How a Glasgow entrepreneur used gut instinct to get her business back on track
Jolene Crawford has made big changes by tuning into her feminine intuition
There are people out there who are generous with their time, and there are those who are generous with their ideas. Jolene Crawford is most definitely both.
She arrives dressed in a jumble of bright colours and full of Monday energy. Straight off the bat she’s chatting about her work and her motivation behind Irregular Sleep Pattern (ISP), the textiles brand she established in 2020 with her husband Mil Stricevic. If you’ve seen their products on your Instagram feed, as I often do, her bright colours make sense – ISP sells pyjamas to be worn as daywear in a mish-mash of bold, clashing colours modelled by people who look as interesting as the brand itself.
But we’re not here to talk about pyjamas.
Recently, Crawford has been posting about the ways she takes a spiritual approach to doing business. She’s talked about sprinkling cinnamon on her stock once a month, and of attending a feminine business school. I’m intrigued – mainly because the world we live in at the moment seems to be on a perpetual macho stand-off, and it’s nice to hear of someone doing something a little different.
So we sit for an hour in a bright, empty café. And I hear all about it.
From TV to textiles
‘I’ve never run this type of business before,’ opens Crawford. A former TV producer, the 46-year-old had once been told by her boss that honesty was her secret weapon, a trait that appears to be surprisingly rare in the broadcast industry. When she left she took that trait and fed it into a brand-new idea.
Drawing on Stricevic’s expertise in design and her passion for making things happen the pair set out to fill a gap in the market for well-made, ethically sourced bed linen and sleepwear. They were honest about what they made and how they made it – as well as what that would mean for their price point. They quickly racked up followers across the world. But sales didn’t necessarily follow.
‘We were pretty naive about how hard it would be’
‘Although it probably looked to the outside world like things were going really well in terms of how much we were selling everything was a bit sluggish,’ admits Crawford. ‘You know, we were pretty naive about how hard it was going to be to get traction.’
The pair struggled to find a factory that met their ethical sourcing standards, and Crawford worked hard to secure sales as well as likes and shares. The first of several decisive moments came when she signed up for a social media marketing course for ‘purpose-driven businesses’. It was run, she says ‘by an alpha male’.
‘What happened on that course was that I completely got lost, and it was horrible,’ she says. ‘I was in tears on the live zooms. If you didn't ask a question in the right way, he would just ignore you.’
While she did come away from the course with some invaluable skills, the end result as far from the motivation she sought. ‘It shook me, and I really felt like quitting.’
What happened next was an aligning of stars, of sorts. A chance connection led to Crawford meeting an artist, Sam, who led her to think differently about how she wanted to do business. ‘We'd come back from a trade fair in the States, and we hadn't signed any orders, and I just thought, I can't do this anymore.
‘And then, while I was away, a friend messaged me and said a tattoo artist she knew needed a space to work from. I said, OK, he can come and work out of our sitting room. So the day we got back from New York, Sam arrived.’
Talk and transformation
It was like the universe had sent him, says Crawford. The pair talked intensely about life, business, and their spirituality. He hooked her up with a tarot healer who helped her talk through some deep-seated (and probably quite Scottish) guilt around money, and to think differently about what she wanted to achieve. Through the healer, she came across a business school that was based around the principles of feminine energy. This, says Crawford, has been transformational. Turnover has doubled – and she’s been able to hire a full-time member of staff.
‘I learned that you get out what you put in, and until then I was just putting in stress and negativity. I was trying to operate on more masculine capitalist grounds; I was pushing and I was getting annoyed when things weren't happening, but I had stopped tuning into my gut for my just my knowing of what is right for our business.’
The idea of feminine energy in business is not a new one. Anita Roddick, Body Shop founder and ethical business guru wrote on the subject in her 2000 book Business as Unusual and influenced a score of entrepreneurs – Crawford among them. There’s still a sense of ‘woo woo’, however, when it comes to talking about energies, cycles and spirituality in the world of sales.
‘We know that in the patriarchal capitalist society, those in charge don't want people to be tuned in to their guts; it's never legitimised,’ says Crawford. ‘I've decided to speak about this openly, even though my own kids are, like, Mum, that's crazy. I really don't care, because it has made such a difference.’
Little rituals
So is this what the cinnamon sprinkling is all about? Yep, she says. ‘On the first day of the month, I blow cinnamon into our little pyjama cave in our flat because cinnamon is an abundance spice. It's not that I believe that I'm making a magic spell, but what I'm doing is I'm training my brain; I’m giving gratitude for the sales I’ve made.
‘Rather than my brain starting the month panicking and thinking I'm never going to sell as much as I sold last month, I'm just starting the month on a positive way. And then on a full moon I write down a list of things I want to let go of and I burn it. It's training your brain. By letting go of things, I'm getting those negative things out of my head; I’m banishing them.’
‘Everything is cyclical’
As Crawford says, ‘you don’t get taught this at business school.’ But the gratitude, the rituals, the mindfulness… they all seem to be paying off. The brand has launched a range of neckties and eye-masks made from offcuts and old patterns, produced with an Indian NGO that provides employment for refugees.
Other new designs, including hot water bottles and washbags, are now awaiting their first sprinkle of cinnamon. Crawford, Stricevic and employee Hayley McSporran, herself a designer, are looking for a new studio – and things are back on track.
‘Everything is cyclical,’ says Crawford. ‘I think that's quite a freeing thing in business. So, if you're trying something and it isn't working, it’s just a natural cycle that has now ended.’ I wonder whether her candour can be a drawback, as well as a strength? After all, as a business that presents primarily through social media her posts about the rituals she undertakes could be seen as yet another piece of content to mine for clicks. But it’s not that calculated, Crawford says.
‘I'm fully aware that some people will think it's crazy, but I couldn't care less. I was at a dinner party last night, and there was quite a odd person there who was a complete atheist, and was getting really, really angry about anyone that needs any kind of help.
‘I said, look, I don't care about whether you can prove something is factual or not. As a human being I enjoy taking help from anywhere and using that as a way to move through the world with more ease.’
If it works, it works. And having spent an hour in Crawford’s company I’m excited by the thought that there’s another way of looking at the world of work – one that’s not just led by KPIs, but by the heart.
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