Alice James on Her Consulting Agency for Launching and Growing Fashion Brands

Please share a brief introduction about yourself and your business:

My name is Alice James and my business is AJG Fashion Consulting, an all-woman consulting agency for launching and growing fashion brands.

Who are your customers?

We help Entreprenistas of fashion brands that are just getting off the ground to businesses that are scaling and looking to hire a team of experts to manage the workload for less than the cost of a salary.

What was your background prior to starting your own business?

I spent 15 years in the corporate retail industry working for big box retailers. I've been in a variety of roles including buying, global sourcing, product development, production management, and inventory planning. I'd developed products with teams at Nike, Under Amor, and Adidas and established long-term supply chains for all different types of fashion apparel and accessory products.

What made you take the leap to start your own business?

Honestly, I'd hit the glass ceiling when my boss told me "You won't get promoted because you're a Mom" I knew it was time to head out and do something on my own. I always knew that I wanted to help empower women in business to forage a new way of working and when my last corporate retailer was bought out, I knew it was time.

Did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

No! When I was in school and just starting out, I just followed the motions and rose up the corporate chain as many did. I guess I got the entrepreneurial bug when I became a Mom and realized that the corporate world was built around a mans lifestyle and was no longer conducive to my world. In addition to struggling with trying to balance it all, I started to see my male peers working half as hard as I was get promoted and paid much more. I knew there had to be a better way which drove me to take a chance on myself.

Take us back to when you first launched your business; what was your marketing strategy to get the word out and did it go as planned?

Honestly, I didn't have much of a marketing strategy. I was connected to a couple founders through LInkedIn and referrals which helped me get off the ground. Once that gave me a foundation of clients, I started to market myself on industry resource platforms growing my exposure. It worked quite well and I had to grow a team of my own quite quickly.

What is the biggest challenge you have encountered along the way so far and what have you learned from it?

One of the biggest challenges for me has been balancing my staff levels with the rate of our growth. I'm fully self funded and haven't had an influx of cash to help me put the ideal roles in place for growth. I've chosen slow growth in order to maintain full control of the business, but it has it's challenges when business picks up quickly and we have to scramble to cover the workload with our trusted team. I've learned for my service business I need to have a combination of full-time and contract personnel that can flex with our business demand.

What accomplishment are the most proud of to date in your business?

Hard to choose for sure, but I would say helping to facilitate a wholesale partnership between our clients JZD and Target. JZD, a latina and queer owned apparel brand, was selected by Target to be featured in Hispanic Heritage Month and Pride Month collections. Overwhelmed by the opportunity, JZD came to us to help with everything from partnership negotiations, product design and development, global sourcing, Target factory approvals, high volume production management, and logistics. 

When working with these types of collaborations, large retailers usually require that they produce the product and then they pay you a commission based on the sales to feature your brand. This is how they make the majority of the money. In this partnership, my team was able to negotiate a contract for JZD where they could hold on to the manufacturing increasing their profit margins from ten of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Nothing in my professional career has brought me as much joy as seeing this queer, first generation and immigrant couple get the exposure they deserve. It validated my business focus of helping founders that deserve it most and I feel so lucky to be able to support women like the founders at JZD.

Do you have any recent wins from the last year that you'd like to celebrate with our community?

We feel like we're constantly winning when we help fashion founders launch and grow their businesses. Every single woman owned, minority owned, queer owned, and disability owned business we have helped over the past year is a win for us. 

We pride ourselves on having a strong global foundation of certified and compliant partners that we've built over many years. They will help us to continue to provide ideal partnerships as we navigate the new world of production and tariffs. This will continue to be a win for both our business and the brands we support.

What's next for your business? What can we expect to see over the next few years?

As we continue to grow, we hope to empower more and more fashion Entreprenistas to grow their businesses with confidence. With the changing landscape of global production you can expect to see our supply chain shift to accommodate these new demands.

We've been working on building a fully woman-owned global supply chain of manufactures and suppliers to empower women around the world. This is my passion project and I'm excited to be able to offer these female business partner relationships in the future.

What is one thing you wish you had known when you started your Entreprenista journey?*

I wish I'd known how important it would be to build a network of like-minded Entreprenistas for support and guidance. Being a founder on my own was isolating and having women in your corner to commiserate with or celebrate wins has been imperative and I wish I'd done it sooner.

Are you a Mamaprenista? If so, please share your best advice for simultaneously managing a business and a family:

I have two daughters and my advice would be to bring together your mom and professional life. My girls are always at the office working with me or just hanging out with my amazing team of inspiring women. I chose our first office location because it was accross the street from my daughter's elementary school. They could walk over anytime and I could pop over for lunch when I wanted to see them.

I even brought my girls on a trip to Asia with me to meet with business partners and visit factories. I built this business to formulate a work environment based on my lifestyle as a mother and there is no differentiating the two for me. My girls get to see their mom be professional and own a business while being there for them at the same time. I feel so lucky to be able to model this for them.

What is your favorite business tool or solution and why?

I would have to say that Loom has been a game changer for us. Being able to record finding, instructions, and followups for our clients has streamlined our processes saving time and money for both our team and our clients.

What advice do you have for aspiring Entreprenistas?

Being an Entreprenista who supports Entreprenistas, I can say that the consistent quality for sustained success is resilience. There will be successful times and there will be challenges, but the founders that keep the long game in focus and have the passion to ride it out are the ones that are successful. Having a network of Entreprenistas in your corner build the foundation for staying resilient.‍

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