The Dress Code with Tess Mann

Join Kosta and his guest: Tess Mann, Owner of Couture by Tess Bridal and Designer of Tess Mann Haute Couture.

In this episode: Your achievements as a designer, and bridal stylist would take most of us a lifetime to accomplish. But I find one of the most intriguing parts of your story is that you spent an entire career in Federal Law Enforcement before pursuing fashion. How did you transition from the FBI to couture bridal designer?  In this social media era it feels like shopping and buying the dress is almost as important as wearing the dress. What sets your store apart? You have a unique perspective on business, because most of your clients will only shop with you one time. Online you’ve cultivated thousands of followers and hundreds of perfect reviews, but what’s the real secret to building a customer base and community when your customers likely will only purchase with you one time?

Find out more about Tess Mann and Couture by Tess Bridal:
 https://couturebytessbridal.com/

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

This episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is made possible by our partners at Aspire Barber and Beauty Academy.

Find out more about Aspire Barber and Beauty Academy:
https://aspirebarberandbeauty.com/

Transcript

Kosta Yepifantsev: 0:03

When I started college I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. Maybe that’s why it took me 14 years to graduate. Getting an education is what you make it and that’s a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way. Today’s episode is presented by our partners at Aspire Barber and Beauty Academy, an Aveda Concept School providing a one-of-a-kind education experience to aspiring barbers and beauty professionals. With over 52 years of real-world experience, Aspire instructors are equipped with the hands-on knowledge to help you become the stylist you’re meant to be.

Tess Mann: 0:43

Many times family members bridesmaids maid of honor sisters will forget this is not their wedding. It's not about what you like, it's about what the bride liked. And we found you know, in the past brides have been in tears because you know, some says Well, I wouldn't wear that dress, it's ugly, you know, or you know, I can't believe you want to wear that kind of dress or grandma would be I want to really see you in a ball gown kind of thing. So we try to limit it so the bride has control over what she wants to wear.

Morgan Franklin: 1:17

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 1:36

Hey, y'all, it's Kosta today I'm here with my guest, Tess Mann, owner of couture by Tess Bridal and designer of Tess Mann Haute Couture. Tess, your achievements as a designer and bridal stylists would take most of us a lifetime to accomplish. But I find one of the most intriguing parts of your story is that you spent an entire career in federal law enforcement before pursuing fashion. How did you transition from the FBI to couture bridal designer?

Tess Mann: 2:07

Well, I like to say I can make a long story short. But I had always been interested in fashion design, even as a young child. And I know some people have heard this story before, but I came from a struggling you know, financially struggling family in our youth. So back in the 60s, you know, we had such things as five and dime stores, there were more thrift shops. And you always receive Tammy downs from you know, different neighborhood families, if they had a lot of daughters, you know, children outgrow their clothing so quickly. So we would take the Hami downs, my mother and I, we pull them apart and redesign them and make them more fun, more fashionable, kind of more suited to my personality. Back then I didn't know you couldn't mix polka dots with stripes. You know what I'd have all these like weird, you know, funky, quirky clothing. But you know, still a lot of fun, a lot of bonding with my mom. And as you know, I grew up and I wanted to pursue my education. I knew that necessarily fashion design wasn't the area I wanted to go because you still have to have money to even attend a fashion school. And you always had to move somewhere, whether it be in New York or Milan or Paris, you had to be sponsored by somebody to get involved even interning under a fashion designer. But my passion was in another area. But that's kind of how I transitioned Once I retired, I had kept that interest in fashion the entire time, I would make some of my own suits and evening gowns. If I was going out to different nonprofit organizations or charity fundraisers, I would create some of my own clothing and evening gowns. And then as I was getting closer to retirement, I'm very much a workaholic and kind of OCD. And if my husband let me I'd probably be working 20 hours a day and sleeping very little. So I said to my husband, I said I need to be able to do something once I retire, I will go crazy. You know the FBI, you're mandatorily retired at 57. Okay, I didn't know that. Yes, because with the special agent position, well, at least during my time, they may have you know, extended the age now. But it's a physically strenuous occupation, you have to be continually physically fit to be an FBI agent. And at the age of 57, the thought as you know, your body's kind of shot. And having gone through that myself at the age of 57. I was like I can't wait to retire. By the time you know, you go through whatever you have two different surgeries or knee injuries, you know, people over the years. So five years out, I told my husband I want to have a plan. And so I discussed with him getting back into fashion designing and so that's what we did. And we focused on bridal because I felt when I looked at the bridal into straight. It was the same dresses over and over again, same silhouette, same designs, no uniqueness at the time when I was looking at some of the dresses, at least for me. So I wanted to create bridal wear that was a little to the left of what the industry standard was. So I wanted to have more architectural appeal and be more like some of the high fashion designers through hockey Chure, where it's a wearable piece of art. I love that. That's what my goal was as a fashion designer and as a bridal designer,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:35

And it seems like when it comes to bridal gowns, you know, you don't wear them out every single day. And so to create that type of, and I'm going to try to use the word properly here, haute couture.

Tess Mann: 5:46

Pretty good.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:47

Okay. All right. To create that type of element, it probably is easiest to create it using a bridal gown, because it's just a special occasion and very rarely warm. But I want to ask you about the FBI. And we're going to talk a lot about your about your company and how it distinguishes from other companies and how you've had so much success. But I got to ask, were you a field agent? Or did you work like at a desk? Or did you do both? Like, what was your experience at the FBI like?

Tess Mann: 6:19

Well, people think about the FBI, they forget there's so many different professional support positions will come there. There's CPAs law enforcement, human resources, people that are not weapon carrying law enforcement officers. I was a special agent. So a special agent is a weapon carrying law enforcement officer that investigates violations in which the government is the victim. Oh, wow. Now, secondary to that there will be portions of the public that are also included as victims as well. But the traditional FBI is that we looked at, you know, bank fraud that involved federally insured institutions, kidnappings, if they occurred across state lines, health care fraud, that was government funded Medicare, Medicare, we worked in conjunction with TBI, or at times later on, towards the end of my career, Homeland Security, CIA. So there were different things that we had to be responsible for as agents. So a lot of what we did could be investigation out in the field. But then the follow up work, the interviews, what we call the three Oh, twos, which are the investigative interviews, you had to be able to type all those reports because at some point in time, you had to present these to the United States Attorney's Office for you know, a prosecutor report.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:46

So it was financial crimes, essentially?

Tess Mann: 7:49

Alot of it was financial crimes. But then as the FBI evolved, a lot of it became human trafficking investigation. So we expanded maybe around mid 2005 2006, a lot of things that occurred after 911, where there was more human victims, you know, the FBI realized they had, you know, they have to change as well as some of the other federal agencies realized that they had to change and work more in collaboration to make it a safer world for everybody. Yeah, safer local economy to and safety and interest in the security of people.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:26

Did you meet a lot of bad guys?

Tess Mann: 8:28

And yeah, over 20 years, you know, I'm in a job where I'm not wearing handcuffs, and people are happy to see me. So I'm not seeing turn around.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:39

Yeah, exactly. And the only reason that I'm pulling on this thread is I watch that show mine Hunter on Netflix, and we talked a little bit briefly about that about how FBI agents have kind of developed a profile for what would be considered a serial killer, or just somebody that is a bad person. You know, that's kind of their department. You know, they're the the subject matter experts on it. Do you ever see a commonality when you arrest people and you, you know, convict people and indict people? Like, do you ever see a commonality as to why they do the things that they do? Like, is there a common personality trait, a common occurrence, a common crime? Is it a lot of just misunderstandings, and I'm just curious from your perspective?

Tess Mann: 9:26

Well, you know, from my perspective, and my experience, it can be a variety of things. But you know, the first thing is, at times, it's an easy way to make money, rather than having to struggle through life. If they find something that works, and they think they can get away with it. They're going to try to do that. It's the same as being a small child in a candy store. If no one sees you, you're gonna steal that piece of licorice, right? And if you get away with it, you're going to try it again. Right. So you know, to some respects it you know, it could be that and then the second thing What I see with my background and this is how I evaluate and how I think in my head with a background in psychology and an old term psychopathology. I see people who are what we call true sociopaths, not psychopath, sociopath, a sociopath is an individual who feels the rules of society do not pertain to them. Wow. So it's kind of like the narcissistic egotistical where, you know, this is how I want to do things. I don't care how it affects other people. I want it and again, like a child, give it to me, I want it now. It's mine. And, you know, that's what you see. And then as I said before, there's a variety of other reasons why people commit crimes.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 10:44

Is that the norm or the anomaly? Do you think that there are a lot of sociopaths out there? Do you think that that's just a small fraction of our population?

Tess Mann: 10:51

You know, I think that's probably a little more than a small fraction, but it's not like the majority. And I was like, serial killers at any one time. There's more than 1500 and, you know, around. Yeah, I mean, it

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:06

No way 1500 serial killers, that's the average. Like, that's the statistic?

Tess Mann: 11:11

Yeah! At any one time, you know, around the world. And, you know, bear with me more now. But again, I'm going by old information that I had when I was studying psychopathology. Alright, so

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:22

let's talk about couture by tests. While you're based in Cookeville, you're one of the premier bridal studio serving Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga in all of Tennessee. What did you see in this studio location that made it the perfect fit? Well,

Tess Mann: 11:39

it was twofold. One my husband's family is from the Cookeville area. So nice sense for us to want to come back here to live. And at the same time, when we were looking originally of maybe having an affiliate or a studio in Nashville, we thought you know, Nashville is so overpopulated right now with bridal shops. I think when I first opened, there might have been 18 bridal shops. I don't think there is many Now in Nashville, but we just felt it was oversaturated. And then we also felt that Cookeville really needed a bridal boutique and Attilio. A, an area that focused only on the bride, or the mother of the bride, not bridesmaids, not prom, not pageant, but a unique place where they could find if they chose, you know Parisian and Italian inspired evening where are Bridal Gowns versus what they were traditionally finding.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 12:42

What year was this? When you decided open the shop, we opened our shop here in

Tess Mann: 12:46

2019. Okay, and it's located is over on West Broad Street, 31 West Broad Street, we're right across the street from seven senses and next door

Kosta Yepifantsev: 12:56

to the blue pig. Nice. So I run past your shop all the time, every morning. And I'm wondering, what's the reception been like? I mean, I know that the West broad area is probably like a great area to start a business and all the business owners are very inclusive and they work together and all that stuff. So I mean, is that been your experience as well? Yes.

Tess Mann: 13:19

You know, we really do try in our busy lifestyles, you know, especially if we're doing something with local people. Last year, we did the chocolate hunt with Jamie's sweets and then the glass tangerine. We had some photo shoots and then we also had some giveaways. So we would give flowers from the glass tangerine to our bride. So we tried to do different things. And we would also have champagne socials meet and greets were wedding professionals could come to the boutique as well as brides and everybody would get to mix and mingle. So it would give a photographer a nice chance to reach out and maybe get a customer. There's a limousine service florists, bakers, you know, everybody was invited. So there wasn't like only one particular person could come that had a business anybody that wanted to come and have some champagne and hors d'oeuvres could make some money. Nice.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 14:11

So we had Jamie on the show, I think two weeks ago and she made a carrot cake that Morgan didn't get a chance to try it was for the Iowa caucus primary but I ended up eating it last night for the New Hampshire primary. And shout out to Jamie because that was the best cake I've ever had. It was and y'all need to get a carrot cake from Jamie's eaten sweets because it was delicious. I want to ask and then we'll move on. percentage wise how much of your business is local and how much of your business do you have in Nashville and Knoxville and other places like that?

Tess Mann: 14:48

I would have to say we do have a fair amount of brides come from Nashville okay and we will have brighter come from the chat Have a new good Knoxville area as well, that was part of our strategic planning to is that we're about an hour and a half from Nashville and Knoxville. And we're about a little shy of two hours from Chattanooga. So it makes it easy for people to come and see us versus somebody decided we're going to take the four and a half hour drive to Atlanta because we didn't see anything in Nashville. Right? So I probably have to guess it's probably a good 25%

Kosta Yepifantsev: 15:27

It isn't every day, we have the honor to chat with a hot couture design by every day, of course, I mean, ever, what is the process of designing a collection, facilitating production and distributing these gowns look like?

Tess Mann: 15:45

I'm getting a headache, just even thinking about everything I have to do? Well, you know, the first thing is, for me, I start having ideas of what I want to create, like any other illustrator, you have a moment of inspiration to create something. So as you start thinking about the piece of artwork that you want to create, you then are thinking about so what else would complement this particular dress or evening attire or cocktail dress? And as you start thinking about that, and where can this move you then create? What is your collection going to look like? So what is the inspiration behind your collection? So as I start sketching, and drawing, sometimes I'll sketch on a piece of paper because that might be what I have with me. And I'm the kind of person I have to do it right then and there. Or otherwise I lose that creative genius. And I'm like what was like that shark? Yeah, and I've even had to hop up in the middle of the night because I might have had a dream. And then I'll like start sketching real quick as I lose it. If I fall asleep. That's it, it's gone. And for probably a year Listen, come I have that same dream again. So I will sketch on paper, but I also have the iPad. So I have the procreate, which is nice, because I can import the chroma key, which is like your little mannequin that you can start working with so I can sketch on that chroma key. And then when I start hand sketching whether it's embroidery or bead work or patterns, I can send everything to our studio in India, I found a wonderful designer in his own right, who used to work in a upscale London fashion house and started his own business in India where he was from New Delhi. So I can send everything to him. And then we will go back and forth on video call zoom, Google meet whatever we need to do at the time, WhatsApp, and we will go through the creative discussion. You know, are we using silk thread? Or do we want to use cotton thread with this? Are we using dupioni. So we'll talk about beatings and colors and structure and what we're going to do. So once we have in our head what we want this to look like based on my sketches, they will do a rough draft which they call a calico so they'll just use scrap pieces of clothing because you know everything's about sustainability. Well, there's a lot of junk and waste, right? So they'll use scrap materials and create the Calico so we can see the body of the dress, making sure the silhouette is correct is this the dress I designed. And then I will need at some times to get on the video call and drape the material and show them how I want it to hang where it needs to be paint or Roush. And then I go go to India, and then I'll meet them in India in the affiliate, and we'll do the beading or we'll hand make the flowers, or I'll watch to make sure that the laces are being created correctly. Once that's all completed, then the designs will come back to me here in Tennessee. And then they're offered at my shop over on West Broad Street. And then we also present it to other broader shops around the country and internationally as well. We're starting to move International.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 19:11

So when you have a collection, typically the retail price of these items of these dresses, what's the range like it starts from as much as this and it goes to as high as this

Tess Mann: 19:25

the collections that I designed the couture by Tess is a middle of the road price range, the average wedding gown today and part of what we do is education to for the brides and stuff because our economy is really it's a difficult right now. So we have a lot of brides at common they don't want to spend more than $500 on a dress. Is that possible? It's it is if it's from China, if it's you know, like a David's Bridal or something off of Amazon, if it's mass produced that is possible but it's going to be a fairly cheap material construction. But for brides that say, you know, I'm only going to wear it for a day. I really don't care if it falls apart afterward, you know, so be it. Right but the average industry is about $1,800 to$2,700. Okay, the couture by test which is middle of the road our dresses, although still made of silk and hand beading and crystals, our dresses run 2200 to about 3100 for the couture by tests. Now the test man, hotkey chiller is your silk SCHUCHART, your dupioni your Swarovski crystals, I can't even make the dresses for under 2000. That's my cost, right? So they're very extreme, high end luxury items. For the test man, how could short the most expensive dress that we have is all hand beaded, intricate weave pattern Swarovski crystals. The retail on that dress is about 15,000.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 21:06

Nice, nice. Well, I mean, and I don't have a whole lot of experience in the bridal industry. But we did go to California, like a few years back and we didn't get married, like in a wedding. We just got married by way neighbors back when he was doing weddings when we were living in Nashville, and Jessica brings me to Cookeville and she's like, Hey, this guy's gonna marry us. And I'm like, Whoa. Okay. Because I've never seen Wayne before. And you know, when you haven't ever met Wayne in real life, and you see him for the first time, you know, you just gotta you get surprised sometimes. So we got married, and Jessica got her dress from China. And it was beautiful dress and I wore my dad's suit. I've told the story multiple times on the podcast. But we went to California for our 10 year wedding anniversary, which was 2021. And we went to a bridal shop that had a dress for us. And for I'm sorry for Jessica to take pictures in and we went to this like vineyard and took pictures and Morgan took our pictures, it was beautiful. And those dresses were more than that. So you're offering a great values, and

Tess Mann: 22:22

I'm trying to keep it contained, knowing what our economy is for the southeastern bride right. Now, when we start moving into some of the what we call the beast spoke creations, then you're going to be looking at higher end, right, the lash art and collection that I have coming out. Next year, we'll be actually showcasing in Tokyo Oh, wow, in Milan, Paris, New York City, and Vancouver, possibly London as well, those dresses, then you're going to start seeing dresses that are upwards of 18,000 to $25,000.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 23:01

Amazing. So where does this inspiration come from? Like, typically, are you usually asleep? And it kind of like any pop up? Or are you just like walking down the road and something pops into your head or a coffee shop? Where does the inspiration come?

Tess Mann: 23:15

All of the above? It could be sometimes too, I could be looking at even old family pictures and see a dress that my grandmother had worn and say, you know, this could really be interesting with modern tweaks to it. And you know, different fabrics or different sleeves. So sometimes it's it could be anything. Yeah. Or it could be you know, watching a TV show or something. And I'll just kind of go, Hmm, okay, you know what, let me go get my and then I'll, you know, start sketching and or make notes, at least

Kosta Yepifantsev: 23:51

one of the things that I have been kicking around in my head is I also have the I have to do it right now or I won't remember again for another year thing. And just imagine if we could just have like an implant that had a memory chip that like a flash drive, essentially, or a microSD that's implanted in your brain and just records everything that you're thinking so that you can reflect back or at least use some AI to decipher all of your thoughts to say like, okay, that matters that matters. That matters. The rest is like, you know, it's Fantasia but I will say there's some value there. So you and I understand each other very well. Let's talk about the couture buy tests shopping experience for brides in this social media era. It feels like shopping and buying the dress is almost as important as wearing the dress. What sets your store apart. Well, I think

Tess Mann: 24:43

one of the things that's always been important to me is customer service. We heard so many horror stories, especially when I was in Memphis because I started the bridal boutique really out of the second floor of our home in Memphis. Oh wow. So before we retired, and I came here, so I started my business in 2013. I retired in 2019. And we opened the shop here. So a lot of the horror stories I heard from brides was how horribly they were treated or how dis interested the bridal shops were to women who maybe didn't have a really good budget, or women who were over the typical size, 810 Street size that they were kind of just discarded, you know, somebody walked in, and they said, I'm trying to find a dress under $1,000. And somebody would just point say, over there, there's a sales rep not even help them or shops that were more focused on prom. So during prom season, if a bride walked in, the bride would say they didn't even look at me because I wasn't their bread and butter. They had 10 Girls and they're looking for prom dresses, pageants were in full swing, and they felt like this is supposed to be the most important time of my life, and no one wants to help me. So that was something that I took very seriously. And of course, as I said, coming from a financially challenged family myself when I was young, you know, I was just, you know, heart broken with some of the stories that brides taught me about how they retreated. So we really wanted to make sure that when somebody walked into our boutique or made an appointment, whether their budget was three or $400, which we can't always help them or if their budget was$10,000 Every single one of them was treated with open arms with respect everybody, unless they were non drinkers were offered champagne or Mimosa was and it wasn't just when you said Yes to the Dress, the whole group when they came into their private bridal suite, were treated with welcome arms. And that's the other thing about our bridal shop. You're not out in the open with other brides. If you ever look at Kleinfeld Say Yes to the Dress, they're all sitting there on couches, and everybody's not even watching one bride or looking at the bride two tiny little pedestals over so ours each bride has an area about the size of a room here. And my husband built these huge bridal stages where I mean you could fit a whole ball gown on it and there's still room around the stage and she has all her mirrors and they have their own little curtain black curtain area and they just always say it was such a wonderful experience. The other thing that we feel probably lends tremendously to our five star reviews is my consultants don't work off a commission.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 27:46

Oh, that's great!

Tess Mann: 27:47

So, they are earning a living wage. They are not trying to after the second or third dress say to the bride or is this your dress? Are you ready to say yes. Don't you love this? Sounds Good on you in on the psychological and listen liberals of how do you feel in your dress? Yeah, her dress, you know, let her make her own decisions. I think another thing we find too, that helps with the customer services. We only allow three guests for if you know grandma wants to come. And again we spend time educating the bride on the phone. Why it's only this number of guests. Many times family members bridesmaids maid of honor sisters will forget this is not their wedding. It's not about what you like, it's about what the bride likes. And we found you know, in the past brides have been in tears because you know, some says well I wouldn't wear that dress, it's ugly, you know, or you know, I can't believe you want to wear that kind of dress or grandma would be I want to really see you in a ball gown kind of thing. So we try to limit it so that the bride has control over what she wants to wear. And we also keep the guests in the Bridal Salon area their little separate suite. And only the bride comes with us out on the floor and the bride picks her own dresses. We do not have a bunch of dresses in their little salon area that we say okay here based on what you told us over the phone, here's the dresses we want you to try on. We bring them out and have them look at the dresses and then we'll give them a couple of wildcards to try on. Here at Better Together we want to challenge the status quo, create new ideas, and never take“that’s the way we’ve always done things” for an answer. At Aspire Barber and Beauty Academy, their instructors feel the exact same way. The beauty industry is changing every day, and if you’re going to a school that’s only concerned with you passing the state boards, you’ll never make it behind the chair. From the owners of Loxx Salon and Spa, Aspire Barber and Beauty Academy was created to redefine education in the beauty industry and give future

Kosta Yepifantsev: 30:15

Did you learn these things from market stylists, barbers, and beauty professionals the tools they research from experience from talking to other colleagues that actually need to succeed. Schedule your tour today at aspirebarberandbeauty.com. are in the business? Now trial and error? No,

Tess Mann: 30:28

it was just something that I thought was important. If I was abroad, this is how I would want to be treated. And you know, some we tweaked over time. But the big thing that brides feel so comfortable with is if they like several dresses, or if they've already been to two shops during the day, we literally say, because the girls don't work on commission. This is an important decision. This is not an emotional decision. This is a financial decision. This is a contract, you can never return your dress. If you don't like it. You need to go home and think on it. Look at your pictures. Don't look at them tonight. Have fun tonight, tomorrow morning cup coffee, tea, whatever, look at your pictures tomorrow, the dresses will still be here tomorrow morning, giving them the opportunity to step away, take a deep breath, decompress, look at it with a fresh mind, you know fresh eyes the next day. And if they still like those two or three dresses, come back in and try them on again. And let's see if one of them is for you. Or I love shopping. I

Kosta Yepifantsev: 31:34

love that. I want to talk about what fashion and innovation and design means to you at 17. You created your first gowns to compete in the Miss America preliminary competitions and went on to be a finalist for Miss Connecticut. What did this experience teach you about being a designer? And how did this love of fashion propel you into the successful artist we see today?

Tess Mann: 31:58

You know, it's hard because when you're a teenager in a way you want to fit in, but I was always a little strange and quirky anyway, you know, Stripes and polka dots. You know, I had my own sense of fashion, you know, you kind of want to fit in. But I also knew when I was going to the different back then you had to go to boutiques you couldn't go to like different stores to find evening wear. So you had to go to boutique. And as I was looking through the different dresses, I was going this is not me. No, no, no. So I think what helped me was knowing that I was confident enough in my own sense of what I liked and what I didn't like that I could create my own style, still being in line with what was expected, you know, from a pageant dress, but put my own flair and artistic ability into the dresses, you know, and there were times you know, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, I'm still hand beating. You know, one of the dresses I used for the Miss Connecticut actually had almost like the flapper style with beads, you know, hanging all over it, you know the strands, and I always made sure you know that they knew I designed my own evening attire, I designed my own dress. So it gave a little bit even though I had nothing to do with what I was pursuing my education and I still made it known that I was a unique individual and I wasn't somebody who was just going to follow the normal trend.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 33:28

I still find it absolutely fascinating that you wanted to be an FBI agent since nine years old and you have this incredible passion and love for fashion. And you're in the Miss America, you know, preliminary competitions, you're a finalist, you're obviously successful at it. It just seems like the two worlds are just on completely different wavelengths and somehow you've decided to marry the two together. You know, it's absolutely fascinating me.

Tess Mann: 33:57

I think a lot of people have that potential. They just maybe don't have the right direction or mentors in their life mentors in their life. And as I found out later, when I was in the FBI Quantico kept saying, you got a lot of Moxie, you got a lot of Moxie. So I was like What's Moxie? You know what the heck is Moxie yet no clue. But I think you have to have that courage. You have to have that stamina to resist just being part of the crowd and being okay with not everybody has to like what I do, but this is me. This is my artistic expression and I'm happy with it. Somebody likes it too. That's great. If not, that's okay.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 34:37

I mean, there's a lot of creativity in both arenas you know, I mean, at the end of the day, you have to think outside the box as a special agent just like you have to think outside the box as a as a couture wedding dress designers.

Tess Mann: 34:49

Yeah, or red carpet you know, yeah, a lot of red carpet. Okay, we're leaning towards you know, celebrity the Golden Globes.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 34:56

Do you work with celebrities now?

Tess Mann: 34:57

we have a few that I cannot say that I circa approaching so amazing,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 35:03

You have a unique perspective on business because most of your clients will only shop with you one time. Online, you've cultivated 1000s of followers and hundreds of perfect reviews. But what's the real secret to building a customer base and community when your customers likely will only purchase with you that one time?

Tess Mann: 35:23

A lot of it, as I said, is that excellent customer service then becomes a word of mouth. So, you know, once in a while you have somebody who perhaps didn't have the greatest customer service, or just maybe did not click with their bridal consultant. And that will happen. No, it's a real world. You know, we always say at one point, we're gonna get a bad review, hopefully not. But there can always somebody is just having a bad day, right. But I really think with us treating people with respect, that gets out, not putting sales pressure tactics on a bride, the families start talking about it. So she has three people with her, they may still call us back and say, I did not find my dress at a tour by test. But you were by far hands down the best experience I've ever had in my life. I just happen to see a dress some results, it was the right one, it was on sale, whatever. Right. And then another thing that we do too, is we did it for a short while, we also had the bridal referral program. So if a bride found her dress with us, and then one of her friends, she referred them to couture by test bridal. If they also found their dress with us, we would give our bride a little cash. Thank you, Sir, give them a little thank you saying thank you so much for referring this bride to us. So, you know, sometimes that helps, too, because especially as we said in our current economy, that little thank you for bringing another bride to us, you know, she can go out to dinner with her husband or something or your her mom, take RAM out whatever.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 37:09

And what a lot of people don't understand is the changes that we see in our economy. Like, for example, you know, I come from a sales background, a sell car, so I understand what it means like the high pressure sales, and you know, asking all the hot button questions and trying to ask for the sale multiple times and then close. So that's like, that's my jam. Yeah, that's where I grew up, I cut my teeth on. But you can see how everything is changing to remove that interaction. Because people don't like it, they would much rather go to Carvanha and just buy a car instead of talking to a salesman, they would much rather shop online than walking into BestBuy, where they're, you know, getting paid a commission or you've worked at RadioShack, too. So I got paid commission there as well. So I mean, what I'm saying is like, No one enjoys that experience. And so you create an alternative to that experience. And and especially because you've been able to be successful and cultivating an environment that's not commission based, that's not sales based. It's just experience based in sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, but most of the time you win, I think it's going to yield more positive outcomes for your business, not so much necessarily in contributing to just the local economy five years from now, but I think the opportunities that you're going to receive, because you have such a well functioning team, working with those celebrities working with those high profile events. At the end of the day, you've built a great team,

Tess Mann: 38:39

we really have been lucky with the individuals that have come to us for whichever reason looking for a job, and I just immediately felt like they would be a good fit. But our strategic business plan includes Cook, Phil, I mean, that's great. We would love at some point when other bridal shops across the country start to carry our collections in our line, we would love the distribution area to be here in Cookeville nice because that would give more people jobs and it would help the local economy here and help cook they'll grow. That's important to us to be able to provide for other people

Kosta Yepifantsev: 39:22

To piggyback off of that imagine when you have you know this distribution center and all of this success and you're able to just donate some dresses to people that can't afford them in your local community. You know I'm saying in Cookeville a lot of people don't understand that you know, success in business in any kind of business is going to yield those positive outcomes for individuals success in my business means that I can donate hours to families that that need care that can't afford to pay for you know, success in your business as donating the dresses and donate it That's amazing. We've

Tess Mann: 39:58

donated when it was So serenity Thrift, we probably donated 50 wedding dress to Serenity, we gave over 100 dresses to sparkle, baby bridal. And we to various areas we've donated to Knoxville mission, and we've donated some to Goodwill as well. And we did that in Memphis too. We also when we had the formals in Memphis, we donated about 300 prom dresses to the special needs organization for young girls with down syndromes and other disorders, including issues with cognitive ability.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 40:42

So the wedding industry is changing. And like everything post pandemic, we're taking a totally new approach to weddings and wedding culture, how of wedding dresses and the attitudes towards formalwear evolves since 2020?

Tess Mann: 40:57

COVID really changed the way a lot of people shop now. And with many individuals, you know, Tennessee was closed for a month, you know, other areas of the country were closed for four months, six months, eight months, people became very comfortable working from home, or being in their home environment. So in a way, online shopping became a necessity, and later, a luxury, right? So we find that happens a lot in the wedding industry, as we know, brides are shopping online, they don't want to go to a store anymore, they want the convenience of dresses being shipped to them, they try it on, if it doesn't look right, or if it doesn't fit, or they don't like the quality, they just send it back. So we have to really focus on, again, educating a lot of our younger generation on our brides about supporting local business. Because if you don't support local business, you're not supporting your community if you don't support your community, other businesses start dying as well. Right? It is a vicious cycle. And when you're buying so many products overseas made in China, you have businesses going out permanently left and right. Yeah, they're anticipating by 2025, that over 2500, small businesses will cease to exist in the southeast, really just in the southeast, southeast alone. And I you know, I kind of look at these trends, because I want to see what's happening with our economy because it affects all of us. That's it, that's pretty scary.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 42:45

And to your point about businesses that 2500 businesses potentially failing, you know, it's a give and take a business has to make financial decisions like you do, like I do, like Morgan does, like people that run a business that are listening to this podcast do. And one of the things that I've noticed that makes it incredibly difficult is people's lives. Are there 100 miles an hour, they've got a lot going on. And when you say you know, we're paying them a living wage, like a lot of businesses that I encounter are not in the same position that you are and they're not paying a living wage and their inputs, like how much it costs to purchase, things are going up and up and up. And when they look at their employees, or the people that they work with and say hey, listen, I'm gonna need you to step up because we're not just competing against, you know, academies, not just competing against Feitosa and your shop test, bridal is not just competing against David's Bridal, you guys are competing against the world. And America is competing against every other country like China, in India, that's got four times the amount of people in them. And as Americans, there's my PSA among so bought right now, as Americans, whether you're an employee, or you're a manager, or you're a director, or you know, you're just in high school and thinking about what you want to do with your life, you need to get back to that American excellence. You need to be that excellent American individual that built this country into what it is today. And if we don't have that excellence, we can craft these businesses and compete with the world.

Tess Mann: 44:36

As we say it's a vicious cycle, right, you know, everything from materials materials go up, you know, in our couture by test collection, you know, a dress that may have cost me 800 To make now cost me 1100 Right, well, that $300 You know could be used towards you know something else. And you know, we always struggle to because we do pay our consultants a very good wage, but you know, we have to think about it too. Sometimes we're like, Oh my God. But we also know that, you know, we appreciate them, we trust them. We've mentored them, we want them to enjoy their jobs, I want my employees to be able to go to work every day and say, actually, like working here. And that's important, because that also creates loyalty, camaraderie, a stress free environment for your employees and for yourself. Yeah, I don't have to worry about people walking out on me. And then, you know, not being able to provide to the public the service that we've built up for 10 years.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 45:40

So here's the question, and then I'm gonna wrap up. I'm gonna keep pulling on that FBI thread. But were you the best dressed FBI special agent in the history of the program?

Tess Mann: 45:51

Probably pretty close.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 45:56

You know, honestly, when you do the headshot for this episode, you should you should include the headshot from when you were in the FBI.

Tess Mann: 46:03

Gosh, it's so funny, because, you know, everybody was so used to, you know, it was the FBI was Navy and black. And, you know, the women wore pants I worst or I wore skirt suits. I thought about it afterward. And I was like, Man, I really stood out. So at Quantico, they do the class graduation pitch, and they're all in black and navy blue. I had on this deep burgundy suit with satin lapels. And you know, I looked at afterward and I was like, Man, I stood out like a sore thumb. Yeah. And that was me.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 46:35

I love that. So when people saw you coming, whether they work with you, or you were investigating them, they were like, oh, no, they really knew you were coming. You

Tess Mann: 46:44

know, because I didn't look like an agent. At the time, I had chances to do a little bit of undercover and come, you know, cameo appearances in support of other investigations, because no one would ever have recognized me as an FBI agent.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 46:57

I love it. So we always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better when you're together?

Tess Mann: 47:06

Well, I'm sure most people say their significant other. My husband, Joe definitely, definitely makes me a much better person. As I said, my tendency is to be a perfectionist, OCD, workaholic. And he is able to help bring me down several matches. So when my anxiety is really high, and I'm worried about it, because I always worry about where everything's going to be our employees, everything family. There's so many factors in life from one end of the spectrum to the other. And I'm the worrywart. And he's like, take a deep breath, it's not the end of the world calm down. So he definitely is somebody who makes me a better person. We're able to share our ideas, our goals, I'm able to lend support to his different ventures as well. And he's been such a great supporter of not only appreciating my creative ability, but you know, finances as well. So, you know, it's a partnership, you know, that's what it should be.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 48:18

Thank you to our partners at Aspire Barber and Beauty Academy for presenting this episode. Aspire is an Aveda Concept school providing a one-of-a-kind education experience to aspiring barbers and beauty professionals. Created by the owners of Loxx Salon and Spa, Aspire’s instructors bring over 52 years of real-world experience, equipping students with the hands-on knowledge to help you become the stylist you’re meant to be. New classes are now enrolling. Visit aspirebarberandbeauty.com.

Morgan Franklin: 48:52

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post-production, mixing, and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta? Visit us at kostayepifantsev.com. We're better together. We'd like to remind our listeners that the views and opinions expressed during this episode are those of the individual speakers and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of this show its producers or any related entities or advertisers. While our discussions may touch on various topics of interest, please note that the content is intended to inspire thought provoking dialogue and should not be used for a substitute for professional advice. Specifically, nothing heard on this podcast should be construed as financial, legal, medical or any other kind of professional advice. We encourage our listeners to consult with a professional in these areas for guidance tailored to their specific circumstances.