I’m pleased to have a chance to interview Brian Esposito, Founder and CEO of Avenue You, one of the hottest companies on the web.  I’ve wanted to interview Brian for a while. 

Tom Polanski: Hi Brian.  How are you doing? 

Brian Esposito: Good Morning Tom, today I am a little nervous. Our site is being moved onto upgraded servers due to our growth.  I’m not yet married or have kids, but would relate today to being like sending my child off to college. A little scared, but knowing it is the best thing for them.  Does that make sense?

Tom Polanski: Yes, it does. That site is your baby and you’ve invested a lot of your life into it. Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me. 

Brian Esposito: Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.

Tom Polanski: Could you give a little bit of the company history? For example, explain the differences between Salon Professional, Avenue You and Ave You. How did those companies evolve from Esposito Beauty Supply?

Brian Esposito: I’m going to try and cram 37 years of stories into a few sentences. My father, Anthony Esposito, started Esposito Beauty Supply in the early 70s, when he originated a niche idea of having stores where salon professionals could shop. This was during a time when the only way to get supplies was from a sales representative who would call on the salon or spa.  The stores proved to be a great idea, as salon owners and buyers loved coming to a store where they could get all their beauty needs, much like shopping in a super market for what was needed in their homes.  Through nothing but hard work and dedication, Esposito Beauty Supply was a huge success and was sold in the mid 80s to a national retailer.  Salon Professional Services, Inc. was then born and 3 Beauty Plus store locations were kept for my 2 sisters, Lisa and Joanne Esposito to run.  The stores were in great areas and during the time were very successful.  Combined with the stores was a distribution division which called on salons, spas, and beauty boutique stores throughout the state of New Jersey.  This formula was working but due to our highly concentrated area, competitors with intense price competition started popping up all over the place. It wasn’t until I finished college in 2003 that I fully took on the role of CEO of Salon Professional Services. During that time my sister Lisa and I developed a brand new concept store with the idea of being “all about you”. Through some intense concept building Avenue You was born. The store was placed in a very affluent area known as Deal, NJ. The store opened in April and the summer season was fantastic, however we ran into a dilemma come September, when the summer residents moved back to their fall/winter homes. I didn’t waste any time, I quickly developed Ave You to initially cater to our in-store customers who were no longer local shoppers until the next spring/summer season. Well it did not take long for shoppers all over the world to find www.aveyou.com due to our easy to navigate site, product selection, and extremely fast shipping/processing time.  I knew with the correct business model Ave You could be a household name in the beauty industry. Of course very little went smoothly, and still does not. We’ve been attacked by competitors in ways I did not even think were possible, but due to our quick “react and fix” mentalities we are still here and growing.

Tom Polanski: Anthony, your Dad, is well regarded in the industry, is he still involved with the company?  How about your sister, Lisa? Is she still involved or are you running the show along with the team you’ve built?  

Brian Esposito: My father is still involved in the beauty industry and currently has one of the top selling nail care items in Sally Beauty Store. After he sold Esposito Beauty Supply he went into nail care manufacturing.  His company FingerMates, Inc., is well known throughout the beauty industry with product lines such as: Formula 10, Nails Alive, Nail Life, Hurry Up, Nailteins, Lipstix, and DV8 Nail Polish & Treatments.  My sister Lisa runs our Deal, NJ store location known as Avenue You, and my sister Joanne runs our Belmar, NJ store location which is still known as Beauty Plus.

Tom Polanski: Did you simply take the business your Dad built and bring it online?

Brian Esposito: Sort of. My dad had a great business model and relationships built, however they would not support and online company. My sister Lisa and I took great pride in sorting through the thousands of beauty and personal care brands and finding the right ones that will work along with the right margins.  Some products are dogs, and some products are critical to our bottom line. Because we run a tight distribution with tight inventory, we don’t sit with many “dogs”. One magazine mention, blog paragraph, or word of mouth can turn any product into a great seller for us. And with $1 UPS Ground Shipping it is a very convenient shopping experience.

Tom Polanski: Not as easy as I made it sound, is it? Did you learn on the fly? Jump in with both feet, so to speak, or did you put together a business plan first? 

Brian Esposito: I wish I could tell you I designed a great business plan, it would make my 4 years at Monmouth University worth-while. (laughter) However, I did not. I’m an “on the fly, jump in with both feet” kind of guy. I made plenty of mistakes, and thank God that I did. Without those mistakes and the dollars they took, I could have made them later on during our growth and those dollars could have been much worse.

Tom Polanski: What challenges did you face and overcome in bringing Ave You to where it is today?

Brian Esposito: Much like my dad, most manufacturers and distributors in the beauty industry are from his time period.  They did, and still do, not understand the online world. So many believe that having their products sold online is not beneficial, or cheapens or destroys a brand, where they need to know it is completely necessary and any company not condoning it, will be missing out on vast exposure and growth.  What the internet did was make it more obvious to manufactures and distributors. When they sell a product to a physical store, unless they continuously shop there, they do not see if that store is discounting.  Discounting is a big no! no!.  Salon Professional Services, Inc., takes great pride in our relationships with our vendors and completely honors the MSRP pricing and never discount. We would never jeopardize our relationships we have built or discredit our company or brand in any way. To continue what I was saying, discounters are now online, and it only takes a few clicks of the mousse from your home or business computer, or PDA to see hundreds if not thousands of merchants not honoring the MSRP pricing. Like many businesses a few bad apples make it extremely difficult for honest and ethical companies to prove themselves.  Like I said previously we were attacked by many major competitors in technological ways that I would not think were possible.  We were hit by “joe jobs”, “blacklisted”, and being cut off from manufacturers. We actually witnessed other online stores in our same market, attacked the same way, go out of business. I am a firm believer in karma and will sit back and watch, like a movie, what will happen to those companies that tried to take us down.

Tom Polanski: What would you single out as your biggest business challenge you’re facing today?

Brian Esposito: Tom that’s a great question, and if I had a business plan established, then I would have a challenges plan established. (laughter) Our concept, product selection, and customers we are targeting and keeping enables Ave You to avoid challenges such as economic, gas prices, and fear. The beauty industry, along with cigarettes and alcohol, seem to be recession proof. We have yet to see any slow-downs or drastic challenges. If I had to give you one off of the top of my head, it would be to control our growth so that we can still take care of our customers 10000% and make every shopper as happy as possible, both retail and wholesale.

Tom Polanski: Could you talk a little bit about the risks you’ve taken? 

Brian Esposito: As you know having online presence is very expensive and having over 7000 products available to purchase on www.aveyou.com makes those expenses even higher. I have put the past 6 years into developing this online venture and have made many sacrifices to ensure its success. I have brought 2 of my closest friends into Salon Professional Services, growing up (Rudy Falco & Richard Amate) and promised them a better future. I haven’t taken a paycheck, and will continue to do so until the company is running perfectly and all investments are returning positive results.

Tom Polanski: You have stores, the catalog, and the website. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

Brian Esposito: The stores along with our website are filled with some of the best beauty and personal care items in the entire industry. We have customers in our stores that have been shopping with us for over 30 years; we have salon, spa, and beauty boutique accounts that also have been buying from us for that long as well.  Our beauty consultants are fully trained and extremely friendly/courteous to our shoppers and browsers. You can only pull from so many people and it is extremely important to make those people feel good and special when in our stores or shopping online.

Tom Polanski: Last year Avenue You/Salon Professionals was selected as a best practice finalist by The New York Enterprise Report. How did that come about?

Brian Esposito: That was a true honor and what an experience for us to go to. We got to meet some very powerful and influential people and learned quite a lot from being a part of that. Unfortunately we did not take home any awards that night, but being a part of that was special and it is always great to be recognized for accomplishments and business practices.

Tom Polanski: You’ve also been mentioned in books and articles, right? Could you talk a little about those?

Brian Esposito: Yes, finally after 5 years we are being mentioned, without the use of money. It is quite amazing and something that I did not even think was possible. We are being mentioned in InStyle magazine, InStyle online, and getting blurbs in all women’s and personal care magazine across the board.  We have also been mentioned twice in a Kate Etue’s the essential five – a grown-up girl’s handbook for everything.  This was such an amazing opportunity for our company. This book is winding up on girls night tables around the globe, and for our company to be forever printed in this publication proves that we are doing something right. We have also set up alerts in GoogleAlerts to see when and where Ave You is mentioned online. When I signed up over a year ago I would get email alerts a few times a month, and now we are getting alerts daily. It is very exciting and a great email to receive.

Tom Polanski: Do you have any thoughts about the best way to build a solid, enduring brand? 

Brian Esposito: If at all possible stick to what you believe in.  Unfortunately timing is everything and money is very important, but if you believe strongly in something and have the patience, backing, and passion you can create something truly special. 

Tom Polanski: To what do you attribute Ave You’s remarkable success? 

Brian Esposito: There are so many pieces that had to come together for the success of Avenue You & AveYou.com. Picking the right industry, name, and sourcing out the correct products are all crucial, however taking care of the people that chose you is even more crucial. I attribute the customers for our remarkable success. They have given us the opportunity and continue to do so. There are so many competitors in our markets and to be in same space as Sephora & Beauty.com and to be successful in that area tells us something amazing.  We have created a brand and backed it up with some of the best customer service in the industry, and friendliest shipping policy. We do everything currently possible to get customers to choose us, and then we do yet again everything currently possible to keep that customer returning. If you are reading this, thank you very much AveYou.com shoppers. 

Tom Polanski: What’s future hold for Ave You? Are you rolling out anything new you’d like to talk about?

Brian Esposito: Besides always looking for the next big item, we have secured exclusive rights to be the United States distributor of LM Naturals products from Australia. The line is amazing and naturally reduces stretch marks from mothers or expecting mothers. They also make an amazing nipple cream.  We are currently building out www.lmnaturalsusa.com which will be a community for mothers or expecting mothers to share photos, stories, and find great resources. This is a new venture for us, and we hope to build out a large community of women based around the LM Naturals line of products and the strength/values of family.

Tom Polanski: In closing, do you have any advice you’d like to share with folks just starting out with an e-commerce site?

Brian Esposito: (smile) Be careful. It is not as easy as it looks and do not get discouraged. Whether you are launching an online store, opening a physical store, or starting a services business, unless it is a brand new industry, you will be stepping on someone else’s’ toes. Whether intentional or not, someone is going to be upset.  If you have a vision, or a family to support, do not veer away from your goals or dreams. Don’t listen to people telling you that you can’t. Do what I did; for every person or company that tried to bring me down, I worked 100X harder. It came to a point where I wanted and needed people telling me I was going to fail. It made me work harder and smarter to create that thing they everyone said would not be possible, www.aveyou.com. Check it out, it’s there, and it’s alive. I proved something to the most important person in my life, my dad.  When aveyou.com launched my dad did not understand what I was doing and feared what I may do to the company and brand. I could not let him, my family, or myself down. I stuck to my vision and my dad is now my biggest fan and a great supporter of the online beauty store. 

Tom Polanski: (smile) Brian, thank you, I really enjoyed our conversation today. I hope that we added value to those who took the time to read this interview.

Brian Esposito: Thank you Tom, you truly are a wonderful person. I respect your deep understanding of online marketing and I know the future will be very bright for you.

Tom Polanski: Visit www.aveyou.com for all of your beauty needs. You’ll find a sensational selection of products at great prices.