Meet Juli Lassow, Founder of JHL Solutions – a consultancy dedicated to helping build phenomenal private-label partnerships.
From working with mass retailers to coaching aspiring consultants, Juli is passionate about sharing the lessons she has learned to motivate and guide the retail industry boldly into the future. Apart from being a retail professional, she is also a speaker, writer and aspiring planet saver.
From a young age, Juli was expected to help out her father which meant everything from filing invoices, to cleaning up workspaces, to tearing down walls (literally). She cheerfully remembers,
“My father has always owned his own business and working together as a family unit helped me understand the value of creating your future and the commitment needed to make that future a reality.”
After 17 long years in corporate America, Juli transitioned to business ownership. She states, “I was blessed with fantastic skills and experiences from my time there, but I needed to learn how to translate those skills into ways to truly serve my clients and add value to their teams and customers. Well, the real challenge comes from having no one way, no one path to choose in how to do this. While there is a great deal of information available to you, you need to chart your approach and build your momentum to create the business that most resonates with you and the impact that you want to have.”
Initially, Juli needed to learn how to translate the skills and experience that she spent more than a decade building in the corporate role into meaningful services. “I thought that starting a consultancy was the simplest form of business creation after setting up a lemonade stand on the corner of my block. However, my journey in my business involved strategy development, as well as basic skill-building. And advice from mentors. Lots and lots of advice!”, she recalls.
Currently, in the retail space, Juli is committed to supporting retailers and brands as they expand their instinctive definitions of responsibility. She wants these brands not only to be more responsible for the people who help create and sell their products but also accountable for the resources being used to make and transport their products.
Working with an aim to be more committed to the well-being of those that buy products and services of such brands, Juli believes, “Commitments to socially responsible sourced goods, the circular economy, and fair team member benefits go a long way towards bringing this vision to life. I believe this process is mostly about creating more value for everyone. It’s not about retailers getting the ‘most’ from their suppliers or providing just the bare minimum to their customers. Instead, I focus on finding expanded value for all. ”
Talking about her current organization, Juli further states “JHL Solution is committed to transforming how you bring private label products to the market with sustainable strategies. My specific expertise and role (and professional passion) are connecting the dots between retailers, suppliers, and the strategies they need to bring must-have private-label products to market.”
On a note about the most challenging times in her professional journey, Juli added “I have always faced difficulty when I wasn’t confident that I knew the next right step to take. Sometimes this was when I was building a new skill – and I simply didn’t know what made sense to do next or the best resource to consult to learn more. In that moment of question, the doubts were most likely to creep in: Why did I launch my own business? Or should I think about getting another job? Well, luckily, I was able to pause and regroup.”
Over the years, Juli has learned that in such scenarios it is always good to take a little time away for perspective. Well, not to say that you will always get it ‘right’ or even that there is a ‘right’ answer, however, it will help you find a way to make progress and resources that you could rely on. To truly live the life of an entrepreneur, Juli needed to find a way to build back the momentum she needed and this approach always helped her out.
When asked about what keeps you going and moving, Juli says “Customer success always keeps me going. Knowing that I am able to secure financial benefits for my clients or helping the teams that I am working with build a new set of skills that allows them to continue to create and drive value within their organizations makes me the happiest. Well, what could be a better feeling than to know that I have left a team with the resources to deliver value, that is, the work I’ve done will provide benefits long after I have wrapped up that initial project?”
Juli Lassow has an important message for all budding entrepreneurs. Her truly inspiring words are, “Know that there is no ‘right way’ to build your business. And your business is never ‘done’ being built. You own both the vision of what you want your business to be and the commitment that will bring that vision into the reality of the moment. And then you can change it. Again. And again.”