Olaf Growald
Marcelle LeBlanc was still searching for direction as an entrepreneur when she responded to an invitation to attend an Entrepreneurs’ Organization meeting several years ago. “What resonated was how lonely I was as a business owner,” says LeBlanc, owner of Velvet Box, today a chain of five upscale boutiques in the Fort Worth-Dallas area. “I felt like I was on an island all alone; when I went to that meeting and met a couple of people, I was hooked.” She joined the organization six years ago and this spring took over as the Fort Worth Chapter’s president. In February last year, she was on an EO trip in Vietnam and Cambodia when COVID-19 emerged in that country. “I was on one of the last flights coming out of Seoul before they shut the whole place down.” Putting EO’s tools to great use in her business, LeBlanc is able to spend much free time on an avocation: cutting horses.
Favorite EO Tool “Conflict resolution. Bottom line, I employ anywhere from 30 to 40 women at some point in time. There’s, without a doubt, going to be conflict. I’ve learned how to communicate with people and how to successfully get through conflict and not make it a big deal and be healthier and happier. We do that through something called ‘the clearing.’ The clearing is being able to identify what the facts are, what your feelings are, what your opinion is. There’s a difference between opinion and actual facts. That’s missed on a lot of people. It helps resolve pretty much anything.”
Velvet Box Classes Gone Virtual “I think we’re going to continue with 100% virtual. We started reaching people in other countries. We’re looking at [curriculum on] how to talk to your kids about sex, talking about sex after cancer, infidelity. Those are all things that people don’t want to show up [for]. But they’ll do it [online] with their spouse, and that helps with intimacy and connection.”
Being EO President “First, I want to make sure that I have fun and be present. What a great opportunity. I think my No. 1 goal is experience. And how do we enhance the experience? For me, it’s really important for people that don’t travel outside the chapter to maybe get some taste of that. My EO experience really accelerated when I started to meet people outside Fort Worth.”
Being Able to Vacate “After Year 3 of being in EO, I was able to take 60 days of vacation. It’s not that I’m not working. It’s just that we have such good systems and processes in place and great people.”
Expanding the Business “I’d like 10 stores. The way North Texas is growing, there’s so much room. During COVID, we did some studies on store footprints. I think we can do smaller stores, and we can build better stores, more efficient stores.”
If not for EO… “I’d probably be grinding out in the stores with maybe three stores. I didn’t even know how to dream big enough. That was probably the most enlightening thing.”
Cutting Horses “I’ve wanted to quit almost every day. You learn to deal with disappointment. You go through spells where you’re not winning … For 2021, I have set aside four [weekends] that might not be a horse show. The rest are committed to showing, as I'm hauling for the World Finals this year.”