(bright music) - [Narrator 1] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright music) - [Narrator 2] "It's Your Business" with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation, with funding provided by the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge and the Tennessee Rural Development Fund.

- Welcome to "It's Your Business" where we learn helpful tips and information from entrepreneurs and business resource professionals around the Upper Cumberland to help equip aspiring entrepreneurs with the tools they need to make the dream of owning their own business come to life and learn from the success and failures of those with experience in the world of entrepreneurship.

(upbeat music) In the world of fashion and design, it can be intimidating to put your designs up against the top names in the industry.

But Tess Mann of Couture by Tess was confident that her designs could compete, and now she owns a growing business that has reached across the world and made a name for herself in the world of fashion.

With her beautiful bride gown designs, she has helped make that special day for many beautiful brides even more special and elegant than they had ever dreamed.

(bright music) We're here in Cookeville, Tennessee talking with Tess Mann, owner of Couture by Tess.

Tess, welcome to the show.

- Well, thank you so much.

I am very honored that you invited me to speak with you today.

- Well, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation so let's get it kicked off with the basics.

Tell us about your business.

- Couture by Tess is actually a US trademark, and I had been designing since I was a very young child and took a different career path.

And when I was getting close to retirement, I decided I wanted to go back to my enjoyment and hobby, which was fashion designing.

I had kept an eye on the industry for over 50 years, and I really decided that it was time for me to get back into fashion designing.

And I started creating the Couture by Tess label, and that was in 2013.

And then 2018, I received my trademark by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and I had said to my husband I would really like to provide a service to brides out in our community and give them an opportunity to purchase wedding dresses, whether they're budget be 500 or 5,000.

And we decided to open up the shop here in Cookeville.

Searched for the longest time to find a beautiful building, and we finally found this magnificent old building that we restored over time.

And here we are today.

So we have brides from all over Tennessee.

We have brides coming in from other states that contact us, and we just enjoy it.

I have a wonderful staff that works here and customer service is so important to us.

- Why did you wanna go with bridal dresses as opposed to something else?

- I found that a lot of the dresses just kept looking the same year after year after year after year.

And the brides that I had spoken with were just tired of the same old, boring styles.

And so I started designing to bring something new to the table, but not too far away from standard bridal fashion that it would be considered quirky.

And now the hawk couture side is where I get to do my quirky, just fashion runway kind of dresses that are just there for people to just go, "Wow, who is this designer?"

- How do you design a dress?

I mean, are you drawing these things?

Do you use computers?

This is something I've never experienced before.

- I do both.

I use pencil and paper, colored pencils.

So I'll sketch.

In fact, why we were in India because the internet was a little bit more quirky around the plane or in hotels.

I'll use pencil and paper a lot.

But if I'm here in the United States and I'm trying to get a design over to India, then I'll use my iPad because it will transfer better electronically than me trying to scan or take a picture and send it to them.

So I use both.

I use both, but I think I tend to be maybe more creative with the pencil and paper because I can hold it better.

The iPad, you have to work with it a little bit and it can be a little frustrating using the procreate, but I enjoy both.

- So this is all very interesting.

So you're designing the dresses yourself, you're going to fashion shows and really showing off what you can do.

Let's bring it back to the Upper Cumberland in Tennessee and the surrounding regions.

How are you getting your name out?

How are you marketing yourself to your brides?

- When we first opened, a lot of it was your traditional billboard advertising, newspaper advertising.

But then we found the greatest amount of bridal traffic that we have started seeing is literally word of mouth, our five star customer service for 10 years running.

When we have a bride walk through the door, we don't care if their budget is 300, 500, 5,000, 10,000.

Every bride that walks through that door is treated with respect, with open arms.

We want them to feel at home.

We want them to feel comfortable because this is the most important time of their life.

And a lot of brides literally are in fear of wedding dress shopping.

So it's so important that they feel comfortable when they walk in here and that they have five star customer service.

- So Cookeville, you could do this anywhere.

You could be in Nashville, Memphis, a major urban market, but you're right here in Cookeville in the Upper Cumberland.

Why a rural area instead of somewhere urban?

- One was my husband's from Cookeville so he really wanted to come back to Cookeville.

We do like the community feeling that you have in a more rural area than the big city.

And we also felt that if we brought the bridal shop here, we were bringing something different to Cookeville.

So it wasn't just wedding dresses that we were selling from multi fashion designers, but it was a personal fashion designer right here in Cookeville where somebody could talk to the fashion designer and felt that their needs, their likes, their dislikes would be listened to.

We wanted to... Hopefully, our long-term strategic business plan is to offer more jobs to the community.

So with us launching not only my trademark design, but Tess Mann Couture design on a wholesale level, we will be branding to other bridal shops and states and countries where orders will come into Cookeville and Cookeville will truly be part of a fashion hub for the rest of the world, and bring more acknowledgement to Cookeville as a place to be for growing businesses, entrepreneurs, people that are looking for a lovely place to live as well and help Cookeville grow, Putnam County, all the other rural areas as well.

- And we appreciate what you're doing with that, and you've also saved a historic building.

Tell us about that.

- Yes, my husband actually had driven by this old building that was kind of falling apart.

The windows were...

When they're trying to work on stuff, they're all covered up.

All I saw, like everybody else, was these tiny little windows in the front.

I'm like, there is no way I can have a bridal shop in that little tiny building.

So we kept driving all over Cookeville for two years trying to find a place to open up the bridal shop.

And finally I happened to see that the building was for lease.

It was still covered up, but I said let me go and talk to the realtor to see if I get in there.

I just looked around and went, okay, all right, this has potential.

So it really is a labor of love.

And we kept all the brick the way it was and just sealed the brick so it wouldn't keep crumbling.

And the floors, we just left the floors the way they were and just gave them a really good cleaning.

And we love it.

Everybody who comes in here is just amazed.

- [Michael] You've mentioned a couple times, it's a labor of love.

And I would imagine that the business itself is a labor of love as well.

- It is.

It's very personal.

It's not that I have a bridal shop or I sell prom, or I sell formals.

It's very personal to me because as I said before, I want everybody that walks in here to feel special.

- You have an interesting past or at least I think it's pretty interesting.

You were a former FBI agent turned entrepreneur.

How did that prepare and translate over to owning a small business?

- Well, as a FBI agent, you have to be very detail oriented.

You have to be very analytical.

You have to be able to start from point A and get to point Z knowing each and every step that you have to take.

And having a goal three years, five years, 10 years out, and how are you gonna get there?

And as an agent, you have to be flexible and you have to learn as you're going.

So if you get to the point where you say this is not working, you cannot be afraid to say let's try something new and see if it works.

- Thinking back to when you first started, what do you know now that you wish you knew then?

- Probably not so much on the fashion aspect of it, but how expensive advertising is.

Oh my goodness.

You can spend a good portion of your funds.

So for any individual that is thinking of starting a business or venturing into a business or even partnering with somebody is making sure that you have a very realistic advertising and marketing budget, and knowing that's probably going to take a good 40% of your expected income.

- Well, last question for you.

Look into the future.

What does that hold for your business?

- I see ourselves really focusing on the brand, the trademark, so Couture by Tess, and then our upscale luxury brand which is Tess Mann Haute Couture.

So we are moving away, especially in the bridal shop, we are moving away from carrying other designers.

So eventually what that means for us is that people will be coming from Nashville, Chattanooga, Boston, San Diego, Houston, Canada, to Cookeville to purchase an exclusive Couture by Tess Dress, Tess Mann Haute Couture, or to have something specifically designed to them.

- Well, what an incredible story.

Tess, thank you so much for being on the show.

- Oh, well, thank you.

I appreciate your time.

(bright music) - While there are some who find the idea of starting their own business daunting or even fearful, there are others who have the drive and ambition to jump right in and make things happen.

Rachel Smalling may be starting on a new business venture in Cookeville, but this is not her first experience with entrepreneurship.

She already owns two other businesses in Byrdstown, but saw a need to bring a high-end flare to Cookeville in the form of a cocktail lounge with a unique speakeasy vibe.

(cheerful music) We're here in Cookeville, Tennessee talking with Rachel Smalling, serial entrepreneur.

She owns the Sportsman's Lodge, the Lakeside Inn at Dale Hollow, and most recently, 1854 in Cookeville.

Rachel, a big welcome to the show.

- Well, thank you.

Glad to be here.

- So we've got a lot to talk about today.

Let's start out with the basics.

You own three businesses right now.

Why don't you just give us a brief overview of what each is?

- Yeah.

So back in 2020, my partner, Alex, and I kind of had this whim.

We were out in the boat every weekend at Dale Hollow and we would drive by this sad little, what was then called the Obey River Inn that had recently closed down.

And we kept joking and saying we should buy that and fix it up.

It was during COVID so we weren't really doing anything indoors at all.

You couldn't go out, you couldn't hang out with people.

So we had a lot of free time.

And jokes kind of turned into, well, I'm just gonna give them a call and see what would happen.

And fast forward 15 days, we closed on the property.

We started renovations and completely redid it, and that was our first renovation project together.

And the year later, there was another motel in the area, the Sportsman's Lodge for sale.

It was already a great functioning successful business and we decided to buy it, 'cause if we didn't, somebody else would.

And then they would be our competition.

So we might as well be our own competition.

And then, yeah, I had this crazy idea about a year and a half ago that one of the things Cookeville I felt was missing was a high-end cocktail bar or a high-end, smaller, elegant atmosphere for a date night.

So that's kind of where this idea started and now we are sitting in what we created.

- So as you proceed forward thinking about opening to the public, by the time that this show airs, it will be open.

What are you thinking about?

What's going through your entrepreneurial brain?

What do you need to really put together to really make this happen and and have a great opening, and more importantly, to be sustainable?

- I feel like if you could get an active picture inside my brain, it might just be like little dumpster fires everywhere and me just frantically running around trying to put them out 'cause that's how it feels.

But no, it's been really, really both stressful and fun to see the past month of we've hired our final crew and our final team.

We're very small, we only have six staff.

I really truly built this bar for the people of Cookeville.

In fact, inside our menu it says, "A bar built for the people by the people of Cookeville," because that's really what I wanted, a space for our community to come and be able to enjoy.

- So when you're thinking about opening a place like this, it's a little bit different, very unique, obviously that's a great selling point, but also thinking about your potential clientele, having this in Cookeville and in the Upper Cumberland region, what did you really have to do as far as research and set up?

I mean, is this all your own creation?

Did you take cues from anybody?

Tell me about that.

- Yeah, I mean, I don't think any project is totally original.

I think everything is a recreation of the wheel.

I do think that this might be more original for Cookeville, but my partner and I, one of our passions is when we travel, we love to go to the really high-end restaurants and the really nice cocktail bars.

So I really felt like Cookeville deserves something that's a little bit more elevated, but still approachable is the challenge in our region, I think.

So being elevated and introducing some different new things in terms of drinks and menu concepts, however, still being comfortable and approachable for everybody that walks in.

And in terms of the clientele and the market research, that was really just kind of a year of talking to people and having conversations and saying, "Hey, how do you feel about this concept?

Or I have this crazy idea, what do you think about that?"

And hearing people's response and, "Oh, you should do this, you should do that."

And kind of taking all that feedback and then doing some of the backend numbers and looking at is this even gonna be possible?

Can Cookeville sustain something like this?

And looking at our growth right now, I think that the answer to that question is a resounding yes.

If I do my due diligence of making sure that this is first and foremost a hospitality industry, and that everyone that comes through that door has really positive experience.

- [Michael] So you're heavily involved in the hospitality industry.

You own three businesses now.

What is your background like?

How did you learn to run a business?

- My passion has always been in hospitality.

I was always the house that all of my friends came to for the weekend, and I was always the one hosting people and making breakfast for everybody in the morning.

And I just truly enjoy that aspect.

In college, I actually... We had a spare bedroom in our house and I would rent that out in Airbnb it, and I was actually I think the second Airbnb in Cookeville.

So really just learned on a very small scale in a very safe scale and manageable, the pros, the cons, do I like this, do I not?

And then kind of growing into that.

So our first motel up in Byrdstown, the lakeside is all Airbnb and Vrbo actually because I knew I wanted a situation where I could be mostly hands off in that management and then the bookings would take care of themselves.

- Obviously business got a lot of challenges and problems.

Talk to me about maybe not necessarily the exact challenges and problems that you've had, but maybe an overview of those, and more importantly, how did you overcome them?

I mean, especially with you renovating an entire inn during the pandemic.

- I had in the back of my head that even though this might not be the right time for a hospitality industry and we don't know what the future holds, we did go into it knowing this is the one kind of pandemic-proof place because people are coming out in the lake, people are doing something outside.

I bought this property where people aren't even sharing hallways.

So it's very kind of pandemic safe.

And we actually did better our first year than we've done any year since.

We were insane during the pandemic.

- You also mentioned question marks.

How do you deal with the stress of not knowing?

- In terms of not knowing, it's really just... And I'll come back to my team here has been fantastic.

I have a bartender who's been with me since January and a creative kitchen marketing person who's been with me since January, and then my partner Alex obviously.

So kind of the four of us have created this with a bunch of question marks over our head the whole time.

Will it be successful?

I had this reoccurring nightmare that I had my opening weekend and I showed up and no one was here.

So fortunately we are sold out for our opening weekend next weekend, so that's not gonna happen hopefully.

So yeah, dealing with the question marks is just you have to prepare for the worst.

So in my budgeting and my backend, I just do the worst case scenario and can I survive?

And then an exit strategy, worse, worst case scenario.

- So you're doing this in Putnam County, you also have businesses in Pickett County, Upper Cumberland, very rural place.

What does it mean to you as an entrepreneur and as a person to be able to provide this to the Upper Cumberland as opposed to somewhere else in Tennessee?

- I think first of all, if I tried to do this concept in a place like Nashville or even Chattanooga, I'd be crazy because that is such a saturated market and there's so much competition and there are so many things like this in those regions.

But in Cookeville, again, we just saw a niche of our friend group, my partner and I going out to eat and we have so many fantastic local restaurants and places to be and enjoy a meal and a date night.

But we didn't have anywhere where the atmosphere was a little bit more elevated and we didn't have any space that was kind of intimate and quiet and you could enjoy a conversation.

So that's kind of where we started.

And then the vision kind of grew from there.

So it didn't actually start as a cocktail bar.

It started as this space for the community and then it kind of transformed into, okay, well, this is another thing that maybe we're missing is an adventurous high-end, more out there cocktail bar place.

So that's kind of when we filled in with that.

- The reason that we have this television show is to not only feature the voices of entrepreneurs like yourself, we also wanna inspire people to be entrepreneurs.

So speaking directly to those people that may have an idea for a business, but for whatever reason, they haven't crossed that fence yet, what would you tell them?

What advice would you give?

- One, buckle in, it's gonna be really hard.

Two, have a really great support system and a backup plan.

And three, just be able to work yourself to death.

And I think that I've been fortunate in that I've had a support system in my partner, both emotionally, conceptually, and financially as well.

He's been able to support me when I quit my job back in March to focus on this full time, and I did have to take out my own business loans and things like that.

But I think not jumping in before you have that safety blanket or that safety net of savings.

I sold a house two years ago and I knew that, that money was gonna be used for something like this.

So having that plan and that backup and then doing your research and putting in the hard work and the hours.

- Obviously you're gonna be opening 1854 very soon, but looking towards the future, what does that hold for you?

- Really, my vision for this place is for people to come in and feel like this is my spot.

This is the place I wanna bring my friends from out of town.

This is the place that I want to come and enjoy a cocktail or have a date night or celebrate my birthday.

I wanna share those experiences and offer this hospitality for everyone who comes in.

So that's my hope is that people view this as their spot and it's something that people in Cookeville and our surrounding community can really be proud of and take ownership of with me.

- Well, Rachel, this has been a great conversation.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

- Yes, thank you for having me.

I had a really good time.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I am Jodi Pitts, program manager for the Business Resource Collective, or BRC for short.

The BRC is a collaborative partnership between Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation, the Small Business Development Center, the Biz Foundry, and WCTE Central Tennessee PBS.

These entrepreneurial support organizations wanting to create a no wrong door approach for businesses to get the help and support they need for their business to grow and succeed.

Here's a little more information on how these agencies work together to help local businesses.

Each of these organizations has specific strengths and areas of specialization.

Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation has a team of interns who can help with creative projects like graphic design, product photography, or logo creation.

The small business development center is great at providing technical assistance, financial guidance, and helping businesses find the funding they need to start, grow, or expand.

The Biz Foundry is our local business incubator and they are fantastic with startup businesses.

The Biz Foundry offers classes, social networking opportunities, and a co-working space at three locations throughout the Upper Cumberland.

There is no shortage of help available for small businesses and entrepreneurs, but knowing where to go or who to ask for help can be confusing.

That's where the BRC comes in.

Through a quick business assessment call, we will discuss what problems your business is facing and which partners have the best resources to help you.

All the services of the BRC are at no cost to you as the business owner.

And even better news, our partner resources are free too.

You can get access to counseling, professional development, and even student intern workers from Tennessee Tech University at absolutely no cost to you.

The Business Resource Collective is here to guide you and connect you to ensure success for your business.

The SBDC is excited to help you on your entrepreneurial journey.

Be sure to contact us and we'll get you started today.

Visit BRCollective.org for more information or to schedule a call.

I look forward to hearing from you.

(bright music) - Thank you so much for joining us and we hope that you have learned that entrepreneurship doesn't have to be a scary venture when you have the necessary resources for success at your fingertips.

If you would like more information on today's topics, please visit the WCTE website.

To learn more about free small business resources and expert assistance, visit the Business Resource Collective website.

Until next time, I'm Michael Aikens.

(bright music) - [Narrator 2] "It's Your Business" with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation, with funding provided by the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge and the Tennessee Rural Development Fund.

(bright music) - [Narrator 1] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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