Life & Work with Jennifer Villar

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Villar.

Hi Jennifer, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am an immigrant from the Philippines and have been in the US for almost 40 years now. I come from a big family and one of seven children. I grew up in the West Covina/La Puente area, which is a suburb of Los Angeles, located in the San Gabriel Valley.

I now reside in Chatsworth, in the West Valley, which is about 20 minutes north of Los Angeles. I have been working in the fashion industry for about 30 years now.

Entrepreneurship came to mind in 2011 when I traveled to Berlin, Germany for a trade show to meet with buyers from major accounts such as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Asos, Topshop, etc. In Germany, my passion grew for trend searching, product merchandising, fashion styling, price negotiation, apparel manufacturing, etc.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
No, it has not been a smooth road, I made my decision to establish the business in August. I listed everything that is needed for a business, a business plan of some sort and realized I couldn’t do this on my own. I had to identify my weaknesses and my strengths to simplify the process and ensure the work was done properly. Knowing I only had two months to get this whole business plan executed or I would lose the holiday opportunities, I hired a 3rd party who had the knowledge of the business requirements like establishing the Fed Tax IDs, Articles of Incorporation, etc. While these are being established, I was stuck on the name, took me about a month to come up with it. It is now Sept and I had to get ahead of products so I worked on trend researching and setting up website while still working the name of the company. By mid-Sept, I had come up with the name Be About The Box, license and registrations established, I had my product selections done and purchased for Holiday goods.

My experience with supply and demand kicked in and with the delays with importing goods overseas, I knew I had very little room for mistakes and I couldn’t afford delays. End of November came and my products were now in LA. The goods were in a FedEx truck scheduled to be transported to me the next day but they were not transporting anything except for the vaccines at the time. That was the priority and I understood it. What should have been a one day transport of the goods to be turned into ten days. I was stressed and anxious but knew I had no control of the situation so prayed on it. The next day, Dec 10th, I heard from FedEx and that same night, the goods were delivered to me by a special FedEx delivery truck. It was one of those courier services hired by FedEx. I was stuck in a situation I had no control of, I couldn’t complain because the priority was much bigger than what I was working on but the power of prayer helped my anxiety and faith that it was going to work out and it did. I had three days to ship the Holiday goods and made it happen.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
After high school, I tried going to college, long story short, I didn’t see college for me so I worked with my father at a clothing manufacturer in downtown LA instead. He was the operations manager at the time and he hired me to be a customer service rep where I learned how to process orders to ship some accounting functions, etc. and the ropes of manufacturing like materials management, supply and demand. I moved to another company where my mother worked, also another clothing manufacturer in downtown LA, where I learned more accounting functions under her. I was about 21 years old at the time. and worked with her for about three years. At 24, I had an opportunity to become a customer service manager for a huge multi-division manufacturer and with the skills I learned under my parents, I believe I was ready for the challenge. I was hired and managed about 15 employees out of the 100 employees of the company.

I was the youngest manager without any degree but only the skills I learned and the drive to do a good job, I was able to execute and there, I learned that anything can happen when you work hard. Most of my team at the time were also only high school graduates and learning their skills on the job. I wanted to be an example to them. I was always very thorough, diligent and worked ahead of the game. I crossed my T’s and Dotted my I’s to ensure we didn’t miss a step and lose an order or make a costly mistake. The work is something you can learn from but the attitude and the drive isn’t learned. You either have it or you don’t. I knew I had that. I had to step up my game all the time or I would lose and without any degree, I didn’t have anything to fall back on. I became director of operations for a few companies because of these skills. I excel on challenging my team because they know I’m always ahead of it. I find problems easily and can see the big picture of a situation. I’m good at solving the day to day daily problems.

How do you define success?
Success to me is when I see growth with my team. Some of them have become managers, general managers, directors, etc. On my personal success, I see success when I’m able to deal with situations head on and have developed patience for them.

Contact Info:

• Email: beaboutthebox@gmail.com
• Website: www.beaboutthebox.com
• Instagram: @beaboutthebox
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeAboutTheBox