Sharon Price John has led Build-A-Bear to new heights—and her journey to the C-suite started serving people burgers at a Fortune 500 fast-food chain. 

How Build-A-Bear’s CEO engineered a multi-million dollar turnaround

Sharon Price John is the CEO of Build-A-Bear.

Features

Build-A-Bear's CEO helped bring the brand to new heights—Sharon Price John and her journey to the C-suite started as a teenager working at a local McDonald’s.

How Build-A-Bear’s CEO engineered a multi-million dollar turnaround


There's a lesson in there about how beneficial it is sometimes to not know your odds. When you don't know that your odds are ridiculously impossible, you believe in the possibility and with that very belief, you actually tip your odds in your own favor. Sometimes I You know, you have to look at the facts of the matter, but don't let facts overtake your dream. Somebody out there is going to get it done. Why not you? Hello, I'm Sharon Price John, the president and CEO of Build A Bear Workshop, and this is my secret to success. I grew up in a small town in Tennessee south of Nashville, about 7000 people. My dad worked for South Central Bell, AT&T, and then he eventually worked. NASA. He was in communications there at NASA, and my mom was a church secretary. I worked at McDonald's. I worked at a florist in my hometown. In college, I had some, you know, summer jobs as well as waitressing and random jobs like you do in a small town. I went to undergrad at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. My first professional job was in a big furniture store as the head of marketing and merchandizing. I was Reporting to the president of this company, and it was a fascinating experience. So that was really fun and I then went to an ad agency in Knoxville after that at the University of Tennessee, the ad club had already been to New York during my senior year, and we visited some of the top 10 agencies, and I definitely wanted to go back and I put together a crazy plan that I was going to use my one week. Vacation, fly to Manhattan, set up all of these interviews. I had this vision that I could get a job at a top 10 ad agency in one week. This was my goal, and I set up 15 interviews, 3 per day in Manhattan. I thought that should be fine. I ended up with a 16th interview on that Friday, and they said, Well, we love you, you know, we. I think this is great. We'd like you to join our training program. We'll get back to you. And I'm like, why can't we just, why can't you just offer me the job right now? And she literally offered me the job right at that moment, and I got my job in a top 10 New York advertising agent, global agency in one week. So from the New York ad agency, I ended up working at another major agency where a gentleman on my on the client side, he recommended that I get my MBA and he. Talked me into applying to Columbia and it took a lot for me to convince myself that was a possible dream. I got in on the last of the last round and off I go to Columbia for my master's in business. I didn't want to do what most MBAs from Columbia do, which is venture capitalism or private equity or investment banking or management consulting, so I sought out brands and businesses that were really inspiring and. Special to me and so I initiated the interview and the opportunity with 5 different companies, one of which was Mattel, mostly because I loved Barbie. I did get the job at Mattel, but not without a few tries. I ran Barbie Fashions, which was awesome. Mattel was a fabulous experience, learned so much about brand, brand management, brand building, the toy industry. I also had gotten married in the meantime. And was about to have my first child. And so I left Mattel and my husband and I moved to Chicago and then went to work at VTech Toys. Then I ended up starting my own entrepreneurial company by buying another fashion doll. It was the number one selling fashion doll was in 1970s. My next large company was Hasbro. From Hasbro, I went to Stride Ri Children's Group. I was recruited there to be the president of the division of to turn around the retail. Business. It's a children's footwear company, and I had not had any experience doing that, but we turned that around, returned the company to profitability on both the wholesale and the retail side that in so many ways made me a pretty viable candidate for the CEO of Build A Bear because the founder, Maxine Clark was ready to retire at that point. I understood the toy industry, the sourcing industry, everything along those lines. It was a difficult turnaround. There was financially. Struggling, the company had lost $49 million the year before I got there. They had been working very hard to return the company to profitability after eight years of contraction by getting back to what they had done when they were so successful, but the world had changed in 2008, 2009, 2010 leading up to me coming in in 2013, and there really wasn't a going back. And I think that when I got there there was also A lot of fear that I would somehow sort of theoretically rip the heart out of a company that was full of so much heart to return to success. And so this was an interesting type of turnaround where I had to be extremely respectful as well as I should be as what had been accomplished and assure the organization that I believed that we could be successful while keeping the heart and the culture of build a bear and we laid out a strategy. that was about monetizing the extraordinary equity that was in this brand. The company literally had built something that started as a vertical retailer in malls for kids that almost didn't realize what a powerful emotional memorable experience, particularly that heart ceremony was, and that all of that equity was still just packed in this brand and I wanted to pivot the organization. And it start with the return to profitability before we started growing the revenue line which took multiple areas and bringing in new leadership, new organizational structure, a new IT infrastructure across the organization to be able to do this. We popped out with a great team and a great strategy, not just thriving but surviving, and we're now. I've had 3 years of record setting results. I think that I am most proud of the fact that the heart of Build A Bear still beats and that we have both believed and proven that you can be a company that adds a little more heart to life and be successful, and I think that the associates at Build A Bear were as surprised maybe the investment community, but there was a lot of you can't be an e-commerce company because you You're an experiential retailer. You can't, you, you'll never be able to appeal to an older consumer. Um, you know, this is a fad that, you know, build a bear is not, there's there's no place for build a bear in today's world. Malls are dying. Um, it's just pretty remarkable how many, uh, how many hurdles can get thrown in your way, and you have to hold fast to your vision and get a team that believes and. Um, and, and, and kind of plowing through that with, with good results is very satisfying.