By John Frierson
Employees Author
Katie Jacobs will get issues carried out. She’s a planner that spends a part of each Sunday determining what she must do within the week forward, for her enterprise and for her household. And no matter wants doing at Cheeky Peach, her profitable ladies’s clothes store that she began in Athens in 2010, Jacobs will push up her sleeves and do.
A former Georgia equestrian rider, Jacobs grew up round horse farms. And as a rider, you do much more than experience.
“My childhood had been spent mucking stalls, feeding horses, using horses. That is 100% in my blood,” mentioned Jacobs, who in 2017 was acknowledged by the College of Georgia as a 40 Underneath 40 honoree.
The onerous work and fervour that Jacobs threw into using is being directed towards Cheeky Peach, which now has a second location in Atlanta. Between success in enterprise and elevating a younger household together with her husband, Jason, a former Georgia baseball participant, Jacobs says she falls again usually on what made her a profitable student-athlete.
“It is plenty of juggling, however I believe having a plan and dealing at it — you return to athletics: you determine your plan and you then work your plan,” mentioned Jacobs, who was Katie Foley when she competed for Georgia (2005-06).
In recognition of her success within the enterprise world, Jacobs is certainly one of three recipients of the 2022 Arch Award, offered by the Georgia Athletic Affiliation and Piedmont Financial institution. The opposite recipients are former Gymdog Dr. Leah Brown and former Georgia vast receiver Mohammed Massaquoi.
“I really feel honored to be awarded like this,” Jacobs mentioned.
In 2007, whereas working within the jewellery enterprise, Jacobs began developing with a marketing strategy for a ladies’s clothes retailer she’d prefer to open. In her phrases, working in jewellery gross sales she “was making no {dollars} however I used to be getting plenty of nice expertise.” She additionally at the moment helped the Athens nonprofit Venture Protected open a thrift retailer on the town. “I used to be studying loads about what I assumed I wanted to do,” she mentioned.
In fact, then the recession hit in 2008. Cheeky Peach opened its doorways in 2010, to a a lot completely different financial actuality than the one Jacobs confronted again in 2007 when she was developing together with her preliminary plan.
“The whole lot at my retailer was beneath $100 after I began, so I used to be in a position to hold issues cheap, however on the identical time I might give prospects a extremely nice expertise and take heed to their wants, and join these dots for them,” she mentioned. “That was type of distinctive and particular, particular sufficient that perhaps I might survive a post-recession horrible economic system the place clothes shops had been closing down.”
Jacobs and her husband, who serves as Cheeky Peach’s enterprise supervisor, made it by way of the early months and years, after which issues actually obtained rolling.
“It was onerous at first, these first couple of years had been onerous. My husband and I speak loads about how that previous and that basis simply helps us overcome so a lot better, and we’re extra agile, as a result of we perceive that you will have a nasty displaying or a nasty sport, but it surely’s actually what you do after-hours that makes the massive distinction,” Jacobs mentioned.
Issues had been going nice till 2015, when the roof collapsed proper earlier than soccer season, forcing them to shut till it may very well be repaired. That was a a tough expertise, she mentioned, but it surely did put together them for the pandemic and lockdown within the spring of 2020.
“You simply by no means take something with no consideration. You can’t plan for some issues in life, nobody can, and I believe you simply at all times must be ready,” she mentioned. “I at all times say, my objective drives my plan, and I simply at all times stick true to my objective and my enterprise. And the plan goes to have to vary as a result of circumstances round you that you could’t management are going to vary.”
Unable to open her store, Jacobs leaned into her and the store’s social media following to remain join with their prospects and group.
“My husband and I got here to work each single day,” she mentioned. “I went on social media each single day, and simply tried to narrate to folks. I cooked at house on social media, and I simply tried to convey a lightness. The end result ended up being that we had been in a position to survive that point. We knew what we wanted to to have the ability to pay our payments.
“You return to that athlete mentality: you are simply not going to simply accept failure.”
And from that tough stretch, Jacobs mentioned, she and Cheeky Peach got here out stronger.
“The hustle units again in, you understand how onerous you are going to must go at it, and it has been a troublesome two years,” she mentioned. “I really feel stronger for going by way of that point, completely.”
Assistant Sports activities Communications Director John Frierson is the employees author for the UGA Athletic Affiliation and curator of the ITA Males’s Tennis Corridor of Fame. You will discover his work at: Frierson Recordsdata. He is additionally on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
