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This story was published in Alton Area Post on Monday, April 16, 2001. By Shera Dalin A Christian symbol nearly 2000 years old sparked a reinterpretation of the image and the genesis of a new business for a Staunton woman. In June, Theresa Yohn started a video production company dubbed Bgg Productions, shorthand for by God's grace. But after several months of futile sales attempts and the financial pressure of being a divorced mother of two, she realized she had to do something to get money rolling in the door. She estimates that she had about 9 cents in disposable income to live on each day during that period. But she had noticed that many people commented on the stylized Christian fish symbol she had printed on her business cards. Her mother had designed the emblem, which is based on the increasingly popular icthus figure that first-century Christians secretly used to identify one another. So, receiving inspiration from her fervent prayers about how to provide for her family beyond her part-time news producer job at KMOV-TV (Channel 4), she decided to have shirts and hats embroidered with the icthus. Her first order of 50 pieces sold rapidly. She couldn't keep up with new orders. Yohn, who resembles the frenetic Holly Hunter in "Broadcast News," figured she had a hit on her hands. But she knew she needed to broaden her sales beyond the trunk of her car and members of her church, The New Testament Fellowship Church in Alton. Yohn, 33, learned how to create a Web site during her lunch hour. All of her products are listed on the site now. No products have sold from the site, but she's optimistic. In fact, optimism and a "deep faith" in God are what keep Yohn going. She's also a true believer in what she calls the "10 minutes to your dream" philosophy. The idea, which she preaches about along with her experiences starting Bgg and the Fishwear line of clothing, is that anyone who has a goal such as starting a business or launching a new career can do it by consistently devoting at least 10 minutes a day to it. The other requirement is to appoint someone to hold you accountable to spending the 10 minutes working on the dream. For Yohn, a co-worker would ask her daily what she had done to advance the business. "There is nothing stopping me but me," she said she learned. Now she returns the favor to other co-workers. "I'm in their face every day, saying what have you done today?" she said. By coincidence, she happened to be reviewing news footage of Shauna Willis, director of operations for the regional Sam's Clubs. After seeing Willis' image again and again, an idea struck: Perhaps Sam's would sell her Fishwear shirts and hats. In one of her many 10-minute exercises, she called Willis and blurted out her proposal. In the short pause before Willis responded, Yohn cringed in fear that the manager would shoot down the idea. Instead, Willis responded that she, too, was a Christian and would be interested in putting the shirts in two stores in the two weeks before Easter. Willis tentatively agreed to accept 1,200 pieces for sale at the St. Charles and Ferguson stores. "We love working with small companies and helping them get a start," Willis said. "Every big company started out as a small company. "In this case, the timing was absolutely perfect, with a Christian holiday, Easter, and being able to take a Christian T-shirt and put it in over the holidays when people are thinking about their faith. There's just lots of opportunity." Yohn was elated, not realizing how much work was ahead. In the space of a few weeks, Yohn had to come up with enough money to pay a factory to produce the shirts, sort them by size, tag them with prices and bar codes, load them into a van and deliver them to the stores. She also had to finalize details about her product liability insurance and other paperwork. She recruited friends and family, including her 10-year-old son Joshua and 8-year-old daughter Jennifer, to help tag the shirts during a tagging party in her home. A man who blustered about retailing during a chance visit to the beauty salon while Yohn was getting a rare haircut turned out to be the perfect expert to educate her about the bar codes - something she knew nothing about. At one point, several rooms in her home were filled with stacks of shirts and hats in a rainbow of colors. "I was drowning in shirts," she quipped. Despite all the help of her friends, the tagging party didn't get all the labels and tags applied to the merchandise. The insurance policy ran into a last-minute snag and she couldn't secure a critical purchase order that was needed for Sam's to accept the shipment. "It was literally minute to minute. But I just kept saying this is going to happen, this is going to happen, this is going to happen," Yohn said. Persistently, she worked out the snags and the shirts made it into the stores a few days later than planned. Sales have been steady, with about half of the Fishwear T-shirts and a third of the hats being sold, Willis said. "That's very, very encouraging," she said. Willis is optimistic that Sam's buyers will pick up Fishwear for nationwide sales. Even if Yohn sells every single piece of clothing, she still won't recoup the $10,000 she invested in the venture. She isn't deterred, though. "I know it's going to nationwide," she said with unshakable confidence. ======= Fishwear Owner: Theresa Yohn Phone: 314-210-2244 Web site: www.fishwear.com FOCUS ON: BUSINESS\Shera Dalin can be contacted by phone
at 659-3628, fax at 659-2310, e-mail at sdalin@post-dispatch.com and by
mail at 123 Rottingham Court, Edwardsville, Ill. 62025. Published in the
Alton Area Post section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday, April
16, 2001. Copyright (C)2001, St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
Woman hopes for sea of profits
from Fishwear line