October 15, 2025 • 23 mins
A wish on a tiny plush heart became the spark for one of retail’s most unexpected transformations. In this episode, Sharon Price John, President and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, traces how a brand once seen as “mall-bound” reframed its identity around purpose, turned a tactile ritual into a global IP engine, and built the habits to weather everything from the retail apocalypse to a full pandemic shutdown. The throughline is simple: strategy only works when people believe in it, and belief is earned with clarity, courage, and a mission that travels.
Sharon shares the pivotal meeting where she laid out an honest trajectory—eight years of contraction and a road to bankruptcy—then invited the team to choose: get on the bus or step off, but no backseat driving. That moment unlocked a new model: Build-A-Bear as a brand-led, experience-rich company with vertical retail, e-commerce, entertainment, and licensing as coordinated streams. We unpack how the “heart ceremony” evolved into stories like Glisten and the Merry Mission, why fans return year after year, and how meaning—not margins alone—guided expansion without losing soul.
The conversation also goes inward. Drawing from her book Stories and Heart, Sharon makes a case for rewriting the narratives leaders tell themselves: dismantling perfectionism, flipping negative self-talk, and using setbacks as fuel. The lens widens to the toy industry at large—its role in learning, empathy, and early systems thinking—and the real-world headwinds of tariffs, tight margins, and global interdependence. From $1 a share during COVID to consecutive record years, this episode is a field guide to resilient, purpose-first leadership that audiences can feel.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:11):
Back at the Idea Gen Global Leadership Summit live
here at the NASDAQ.
Well, live here at the NASDAQ,and our next interview is with a
dear friend, a global leader,someone who understands how to
navigate and make a companysuccessful.
(00:31):
Sharon John, CEO of BuilderBear.
You know, Sharon, here we are inNew York City.
Um on the sidelines of Unga.
Uh we've been in Unga together.
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Yes, we have.
SPEAKER_00 (00:54):
And um it's just a moment where you reflect and
think about, you know, 2030.
We were talking about 2030 and2020, and we were talking about
2030, 2015, and here we are now.
And your leadership is moreprofound and important than
ever.
And I stand in awe of that.
Uh you've evolved, Build-A-Bear,from a mall-based real retailer
(01:21):
into a brand with incredibleglobal reach.
You've diversified retailformats, and you've even grown
an e-commerce presence.
Sharon, you are that leader thatwe talk about.
You're that you that globalleader, and I'm so proud of you.
(01:44):
What has been your approach toidentifying the new
opportunities that have expandedBuild-A-Bear's global footprint?
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Well, it might not be exactly what you're
expecting, um, because I thinkthat uh sometimes people think
about uh companies as what isyour product or what is your
service, but you really have toget to the place of what is your
purpose?
And um, Build-A-Bear had a muchbigger purpose than making teddy
(02:12):
bears for kids in malls.
And when we were in a situationwhere we were challenged
significantly from a financialposition, we'd lost$50 million,
we contracted for eight years ina row.
I was asked to come in as a toyand turnaround person to find
the path.
And of course, as a turnaroundperson, you usually have a
(02:32):
playbook, and that playbookoften has something to do with
cost cutting, rationalization ofthe retail footprint, all these
fancy terms to try to like savemoney and uh stabilize the
company, which you have to dowhen you're a publicly traded
company, it's not an option.
But that was not going to movethe organization forward.
In a big company meeting, therewas a lot of stares, and uh,
(02:56):
yeah, no, we're not doing, wedon't get that, that's not gonna
work.
So that's when the hard workbegan about what do we really
stand for?
And there's a lot of, I think,um, some analogies here to what
everything we're talking abouttoday.
And what we had to do in theprocess of finding our purpose
(03:18):
was really think about well,what do we mean?
And at the end of the day, we'rememory makers, we're we're
purveyors of joy, um, we createfurry friends for kids and
adults alike.
Um, we we share through gifting,we share wonderful meaning with
(03:39):
each other.
So that was the impetus for thecreation of the strategy.
The strategy was not going to beabout how can we save money to
survive for no end.
The strategy was going to haveto be about why do we matter?
Is the world a better place withor without Build-A-Bear?
(03:59):
And if you can say with with allyour heart, then you can get
people to move forward.
And the interesting piece, ifyou've never been to
Build-A-Bear, you make a bearand you make a wish on a heart
and you put it inside the teddy.
And that's where we found ourpurpose was right inside that
teddy bear.
It was all about heart.
And we created a missionstatement said we add a little
(04:21):
more heart to life, and we gotto work.
And that mission statement iswhat highlighted the idea of
Build-A-Bear's workshop is aplace, but Build-A-Bear is a
feeling.
And now I'm gonna speak morebusiness-y for a second because
it did end up we were successfuldoing this.
But Build-A-Bear, the company,the feeling, had every right in
(04:47):
the consumer's mind to monetizethat extraordinary equity, not
just in the vertical retail thatwe started in, but across the
globe, in e-commerce, inoutbound licensing, in
entertainment.
And so we pivoted from a littleretailer that happened to build
a brand, accidentally, mind you,250 million hearts ceremonies
(05:11):
later, to a branded intellectualretail, uh, re intellectual
company that just happens tohave vertical retail as one of
its revenue streams.
So that was a massive transitionsidebar.
We've been in the news lately asbeing one of the fastest growing
stocks over the past five years.
SPEAKER_00 (05:30):
So you know, that's not a sidebar.
It's all about leadership.
This is about, this is whatleadership looks like.
That's your leadership definedbecause you're able to solve
problems, you're able to see thevision, you're able to create
the vision.
Isn't that what a leader does?
SPEAKER_01 (05:51):
I cannot take entire credit for that without being
pushed by my organization.
The organ you have to payattention.
Are you touching people'shearts?
I mean, I don't mean to be usingthe heart analogy, but it's
perfect for build-a-bear.
Um in fact, now our missionstatement is to add a little
more heart to life.
But it does not matter.
(06:13):
Is it, you know, people ask thequestion, well, isn't strategy
more about smarts than heart,let's say?
And the truth is it doesn'tmatter how smart you are, it
doesn't matter how brilliantyour strategy is, it doesn't
matter if you're a financial uh,you know, like genius.
Nothing matters if people aren'tgoing to come with you.
SPEAKER_00 (06:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:33):
And if people aren't going to execute.
SPEAKER_00 (06:36):
That's where leadership starts.
SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
That's and that's where you really, I will call
it, grow up as a leader.
SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
Wow.
That's the intersection where itchanges.
Yes.
Wow.
That's an important, that's sucha valuable.
We go through life just thinkingabout what is leadership?
What is, you know, and you'redefining it in a way that I
think is tangible and and reallyuh in a way that can be
implemented.
Because you you have to payattention, right?
Yes.
So those that don't, they're nolonger in business.
SPEAKER_01 (07:04):
It you can say whatever you want on a podium,
but that's not the way businessis done.
Particularly when you're uh, Iwould say a company where you
know we have multiple retailstores, so we're uh
disaggregated, we have peopleall over the world, very, very
difficult to get people tofollow you sometimes when you're
so far apart.
(07:25):
So that strong message has to bestrong enough to reach to 4,000,
5,000, you know, thousands ofpeople and not just those
people, your partners.
And now we're in 32 countries.
So how impactful, think abouthow impactful that has to be to
be passed through multiplepeople and multiple, you know,
(07:48):
um venues to keep that samemission statement at the center.
SPEAKER_00 (07:53):
Now you wrote a book.
I did.
You wrote a book, an incrediblebook.
I want you to actually wrote ittoo.
And you actually wrote it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:00):
Everybody does, mind you.
SPEAKER_00 (08:02):
Another secret.
Another secret.
Not everybody writes their book.
So you wrote the book.
I I want you to talk a bit aboutthe book.
Why write a book?
Why did you write the book?
Why why do you think it'schanging the world and changing
lives and inspiring people?
SPEAKER_01 (08:18):
I I didn't, I I uh I didn't plan on writing a book.
Somebody asked me to do it, butum, it's called Stories and
Heart, and it was intended to uhcapture some of the emotional
hurdles and insights and ahamoments that the things that had
(08:40):
happened to me through mychildhood and career that caused
me to think differently, thatallowed me to have some
monochrome of success at somepoint in my life.
Um, and most of those thingshave to do with you, not the
world, not what somebody did ordidn't do, or this job that did
or didn't happen, or what yougot this promotion or you
(09:02):
didn't.
That it that is a very, verylong arc.
The question really becomes ineach one of those situations,
what's the story you then tellyourself about that situation?
How are you gonna take thatinformation and use it to the
good and spin, and I'm justgonna say, spin a good story.
Here's the truth.
(09:23):
We're all constantly tellingourselves stories.
We're rationalizing things.
It is part of our brains.
We cannot help it.
Um, but the truth of the matteris, there's been a lot of
research about this.
About 60% of what we continue toreinforce in our minds about
what happened in our life, it'snot even true.
(09:46):
Some of it didn't even happen.
So, what I'm asking you to do,and this is what I take people
through about having dreams andgetting over perfectionism and
stopping negative self-talk,these things will change your
life.
But you have to be willing toweave your story in a way that
it's empowering.
If you're making it up anyway,heck, do something that's good
(10:08):
for yourself versus somethingthat's bad.
And that's and it and the thingsthat had happened in my career
helped me to get to that place.
And that that positivereinforcement and that positive
experience is really in someways what Builderbear's all
about, too.
So um it was uh almost um fatein some ways that um it's the
(10:30):
industry of the toy industry,which I'm now the chair of the
toy association, but and thiscompany was perfectly aligned
with uh what I learned tohopefully or what I'm still
becoming.
Right.
Um, and um, but that's all abouta lot of work inside.
SPEAKER_00 (10:49):
Yeah, yeah.
And the fact that you recognizethat goes back to your
leadership style and yourability to uh you know think
through and implement thechanges that have been so
necessary to make Builder Bearso successful.
You've you've launched, you'vegone into entertainment Builder
Bear.
You've gone into entertainmentcontent and other non-retail
(11:11):
initiatives.
How do you decide?
And I think I know the answer,but how do you decide we're
gonna create, you know, thistype of entertainment or we're
gonna, you know, a license, orwe're gonna do X?
How do you make those decisions?
SPEAKER_01 (11:24):
Well, that again is recognizing, and this is um in
pure business sense, what isyour what does your brand really
mean to consumers?
Um and you usually are nottrapped in a preconceived
business model or construct ifyou really break that down.
Um build-a bear means love andhugs and friendship and
(11:47):
memories, and and if you meanthose things, we don't mean
teddy bears and stuffingmachines and leases.
We mean something bigger topeople.
It's truly remarkable to me.
It never ceases to amaze me howbuild-dears are used.
It's and having worked at bothHasbro and Mattel, I've worked
(12:07):
on a lot, almost every major toybrand.
And even in it, and I'm notgoing to name those brands, they
are beloved to me, but I havenever gotten the emotional
responses that I get when I tellsomeone that I work at
Vildebert.
Sometimes they think that I'mworking at a store, though, on
an airplane, like I work atVildebert, they go, oh, which
(12:27):
one?
Which one?
Well, there's there's a few inSt.
Louis, I move around.
And the truth is I can't stuffthere to save my life.
But I tried, it goes everywhere.
It's harder than you think, it'sa skill.
Um, but the the idea that wemean more than that allows you
(12:53):
to go in all sorts of areas,right?
So if you mean more than that,of course you can create a
holiday story about heart.
Of course you can have um createan entire intellectual property
about Glisten and the MerryMission, and we create a snow
deer that saves Christmas, andyou come in every year and you
(13:13):
stuff the snow deer, still ournumber one selling item during
the holiday, which is sayingsomething ten years later.
So um there's that that's not ina that's really not a stretch.
SPEAKER_00 (13:24):
It's not.
It's not a stretch.
I recall taking our daughter toBuild a Bear and the emotional
component to it.
I mean it's it's a veryemotional thing.
And you you've you've capturedit.
Um and I want to talk a littlebit about, we talked about a lot
of positive things.
Let's talk about failure.
One of your favorite things interms of recognizing and how it
(13:46):
can serve as a catalyst forchange.
What is an example of a timewhen you build a bear where in
your role you you suffered asetback, a failure, whatever you
want to refer to it as?
And how did you take that andthen put fuel behind it to have
it serve as a catalyst forgreater change?
SPEAKER_01 (14:06):
Well, that was the impetus for the entire
turnaround ultimately, was to,and this sounds incredibly
antiseptic, I apologize forthat.
Um, but to take the the eightyears of contraction and the
failure to point out to the teamthat if we stay on this
(14:29):
trajectory, it it's a road tobankruptcy.
And if you care about thiscompany, if you believe that it
matters that we exist, we haveto change.
And I'm not gonna tell you thatthere's not a hundred different
ways that change agency canevolve a company, there are, but
(14:49):
I am gonna say to you that I'vedone this before, and I'm giving
you a path, and what I need youto do is believe in this path,
and I'm open if you have someother options, but let's talk
about it.
But the one thing that we can'tdo is continue to do what we're
doing, or we will go out ofbusiness.
If you care, you have to change.
(15:12):
So get on this bus with me ordon't.
And if you don't, you're nothere.
And I'm okay with that becausewe cannot have backseat drivers
on this trip, right?
And we can put everything thatwe loved about this company that
still works.
I'm not talking about rippingthe heart out of the
organization, but we have tochange the way we operate.
(15:35):
Put it in the rearview mirror.
You can glance up there.
I'm not throwing it out thewindow.
Glance up there, remember whatwe are, that's okay.
But if we don't have a visionthat sits in that out in front
of us, and if we don't put astrategy in that GPS, we are
going to drive in a ditch.
And they got on with that.
They got they got that.
(15:56):
And I think that the key thereagain in the catalyst for change
is just failure.
All it is is saying, I need tochange or I'm going to drive
down this path.
Anything that you can first, Ihate when Wall Street
particularly does a straightline trajectory, but sometimes
it's handy.
And in this case, it was handyfor me to say, if we stay on the
same path, here's you can seewhat's in the in the windshield.
SPEAKER_00 (16:20):
The reality.
SPEAKER_01 (16:20):
This is not a hard thing to understand.
We have to change direction.
We have to change what we'redoing.
And the people that are in thiscar with us, it's all the kids.
It's their parents, it's ourfactories, it's our partners,
it's everybody here.
(16:40):
It's all the guys that work outin our retail stores who aren't
making as much money as you are.
Is that not worth it?
Can we not just give that ashot?
And that that got us off of thistrajectory.
And we started to see somesuccess.
And that unfortunately, well orfortunately, depends on how you
(17:03):
look at it, we then created ourown playbook for change and how
to use difficulty as catalysts,which became extremely handy as
we then faced the retailapocalypse, then we faced
Brexit, then we faced somethingcalled a global pandemic, where
we shut down 100% of our storesaround the world in 48 hours.
(17:25):
I didn't know we could do itthat fast.
We did not have a playbook forthat.
And then popped out of that morestable than we had been.
And we're now looking at our uhthe fifth consecutive year of
record results.
Incredible.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
That deserves a hand.
That that that I mean I get achill because you and I had a we
did a virtual interview thatyear, and uh and I recall that,
and it was Oh yes, I was in mybedroom.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
I had like all I had like curtains up and oh, like it
was terrible.
You didn't know.
SPEAKER_00 (17:58):
I didn't know.
I had no idea, now I know.
But but now I do.
But but that therein lies theleadership component, the lack
of complacency, the ability tosee around corners.
These are things that noteveryone takes with them on a
leadership journey, and I thinkthat's the lesson as we're
(18:22):
talking again on the sidelinesof UNGA.
You've got all these worldleaders coming in.
Come on in, talk about whatyou're doing in your country,
CEOs, et cetera.
You are one of those CEOs thatis looking and peering around
the corner.
You're not just sitting theredriving along, you know who's in
the car with you, too.
It's a great analogy.
Who's in the back seat?
Who's next to me?
(18:43):
Where are we going?
Should we take that next turn?
This is what this is.
SPEAKER_01 (18:48):
That's exactly what it is.
And we also need to understandthat even a company like Build
Abear, we'll say that, thatwe're now approaching a
billion-dollar market cap, butduring COVID, we went to a
dollar a share.
A dollar a share.
We were priced as if we wereinevitably going bankrupt.
And to fight back from that isit it takes a team to do that.
(19:13):
But even a company, again, likeBuild Bear, we probably don't
think about it that much.
We are global.
We're a part of this vast,interconnected world.
Whether it's our what we'rewe're sourcing globally, we're
selling globally, we're ourpartners are global.
Again, I said we're in 32countries, we have international
(19:35):
people that work in myheadquarters.
You we can't un unravel that.
And that's a part of one of thereasons why I was involved in
the goals so early on.
Um, that is absolutely critical.
And our founder, uh, who startedthe company back in 1997, and
(19:56):
this I think resonates now morethan ever, her premise is that a
teddy bear hug is understood inevery language.
We have more in common than wehave that's different, and teddy
bears are one of them.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
Teddy bears are one of them.
Teddy bears are one of them,100%.
So you're chair of the ToyIndustry Association, one of the
coolest organizations inWashington, right?
And you see trends.
You're seeing trend lines,especially in the children's
product uh industry, which areinfluencing leadership
(20:34):
approaches.
They're also influencinginnovation strategies for
companies like yours.
So, how do you see these trendsimpacting all of these areas?
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
Well, I'll start with I think how important it
is, again, what's the biggermeaning of things?
There's clearly the toyindustry, and for you, you might
think of oh, that's a plasticimporting industry.
But I want you to think aboutyour favorite toy as a child.
Did you have one?
(21:10):
Anyone have a favorite toy as achild?
Yeah, maybe.
So if you still remember it, didit matter?
Did it impact your life?
Yeah.
It might have impacted your lifein a way that you didn't even
know it impacted your life.
The toy industry is really aboutlearning, imagination, childhood
(21:31):
development, um, friendship,cooperation, toys and games.
Play is the learning, play isthe learning of children.
We need to allow that, embracethat, encourage that.
And the toy industry plays anincredibly important part of
that.
So, in that light, again, alwayslevel up, what does this really
(21:56):
mean?
It matters when this industry isdisruptive.
Disrupted rather.
Um, and tariffs are disruptingthis industry.
And we're working closely uh totry to work through that.
But that's a serious challengefor the toy industry.
It's a tight margin industry.
(22:16):
Um, and the and our organizationis you know working with
Washington to help mitigate someof those those uh difficulties.
Um but that's a real challengefor the industry.
And what's going forward will bewe will play the same role that
we've always played with theevolution of technology.
(22:38):
How can we use that foroftentimes in a way that a child
can uh prepare, you know, orthink about the use of you know,
some of the technology that wehad even early on from
electronic learning toys, sothey sort of like understand if
I push this button, this soundcomes out.
(22:58):
Never underestimate the power ofwhat the toy industry is doing
to prepare your children foropportunities further in life.
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
It's such incredible perspective.
Sharon John, you are thatleader.
So grateful to you, to Bill DeBear for the inspiration and the
foresight and the lessons toother global leaders across the
planet to say, wait, I can't becomplacent.
I need to look around corners.
(23:29):
I need to understand who's inthe car with me.
What a great analogy.
I mean, you need to know and youneed to be able to move and to
change and to adapt and to doall of the things that you do.
Thank you so very much.
SPEAKER_01 (23:40):
Thank you.
Back at the Idea Gen Global Leadership Summit live
here at the NASDAQ.
Well, live here at the NASDAQ,and our next interview is with a
dear friend, a global leader,someone who understands how to
navigate and make a companysuccessful.
(00:31):
Sharon John, CEO of BuilderBear.
You know, Sharon, here we are inNew York City.
Um on the sidelines of Unga.
Uh we've been in Unga together.
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Yes, we have.
SPEAKER_00 (00:54):
And um it's just a moment where you reflect and
think about, you know, 2030.
We were talking about 2030 and2020, and we were talking about
2030, 2015, and here we are now.
And your leadership is moreprofound and important than
ever.
And I stand in awe of that.
Uh you've evolved, Build-A-Bear,from a mall-based real retailer
(01:21):
into a brand with incredibleglobal reach.
You've diversified retailformats, and you've even grown
an e-commerce presence.
Sharon, you are that leader thatwe talk about.
You're that you that globalleader, and I'm so proud of you.
(01:44):
What has been your approach toidentifying the new
opportunities that have expandedBuild-A-Bear's global footprint?
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Well, it might not be exactly what you're
expecting, um, because I thinkthat uh sometimes people think
about uh companies as what isyour product or what is your
service, but you really have toget to the place of what is your
purpose?
And um, Build-A-Bear had a muchbigger purpose than making teddy
(02:12):
bears for kids in malls.
And when we were in a situationwhere we were challenged
significantly from a financialposition, we'd lost$50 million,
we contracted for eight years ina row.
I was asked to come in as a toyand turnaround person to find
the path.
And of course, as a turnaroundperson, you usually have a
(02:32):
playbook, and that playbookoften has something to do with
cost cutting, rationalization ofthe retail footprint, all these
fancy terms to try to like savemoney and uh stabilize the
company, which you have to dowhen you're a publicly traded
company, it's not an option.
But that was not going to movethe organization forward.
In a big company meeting, therewas a lot of stares, and uh,
(02:56):
yeah, no, we're not doing, wedon't get that, that's not gonna
work.
So that's when the hard workbegan about what do we really
stand for?
And there's a lot of, I think,um, some analogies here to what
everything we're talking abouttoday.
And what we had to do in theprocess of finding our purpose
(03:18):
was really think about well,what do we mean?
And at the end of the day, we'rememory makers, we're we're
purveyors of joy, um, we createfurry friends for kids and
adults alike.
Um, we we share through gifting,we share wonderful meaning with
(03:39):
each other.
So that was the impetus for thecreation of the strategy.
The strategy was not going to beabout how can we save money to
survive for no end.
The strategy was going to haveto be about why do we matter?
Is the world a better place withor without Build-A-Bear?
(03:59):
And if you can say with with allyour heart, then you can get
people to move forward.
And the interesting piece, ifyou've never been to
Build-A-Bear, you make a bearand you make a wish on a heart
and you put it inside the teddy.
And that's where we found ourpurpose was right inside that
teddy bear.
It was all about heart.
And we created a missionstatement said we add a little
(04:21):
more heart to life, and we gotto work.
And that mission statement iswhat highlighted the idea of
Build-A-Bear's workshop is aplace, but Build-A-Bear is a
feeling.
And now I'm gonna speak morebusiness-y for a second because
it did end up we were successfuldoing this.
But Build-A-Bear, the company,the feeling, had every right in
(04:47):
the consumer's mind to monetizethat extraordinary equity, not
just in the vertical retail thatwe started in, but across the
globe, in e-commerce, inoutbound licensing, in
entertainment.
And so we pivoted from a littleretailer that happened to build
a brand, accidentally, mind you,250 million hearts ceremonies
(05:11):
later, to a branded intellectualretail, uh, re intellectual
company that just happens tohave vertical retail as one of
its revenue streams.
So that was a massive transitionsidebar.
We've been in the news lately asbeing one of the fastest growing
stocks over the past five years.
SPEAKER_00 (05:30):
So you know, that's not a sidebar.
It's all about leadership.
This is about, this is whatleadership looks like.
That's your leadership definedbecause you're able to solve
problems, you're able to see thevision, you're able to create
the vision.
Isn't that what a leader does?
SPEAKER_01 (05:51):
I cannot take entire credit for that without being
pushed by my organization.
The organ you have to payattention.
Are you touching people'shearts?
I mean, I don't mean to be usingthe heart analogy, but it's
perfect for build-a-bear.
Um in fact, now our missionstatement is to add a little
more heart to life.
But it does not matter.
(06:13):
Is it, you know, people ask thequestion, well, isn't strategy
more about smarts than heart,let's say?
And the truth is it doesn'tmatter how smart you are, it
doesn't matter how brilliantyour strategy is, it doesn't
matter if you're a financial uh,you know, like genius.
Nothing matters if people aren'tgoing to come with you.
SPEAKER_00 (06:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:33):
And if people aren't going to execute.
SPEAKER_00 (06:36):
That's where leadership starts.
SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
That's and that's where you really, I will call
it, grow up as a leader.
SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
Wow.
That's the intersection where itchanges.
Yes.
Wow.
That's an important, that's sucha valuable.
We go through life just thinkingabout what is leadership?
What is, you know, and you'redefining it in a way that I
think is tangible and and reallyuh in a way that can be
implemented.
Because you you have to payattention, right?
Yes.
So those that don't, they're nolonger in business.
SPEAKER_01 (07:04):
It you can say whatever you want on a podium,
but that's not the way businessis done.
Particularly when you're uh, Iwould say a company where you
know we have multiple retailstores, so we're uh
disaggregated, we have peopleall over the world, very, very
difficult to get people tofollow you sometimes when you're
so far apart.
(07:25):
So that strong message has to bestrong enough to reach to 4,000,
5,000, you know, thousands ofpeople and not just those
people, your partners.
And now we're in 32 countries.
So how impactful, think abouthow impactful that has to be to
be passed through multiplepeople and multiple, you know,
(07:48):
um venues to keep that samemission statement at the center.
SPEAKER_00 (07:53):
Now you wrote a book.
I did.
You wrote a book, an incrediblebook.
I want you to actually wrote ittoo.
And you actually wrote it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:00):
Everybody does, mind you.
SPEAKER_00 (08:02):
Another secret.
Another secret.
Not everybody writes their book.
So you wrote the book.
I I want you to talk a bit aboutthe book.
Why write a book?
Why did you write the book?
Why why do you think it'schanging the world and changing
lives and inspiring people?
SPEAKER_01 (08:18):
I I didn't, I I uh I didn't plan on writing a book.
Somebody asked me to do it, butum, it's called Stories and
Heart, and it was intended to uhcapture some of the emotional
hurdles and insights and ahamoments that the things that had
(08:40):
happened to me through mychildhood and career that caused
me to think differently, thatallowed me to have some
monochrome of success at somepoint in my life.
Um, and most of those thingshave to do with you, not the
world, not what somebody did ordidn't do, or this job that did
or didn't happen, or what yougot this promotion or you
(09:02):
didn't.
That it that is a very, verylong arc.
The question really becomes ineach one of those situations,
what's the story you then tellyourself about that situation?
How are you gonna take thatinformation and use it to the
good and spin, and I'm justgonna say, spin a good story.
Here's the truth.
(09:23):
We're all constantly tellingourselves stories.
We're rationalizing things.
It is part of our brains.
We cannot help it.
Um, but the truth of the matteris, there's been a lot of
research about this.
About 60% of what we continue toreinforce in our minds about
what happened in our life, it'snot even true.
(09:46):
Some of it didn't even happen.
So, what I'm asking you to do,and this is what I take people
through about having dreams andgetting over perfectionism and
stopping negative self-talk,these things will change your
life.
But you have to be willing toweave your story in a way that
it's empowering.
If you're making it up anyway,heck, do something that's good
(10:08):
for yourself versus somethingthat's bad.
And that's and it and the thingsthat had happened in my career
helped me to get to that place.
And that that positivereinforcement and that positive
experience is really in someways what Builderbear's all
about, too.
So um it was uh almost um fatein some ways that um it's the
(10:30):
industry of the toy industry,which I'm now the chair of the
toy association, but and thiscompany was perfectly aligned
with uh what I learned tohopefully or what I'm still
becoming.
Right.
Um, and um, but that's all abouta lot of work inside.
SPEAKER_00 (10:49):
Yeah, yeah.
And the fact that you recognizethat goes back to your
leadership style and yourability to uh you know think
through and implement thechanges that have been so
necessary to make Builder Bearso successful.
You've you've launched, you'vegone into entertainment Builder
Bear.
You've gone into entertainmentcontent and other non-retail
(11:11):
initiatives.
How do you decide?
And I think I know the answer,but how do you decide we're
gonna create, you know, thistype of entertainment or we're
gonna, you know, a license, orwe're gonna do X?
How do you make those decisions?
SPEAKER_01 (11:24):
Well, that again is recognizing, and this is um in
pure business sense, what isyour what does your brand really
mean to consumers?
Um and you usually are nottrapped in a preconceived
business model or construct ifyou really break that down.
Um build-a bear means love andhugs and friendship and
(11:47):
memories, and and if you meanthose things, we don't mean
teddy bears and stuffingmachines and leases.
We mean something bigger topeople.
It's truly remarkable to me.
It never ceases to amaze me howbuild-dears are used.
It's and having worked at bothHasbro and Mattel, I've worked
(12:07):
on a lot, almost every major toybrand.
And even in it, and I'm notgoing to name those brands, they
are beloved to me, but I havenever gotten the emotional
responses that I get when I tellsomeone that I work at
Vildebert.
Sometimes they think that I'mworking at a store, though, on
an airplane, like I work atVildebert, they go, oh, which
(12:27):
one?
Which one?
Well, there's there's a few inSt.
Louis, I move around.
And the truth is I can't stuffthere to save my life.
But I tried, it goes everywhere.
It's harder than you think, it'sa skill.
Um, but the the idea that wemean more than that allows you
(12:53):
to go in all sorts of areas,right?
So if you mean more than that,of course you can create a
holiday story about heart.
Of course you can have um createan entire intellectual property
about Glisten and the MerryMission, and we create a snow
deer that saves Christmas, andyou come in every year and you
(13:13):
stuff the snow deer, still ournumber one selling item during
the holiday, which is sayingsomething ten years later.
So um there's that that's not ina that's really not a stretch.
SPEAKER_00 (13:24):
It's not.
It's not a stretch.
I recall taking our daughter toBuild a Bear and the emotional
component to it.
I mean it's it's a veryemotional thing.
And you you've you've capturedit.
Um and I want to talk a littlebit about, we talked about a lot
of positive things.
Let's talk about failure.
One of your favorite things interms of recognizing and how it
(13:46):
can serve as a catalyst forchange.
What is an example of a timewhen you build a bear where in
your role you you suffered asetback, a failure, whatever you
want to refer to it as?
And how did you take that andthen put fuel behind it to have
it serve as a catalyst forgreater change?
SPEAKER_01 (14:06):
Well, that was the impetus for the entire
turnaround ultimately, was to,and this sounds incredibly
antiseptic, I apologize forthat.
Um, but to take the the eightyears of contraction and the
failure to point out to the teamthat if we stay on this
(14:29):
trajectory, it it's a road tobankruptcy.
And if you care about thiscompany, if you believe that it
matters that we exist, we haveto change.
And I'm not gonna tell you thatthere's not a hundred different
ways that change agency canevolve a company, there are, but
(14:49):
I am gonna say to you that I'vedone this before, and I'm giving
you a path, and what I need youto do is believe in this path,
and I'm open if you have someother options, but let's talk
about it.
But the one thing that we can'tdo is continue to do what we're
doing, or we will go out ofbusiness.
If you care, you have to change.
(15:12):
So get on this bus with me ordon't.
And if you don't, you're nothere.
And I'm okay with that becausewe cannot have backseat drivers
on this trip, right?
And we can put everything thatwe loved about this company that
still works.
I'm not talking about rippingthe heart out of the
organization, but we have tochange the way we operate.
(15:35):
Put it in the rearview mirror.
You can glance up there.
I'm not throwing it out thewindow.
Glance up there, remember whatwe are, that's okay.
But if we don't have a visionthat sits in that out in front
of us, and if we don't put astrategy in that GPS, we are
going to drive in a ditch.
And they got on with that.
They got they got that.
(15:56):
And I think that the key thereagain in the catalyst for change
is just failure.
All it is is saying, I need tochange or I'm going to drive
down this path.
Anything that you can first, Ihate when Wall Street
particularly does a straightline trajectory, but sometimes
it's handy.
And in this case, it was handyfor me to say, if we stay on the
same path, here's you can seewhat's in the in the windshield.
SPEAKER_00 (16:20):
The reality.
SPEAKER_01 (16:20):
This is not a hard thing to understand.
We have to change direction.
We have to change what we'redoing.
And the people that are in thiscar with us, it's all the kids.
It's their parents, it's ourfactories, it's our partners,
it's everybody here.
(16:40):
It's all the guys that work outin our retail stores who aren't
making as much money as you are.
Is that not worth it?
Can we not just give that ashot?
And that that got us off of thistrajectory.
And we started to see somesuccess.
And that unfortunately, well orfortunately, depends on how you
(17:03):
look at it, we then created ourown playbook for change and how
to use difficulty as catalysts,which became extremely handy as
we then faced the retailapocalypse, then we faced
Brexit, then we faced somethingcalled a global pandemic, where
we shut down 100% of our storesaround the world in 48 hours.
(17:25):
I didn't know we could do itthat fast.
We did not have a playbook forthat.
And then popped out of that morestable than we had been.
And we're now looking at our uhthe fifth consecutive year of
record results.
Incredible.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
That deserves a hand.
That that that I mean I get achill because you and I had a we
did a virtual interview thatyear, and uh and I recall that,
and it was Oh yes, I was in mybedroom.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
I had like all I had like curtains up and oh, like it
was terrible.
You didn't know.
SPEAKER_00 (17:58):
I didn't know.
I had no idea, now I know.
But but now I do.
But but that therein lies theleadership component, the lack
of complacency, the ability tosee around corners.
These are things that noteveryone takes with them on a
leadership journey, and I thinkthat's the lesson as we're
(18:22):
talking again on the sidelinesof UNGA.
You've got all these worldleaders coming in.
Come on in, talk about whatyou're doing in your country,
CEOs, et cetera.
You are one of those CEOs thatis looking and peering around
the corner.
You're not just sitting theredriving along, you know who's in
the car with you, too.
It's a great analogy.
Who's in the back seat?
Who's next to me?
(18:43):
Where are we going?
Should we take that next turn?
This is what this is.
SPEAKER_01 (18:48):
That's exactly what it is.
And we also need to understandthat even a company like Build
Abear, we'll say that, thatwe're now approaching a
billion-dollar market cap, butduring COVID, we went to a
dollar a share.
A dollar a share.
We were priced as if we wereinevitably going bankrupt.
And to fight back from that isit it takes a team to do that.
(19:13):
But even a company, again, likeBuild Bear, we probably don't
think about it that much.
We are global.
We're a part of this vast,interconnected world.
Whether it's our what we'rewe're sourcing globally, we're
selling globally, we're ourpartners are global.
Again, I said we're in 32countries, we have international
(19:35):
people that work in myheadquarters.
You we can't un unravel that.
And that's a part of one of thereasons why I was involved in
the goals so early on.
Um, that is absolutely critical.
And our founder, uh, who startedthe company back in 1997, and
(19:56):
this I think resonates now morethan ever, her premise is that a
teddy bear hug is understood inevery language.
We have more in common than wehave that's different, and teddy
bears are one of them.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
Teddy bears are one of them.
Teddy bears are one of them,100%.
So you're chair of the ToyIndustry Association, one of the
coolest organizations inWashington, right?
And you see trends.
You're seeing trend lines,especially in the children's
product uh industry, which areinfluencing leadership
(20:34):
approaches.
They're also influencinginnovation strategies for
companies like yours.
So, how do you see these trendsimpacting all of these areas?
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
Well, I'll start with I think how important it
is, again, what's the biggermeaning of things?
There's clearly the toyindustry, and for you, you might
think of oh, that's a plasticimporting industry.
But I want you to think aboutyour favorite toy as a child.
Did you have one?
(21:10):
Anyone have a favorite toy as achild?
Yeah, maybe.
So if you still remember it, didit matter?
Did it impact your life?
Yeah.
It might have impacted your lifein a way that you didn't even
know it impacted your life.
The toy industry is really aboutlearning, imagination, childhood
(21:31):
development, um, friendship,cooperation, toys and games.
Play is the learning, play isthe learning of children.
We need to allow that, embracethat, encourage that.
And the toy industry plays anincredibly important part of
that.
So, in that light, again, alwayslevel up, what does this really
(21:56):
mean?
It matters when this industry isdisruptive.
Disrupted rather.
Um, and tariffs are disruptingthis industry.
And we're working closely uh totry to work through that.
But that's a serious challengefor the toy industry.
It's a tight margin industry.
(22:16):
Um, and the and our organizationis you know working with
Washington to help mitigate someof those those uh difficulties.
Um but that's a real challengefor the industry.
And what's going forward will bewe will play the same role that
we've always played with theevolution of technology.
(22:38):
How can we use that foroftentimes in a way that a child
can uh prepare, you know, orthink about the use of you know,
some of the technology that wehad even early on from
electronic learning toys, sothey sort of like understand if
I push this button, this soundcomes out.
(22:58):
Never underestimate the power ofwhat the toy industry is doing
to prepare your children foropportunities further in life.
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
It's such incredible perspective.
Sharon John, you are thatleader.
So grateful to you, to Bill DeBear for the inspiration and the
foresight and the lessons toother global leaders across the
planet to say, wait, I can't becomplacent.
I need to look around corners.
(23:29):
I need to understand who's inthe car with me.
What a great analogy.
I mean, you need to know and youneed to be able to move and to
change and to adapt and to doall of the things that you do.
Thank you so very much.
SPEAKER_01 (23:40):
Thank you.
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