The Intersection of Passion, Purpose and Profit

Imagine a Venn diagram with three overlapping circles: passion, purpose, and profit. The sweet spot where all three meet is a rare and powerful place for a business. It’s where what a founder loves (passion) aligns with a cause she cares about (purpose) and, incredibly, also fuels financial success (profit).

In our latest CEO interview with fab’rik Founder and CEO, Dana Spinola, she shares with us how she infused purpose into the brand with the creation of free fab’rik, a free one-of-a-kind boutique experience for women experiencing crisis to help restore their strength, dignity and hope. 

In addition to talking about her formula for business success, Spinola shared frank insights into her founder’s journey. Since opening its doors in 2002, fab’rik has grown into a wildly successful company with over 300 employees and 30 franchise locations nationwide while holding true to its mission to create a place where every woman can afford to feel beautiful.

Turning Passion into Profit

As a child, I didn’t grow up with money. My mom made all my clothing – which I thought was like having a personal stylist. The idea of shopping at a boutique seemed like such a dream to me – walking around a beautiful store, being offered a glass of champagne – all the little things that make a boutique experience so special. However, seeing the $400 price tags, I quickly realized that this experience was not something that could be a part of my daily life. So, I asked myself, “Could I create a place that you didn’t have to have a million dollars to feel like a million dollars?”

Our mission is simple, with each customer and each dress, we want to make our customers feel more beautiful than when they walked in our store.

Adding Purpose that Inspires

There was a moment when my definition of success changed. All the success I experienced, as much as I can say I was building my business for my customers and my team, I could feel something was missing. That year, I took my whole team on a mission trip to Africa, and we were sitting in our Jeep, driving around, and I just thought, there’s got to be more.

When I came home from that trip, I pulled my whole team together and said, “Y’all, we’re going to be changing our mission from simply focusing on our passion and adding in purpose.” We will always serve our customers, but what if we could have a boutique where everything doesn’t cost less than $100, but instead, is completely free?

That was the idea behind free fab’rik, a completely free boutique experience, with beautiful chandeliers and beautiful clothing, but located inside of safehouses and shelters. This experience is something we offer to women facing difficult circumstances, for whom clothing may not be a priority, but it’s something that makes them feel more beautiful, powerful and dignified.

One of the most beautiful parts of free fab’rik is that we’re able to have women from the community volunteer in our boutiques and we have local safe houses kindly let us come in and be with the women and setup a one-on-one personal styling. These women aren’t searching through bins of hand-me-downs in the basement of a church. At free fab’rik, none of the clothing has a hole in it or is missing a button. We want to offer these women the same experience they would get at a fab’rik store.

At first, many of the women are scared and ask us why we are there. But, by the end, we’re playing Beyonce, doing runway shows, and you can see a light that comes back, a confidence. It reminds me of a verse that says, “She is clothed in strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” That’s the free fab’rik experience. You witness this surge of confidence. You hear stories of these women who are total rock stars, you see their strength and the transformative power a piece of clothing can have on a woman’s life.

Giving Purpose a Daily KPI

One of the key performance indicators (KPIs) at every fab’rik store is “wow.” We have all the traditional KPIs that every CEO knows, but it was important to me that we quantify the “purpose” of fab’rik. Wows come in all different forms, but what is inspiring about them is that you get to see and quantify what is essentially a million different nonprofits that play out all day when we show up for people in the way that they need in that specific moment.

What I think CEOs don’t know is the importance of giving your team license to practice the purpose in different ways, and that is what I celebrate. We track purpose with the daily “wow” KPIs and celebrate it at all our company meetings.

For example, at our headquarters, we’ve set up all the donations we receive like a boutique, it’s what we use to source all the clothing for free fab’rik. One day, when I wasn’t in the office, someone came into our headquarters to ask if we have any clothing here. Normally, we would explain to them that this is our corporate office, not a retail store, but one of my teammates saw that this woman needed something more. So, she brought her back to our storeroom and together they picked out eight different outfits. They were taking pictures and having the best time, by the end they were both crying, and the woman said, “I can’t believe you let me do this.”

Another example, we had somebody come in to one of our stores and share her cancer diagnosis with us before she shared it with their family, and one of my teammates decided to slip a little faith necklace into her bag. This isn’t something that my teammates will call and ask permission to do, it’s something they feel empowered to do.

When it comes to implementing purpose, I think a lot of CEOs know how to structurally set up volunteer opportunities within a company but tying that together with the day-to-day KPIs empowers your team to find creative ways to deliver on the purpose. It’s stories like this that inspire me, and I think that’s how purpose comes alive, it’s not necessarily in a manual.

The Business Case for CEO Sabbatical

One day, one of my teammates asked me if I was free to have lunch with her. Of course, I’m in CEO mode and I know that no one is just hungry and wants to have lunch with the CEO. I gear up for a conversation about her career, how I can help her, etc. When we get to lunch, she just looks at me and asks me, “are you okay?”

Now, I had been asked that question a billion times and I kindly answered, yes. But this time, I sat there and answered for the first time in my life, truthfully. I said, I don’t think so.

So, she looked at me and asked what should we do? I suggested maybe I take a break and stop checking email for a week to which she suggested that maybe I could take a break for a month. My first instinct was to wonder what my company would do without me.

What I’ve learned is that if your company can do without you, you’ve done a really good job as CEO. And yes, there’s going to be gaps, and yes, you’re needed. But what if your company could hold up a space for you to go catch a breath?

After taking this space, I came back into a place where the meaning was there, with my engine back on, it lit my fire again. Not only that, but I gained such a valuable business perspective – I got to come back and look at my company as a customer and see all the beautiful things that it does. As a CEO, you’re so critical of what you’re not doing. Having this space allowed me to realize that this place is incredible. You come back with new dreams and innovations that can reignite your company again. All my teammates were so excited to hear what I had to say, what do we do now? What’s next? If find yourself on a path as a CEO and you just can’t feel that meaning anymore, a break is a beautiful thing.

The Practice of Dreaming

CEOs are made to expand, to grow and create, so when a CEO gets on autopilot, it can be really hard. During my time away, I did research on the idea of dreaming. I thought I was going to have great conversations with people, but what I realized is that no one likes to talk about dreaming. I would ask people to tell me how they dream. Do you sit down and write them out? Do you go for a run and dream? The answer I got most often was “I don’t do that anymore, I don’t have time for that, I did it as a kid, but what’s the point?”  The point is that the people around you need you to dream. You’re somebody’s mom, somebody’s boss, and the people around you want to be dreaming about what’s next.

As a CEO, the roadmap for successful dreaming is not about the destination, it’s about the journey. We all want to hit the target, on time and on budget. That’s not how dreaming works. Dreaming is about having the courage to simply just dream and see the beauty and power that it can open everyone else up to.

Thanks to the fab’rik Team

I am a creator, I’m a builder. I can put an idea out there, but my teammates are the ones who do the hard work of creating the operations manuals and maintaining the consistency that enabled fab’rik to grow. It gives me chills to think that I get so much credit for creating this dream, but so many people, so selflessly and with so much heart, talk to the customers every single day and make this dream a reality.

As CEO, I don’t get to talk to my customers every day, so I want to thank my team for caring about them. Thank you for seeing what our customers need, not only the fabulous outfits, but to see their heart and add the little thing in their bag to make their day. The number of hearts we’ve been able to touch because of my team is incredible. There is no possible way that fab’rik and free fab’rik would be able to provide love and confidence for so many women in ways without my team. I dreamed one thing and they made it a reality in an expanded, beautiful way.