continued. . . 

It’s one thing to write orders; it’s an entirely other thing to deliver them. The plucky Phillips was nothing if not enterprising; she grabbed a small business loan and persuaded the local Goodwill Industries to produce her candle boxes. Goodwill – whose workforce is comprised of the disabled – proved an ideal manufacturing partner. “I had an instant workforce of people, some legally blind, others learning disabled, others with physical disabilities,” says Phillips, “and I taught them how to make the candle box. It was really a perfect product for them, simple to explain and easy to assemble.” Remarkably, Goodwill handled Phillips entire production that year and beyond. Primitives by Kathy took off enormously as Phillips paved her way into new categories, propelling her from the basement to a warehouse where Goodwill workers produced the growing portfolio. “You can’t run with the same product forever,” Phillips said in an early interview, although she sure did pay the mortgage with that money-making candle box. As the collections curried favor with retailers after moves into stationery, seasonal, and garden, Phillips ingested the sobering lesson of how quickly her designs were knocked off. “I fought so hard to stay ahead of everyone else but at every new trade show I’d see we were copied,” Phillips expresses. “My market was constantly being stolen at half the price.”

Still business doubled year to year. By the fifth year, the company had 20 folks on its payroll as well as the services of Goodwill. “The first five years were a breeze,” Phillips relays. “We built the brand and had many loyal customers. I was pleasantly surprised at how everything we put out was so well received.” The marketing believer branded Primitives by Kathy from the start, burnishing logos on everything ensuring the company name was continually front and center. “We told our story in mailers, in shipments, in catalogs, at trade shows,” she says. “We told about our partnership with Goodwill which helped people feel good about our company.” In fact, Phillips shares proudly, “We still don’t have a marketing team. I’m it.” A rhapsodizing six-page article in Millionaire Blueprints magazine gushed about her success as did numerous other press reports.

Something was bound to give.

Between marketing, running day-to-day operations, and designing the entire line with wordsmith Schickel (she of the tin affirmations among many other successful collections), a cohort from the start, Primitives by Kathy was growing too big for its britches. By 2002, Phillips was prepared to consider outsourcing. “Annie and I were racking our brains developing product which was wonderful but exhausting,” Phillips shares. “There were a few times when I just couldn’t figure out another thing to do with the material and it was getting disheartening being knocked off after every show.” Phillips was in self-professed crisis mode. “It was getting hard making affordable things,” she snivels. But sustained by the mantra – Build on what you know and learn what you don’t – the businesswoman was ready for a crash course on outsourcing.
Phillips was an eager acolyte. “I had to figure the business out,” she says. The executive jetted to Canton to walk the fair and hook up with folks who could produce her goods at much more attractive price points. “What a learning curve that was,” she exclaims. The experience was fraught with trauma and poor partnerings including one factory shipment that was filled with creepy crawly critters. “We had to fumigate the warehouse after that one,” she sighs. It took a year to iron out the kinks, Phillips continues, but she did. The company now works with 40 overseas factories (almost all production is outsourced), has grown to 60 stateside employees operating out of an 80,000-square-foot operation center and warehouse, and business has doubled since shifting production to foreign shores. Primitives by Kathy is growing at a 17% clip and Phillips maintains there’s still substantial room to grow, particularly as she targets new industries, like tabletop.

As chief cook and bottle washer, Phillips likes the control and the frenetic work pace. (She probably gets that from her dad, a former tool and die guy who taught his daughter a thing or two about tinkering as well as instilling a robust work ethic.) Phillips makes all overseas trips, continues to spearhead design, is visible at most of the company’s trade shows, and runs day-to-day operations. “I’m learning to share responsibility,” Phillips professes, although it’s clear that’s not an easy thing. “But the more I share, the more I can focus on the things I want and need to do. My time is split wearing so many different hats and I’d really like to focus on product development which has always been my first love. My goal is to get more good people involved so I can get back to just focusing on the next great product.”

continued . . . .