Today, we’d like to introduce you to Mary Wiegand.
Hi Mary, can you introduce yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
My name is Mary, I’m a mom-prenuer, avid-learner, lover of health and movement, and I’m also the Founder of Boon, LLC. Boon is the small (and growing) business I started in 2017 as a way to help myself balance being the mother AND having a career.
After completing undergraduate degrees in economics and Spanish, I entered the retail industry with a Merchandise Planning Business Analyst job at Target Corporation in 2007. For the next ten years, I built my experience as a merchandise planning manager. I held positions in category management, buying, and planning at major retailers like Tiffany & Co. and Victoria’s Secret, and I have experience establishing a merchandising team at the start-up brand Chloe + Isabel.
After having my first two children, I was torn between heading back into the corporate world full-time and being a mom full-time. The truth is my career AND being there for the funny and growthful moments with my kids bring me joy. Rather than deciding between the two, I started Boon.
In a nutshell, Boon is a hands-on merchandise planning and inventory management service for small- to medium-sized companies that need this expertise but don’t have the capacity of a planning team in-house like large companies do. The team at Boon offers unparalleled adaptability, service, and retail industry skills to help retail businesses. We identify opportunities to streamline processes. We build tools to empower understanding and to make discerning inventory decisions.
Boon has become like another child, and I am so proud of what I’ve built. While the business started with just me at the helm, I’ve been able to expand it to include a team of 15 multi-passionate women who want to work AND find professional fulfillment. I employ these amazingly talented women to bring valuable retail planning skills to the smaller retailers who might otherwise struggle to execute this key business function themselves.
The rewarding work/personal life co-existence that my small business provides me comes with a deep pride that I’m able to share this gift with those I employ as well. Boon empowers me and so many others to find fulfillment in both personal and professional endeavors.
We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As I’ve navigated over 6 years of being an entrepreneur, I’ve faced many challenges. Pivotal moments included early days of starting to actively find clients, growing to the point that I hired my 10th team member, and surviving 2020 with personal challenges that pushed me to the edge.
These have provided lessons, for better or worse, that forged me into the CEO that I am today and created the business that I will lead in 2024. In the early days, I was doing this purely as a side business after deciding consulting would be a better fit than a full-time retail job. My first clients were all through word of mouth. Since my background is so heavily focused on the skills, strategies, and tactics we use to support our clients, my marketing strategy was pretty minimal, but working in my specific industry for more than a decade helped me make many connections.
The work I do also requires minimal overhead. The combination of prior connections and minimal new resources needed meant I was lucky enough to leapfrog over some of the common challenges many entrepreneurs face, but I still had to figure out what would work best for me. Turning the first consulting jobs into a business did not happen automatically, and some of the first active outreach I did to find new clients really didn’t go well.
For example, I initially took an opportunity with a Walmart incubator brand (that no longer exists), and it turned out to be a dead end. While I felt that I wasn’t getting anywhere at the time, I now see how that helped me refine my skills, determine what I could offer through Boon, and really determine my ideal customer. I found that sweet spot of the client that needed me and for whom I could provide a critical, affordable service to help them thrive and grow.
At the same time, I was bringing in other consultants to help with the growing client list. Again, in the beginning of building my team, it was a bit of happenstance. A good friend and former colleague in the industry was looking for part-time work, and I had four clients that I was juggling, so I brought her on to help. Hiring other consultants and building out the team took trial and error to determine how to bring on the right number and type of staff at a rate that would match the client’s growth.
The balance was not too much, that I didn’t have the work (rarely a problem), and not too few, that I had more work than I could do. I learned what worked (hiring smart people to take on whole projects or recurring tasks with some consistency) and what didn’t (help at minimal hours per week and inability to independently own projects).
Figuring out how to find the best people that could commit to Boon at the right level while still working flexibly as a contractor was a challenge, but ultimately one that got at the heart of my twofold mission with Boon – to serve a need of the workforce as much as the needs of my client base.
Once, I had my early business development and hiring pipeline rolling – and I use the terms loosely as it was a lot of hustling and making it up – I considered this a solid side job. All while raising two kids and supporting a partner who was traveling Monday to Friday each week for a job that was many states away. Then 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Having just given birth to my third and fourth kids (twin boys) with the world shut down, I ended my marriage and moved into a new house. All of a sudden, this side job needed to be a real business to allow me to support myself and my kids.
There was a very steep learning curve since a “real business” had to mean even more clients and even more staff, and it pushed me to the limits of what I could take on. It meant asking for a lot of help – from family and friends, but from the right experts who knew about business and could serve critical business functions. It meant learning where my breaking point was and how to keep myself from burnout by establishing the right kind of “me time” and taking care of myself. It meant that, even among all the personal chaos, I had to find the mental strength to believe in myself.
Looking back over these challenges, I am proud of my strength and resilience. My journey has often meant choosing the road less traveled, the more challenging path, in order to do what’s best for me and my family. My resilience has meant walking that path with an attitude of hope and courage. I’ve taken the lessons learned and built a flexible workplace where I can empower other women to find professional fulfillment while providing a critical service to our clients. I plan to pursue this dream as long as I can.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Boon LLC is a retail consulting agency that works with small businesses to help them have the right product available at the right time in the right amount.
Regardless of how good a product is, if it isn’t available the customers can’t buy it. If it is overstocked the business won’t have cash to buy anything else. Boon reveals trends and provides strategies to align product inventory with demand.
The name of the company embodies what we strive to achieve with every client and our team members; the definition of a “boon” is a benefit or favor. Especially one that is given in answer to a request. What sets us apart is our human approach.
The functional work we do is rooted in data and analytics, but we strive to truly listen to our clients and understand their business goals while making every client feel like our only client. I am most proud of our commitment to excellence in servicing our clients to achieve their business goals and supporting our team members to allow them to blend their work and life.
So maybe we end by discussing what matters most to you and why.
I am committed to doing good work with good people, which drives the mission of Boon: empowering businesses to use rigorous analytics and diverse industry perspectives to make smarter merchandising decisions by building a dedicated, diverse and agile team of retail-industry experts to provide flexible merchandise planning solutions.
I know that the work we do contributes to people’s lives by affecting a lot of mission-driven brands and helping fellow entrepreneurs thrive in the tough space of launching or growing their company. I’ve had ideas for other companies and products over the years, and worked for a startup company myself, but a business like Boon is able to do even more good by serving our many clients and their dreams. I believe I’m doing my part to make the world a little better, and I really enjoy the work.
In supporting the good people of Boon, I have built something that disrupts merchandising planning norms by offering a flexible, non-traditional work model for all team members. This is not standard in retail, where most women embarking on their careers face expectations of working for a single brand 40+ hours a week and jumping from brand to brand only for career growth and the regular layoffs in the industry. I truly want to provide support and growth opportunities that the Boon team needs.
Since early 2023, Boon has been able to support one team member through maternity leave from Boon, a return to work, and then a transition to a full-time retail position away from Boon. As hard as it can be to lose someone who is a positive member of the team, I know what I have built will serve a purpose in each person’s career, and I know there will always be more talented people who are looking for a model like Boon’s to grow and thrive in their career.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://boonllc.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boon_llc/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boon-llc/
Image Credits
Rachel Jacobus Photography and Light & Lenses Photography
