Since mailing its first catalog in April 1993, Middlebury, VT-based Beau Ties Ltd. has grown from a retirement years diversion into a $2 million a year business.
The company produces about 1,100 bow ties per week in a 6,000 square foot facility, which also produces scarves, cravats, pocket squares, cummerbunds and vests. Silk is imported from Great Britain, Italy and the Orient.
Creative is handled in-house, and the catalog mails nine times per year. Beau Ties has 30 employees, six who are part time.
The Web currently accounts for about 40% of sales, said co-owners Bill Kenerson and Deb Venman, the married couple who founded the business. In a presentation to the New England Mail Order Association's spring conference in Cambridge, MA last Friday, the duo entertained attendees with the story of how the company began.
Bow tie wearers are a minority, said Kenerson. He wears them because his grandfather did, and has noticed many men have similar reasons for donning the neckwear.
Venman, an attorney, joked that her husband "sweet talked" her into the business, saying it would be a nice diversion in their twilight years. He didn't let on that he realized all along this had the potential to become a major enterprise.
After hiring a marketing consultant to evaluate the potential of the business, the couple had to start from scratch. They found an alterations business in Middlebury with several sewers on staff who could be trained to make the ties, purchased fabric in New York's garment district, and dropped their first one-sheet mailing, offering eight designs. Initial fulfillment was handled by a textbook distributor who ran the operation out of a closet.
"We had the sense not to quit our day jobs," said Venman, a fact which made sure there was always cash flow in the early years.
For several years, the business – which began with an office off the couple's bedroom – gradually took over the couple's house, taking up more and more rooms for storage and operations. In 1999, the company moved into its current headquarters.
For a time, Beau Ties expanded into gloves, scarves and other items for men. The company didn't lose money on the additions, but didn't earn enough to make he added complexity to the business worth it. Custom styled shirts, introduced in 1999, have been better fit for the catalog's product line.
The company does not rent names for prospecting, nor does it make its own file available for rental. Kenerson noted Beau Ties has found that many of its customers don't buy any other items by catalog. They're only making the leap into direct because they can't find bow ties at retail.
Prospecting is done through ads in The New Yorker, Smithsonian magazine and Ivy League alumni magazines.
And Beau Ties isn't discriminating against those who prefer long – a.k.a. "four-in-hand" – ties. A line of bow and "4H" ties bearing the logos of baseball teams was introduced last fall. Based on the success of those ties, the spring catalog slated to drop around April 1 will be the first to offer long ties in numerous fabrics.
