigate all of this?

[Sharon Price John]

Yes. So for me, and this isn't always the case for somebody that has done turnarounds. I'm a big believer in getting the fundamentals right and returning to profitability before you start trying to build things where you're gonna drive new revenue. I'd like to get in a situation where I'm maximizing the value of every dollar that comes in the funnel that people have different other things work. I just, that's what I do. And so we had to stop losing money. And now that $49 million, I want to be fair, some of that was write offs and write downs. It wasn't all just, you know, true business results because they had been doing so, you know, having so many challenges. They had to take some, some of those. But by the time I got there in the middle of 2013, they had lost $6 million that year. And I will tell you that with a very disciplined approach to cost cutting, mostly that's really all I could do at that juncture. And we were able to cut out some money losing marketing programs or, you know, some promotions that probably were not going to pay out and not ordering products that didn't hit the margin goals, things like that. And getting us to look at our payroll at the store level and not renewing leases where we were losing. I mean, just this kind of stuff. I had to let some vendors go and take us a middleman. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We ended up making money that year for the first time in many years. And this is what I got the team to do. Well, first I had to get the team to understand I had no intention of ripping the heart out of the company that you can still have this amazing culture and be a winner. Those things are not incongruent. You still be everything that you want us to be, but be financially viable. And here's the thing, we're a publicly traded company. If we're not a valid going concern, winning. Yeah, you're not going to keep doing it. Whatever you think magic is going to happen, this will not exist. Here's your trajectory. I don't know how else to say it. And I can't do it by myself. We have to go together. And look, I'm open to all kinds of ideas, but I'm also going to humbly suggest that I've done this a couple of times, so can you try to go this way? And I'm also saying, and I'm not going to get upset with anybody, if you don't think you can do that, that's okay with me. But you can't not do that here.

[Ilana Golancho]

And I think you talk about it beautifully. You talk about looking in the rear view mirror and you're talking about like who's going to be on my bus or in the car or whatever. Right? So talk to us a little bit about that.

[Sharon Price John]

I really did have to get the team to come with Me, I mean, any good CEO, leader, whatever, nothing happens because you came up with some brilliant idea that's a joke, or your strategy was superior, or you understand the financial road to success. Everything takes a team. And the more you bring people with you, both intellectually but more importantly emotionally, the higher the degree of potential success. That just is what it is. And that was a really important part of unlocking this, of not basing the future and the strategic roadmap on, okay, here's what we're going to do. First, we're going to return to profitability and then we're going to do this. And then we're going to do this. You had to flip the whole story of, guys, you've built this and this is true. You've built this extraordinary brand. It's remarkable what you have done. But if we can't be profitable, we'll never be here for the next generation. And that's where we are right now. We're about to become a multi generational brand. I have to ask you, is the world a better place with or without Build a Bear? Does it matter that we exist? Because if you say, yes, it matters, we exist, then we have to go on this journey together because we will not. So if you're grounded in the fact that you want to work here and you love this place because of what we stand for, you have to be willing to fight for its existence. And that stopped the crowd.

[Ilana Golancho]

Incredible. And that's how you get again results. Because now everybody's all in.

[Sharon Price John]

Not everybody, but enough.

[Ilana Golancho]

Well, the right people are all in.

[Sharon Price John]

That's an everyday journey. You find your mission statement. We then crafted that to add a little more heart to life. And that evangelization process that you have to do as a leader and your entire executive team, that is nowhere near a one and done. You know, it's repetitive, it's just the consistency. You have to live it, you work it, you breathe it every day and in every way. And then people will eventually believe you because it takes a little bit. But we started to unlock the value. And when you try to break it down in its simplest form, it really was based on, look, we've put all this value you, every single heart ceremony at a time, scattered around the world, millions of times. That's all equity. That's all the way this brand makes somebody feel. And that's amazing. But what we've done is we have this mall based retailer for kids that accidentally built a brand, right? A brand that's not so much bigger than the place we've got to pivot to be an intellectual property company that just happens to have vertical retail as one of its revenue streams. And we build a platform to monetize this beautiful thing you've created. But the only way you do that is to make sure that this piece of the puzzle, this arm that should be throwing off cash left and right, is profitable so we can invest in the future of the company. And that made sense.

[Ilana Golancho]

That is so powerful. Like, I just love. Because, again, I can see all the different verticals and things that you're looking into doing, but you can't do that if the base is sick or is broken. Right. But talk to me then about, I think, 2019, Covid. I mean, these were hard moments for the company as well. You have a lot of people leaning on you. Do you have somebody to lean on? Or do you ever sit and wonder, like, can I do this? Because obviously, you tilt it around in a way that is actually hard to imagine, like Sharon. But talk to me about that moment, because when it's hard, it can get really, really lonely and hard.

[Sharon Price John]

I have a wonderful team, and we've been through a lot together. So it's based on trust at this point and truth. Like, I'm not right all the time. I get reminded that not only every day here in the company, but also at home, around the dinner table, you know, and I. People. Sometimes people ask me, I don't know how, you know, you stay so real. I'm like, I go home and clean up cat doo doo. That's how I stay so real. It's not that hard. And my husband's also a business person. Picking that partner that you pick in life is important.

[Ilana Golancho]

It's so important.

[Sharon Price John]

You know, in the times that I thought I couldn't even share some. Some of my fears with my teammates, I could share them with him. And he also has just great counsel most of the time. Covid was just a moment of clarity for us after you get over the initial shock. And of course, you have to put aside. And I am going to ring fence this. Covid was. I mean, it's still. You look back on the lives that were lost and impacted and the devastation around the world. So I. I'm gonna put that over there with respect, you know, because. And talk about it just, you know, in terms of what it then forced us to do without disrespecting that situation. Crisis creates clarity or not. The not puts you out of business. I've forgotten who has this quote, but it's like, it always utilize A great crisis. Right? And this was why. That's why I'm so careful about what I said, because this was a terrible situation. But when you're really forced to get down to what matters, I mean, I. I did not know until that very moment what, how much cash I actually needed every single month to operate. You know, it's a good thing to know what you're willing to give up, what you're willing to work for. How fast can I shut down an entire fleet of stores around the world? The answer's 48 hours, in case you need to know. I hope I never need to know that again. But, oh, my God, but you get in lanes, you know, who's going to be with you through the thick and thin. We didn't have everybody come with us on this journey. And, you know, you watch that stock price go to a dollar, it gets pretty creepy. Everything that we had done up until that point was in danger of being flushed down the toilet. We were being priced as if we were going into bankruptcy. We had a lot of scenario planning, willingness to make bold decisions. We got behind each other on the things that needed to happen. And we were very serious about, you focus on this, you focus on this. You focus on this. And has strategic trust because we didn't have time for us to bring these situations or this scenario planning into a big room and write it on a whiteboard. Heck, we couldn't even be in a big room to write it on a whiteboard. So you had to go, all right, you're the expert in that area. I'm trusting you that you're making the right choice here because that's how fast the decisions needed to be made. And then we would get on these big calls. We usually have what we call bear quarters meetings. They're usually like once a month, once a quarter, something like that. When we were back in a building, we call them VBQs, virtual bare quarters meetings. And we were on once a week. And I would write like a big hopefully they say now inspirational note. And I would tell people, look, I don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm going to be as honest as I can with you about what's happening. And here's what we're doing and here's why we're doing this. And we popped out of that year 2020, better off than we ever been.

[Ilana Golancho]

Incredible.

[Sharon Price John]

And it forced our hands on so many things, like finally becoming really integrated from an omnichannel perspective, flipping the switch of turning on our buy online Shipment, store buy, online, pickup at store now. And some of it was miraculous luck. Like, we had just flipped the switch on a new warehouse management tool that enabled us to do that. We had been fighting through understanding the real time inventory at stores, which is what keeps you from being able to do that for years. At that point In January of 2020, we flipped that switch. There's no amount of planning that can be that magic. Sometimes you just have to get lucky. And we also had the Mandalorian product, the Baby Yoda, as they call it, already on the water. And if we hadn't already gone ahead and shipped that it was getting cut down, China was being shut down. And then somewhere in February, we had a call with the leadership team. And because we have the relationships with China, we're like, something's just not right. Something's not going on. That's right. In January, December, somewhere in there. And we decided to not ship Baby Yoda out to the stores. We're like, something's going wrong. It was really an intuition. And we're like, because if we ship this out to the stores and this whole thing goes south really fast, it'll be tracked at the stores and. But if we keep it at our warehouse, we can stay alive with the cash flow from E. Comm. And that is exactly what happened. But it's, you know, that's people listening and trusting the team and getting together and really thinking about the if then, then this. If, then, then this. If, then, then this. And it was a crazy journey. But that's also the way we operate all the time. When you operate like that, all the time when crisis comes, even though it shocks the system, you don't look at it as like, we look at things like that. Like, so what are we gonna do?

[Ilana Golancho]

And you do get very creative. I agree. I think you said crisis, create clarity. I usually talk about creativity. Like, when you're back against the wall, you freaking need to get creative. Like, it's just like, there is no 100%, right? I mean, and again, if somebody checks your stock, at least at the moment that we're talking, I think we're at 70 plus dollars. You know, I mean, it's just incredible to see what. What happened. And I think you are also looking at other angles now and a lot of different, really innovative ways. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that, but I also want to talk about, like, you being a chairwoman and toy association, the board of First Book. So walk me through, because I want to make sure that we touch all these incredible things.

[Sharon Price John]

The team knew this early on. It was innate to them that this brand was more than a mall based retailer that makes teddy bears. They understood that. And us articulating that and really elevating that construct has been an unlock for the organization. Because when you get down to then what you really mean, which is love and friendship and hugs and sharing moments in time and emotional connections and all that stuff, if you get like the essence of your equity, then it opens up all kinds of avenues for revenue, right from other products to outbound licensing outside your category. Clearly, a hug is understood in every language, which is something Maxine said years ago. So global expansion. There's no reason to believe why you can't just make stuffed animal products and sell them to other wholesalers. You don't have to be even trapped in your own channel. And we proved that point by the amount of product that we could sell through our dot com. Because what was happening there is there was a halo effect. You only need to have that experience once in your life and it stays with you. It stretches into other, other experiences with the brand. But we use that.com business to drive the adult business because we knew they would be people that had already experienced build a bear in the stores. So still to this day, we over index in the stores with kids and we over index with collectors and gifters and adults and teens online. But 40% of our sales are now to teens and adults.

[Ilana Golancho]

Wow, that's huge. So with all this knowledge and again, like, I wish I could talk to you for so long, like how do you make decisions and whatever, but you also became the first chairwoman of the toy association and that is huge. I mean, this is such a historic moment. What does it mean for you personally? How are you looking at shaping this kind of an industry?

[Sharon Price John]

Well, it's an industry I deeply care for and I feel like I grew up in the industry, even though I started in the ad industry and I had that little stint in the footwear space. I'm so grateful again to the companies and the people that have been a part of my career and my life. And so it's been an honor to do this. And I didn't think about it in terms of, oh, I'm going to be the first woman chair. I didn't even think that would not have been on my radar. I was asked to be a part of the executive committee and I did that during COVID It was asked by the chair at the time, Skip Kodak, who happened to work for Lego and I agreed to do that. And then it just the way it unfolded, I just ended up becoming the chair and we all sort of went, oh my God, this association has been around for 100 years and there's never been a female at the head of it. So it was a special moment, more so for the industry. I think the guys were almost more excited about it than I was. But again we had a lot to do. The industry's going through an evolution right now and there's so much change and excitement that's happening. But it's amazing one to work with such incredible people, smart people, driven people. And the industry is unusual in some ways in that we're more collaborative than competitive, even though on paper we're definitely competitive. And by that we hold dearly the importance of play for children and childhood development and the safety aspect of that. And we hold ourselves accountable to very high standards. And that's bigger than us scrapping and fighting for a half an inch of space at XYZ retailer. Now at the end of the day, we'll fight tooth and nail if we need to, but we can go into these meetings and have truly open conversations about where this industry can go, what we need to be doing to help the greater good, how can we help our partners and how can we help the members? Whether that's through having our toy fairs or putting together seminars or helping people through the tariffs and Covid and also being advocates for this industry in government. It's a really important organization and I'm just blessed to be part of it. And I'm also love that I've had this amazing chance to be a part of First Book for many of those same reasons. Kyle Zimmer, who runs the First Book organization, her heart's so big. But if you're looking for, I would argue one of the very best ways to make a difference, teach a child to read. The data is overwhelming. Illiteracy is not a good path and teaching a child to read is not a one time thing that it is done for life and it changes their life in that moment. And I think I can look at you and feel fully confident to say, wouldn't being illiterate have taken you down a different path? It's not even close.

[Ilana Golancho]

It's unbelievable.

[Sharon Price John]

And these kids don't even have their own book, not one book that they own. That's why it's called First Book. I can't even imagine that in the household I grew up in and the gift that that provided so many. Probably everybody that's listening is innumerable. You can't even put a value on that. We can fix this. I'll just give you a shocker. Just to end this part of the conversation. I'm not sure if it still happens, but I do know that there have been that in the past. The government would also often use grade level literacy for like the third or fourth grade as a predictor for how many prison cells they were going to need to build 20 years from then. That's how accurate. Wow, this data is. You want to change a life, make sure a kid gets a book.

[Ilana Golancho]

I had no clue how that it's even common here. So I appreciate that, Sharon. And you also wrote your own book.

[Sharon Price John]

I did. That's because I can read.

[Ilana Golancho]

And it's called Stories and Hearts. And it's incredible, you know, what you can do with the power of stories and how critical it is in leadership and everywhere in life and how it can change lives. So talk to us. Like, how do you see storytelling and what do you wish you knew earlier on in your life, in your career?

[Sharon Price John]

Storytelling is just a big part of my upbringing, but the book is really an exercise for the reader. Every single part of this book is broken down into something where there's what I learned, what was the insight for me during this time? And there's exercises for the readers to kind of work their way through. It's not a free ride. Sorry, you're gonna have to work because the.

[Ilana Golancho]

No magic wands.

[Sharon Price John]

No magic wands. No. And it's all the way to, you know, things from dismantling perfectionism, getting over fear, dealing with negative self talk. So when people say this was an easy journey, read the book, you'll know it's not. I had to work through. I can't possibly explain, you know, that I had to come up with these tools and approaches and things where I could get do this if I hadn't done it myself. It's not a natural state. It's an everyday evolution coming full circle on this discussion. First of all, try not to assume that just because somebody's doing X, Y and Z that that all just came easy to them. But I would also say that, that again, when you're thinking about the stories, to tell yourself that story is not empowering to you because it gives you an excuse to say, oh, well, I just wasn't built for that, or I just wasn't meant to do that, or I just can't do that because of this. Hardly anybody is. This takes work every day, inside work about every single aspect of what you bring to the table and what we talked about here today of getting over your own hurdles that you probably put there yourself, which is the thing nobody wants to say possible to work through these things. And I try to provide people tools to do it. Again, much of the stuff that we do comes down to the stories we tell ourselves and if those stories are empowering or disempowering. And I encourage you to find empowering stories.

[Ilana Golancho]

Oh, that's such a good one, Sharon. Because again, we see it in Leap Academy all the time. People kill their own dreams. You know, one of the things that I say, killer of dreams, it's honestly, it's not even fear, it's delay. It's the tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow, I'll start next week, I'll start in a month. Right. It's that constant like not taking action and convincing yourself that you can't or you shouldn't or all of that. So.

[Sharon Price John]

And there's tons of tricks. They don't have to do that.

[Ilana Golancho]

Sharon, thank you for changing the world and continue to do incredible things and bringing smiles into all of this.

[Sharon Price John]

Been great. I really appreciate it.

[Ilana Golancho]

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. If you did, please share it with friends now. Also, if you're feeling stuck or simply want more from your own career, watch this 30 minute free [e-mail] training. That's leapacademy.com training. See you in the next episode of the Leap Academy with Ilana Golancho.