Today we’d like to introduce you to Giovanni Garcia.
Hi Giovanni, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Being brought to the United States at the age of five, I was placed into a whole different world than what I had known back in Guatemala. Being “pilas” as my mom would say, we have to adapt and learn fast in order to get out of the poverty and everyday struggle. From a very early age, my parents have shown me that working hard pays off, seeing them struggle to make ends meet with my younger siblings was my motivation to help them being an individual person that can support themselves. Working by selling gum and chocolates, tamales at local soccer fields helped widen my view to really understand what it meant to earn a dollar. With no educational background both my parents only knew how to sew, working in clothing factories sewing up size tags for cents each piece.
Eventually, this would lead me to also learn how to sew simple items, it wasn’t until later in my teenage years in search for a job where I would end in the Santee Alley helping at a tailor shop. Cleaning and learning how to properly fit and measure customers’ garments, I found a feeling of accomplishment when the customers would be satisfied by the work. Slowly being shown how to do alterations on dresses and then pants and suits, I was able to quickly grasp the concept of tailoring.
At the age of 16, I moved out of my parent’s house because I felt as if I could do anything, that later became a hard lesson to grasp as I was totally broke and lost in my life goals. Leaving the tailor shop to work in selling suits also helped me further fuel my ambition to help others feel good about their clothes and their presentation. This would lead me back to working back at the tailor shop once again, but now to fully be maneuvering complex alterations. Slowly growing a following of customers, the owner of the tailor shop sent me to his other store but now to manage it and be in front of his business.
After a year or so, now 19 he offered to sell me his location which I had been managing. It felt as a sign towards my goal, therefore I accepted and began working long days, seven days a week to make sure that I would create a stable flow of satisfied customers. Word of mouth is essential in the tailoring business, if a customer is satisfied with the work, they will most likely recommend your work whenever the subject of needing alterations comes up. Getting to meet people every day, not knowing what can bring out of the friendship has helped my business grow very quickly. Now working on projects for ref carpet events such as the Oscars, Grammys and even with big clothing companies. After years of pushing forward, my work is slowly expanding further into a bigger audience.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This job requires a lot of dedication and hunger to improve, each customer comes in with a different garment and job to be done. Adapting and learning to read the customer’s request was not always as easy as how it is now.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
365 Tailoring is a tailor shop that is committed in providing the best alteration service possible. From everyday clothes to special events such as weddings, quinceañeras, music videos or any event, we aim to create and shape the customer’s vision into reality. All this with a fast turnaround time, ensuring that each customer has their clothes back long before they are needed. Paying attention to all details because we understand that every customer deserves to feel perfect with their clothes.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Being persistent has a long way for me, during the first months of business, it was hard to be financially stable. Many days of instability put a big weight over me but I never gave up in my dreams of one day being always busy and working on big projects. Secondly, being friendly has also pushed my business further because it is due to friendships and good customer service that I have many customers that keep on coming back or even recommending their families to the store.
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