Today, we speak with Jimmy Zollo, co-founder of Joe & Bella, a clothing brand that meets the specialized needs of older adults through high-quality, fashionable, and easy-to-wear clothes. Through innovative solutions and compelling brand storytelling, Jim’s company found its place in the crowded clothing industry.
Jimmy reveals how he identified the market gap, refined his product idea, and created an authentic relationship with the target audience of older adults and their influential loved ones. He also discusses the strategies that propelled Joe & Bella to success, including having a mission-driven approach to recruitment and how this helped his brand grow. Tune in for insights on building a purpose-driven brand and fostering meaningful customer connections through authentic marketing, customer service, and brand stories.
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
Insights on connecting with your target audience and building a lasting brand identity with storytelling.
Tips for driving business growth by building strong relationships with customers and understanding their unique challenges.
Strategies for launching and growing a new product line in a competitive market.
Insights on finding and recruiting the best talent for your startup.
And so much more!
You can listen to the full interview on your desktop or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
Are you looking for high-quality, stylish clothing uniquely designed for older adults? Check out Joe & Bella’s award-winning adaptive collection at www.joeandbella.com today.
To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today!
Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands that now total over $2 billion in revenues? Set up a free consultation with us today!
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
Your marketing content is at least as important as your actual product or service. Today's guest shares some really novel ways he has developed impactful content and how he has learned to shape the written word to speak powerfully to his audience.
Announcer [00:00:15]:
Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest Growth podcast, John LaClare.
Jon LaClare [00:00:35]:
Welcome back to the show. I'm excited to have Jimmy Zollo. He's the founder of Joeandbella.com. on the show he's going to talk about exactly what his business is. It's really cool what he's developed and how he's helping people really that were left without a lot of choices in terms of apparel. So we're going to talk about some problems he has solved with his business and in turn how he's been able to grow his business very quickly after. It's a pretty new business. So I'm really excited to dive into this interview.
Jon LaClare [00:01:01]:
Jimmy, welcome to the show today.
Jimmy Zollo [00:01:04]:
Thanks for having me. It's great to meet you.
Jon LaClare [00:01:07]:
I may say that a couple times, the Joe and Bella, I have to start off by asking, so where does the Joe and Bella name, obviously your name as the founder is Jimmy. Where does the Joe and Bella name come from?
Jimmy Zollo [00:01:15]:
Yeah, so a lot of people assume that's my grandparents. It's not. So the story there is back in 2012, we had to make the decision to move my grandparents into an assisted living memory care community. It's the type of experience that I think a lot of folks go through where it is. You question everything, is this the right place? Is this the right time? Are they going to have the type of care that they need? Are they going to have friends? And I think a lot of folks similar to us end up delaying that decision and hope that, hey, maybe my loved ones can stay at their home longer. And in our case, we push that decision out where it just wasn't safe anymore, to the point where my grandmother had fallen one too many times at home and the fire department had to come out a couple times despite 24/7 in home care. And we had to make the move last minute. It was so last minute that it was actually Christmas Eve.
Jimmy Zollo [00:02:10]:
And by the time we had moved my grandmother all the way in, it was a skeleton crew at the care community. And we're getting a tour and it's at 08:00, 09:00 at night. And I think we were moping around. As we're getting a tour, two residents of this memory care community jump in line with us, and they slowly start taking over the tour. And they were having fun with us, and they were joking with us, and they invited us sit down and hang out with them, and that was Joe and Bella. And they ended up becoming a major part of our lives. They came to Mother's Day and Father's Day and every holiday that you could think of, and they were widowed holocaust survivors who had met later on in life. And we decided to name the company after them for the reason of that moment in that when someone now comes to our website, they're often coming there because they just found out their loved one has Parkinson's.
Jimmy Zollo [00:03:06]:
They just found out that their loved ones is moving into a memory care community. So we want to give people that same feeling of sort of relief that Joe and Bella gave to us.
Jon LaClare [00:03:18]:
It's a great story. So I dropped my father off. He's now passed away, but we put him into a memory care facility a couple of years ago. For the last couple years of his life, he had dementia. And like you said, it was so relieving when we showed up, I remember this was a relatively small facility, I think 25 beds or something like that. But there were a couple of people that just came up to him and showed him love, and it felt like home, and it was so relieving for us. And I love that that was the connection to your business, that emotional connection, and I think it kind of connects to now what you are doing for people that use your apparel. Can you talk a bit about, so what are the apparel items with Joe and Bella? What do they do, and how do you help people?
Jimmy Zollo [00:03:59]:
So we make what's known as adaptive apparel. Adaptive apparel just means clothes that are altered in any way that makes dressing faster and easier. And we tend to take that several steps forward. We specifically design our clothes for older adult bodies, and we follow what we call internally the four fs, which stands for fabric, fit, function, and fashion. So internally, when we introduce a shirt or a pair of pants or socks, you name it, we have to check those four boxes. And right now, we have shirts and pants and socks and cardigans coming out and sweaters coming out. But to walk through what that looks like for one of our specific products, our best selling product is a men's button down. So we start with the fabric.
Jimmy Zollo [00:04:43]:
We always start fabric first. And so the fabric has to be premium, so it has to be durable, so it has to hold up to an industrial wash. It has to hold up to stains and water and spills and smells, so it's antimicrobial, and it also has some stretch and some give to it. From there, we work on the fit, and we specifically design it for an older adult body. In this case, that means we do something that's known as dropping the shoulder. And we also enlarge the armhole. So that process of reaching someone's arm back into our sleeve is far easier. And we also enlarge the cuff as well to make guiding that fist through the sleeve is a little bit easier.
Jimmy Zollo [00:05:19]:
Then for the function, we do things like we line the cuff with elastic. We align the back shoulders with elastic. So again, getting your arm through the cuff, getting your arm through the sleeve is just a little bit easier, and you almost have this snap back effect. And last, for the function, which is most important, we add magnets. We hide them behind the buttons themselves, all to empower the wearer to dress independently with one hand. So someone who had a stroke, someone has Parkinson's, someone who has changes in dexterity is able, with one hand, to put on a button down in about a second. It's a really beautiful thing to see, and that's the type of process that we go through for each of our products that we brought to market so far.
Jon LaClare [00:06:02]:
And I love how you talked about everything starts with the fabric first, but really also the need. Designs have very specific needs that are, you're addressing what people are going through in their lives, struggles that they have. How did you find all this out? I don't believe you had an experience previous to this in elder care, et cetera, to my knowledge. So how did you find out exactly what are the needs that need to be addressed?
Jimmy Zollo [00:06:25]:
So we fell into this. I think a lot of folks during the pandemic had similar experiences. So at the time, I'm a grandmother, was still living in a memory care community just outside Chicago, and the only way to communicate with her was through Facetiming. Through Facetiming. One of the caregivers there, we had tried going outside her window and waving to her. We had tried just about everything else, but that's what worked best. And during the pandemic, you get what you get, and you didn't get upset. And we were grateful to be able to communicate in any way that worked and in an interesting way.
Jimmy Zollo [00:07:00]:
This new way of communication gave us a lens into her life that we otherwise would have never have seen. So one of the days I facetimed my grandmother and a caregiver was helping her to put on a sweater, and as her arm was being contorted back into her sleeve, she dropped an f bomb. Didn't know she knew that word, but the pain she felt from just having to put her arm back a little bit was excruciating and unnecessary. And I remember calling the nurse afterwards, and the nurse said, hey, this happens every single time your grandmother gets dressed. This happens every single time your grandmother goes to the bathroom. And by the way, she's about average for us as far as how hard it is and how long it takes, how stressful of a process that is. So I figured there had to be some solutions out there. And I found a couple brands online that promised to make dressing easier and ordered a few of their items, sent them to my grandmother, and when they got there, she refused to put anything out because she said the clothes weren't too ugly.
Jimmy Zollo [00:07:56]:
So that was really the genesis for us as to, hey, there is a massive problem here. There are not adequate solutions for this audience. And why not us? Since then, to really make sure we're thoughtful about the design and where these product ideas come from, we formed three separate qualitative interview panels. One of them is amongst end users. So folks that are living with some sort of physical or cognitive change, who would be wearing our clothes. The second is amongst the family members who maybe help dress an individual living with those changes. And the final one is professional caregivers within memory care community settings. And so we'll come up with an ideas, bring it to these groups, have them tear it apart.
Jimmy Zollo [00:08:42]:
Then we'll redesign, rethink, reimagine, and come back with new solutions until all three of those different demographic groups will check off on our solutions. And it's a pretty long process to get a product to market, because our audience is who they are and they have been so deeply neglected when it comes to fashion and apparel. It's imperative that we take our time, do it the right way, and only release products that we are incredibly proud of that we know can make the lives of older adults far easier.
Jon LaClare [00:09:13]:
I think I told you last time we talked, but I really wish we had found your business. Frankly, I don't think it existed yet. It's relatively new. When my father started to go through his struggles, because several years ago, he was at home with my mom, and they live 10 hours away from us, and they have other family nearby. Luckily, that can sort of help. But my mom was really having to help dress and go through these things when my dad was starting to have dementia. And physically it was hard for both of them. As you mentioned with your grandma, it's the pain sometimes of like, your shoulder going back, but it's also the caregiver that it can be a difficult process to do that with regular clothing.
Jon LaClare [00:09:47]:
Right. So what they used to wear, and like you said, we looked at some options, but they just were ugly before. So I love that you've not only solved the problem, but made it stylistic and in marketing as well. I think you mentioned to me previously that as you looked at some of the competition that's out there, it looks like they, I think you worded it, they shot their videos or they took their photos back in the eighties and never changed it. And never changed their styles too. Right?
Jimmy Zollo [00:10:13]:
Right. That's exactly right. It's one thing to create functional apparel that solves a problem. It's another thing if people actually want to wear it and actually want to buy it and feel proud about what they're wearing. I think far too often when we are creating products for a specific group of people or services for a specific group of people, marketing ends up becoming a way to other that demographic group as opposed to speak to them aspirationally or speak to that audience universally. And so, man, the first time we had to go and do a photo shoot, I remember we had our first product to market. We had inventory on the way, we had samples ready to photoshoot, and we needed some older adults, and I had free studio space out in LA, and we had ended up calling just about every single modeling agency you could find. And I'd say, hey, this is who I'm looking for.
Jimmy Zollo [00:11:11]:
This is who our products are serving. How can you help? And we would get pictures back and videos back of really muscular 30 year olds running on the beach and things along those lines, just not even close to what we wanted. So after several failed attempts at photo shoots, I actually partnered with a care community here locally in downtown Chicago, and we hosted a fashion show for them. And twelve of their residents, average age was 88, participated. Half of them used wheelchairs and half of them used walkers. And it ended up being just this unbelievable, empowering, aspirational event where their families came, folks from the community came. And now what you see on our site are not models, but types of people who would actually wear our clothes. And instead of coming off as something out of the 1980s, I think it ends up coming as something that's far more authentic and aspirational.
Jimmy Zollo [00:12:09]:
And look, I think we still have a really long way to go because it was just one community in a very specific part of Chicago, and we want to be fully representative of who our products can help. So we have a long way to go, but that's where we want to be, is showing our products being worn by a wide group of people who would actually benefit from them.
Jon LaClare [00:12:34]:
I love that solution, and I encourage our audience to think about how something like that could apply to their business, where sometimes in the early stage of a business, it may be phenomenal financial constraints. In your case, it was constraints of finding the right talent, which is difficult to find. Good elderly talent that want to be in pictures, et cetera. But to get real people that are interested, especially when you're providing a product that solves a problem for them. They're excited to be there. And I love how you talked about how you celebrated them. They feel special because they are not just to their own family, but to others, too, and sharing their personalities, their imagery as well. Great solution.
Jon LaClare [00:13:11]:
And I think it's something that outside of the elderly space, I want to encourage our audience, but don't think about ideas as you're coming up with your own content, for videos, for imagery, whatever it might be, for social media, for your ad campaigns, for your website, imagery as well, to use real people in certain ways, not for everything, but the more you can do that, the more real it feels because it is right. And I think it's a great solution. Great suggestion that you came up with, and you can see the difference. I encourage our audience, go check out Joe and Bella to see some of this imagery and learn more about these products.
Jimmy Zollo [00:13:48]:
It was important that, yeah, it was two things. It was really important that when you looked at our site, our ads, our magazine, whatever it is, compared to everyone else, that we felt different, that the aspiration felt different, the emotion felt different and felt real. And we still have a long way to go, but I think that was a step in the right direction. I remember before the fashion show, a night before, I got a phone call from the community we were partnering with and said, hey, one of the residents here is getting cold feet. And so I went there to go speak with her, and she said, hey, why are you guys doing this? Are you coming here to make fun of us? I said, what do you mean? She goes, well, why would you want me to be the model? That's a moment that has always stuck with me in that. Here's a woman who, by the way, ended up participating, was a star for us. Absolute star. She was beautiful, she was amazing.
Jimmy Zollo [00:14:42]:
But she could just not understand why a clothing brand would want an older adult to be their model. And I think that shows how much farther we have to go and how much more work we have to do in order to truly represent our audience in the way that they deserve.
Jon LaClare [00:15:02]:
Agreed. And that representation or that type of content is so important. You can do the best job in the world coming up with a line of products that are perfect for your audience as you've done. But if you don't have content that matches it, that tells that story, that helps people to experience and really understand what the product is and how it helps them, then it's not going to sell, right? There's two parts to every equation. The product is key, but the messaging is so important to get that across, and you've got a great example of how you've done it. Every business is going to be different on how they accomplish that, but finding that real content that conveys perfectly what your product is, how it helps, how it makes people feel better, what problems it's solving along the way that's so important. This is a relatively new business. How old is the business? How long ago did you found it?
Jimmy Zollo [00:15:47]:
Two years.
Jon LaClare [00:15:50]:
In the early days. In our previous conversation, you talked about building a team. And that is so important. Especially this is a complex business. Working the apparel industry in general is very tough, and the space for older adults is potentially even harder for reasons. We talked about finding talent and things like that, and it's just a little bit out of the quote unquote norm. But there's some challenges along the way, and it's important to have a team to help overcome some of those challenges. And one of the ones that you ran into, I know, is finding good people and bringing them on board, convincing them to work with you pre revenue.
Jon LaClare [00:16:22]:
So having people buy into what's the future, what you're going to build with this business. Can you talk a bit about how did you overcome that challenge?
Jimmy Zollo [00:16:30]:
It wasn't easy. That still today is maybe one of the hardest things that we have to do is making sure we're building the right team. I'm a strong believer we will only be as successful as the quality of the people that we're able to bring on board and back this mission. Fortunately, I think what has worked for us is that we are so strong in our conviction about what we're doing and who we're doing it for and have that central mission that resonates with other people, that allows us to punch above our weight class when it comes to hiring. When it comes to finding partners and advisors and mentors, you name it, we like to say that everyone has a Joe or Bella in their life, whether that is a parent or a grandparent, or friend or neighbor, you name it. But everybody knows someone who has gone through a physical change or an age related change that has just altered the life in a meaningful way. And because of that resonance, I think we've been able to be fortunate in the talent we brought in. So, for example, we brought in an unbelievable designer.
Jimmy Zollo [00:17:30]:
Her name's Kara Sumpton. She's up in Vancouver, and I was aggressively recruiting her. So she was early on at Lululemon, and then she designed the launch line for the revolutionary nursing scrub brand, Figgs, who eventually had gone public and really transformed how nurses and doctors dress on a day to day basis. And I loved the combination of that background of nursing scrubs, which is this functional attire, and I Lululemon, which is classic, comfortable, everyday attire. And Karen did not want to work with us at first. And I remember she was probably going to tell us no. In the day before, she was going to say no. It was her grandmother's birthday, and she bought the grandmother something that the grandmother couldn't wear.
Jimmy Zollo [00:18:12]:
And had it not been for that moment and that connection, I don't know if we would have been fortunate enough to get Kara. She would probably say it was because we pursued her pretty aggressively and really believed in her. I. But she just fell in love with the mission. The other side of it is, my first hire was a woman named Taylor Thone. And Taylor at the time, was working as a nurse at a memory care community. And I brought Taylor on initially just to do customer service, but now Taylor is really managing ops for us. And the lesson there for us is, I strongly believe in finding people who are passionate about the mission and the business and the idea of helping the type of people that we are trying to help, and then having them find this right seed on your team as you grow.
Jimmy Zollo [00:19:04]:
And Taylor's been able to evolve, and she helps with our fashion shows now and our photo shoots. She helps with international logistics. She negotiates with warehouses, you name it. She's kind of doing it now. And she had no background in any of this. But I think at early stage, startups, finding someone who is passionate trumps a lot of other hard skills that might be necessary.
Jon LaClare [00:19:28]:
I think part of that you mentioned this, it comes down to the vision. If you obviously have a vision for this company, what it was going to be and now what it is becoming. But in the early days, you got to convince people to share that vision. And whether they, as you mentioned, have the perfect experience or whether they just have the passion, that passion can drive so much, but it comes from shared vision. Right. So once they understand your vision for what the business truly can become, they become a partner. They become a part of this organization looking to grow with you.
Jimmy Zollo [00:19:57]:
That's right. Early stage businesses, it's about problem solving. At the end of the day, there are no right answers. Early on, there are a lot of wrong answers, but there's no exact right answer. So you want a team who isn't going to be too upset when they get things wrong, and they're going to keep pushing, and they're going to keep pushing until they figure something out. And that's who Taylor was. That's who Kara is. And we've just been fortunate to find people that are natural early stage startup folks because it makes a difference.
Jon LaClare [00:20:28]:
Absolutely. You and I previously talked also about another challenge you face, which is how do you do your marketing? How do you talk to your audience in a way that's not going to offend them? So there are words and phrases and things you need to be careful on where, you know, we may like, elderly is one word I think you mentioned. You can talk about some others where. How do we talk about them in a way that is accepting to them or celebrating them. Right. In a positive way, as opposed to something coming from somebody who might not be currently elderly. We'll all get there someday, God willing. Right.
Jon LaClare [00:20:58]:
But, you know, how do we word those things? So what are some of the word challenges you've run into, and how do you overcome them? Or how do you shape your marketing to make sure you communicate in a very positive way?
Jimmy Zollo [00:21:07]:
My goodness, there are so many. So the first thing is we need to make sure that we are treating our audience with every level of respect that they deserve and in no ways can be discriminatory. And for our audience, there's a lot of language out there that is outdated, that is still prevalent. And we actually found a professor who talks about inclusive language, who guided with us and consulted with us and helped teach us what, what to say and what not to say. So we don't use the word elderly. We talk about older adults. We don't talk about someone that is suffering with Parkinson's or suffering with dementia. We talk about someone who's living with Parkinson's and living with dementia.
Jimmy Zollo [00:21:49]:
We don't talk about someone who is confined or constrained to a wheelchair. We talk about someone who uses a wheelchair, and I think those subtle changes make a big difference. And I think one of the challenges is, hey, that actually hurts us from an SEO perspective because a lot of those common phrases are common for a reason, even if they are maybe politically incorrect. So I think we need to be clever about how we work around that and how we think about that. But the last thing that we want to do is make our audience feel othered. And I remember a call I was having with an advisor, and I was talking about, hey, I don't like the word adaptive apparel, which has essentially become the moniker of the overall space. And I don't think people know what adaptive apparel even is. And I said, what else should we call it? It should be accessible clothing or easy on clothing or trying to come up with a fun, trademarkable way to describe the clothes.
Jimmy Zollo [00:22:51]:
And he goes to me and goes, you should call them close. That was a big insight for me, is, oh, that's right, these are close. We can show how they're easier. We can show how they're better. But no, they're close. And the less we try to, I guess, other than pigeonhole them, the more receptive a broader audience will be to giving them a shot.
Jon LaClare [00:23:17]:
That's great advice. I like to think of messaging as, imagine you're speaking one on one tiere consumer, customer, client, whatever it might be. It's so tempting to, you know, we sit behind a camera if we're doing a video like this, for example, right? And we're talking to the masses all at once. It's, you forget that there are individuals that are watching, listening, or seeing our website or whatever it might be. If we can put ourselves in the position of speaking to, rather than, like, I wouldn't call my mom elderly to her face. Right? Like, you think about it, I don't think it is offensive before having this conversation, but I get it now. Like, to her, I would talk about her being an older adult or whatever. Like, just little words.
Jon LaClare [00:23:55]:
Not that she'd get offended necessarily, but it's just a, you know, how would you use words that as you're talking to a friend? I've got a good friend that lives with Parkinson's, right. So I wouldn't talk to him about suffering from Parkinson's. And, you know, just the phraseology, it makes it a little bit easier. Again, whether it's in this space where inherently there are some sort of tricky words or phrases to use or really any business, as we're thinking about our customers think about talking to them one on one, and that can make all the difference in how we communicate in a powerful way. Right. In a connecting way that really connects the brand, the company, to the ultimate buyer at the end. Is there any resource that comes to mind that has been helpful in your journey? A book or a website or something that's been helpful to you?
Jimmy Zollo [00:24:38]:
Yeah, I mean, I'm constantly on Reddit looking at the latest, hey, what's the latest SEO trend? What's the latest Shopify trend? You name it. But from a book perspective, one that really sticks out is the learning curve by Alan Gannett. Alan early, founder of an ad agency out in New York. He's now an early stage investor VC called Sweet Spot Capital. Really, really interesting book about how to be creative with early stage businesses. And I think a lot of that applies to our marketing strategy. So one that I love and go back to all the time, I'll have.
Jon LaClare [00:25:19]:
To check that one out. I've heard of it. I have not read it. So on your recommendation, I'll go down that and check it out. Download it and check it out. Well, Jimmy, is there anything I didn't ask that you think would be helpful for our audience?
Jimmy Zollo [00:25:29]:
I don't think so, but thank you for having me. For anyone who's listening, if you have a loved one who would just benefit from clothes that are a little bit easier to put on, or frankly, if you want clothes that are a little bit easier to put on because I wear a button downs anytime I have to put on a button down, definitely check us out@joambella.com. give us a shot because we would love to help.
Jon LaClare [00:25:51]:
Yeah, please do so to our audience. Check out the website joandbella.com dot. If you're driving, it's in the show notes. You can always check it out anytime on our podcast notes or on YouTube. So to check out those links. They are attractive clothes, right? So as you said, it's not just adaptive, they happen to be adaptive, helpful, however you want to say it. But it's clothing. And they are very stylistic, so.
Jon LaClare [00:26:12]:
Or stylish. Right. So these are great clothes. You've done a great job with the business. Thank you. Thank you so much today for sharing your story with our team, with our audience.
Jimmy Zollo [00:26:19]:
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Jon LaClare [00:26:21]:
Did you know you can meet with a member of my team absolutely free for a 30 minutes strategy consultation. We've launched and grown hundreds of products since 2007 and learned some of our strategies while growing oxiclean back in the Billy Mays days. We're here to help. So please go to harvestgrowth.com and set up a call if you'd like to discuss further.
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