i miss tom petty.
I’ve always fancied myself an early adopter. I started a business Instagram before I even had a personal back in 2012, started adding in e-comm to my brick and mortar business pre-pandemic, and I started learning and utilizing AI tools at the beginning of last year. This isn’t intended to be a flex - I think it more speaks to how my energy likes to work. For better or worse, I like to make my own assumptions and opinions about things before other people start telling me how to think or how best to fit them into my life. I was listening to a Richard Rohr + Brene Brown podcast recently and I loved how she described his book, Falling Upward, as a tool for exploration over explanation. I like to explore things before I am explained things. But being an early adopter means you can can always be the first to the not as fun sides as well - burnout - seeing the cracks start to form under the surface, etc.
I came across an excellent article last week on how brands should start preparing for “The Great Exhaustion of 2026.” 2026??? I am exhausted NOW. I don’t know if it’s because I spend much more of my social media time on Substack these days where there is no shortage of very talented writers expressing their lamentations on the state of being consumers, or if it’s getting older, but when I get on short form social sites these days everything just feels so loud. And that’s coming from someone who can not just tolerate loud, but can thrive in it. I can pop open my computer in a busy coffee shop or airport and get fully into the zone regardless of what is going on around me. But now it seems like every online post is a hot take on “here are 3 reasons this of the moment face serum / supplement / magic bean du jour are actually causing you imminent death” followed by a #linkinbio to a 15% off code for a competing brand of whatever life-altering commodity is being peddled… I find myself going slightly cross-eyed. We have seen enough of these things to know what the ulterior motive is and yet these tactics not only remain but seem to be getting somehow more prevalent. Can you please sell things to us like grown ups?
I have always tried to be very mindful in the language with my clothing company, Amor, that we stray away from any lack messaging “you HAVE to have this” etc. etc. We don’t try to be an aspirational company, there are far enough of those. We try to meet our customers where they are by knowing what they are doing and providing practical and yet still fun options for those everyday events. We want our customers to feel seen in the collections we provide and how we display it. I was on a call last week with a company to help us collect better data on our users who are on our website. I was telling the rep that I just don’t know why it needs to all be a secret. Can’t I just have a pop up that says straightforwardly “Hey! Click here if you are ok with us keeping track of what you browse and cart and like so we can send you more things catered to you in the future! It’s only for use by our 2 person web team to make sure our constantly updating inventory featuring so many small business brands gets to the people who are the best fit for them.” Why does it have to be so ambiguous and weird??? Why do we have to call it cookies??? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY POP UPS ON WEBSITES??? It all just feels so unnecessary and makes me feel tired. We just want to do right by people and make shopping easier for not only the customer but my team as well. Surely that is something with all the tools available to us in 2024 can still be achieved.
These were the thoughts swimming through my mind last week on a quick trip down to Florida with my friend Courteney. Court is one of those people that pop into your life like they have been there all along. That’s one of my favorite surprises life can spring on you. She’s been the sounding board to all my ramblings on what I want the next extension of my career to be, which has been profoundly fluid and confusing to explain, but she hangs in there with me while I wax poetic about wanting to create meaningful, long-lasting change in small businesses. How there is this huge new crop of entrepreneurs that aren’t corporate but also aren’t hobbi-ests that need resources to help them grow meaningfully just as much as the VC backed megaliths of our day. I am SO proud of what we have accomplished at Amor over the past 10 years, and that pride is not solely defined by our sales numbers. In a small town in Louisiana we have built a tiny oasis of creativity and community. My most valued career milestones marked there have been not of what Linkedin bios are made of. The ones I treasured most are when Mamie took over the store without me having to ask when I was deep in postpartum depression and truly wouldn’t have bat an eye if someone told me it burned down - I’ve never felt that level of support work wise in my life. When we never missed a single paycheck in the pandemic, when I was able to offer maternity leave, when we offered benefits, when I was able to poach two of my favorite people from their “regular” jobs to come back to us at Amor. My list could go on and on with these gems. I cannot tell you the days or even months we hit the next iteration of million in sales - we did them and they afforded us to do the above, but they were just a vehicle to create more resources and opportunities. I want more businesses to feel those moments of pride that last way longer than a viral social moment or a really good sales day (even though I really love those too.) I love talking to businesses about the tools I use and implementing time saving systems but I want to ensure they are a part of a bigger story, not just a flash in the pan. And that’s where my current path gets murky - how do you really instill long term value? What can we do to actually leave legacies we can be proud of in work done in 2024?
So, back to Florida.
The first stop on this trip was to Courteney’s former colleague and friend’s home who is currently manages the merchandising (I am probably butchering that title - apologies, Erin!) for the Tom Petty Estate. I am a HUGE Tom Petty fan. The soundtrack to my first car and foray into freedom that came with driving was set to TP and the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits album. To me, Tom is the epitome of that certain variety of “easy cool” that you can’t really define, but you know it when you see it and hear it. I was captivated by the creativity and authenticity the Tom Petty Team puts into keeping his brand alive via album rereleases, extremely intentional merch collections, and fan engagement. As she explained, the fan base is still very active and is growing thanks to new covers like the Petty Country that was just released - so taking over the licensing from the record label was a huge factor in ensuring everything that is reaching new TP fans is representative of him. The strategy behind every social media post is so thought out - you are connecting people to someone who has passed, and there is a delicate balance of speaking in a brand voice without sounding like you are speaking as that person. That level of intention onto every micro-interaction with a company speaks to my heart. I have always been a stickler that every encounter someone has with my company are of equal importance… be it our UPS driver, brand rep, or VIP customer. Seeing how the TP team knows how wide the fan base is and makes sure they do their very best to keep them connected and supported was a level of community building and maintenance that blew me away.
The next evening was spent with a dynamic group of women from many walks of life. An artist from the area, Junior Sandler, had reached out to Court over instagram about the potential of creating a collection for lifestyle brand, Pax Supply Co., with Junior’s work. After Courteney spoke with Junior’s sister, Pat, who manages her business, she felt that I would connect with the sister and bond on our parallels of managing a sisters art career on top of another career and invited me to join them in their meeting. After a lovely afternoon persuing through Junior’s sunshiny body of work, listening to stories of Pat and Juniors mother’s art collection and acquisition treasure hunts, we set out for dinner. We swapped stories and ideas and lamented about the issues plaguing us today. But the magic was we weren’t just sharing our annoyances with the state of the world like some many modern conservations get stuck in. We also spoke about the people and work that was inspiring us, what we think we can achieve in the not so distant future to course correct, and laughed about things like how extra terrestrials have been studied more than the female anatomy. When the valet popped over to our table to let us know he had pulled our cars around, we knew it was the subtle nudge it was time to go. I was sad to leave this magical space of strangers and go back into the “real world.” One with to do lists and conversations centered on daily life.
As one does, I spent the flight home stalking Pat and her company she founded 40 years ago. Her lovely daughter Brooke joined us for dinner and spoke about growing up admiring her mother’s career with the same energy as I do with mine. “She’s truly a powerhouse and it was so amazing to grow up experiencing that,” Brooke shared. I found this interview with Pat talking about the history of her company and how she carved out an amazing people focused business before that was even a thing. I took pages of notes and listened to it again on the drive home. I had never heard someone actually accomplish the kinds of things I only day dream about - integrating work and personal life in a meaningful way, showing up for your team, giving back to your community with not just dollars, but also time. If you know me personally, you know I am not scared of shoving my foot in the doors of rooms with people I admire. I sent Pat a note saying how she in such a short amount of time she had broken a 4 minute mile for me. To hear about how she did things her way and thought about the way it affected people in every step of the way and is still involved and holding true to her ideals 40 years later is the kind of fuel you can’t find on the internet. Even if nothing else comes from our meeting, which I hope it does, it already changed my world view permanently for the better. And in this season of intentional flux, that’s the kind of win I can’t get enough of.
Contemplating what I found so profound about learning deeper on the inter-workings of these two legacy companies, I think it was seeing firsthand that staying true to yourself and doing right by people every step of the way even if it’s not the fastest, most convenient route can equal long term success. You don’t have to be one or the other. For me that is what a true matriarchal society (more on that soon) should look like. One that takes into consideration the greater good of the collective, not one that is constantly reactive and everyone in it for themselves. My hope for the collective exhaustion is that we see we are stronger together. We can be in teams and communities and bring our ideals with us. We don’t have to be one woman shows. We don’t have to sneak in ads for our #linkinbios on the backs of other brands. To be honest, now that I have gotten to the end of this letter I am struggling with how to wrap this all up- my energy mix of being equal parts exhausted and annoyed by what we are settling for as “good enough” in the world right now on so many levels paired with being hopeful this season will spark legacy making creativity. I guess, to sum it up- I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted, we are exhausted, but how can we be exhausted in things that will actually ROI in the long term instead of keeping us on an endless reactivity loop?
I would love to know what legacies mean to you? What people/companies inspired you and break your 4 minute mile? Right now we don’t know what’s coming around the bend but I do know the more we can identify what fuels us up now the better we will be then.
Warmly (literally and figuratively),
Victoria
P.S. If the marketing exhaustion topic spoke to you, I highly recommend - her Substacks make me laugh and internally cry at the same time. She’s one I jump to read every letter she sends out these days.
“You have a new subscriber on Substack” is one of my very favorite things to see in my inbox these days, so if you would like to subscribe to my work for free, I would be overjoyed to occupy space in your inbox :)
Links Mentioned Above:
Richard Rohr + Brene Brown Podcast
