Nationwide Boss Day is October sixteenth, and it’s the proper second to spotlight feminine bosses. However how a couple of #girlboss who made a profession change from courtroom to catwalk?
Lori Riviere runs one of many top fashion PR agencies out of her Manhattan workplace managing PR for main style and equipment labels, together with turning into one of many few businesses that manages exhibits for the official on-site exhibits at New York Trend Week. Because the proprietor of an award successful style PR company with workplaces in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, individuals are usually stunned to seek out out that Lori Riviere was a civil litigation legal professional. She proves that you just actually could make a profession change. I sat down with Lori and requested her just a few questions on her difficult profession path change.
When did you determine that you just have been going to go away the follow of legislation?
I knew instantly after I started to follow legislation that it wasn’t the precise profession for me. I didn’t slot in with different attorneys and was extra enthusiastic about planning my outfit for the day than the court docket appearances I had scheduled. The style business was the place I wished to be, however I didn’t actually know the place to begin, so I began a style weblog as a inventive outlet. This was again earlier than style running a blog grew to become what it’s right this moment and earlier than social media got here into play.
Again then, you wrote in regards to the outfits you bought out of your favourite retailers and took selfies in your hallway mirror of your outfit of the day. There weren’t many people on the market and the entire running a blog factor was actually simply in its infancy levels. Running a blog itself wasn’t actually a profession path, however I believed it’d give me concepts or open just a few doorways, and I discovered that it did.
How did you make the transition from legislation to style PR?
I had volunteered with style week, labored for an occasion planner and put collectively advertising and marketing plans as a freelancer for firms to make additional money. After faculty, I labored as a advertising and marketing advisor for a client merchandise firm for a yr earlier than legislation faculty, so I had some background in PR, advertising and marketing and occasion manufacturing, however I had no contacts in style.
I had been working towards legislation for about 4 years, so my resume didn’t put me ready for somebody to supply me the kind of job I knew I used to be able to doing. Utilizing my running a blog platform, I started to freelance and tackle small tasks to start to fill my resume and type connections. I labored with native boutiques and large manufacturers alike. I began internet hosting occasions and ultimately started placing occasions collectively for manufacturers from soup to nuts, together with PR, and did all of this whereas nonetheless working full time as in home counsel for an insurance coverage firm, so I labored 16-18 hour days.
Initially, the objective was to get my resume robust sufficient to go work for a style PR company, however ultimately I spotted that my work ethic outmatched most and if I actually wished success, I would want to do my very own factor. I attempted to barter a component time work scenario with my authorized job, however they didn’t chunk and so I began my company with my laptop computer on my espresso desk in my front room.
How did you develop your company into what it’s right this moment with workplaces in Miami, New York and Los Angeles?
I knew after I began the company that different businesses would look higher on paper than me, so I’d compete by working more durable and creating an company that would present solutions and providers for something a style model would want from producing a lookbook to working with bloggers. That meant working 18 hour days and dealing weekends and used any additional time I needed to study extra about rising practices like running a blog and celeb seeding or researching to seek out the best possible contacts and never solely counting on the database subscription serves that each one PR businesses use.
I used to be actually blessed pretty early on to satisfy Nicole Doswell. She is my most senior crew member and mainly runs the enterprise with me, and I see her as a associate within the enterprise and check out to make sure her compensation displays that. As we develop, I focus my vitality on discovering actually good people who find themselves laborious staff, genuinely care in regards to the work and function with honesty and integrity.
I’m additionally dedicated to having them share within the success of the enterprise when it comes to compensation, and I actually imagine that’s what units us aside and can assist us proceed to develop. The vitality you ship out comes again ten fold, so I deal with doing superb work and creating an superior work atmosphere. I discover that with that every part type of falls into place.
What recommendation do you’ve got for somebody seeking to make a profession change?
I feel a profession change is feasible for anybody, however it’s a must to be able to put within the work emotionally, bodily and financially to make it occur. I feel emotionally, it’s essential put together your self for rejection and other people not believing in you. Usually, ladies who look to make a profession change are overachievers who’re used to being wanted and on the high of their subject, however if you enter an entire new business you end up having to show your self in a method you by no means needed to earlier than and that may be laborious.
I’m grateful that my mother actually taught me about the entire concept of constructive pondering and sending out good vitality as a result of I discover it to actually propel me ahead and make issues occur that I completely by no means thought potential. You additionally have to be ready to work longer hours and more durable than you might need needed to earlier than.
I used to be not in a monetary place to simply stop my job and pursue my ardour to start with, so I mainly labored two full time jobs till I might afford to focus solely on my style PR enterprise and type my company. Nobody goes at hand you your dream, it’s a must to work for it, however I feel in case you are prepared to work laborious and ship out constructive vitality, you actually can do something.
