IAM1382 – Founder of Apparel Company Helps Young Children with Exercise and Eating Habits

Lori Tobin is the founder of SporTobin, a Hull-based apparel company specializing in workout clothing made in the USA for adults and children since 1991. Lori has spoken actively on the South Shore and beyond about healthy eating habits and exercise, especially in young children. She has also been involved in many causes and created and continues to teach her keep-going kidz exercise class at the elementary school in Hull, Massachusetts.

• CEO Story: People started noticing Lori’s apparel when she was running in races and other clubs. They ask where she bought her leggings, and that was the start of a journey of making workout clothing for adults and children in 1991. Started selling in expos and was invited as well to speak.
• Business Service: Kids clothing with an exercise program, cooking, and a short book that Lori did. Hook with a production, turning the gym into a program.
• Secret Sauce: Apparels are purely made in the USA. Donating the scrap fabrics to the art teachers in the community.
• CEO Hack: Running every day, meditating, and writing goals and aspirations
• CEO Nugget: Ask customers, “What do you need next?” Be open to learning and being ethical
• CEO Defined: Wearing a lot of hats, acting with integrity, looking forward

Website: sportobin.com
Website: keepgoingkidz.com
Book: https://amzn.to/2QDhTnJ
Twitter: SporTobin
Facebook: SporTobin

Initial Episode: https://iamceo.co/2018/09/17/065-founder-of-apparel-company-helps-young-children-with-exercise-eating-habits

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Transcription

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00:02 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CE OS without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkins values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:27 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Lori Tobin of Sports Hobin and Keep Kid, keep going kids. Lori, it's great to have you on the show.

00:39 – Lori Tobin

Thank you. Thank you. I'm thrilled to be doing an interview with you, Gresham.

00:43 – Gresham Harkless

I'm thrilled to have you here too. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Lori so you can hear about all the awesome and phenomenal things that she's doing. Lori Tobin is the founder of Sports Hobin, a whole-based apparel company specializing in work clothing made in the USA for adults and children.

Since 1991, Lori has spoken actively on the South Shore and beyond about healthy eating habits, and exercise, especially in young children. She has also been involved in many causes and created and continues to teach her Keep Going Kids exercise classes at the elementary school in Hall. Lori, it's great to have you. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:22 – Lori Tobin

Yes, I am.

01:24 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, the first question I have was just kind of expound a little bit, a little bit more upon your bio and hear about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

01:31 – Lori Tobin

OK, well, let's see. First, let me preface that I've been running, running for a long time. And I've been sewing since I was a small child. So I was running with the running club and I had a race that I was running in. And this woman at the end of the race tracked me down and said I want a pair of those leggings. Where did you get those? And I had made them. So I knew right away that I, you know, I had some people that wanted my clothing and so that helped. So anyway, that's how I began because that was back in the early 90 days. And so I started producing clothing and selling them to runners.

And I would go to Rd. races and sell and then I would also go to health clubs I've done the Pan Mass Challenge is a big ride and it benefits Dana Faber here in Massachusetts. I sold at their Expo as well. And then from the health clubs, a woman was working with a three day and she got me hooked on the three days. And that was wonderful. These women were walking for survival, there's some of them were survivors, and some of them were walking for loved ones.

And I went to this first Expo and they bought all of my clothing. I had nothing left. And then I asked, Hey, do you have some more of these? So they did. So I started doing more of the Expos and I traveled around the country speaking and selling. And that's really how I began my the husband that I'm married to now started my website in 97. So the women that were doing the walks in California could order directly from me. So if I wasn't there, they could still get the clothing. So that's how I began.

03:05 – Gresham Harkless

Nice, nice, nice. That's a great story to hear. And especially how it started where you were just wearing something and you were just trying to wear something for yourself. And then all of a sudden someone says, hey, I like that. And then you said, hey, well I can get that for you. And things start to kind of snowball from there. So things are great to kind of hear like how you got started and how that kind of balloon from there. So what I wanted to do was kind of drill a little bit deeper to hear a little bit more about Sports Open and what you're doing with Keep Going Kids.

03:28 – Lori Tobin

OK, we'll keep going kids. It's another when about, let's see, 97 I believe it was. So the breast cancer walks I was doing, but I had an elderly family member get ill, and my mother-in-law and so she needed me to take care of her. My husband's a sea captain, so he was home for a month and gone for a month. I also had a young son, so I started doing kids' clothing, and I also at the school that he belonged to because my son could not sit still.

So I started a program and I did it free for the first year. We had 40 kids show up at the gym. So I started running them around the gym and I have a whole program that some other moms help me. And so from that, I also started doing cooking because I have, a new kitchen because we had moved in between here.

And so I brought the kids, some of the kids from my exercise class and I taught them how to cook and we filmed it through cable. So I have cooking exercise and I have a book, a short book that I had done as well. And I thought, I'm going to see if I can get this a little bigger. So I ran into a producer who was producing the Wahlbergs program and he hooked me up with Alicia from good-natured Dogs. And so we have been working on this project for a while and getting it.

She's her production company, produces movies, television shows, and all kinds of things. So we, that's how to keep going Kids are going from my house, a gym into a program. So I'm very excited about it. It's Evergreen. We're going to be working with kids, probably 4 – 5-year-olds right up into fifth grade. So that's about 11-year-olds teaching them how to cook healthy meals and teaching them how to do some fun exercises around the house.

I don't know if you know, but a lot of families don't cook and they don't know how to cook. So if your kid knows how to cook, then that means they can take care of themselves and they can also cook for the family. And it's a great way for families to be together and enjoy each other. And kids learn a lot of things from cooking and cleaning and you know, the exercise part makes them feel good.

05:28 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And it makes perfect sense. And you get the opportunity to kind of take control of your health as well too, because you are making and preparing exactly what you're going to put into your bodies. And to learn that at a very young, you're creating a lot of foundational skills that those kids can use that will live healthier lives, you know, down the line when they become adults and they get a lot older and they start to age. So I think it's phenomenal what you're doing. And, you know, working with kids is always near and dear to my heart. And we talked about that offline. And so I think that's phenomenal about that new project that you're working on.

05:55 – Lori Tobin

Thank you. Yeah, no, I'm very excited about it. So that's in the pre-production stage, but I'm betting that it'll probably be ready because the website is almost ready to launch, yeah, within the next two months. So once that happens, I think everything else will move pretty quickly.

06:13 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Yeah, that's how it always seems to work. So cool. Well, I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce or kind of your maybe superpower or your differentiator for your organization, what you feel makes you unique.

06:26 – Lori Tobin

OK, well, one is we're made in the USA. Secondly, we always give back. So we have scrap fabric and scrap fabric. I donate to teachers, and art teachers in my community so they can use it as well. We always partner with different organizations to donate back to the kids and the programs and my clothing lasts, which is kind of unique. So I had a woman who called me back probably about seven years ago. She had a pair of my leggings for 20 years.

They had finally worn out and she wanted another pair. So I should have said, can I get your name and address so I can put you on my website? But you mentioned her so my clothing lasts and I use really nice fabrics. So they Wick, they dry quickly and they wash well. And so it's something you can wear for exercise. But it's high fashion these days, athletic apparel.

07:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. When especially everybody working out and, and wearing their their yoga clothes and, and a lot of their sports clothes just walking around, you know, whether it be a grocery store or anywhere, they're putting those things on. So it's great that you have created something, but also people can use it for as long as they have.

07:33 – Lori Tobin

Yes, exactly, exactly. So that's what makes me unique.

07:38 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And what I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app or a book, but the idea is it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

07:48 – Lori Tobin

OK, well, I run every day. So when I go for my runs in the morning and I'm working on some type of a project or something that's just not working. Sometimes, you know, you've got to figure out how to get this and that done. I'll go for my run and it'll pop. So that running, that exercise, and that blood activity to my brain really helps me hone in and figure out ideas and figure out things that need to be done.

So that's very, very important. I also meditate. I meditate in the mornings as well. And that helps focus me. And I write out like what I want, you know, one year, three years, five years, 10 years from now. So I'm always moving forward as to where my business is going, what we're up to, and what's our next event. Do we add a new product line? So that's really it, but it's the running that really helps tremendously for me.

08:39 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I always myself always say, you know, I want to try to vibrate higher as much as possible. And some of those activities definitely help you to do that where you're getting the blood flow and you're starting to think on a higher level. So I think those are some phenomenal CEO hacks that people can kind of take into account in their business and in their lives. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this might be a word of wisdom or piece of advice that you might have for other entrepreneurs and business owners.

09:03 – Lori Tobin

OK, so you want to fill a need for you, whatever you're doing. It's like people, I make a lot of clothing for kids, and kids grow constantly, so they're always needing more of it. So that's one of the things. It's cold in my neck of the woods in the wintertime. So I have heavier fabrics. So parents like that, I'm not. I always ask my customers, what do you need next? What would you like to see?

And I can ask my customers and they will tell me. They'll tell me what they like and they'll tell me what they don't like. So because you're in business to, you know, make a profit or make money, but you also are in the service business, what does your customer want and need? So that's very, very important to me. And also be open to learning and just be ethical as well. That's very important.

09:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I think those are phenomenal. See, and you oh Nuggets, especially the idea of, you know, being ethical and being and making sure that you're in line with your client and whether you have a product-based business or you have a service-based business, understanding that they both kind of intertwine. So you're in the service-based business, you have to listen to your clients, you have to provide great value and great service. So it's great, I think that you have that as a foundational principle in your business and also that you're reminding us that we need to do that as well too, which is important.

10:12 – Lori Tobin

Yeah, exactly.

10:14 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, now my favorite question, which is kind of like the definition of being a CEO. We're asking a lot of different entrepreneurs and business owners to be on this podcast and attracting a lot of different quotes quote CEO's. So I wanted to ask you specifically, what being a CEO means to you.

10:30 – Lori Tobin

Well, I get to wear a lot of hats, you know, you just treat me. It's like you. I'm the head of my company. So we always act with integrity. We always do what we're supposed to do in terms of if a customer is not happy, we do what we need to do to take care of the customer and the CEO has to be again, looking forward, what are we doing next? What's going on, you know, in business and things are moving on the Internet and they're moving so quickly.

It's, you know, you have to constantly be trying to figure out how you can grow your market. And then there's that big company, Amazon. So, you know, you have to set yourself apart from that. So that's something that we're always working on. But CEOs have to just keep an eye on the big picture. And you know, for me, it's just you just do the best you can every day to people how you want to be treated because nobody likes a jerk.

11:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, it's true. That's true. And you know, whatever you put out comes back sometimes. So if you put out that jerkiness, I guess you can say that sometimes I can come right back to you in a lot of different ways. But I also love the fact that you talked about, you know, being able to kind of see things from a higher view and be able to understand like where you're going and where you want to go and also put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.

Which is probably the biggest thing that, you know, running into business or being an entrepreneur or business owner kind of' cause that you do. So I think that's a great definition. I appreciate that. Yeah, Cool, cool, cool. Well, Lori, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know. And then also how best people can get a hold of you.

12:03 – Lori Tobin

OK, well let's see. I would say you sportive.com and that's one T and that's my website for the clothing. Keep going kids. And it's with AZ, but you'll probably print that up. But it's and that'll be the website and that's coming together. So keep watching for that. And you know, it's going to be a busy year this year, I think, but I'm looking forward to it. It should be very exciting. I'm hoping it's going to spin into other things as well. So I don't know. Just check out sporttobin . com. That's the best way to reach me. Lori at sporttobin . com.

12:37 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yes, we will have those links in the show notes so anybody can kind of click through and follow up with you and find out all the awesome things that you're doing. But I truly appreciate you for taking some time out and telling us how, you know, just starting out with yoga pants and now you have this kind of sports and health and Wellness empire that you have in your building. So I think it's pretty awesome to hear everything you're cooking up and I appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

12:59 – Lori Tobin

Question. Thank you very, very much. I appreciate you having me on your show.

13:03 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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