Jaime Sloan

Founder and CEO

www.sanctumstyle.com

2 years

My store is located at Market Street in Lynnfield, MA. I first launched my business Dani Kaye in North Andover in 2017, and after three years there building the business and overcoming the Columbia Gas explosions and Covid-19, we decided to search for a new location. We relaunched and rebranded in September of 2021 and our new store is bigger and offers a much larger assortment of advanced contemporary apparel and accessories for women and men.

Sanctum Style is a men’s and women’s lifestyle boutique located at MarketStreet in Lynnfield, MA featuring contemporary apparel, designer denim, small leather goods, handbags, accessories, and jewelry. The boutique offers a multi-designer assortment curated for individuals who want an elevated and personalized experience while shopping the latest in fashion trends. A sanctum is defined as, “a sacred place where one is free from intrusion” and that is exactly what the boutique experience provides for our clients. Sanctum Style provides a special place for clients to discover not only what is new and current, but to enhance and transform their personal style. The clothing selections and personalized service ensure our clients are well dressed and feel like the best version of themselves. I was inspired to open my own business when I moved back from NYC to Massachusetts in 2016. I had spent over a decade working in luxury fashion and couture fine jewelry and I was tired of making money for other people and playing politics in corporate environments. I had built a multi-million dollar sales book and I had run and grown businesses for major brands. I felt strongly that I wanted to have something that I could nurture, grow, and build with integrity and with the values I was starting to see disappear from these larger environments I was eager to leave behind.

Entrepreneurship is a journey. Looking at success as an ``end game`` doesn't feel in line with being an entrepreneur because the goal is to grow. We strive to do better, to be better, and anyone who is in business for a long time knows that your last peak lies in the valley of your next goal. Success for me is the ability to truly yield and enjoy the process and growth and not be in judgement of it. We are our own worst critics and we cannot truly enjoy our ``successes`` if we are going to beat ourselves up over achieving the next milestone. Being fully present and involved in the process without judgement and being able to enjoy everything that is happening in the moment is what I would consider the ultimate success.

A year into my first location, we were impacted by the Columbia Gas explosions. At the time, my husband and I were waiting to finish building and close on our home, and we were evacuated from our temporary apartment and forced to close my store. I had to go to market in New York City to plan the following season days after everything blew up; I didn't know if I was even going to have a business when I got back. We were beginning our second Fall and Holiday season in our location and it was too late for me to adjust our orders or cancel product we had committed to. When I returned from market, we began what was a lengthy battle with Columbia Gas and I went without heat and with major business disruption for four months. After fighting to get a new adjuster to handle our claim, I remember one conversation in particular with the adjuster that was a pivotal moment for me as an entrepreneur. We were discussing my personal compensation for my time that I had spent dealing with the aftermath of the explosions, and after reviewing my hourly rate and the hours I had reported, he told me they would not approve the claim because I wasn't worth the money. As he said this to me, I felt like someone had just physically knocked me out. I hung up the phone, sat on a sofa in the middle of my store, and I cried. I was afraid my business failing would cannibalize our other company, potentially force us to give up our home that we had worked so hard to build, and put us into an exorbitant amount of debt. The next day I woke up and decided I was going to fight for my life. I hired a forensic accountant, I called the attorney general's office and got a state representative to advocate for me, and I made a list of all of my corporate contacts in New York City who could testify to my worth and work history and submitted it. That moment made me realize that no one had the power to tell me my worth or set the terms upon which I would be valued. Not as a professional woman and not as a human. The result of my efforts allowed me to rebuild my business and stabilize it after taking a six figure loss.

My biggest challenges were having to close and then reopen and relaunch my business. I closed my first location during Covid-19 in July of 2020; my lease was up at the time and I didn't want to stay in my location. I also wasn't comfortable with signing a commercial lease at that time given the uncertainty of the virus and vaccine situation as well as the fact I had just recovered from a six figure loss from the Columbia Gas explosions. I was heartbroken to give up my storefront at the time because I didn't know what I was going to do without it. I felt like I had failed but the truth was that I needed to let it go for my next opportunity. I learned during my hiatus where I was styling clients that I had made a huge impact and that what I had done and offered my clients was really special. Fast forward to launching the new storefront; I was terrified. Sanctum Style was going to be bigger; have more product categories and menswear which I had never carried before, and ultimately be a larger operation than my first store was. It required more money to launch, and as a location it was going to require more staff and inventory. The relaunch and rebrand has been tough, especially doing it while coming out of Covid-19 and having to get existing clients back in as well as build a new audience for this brand. My company is five years old but Sanctum Style has only been open for a little over a year so I had to get my people on board with the new direction of the business. The difference this time is that I had more tools to handle it and more resources at my disposal. I had to get better to create what I have now. While I'm still in the process of building out this business, some things have gotten easier for me and I still face challenges that push me everyday. Having challenges in a business is something you accept and have to learn to get comfortable with regardless of where you are in your journey.

The struggle is real. There are definitely days where I don't feel my best or think I'm good at what I do. There are days where I worry about failing. I was conditioned when I was growing up to be a people pleaser and so letting people down is something that I fear. Disappointing other people equated me to feeling like a disappointment or that I'm not good enough. I've realized over the years that there are going to be bad days, and there will always be stress, and there are always things outside of my control that will impact my day. I'm far from perfect, and striving for perfection in every day just sets you up to feel like a perpetual failure. The only thing I can control is how I take care of and prioritize myself even though it's hard. I control if I get enough sleep, if I eat well, if I go to the gym, if I allow other people's thoughts or feelings to get me down, what I choose to consume for information, if I get stuck in anxiety or depression. It's not easy to take ownership of these things, but they allow us to fuel ourselves so we can maintain our mindset and set us up for success.

Boston Business Women has been an amazing platform for connecting me with other women in the area. I have met so many wonderful people in my industry and outside of it that have inspired me through their stories and their work. Speaking to many of the women in the group really helped me during the pandemic to realize how and why I needed to move and relaunch my business and it's been a gift to be supported through that part of my journey.

The most proud moment of my career was pitching my business plan to the bank for my SBA and having it accepted to relaunch my business. It was a long process to write the business plan and go back and forth with the bank, and to get the funding to relaunch was huge for me. As a woman in business and in retail, owning a boutique like mine has (even in my industry) a stigma of being a hobby for a bored, wealthy housewife. I was treated that way for a long time even though that is absolutely not the case for me. I love what I do but it has never been for fun; I've made a very successful career in retail and I've been in the industry for 20 years now. I worked for many brands and retail institutions that represent the best of the luxury fashion industry and I'm very proud of that. To have my hard work, my ethics, and finances validate my business and my experience so I could reopen was also validation for me that what I'm doing is special, I'm good at what I do, and I deserve to have a space to do it in.

If I had to describe myself to people, I would say that I am someone to be experienced. I am an introverted extrovert but most people see the big, bold aspects of my personality when they work with me. I am very direct with my communication style, sarcastic and sometimes dry with my sense of humor, but I am also very warm and empathetic. I am powered by caffeine and big ideas and making people feel good about themselves. I don't believe in bullshitting people and I will never push clients or anyone I work with to be inauthentic in their self-expression or in how they dress. I am absolutely a mama bear to my staff, to women I mentor, and to my clients. I am exactly like my clientele; I've struggled with my weight, my self-esteem, hormonal imbalance and thyroid issues; I understand what it's like to feel down on yourself or have others make you feel like shit about who you are and what you look like. My background is in performance and entertainment and I know what it is to feel completely invalidated and rejected by others for all the reasons you could possibly imagine under the sun. I am the safe space for my clients to be themselves and try new things free of judgement.</p> <p>I spend my very precious free time with my corgis and my husband. I read books to exercise my mind and I love lifting weights in the gym because movement is medicine for my body and I like feeling strong and powerful. The gym is also a place when I set my intentions and work on my mindset. I value my alone time and I also value my connections with others in real time. I believe in giving back and in making others realize their own power and potential. I love being creative and trying new things just for the sake of doing them. I'm a lover of brunch (and food in general), long walks on the coastline, and travel. I wish I had more time to visit other places, eat the food, and study the culture. I know that time is my most valuable asset and I only wish I had more of it to do the things that I love with people I enjoy.

I always say I am the anti-fashion fashionista. I fell into the industry by accident while pursuing a career as a musician and actor in New York City and because of this, I understand the transformative power of clothing and how it can be used as a tool in your life to get what you want in your career and how it can impact your own state of mind and being. I believe in working with my clients to understand their needs, goals, and lifestyle to dress them. I don't believe in chasing trends; I believe in honoring yourself and your body in an authentic way so that you can look good and feel good with how you show up in your life. My store has never been just a store to anyone who has ever worked with me. My clients understand that I am not only a master stylist, but a retail therapist in terms of how we work to build their wardrobe and their esteem.

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