How Did George Zimmer Succeed In Counterattacking Jobs?

George Zimmer (George Zimmer),

Founder of Men's Wearhouse and TV advertising spokesperson.

He started from a shop and went to the helm of a clothing listed company.

Three years ago, he was suddenly sacked by his own company. Now he has made a comeback, set foot in technology ventures, and acquired the original company.

The dark grey on his body.

From the new Generation Tux (acting dress), a family line

Rental agencies.

Although Zimmer's new life looks moist, he also suffers from the loss of the old company.

2 years after he handed over the post of CEO to his successor, Doug Yoult, the company sacked him for a long time.

After fighting for his recall and former board of directors, Zimmer founded 2 companies that compete with men's clothing companies.

Generation Tux and zTailors (Z represent Zimmer's English name) are essentially Uber called the tailor to the home.

Zimmer now has hundreds of employees and $30 million in funding.

Zimmer is 67 years old now. He said his new company will completely change people's purchase.

The way.

In addition to the identity of an entrepreneur, Zimmer is an advertising spokesperson. He has seen him on TV almost every day for decades. His famous advertisement "you will like your clothes, I promise."

Start from scratch

In 1973, the first men's clothing company opened its shop in Houston. The money came from Zimmer's own $7000, his father's 30 thousand dollar loan and the help of a college student.

In the next 10 years, Zimmer began to open a store around that city every year and expanded to San Francisco in the early 80s.

It's a natural choice for him.

His father worked in a discount clothing store, and then founded a raincoat company called Royalad Apparel (Royalad clothing).

Zimmer is his father.

The store grew up.

During his college years, he realized that being an entrepreneur can continue to foster his independent character and have a respectable career.

Zimmer started the Create Company.

In the mid 80s, he decided to break the cycle of traditional retail prices and continuous discounts, and set up a daily low price.

In 1992, there were 100 stores.

Listing and growing at fifty or sixty stores a year.

This is not a traditional listed company: Zimmer's management team includes his brother, the father of the raincoat company, and some old friends.

Stiefel, an analyst at the 20 years of men's clothing company, Richard Jeff (Richard Jaffe), said Zimmer was "lucky and smart," but said that the success of the company benefited less from Zimmer's management concept, and more importantly, he changed the weathervane of the mainstream of menswear retailing with Stifel.

Through investigation, Zimmer found that, compared with independent large stores, department stores

Shops earn more money per square meter, so men's clothing companies take the opportunity to earn more convenient and cheaper locations, get more stock at lower prices, and provide on-site tailoring services.

Every year, the company will hold a formal holiday party in the country, and Zimmer will occasionally join in to become a famous BOSS in the dance floor.

But in fact, he worked hard, forced to make major decisions, and had a hard time of borrowing.

In 1999, Zimmer's suit business was booming, and a staff member suggested entering.

The rental industry is a field with no national benchmark.

Zimmer thinks this is what new customers need to dance at parties and weddings.

The men's clothing company's stores have spread all over the country, and each shop has tailors, so the dress part only adds a little extra expense.

By 2013, Zimmer said that the company had invested $more than 400 million in rent for a dress, and its gross profit reached 80% - 15-20% of retail income, which he estimated was close to 50% of retail profits.

At that time, the seeds of the problem were quietly buried.

"Former" storm

In 1995, Doug Yoult joined the company from Macy 's.

Company.

He was originally a scarf buyer, and Zimmer cultivated him to replace his post all these years.

In 2011, CEO became an active executive director, but Zimmer began to create friction.

When Zimmer was fired, the purchase of uniforms in 1/5 came from America.

Company.

At first, the board of directors did not publicly dismiss Zimmer. Later, it was claimed that Zimmer had made no difference in the situation: Zimmer deliberately obstructed the parliament from passing the bill, and also seized the power he gave to the successor of CEO.

The board of directors seemed to be wise for a while.

Since Zimmer was sacked in the middle of 2015, the company's share price has nearly doubled to $65.

But after that, the share price dived to more than ten dollars, and so far it is still in the doldrums.

although

The performance is not bad, and the Wall Street Forecast Ltd may be heading for bankruptcy.

A recent Barclays analyst said the company could not invest.

A few months after Zimmer was fired,

At a price that is generally considered to be too high - 1 billion 800 million, it bought the rival Jos. A. Bank, Zimmer, who was opposed to the takeover.

For Zimmer, this is the best time to be proud of himself, but it is almost impossible for him to move forward.

Geoff, an analyst at Stiefel, said Zimmer had a "founder's regret" - a state that tortured the founders of control and made them try to recontrol the company.

In fact, Zimmer has been negotiating with Chris Hemet (continuous entrepreneurs and investors), lawyers, public relations and private assets to buy men's clothes.

"The combination of what I created in the past few years and what I created 40 years ago will become a great new model business company," he said. "But obviously the existing board and executive team need to be replaced."

Zimmer is now studying technology, but he is not a technocrat: we need to learn to think carefully and then let the brain do calculations.

In enterprises, this method is turned into values rather than purely economic orientation.

Comeback: Dress dealer + tailor Uber

Like other young start-ups, the offices of zTailors and Generation Tux occupy the original department stores in the Oakland center, and Uber is also building new headquarters here.

On the new year's Day 2014, Zimmer and his friend, Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce, a famous CRM software service provider in Hawaii, took a vacation at the beach in Hawaii.

Benioff initially advised Zimmer not to go back to business after being fired, because support from all sides strongly consolidated his legacy.

Now Zimmer tells him that he wants to create an online dress company, and Benioff thinks it's a great idea.

Then Benioff invested 7 digits, so Generation Tux was born in 2015 at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, though it attracted a lot of media criticism.

A few months later, Zimmer began to establish his new company, and some backbone members to the beneoff family's meeting.

They are involved in scientific and technological proposition, but miss the opportunity to start and lack professional skills to stabilize the status quo.

When Zimmer started planning Generation Tux, he knew that fit was the right thing to do.

The leasing industry has the biggest challenge, so he came up with a solution before he founded the company.

Relying on tailoring in every store to solve this problem, Zimmer created his own online tailoring network platform zTailors, so that Generation Tux ratio.

The company has more geographical advantages and can send tailors to patching on the same day when customers wear formal dresses.

Although the income of Generation Tux has been increasing, it is still rare.

(Inc.) estimated at less than $1 million per month.

Zimmer said he did not plan to consider profitability in at least a year.

The top priority is how to rebuild interpersonal selling tactics to improve the order quantity, for example, let the bride and groom's father, grandfather and best man together to order suits.

stay

The average rental number of a regular dress is 8, and Zimmer says less than 5 pieces in Generation Tux.

Zimmer had thought that zTailors might be a success as a consumer brand because it links the industries that are almost entirely run by husband and wife.

But at the same time, it is more assured as a B2B company.

Macy's provides tailor-made business for its website's products at home, and Zimmer says the company is trying similar ideas with Amazon and J. Crew.

The reason is obvious.

It's not fit.

If the consumer can call a tailor to modify it, the retailers can pick up the order and save the pportation cost.

For zTailors, this is the perfect way to win customers and promote sales, because once tailors are in a consumer's home, other clothes that need to be modified will be taken out of the closet.

"We sent a tailor to sew the hem of a pair of trousers. He may bring 9 or 12 clothes."

Hemet said.

He is now the CFO of the two companies.

Separate and consistent

However, when Zimmer and Hemet focused their attention on their consumers, men's clothing continued to haunt them.

Although it is customary for tailors to work freely for other retailers,

It is forbidden for a tailor to work part-time in Zimmer's company.

Zimmer relied on the good guys in men's costumes before, and set up a 600 person tailoring group that has begun to take shape.

About 150 tailors were lost.

Then a paction between Generation Tux and Macy's provided the online dress rental and passed the legal review through the shopping shed in the mall.

Ultimately, this business will point to men's clothing.

The war is not over yet.

The stock market crashed, and the tailor of the company rediscovered zTailors for fear of layoffs.

"So I decided that we should start hiring tailors for men's clothing."

Zimmer said.

Hemet thought he knew why Zimmer was right.

So persistent, "this is an opportunity to go all the way and create a lot of shareholder value and then laugh to the last chance," he said. "But Zimmer is sad for those who are behind him. He wants to go back to help them and make the company full of vitality."

But others believe that this is just a retaliatory act.

Zimmer once tried to keep himself away from the idea of buying men's clothing, but now he has figured it out.

He reduced the budget of other ideas, and he had to complete a 3 billion deal.

"I don't know if I can do that," Zimmer said.