Jennifer Tabor could have been featured in this magazine under a plethora of headlines. “It’s not easy being a green company,” perhaps. Maybe “The youngest manufacturer business owners.” Even the Music & Sound Independent Retailer. We selected Formidable Females.
Tabor, 32, founded Souldier, which makes handmade guitar straps using recycled and salvaged materials. Souldier makes guitar straps from car seatbelts. “Most companies make guitar straps from leather,” said Tabor. “A seatbelt is a good alternative because it allows the guitar to move, whereas leather sticks to your shirt. Also, if you wear a brown leather strap with a white shirt, once you sweat, the leather tends to rub off on your clothes.”
The seatbelts come from a variety of sources. For example, Tabor receives purple seatbelts from Federal Express. She also receives tons of seatbelts that are left over from factories. “The car manufacturers consider them garbage and would be sending them to the landfill if I didn’t take them,” said Tabor. “They don’t biodegrade. I now have a stockpile of about 50 different colors of seatbelts.”
Tabor was a music education major at DePaul University in Chicago, the same city where her business resides. After graduating from DePaul, she taught beginning orchestra and intermediate orchestra to third through eighth graders.
Tabor also taught at many Windy City-area music instrument stores. But why become a manufacturer? Tabor can thank Ways and Means, which is not a political committee to which she belongs; it’s a band she’s a member of. “Two of the band members have birthdays that are a couple of days apart,” said Tabor. “One year, I thought about how I was always a professional musician first and a crafter as a hobby. I always knitted and sewed. It was my second passion. The guys needed birthday presents and I decided to make them guitar straps. I went to a fabric store to find materials that would uniquely fit their personalities. I picked out something for [a band member named] Neil based on what music he liked and how he dressed. Then, I picked up something for Ben, who is a little more conservative and looked good with the white shirts he wore. They liked the straps, so I decided to make some more and take them to shows. The first straps I sold were at the merchandise booth during shows where we played.”
Tabor was pleased with the success, so she mustered up the courage to go into a store. “The first store told me ‘No.’ The second store said ‘Yes.’” Tabor was able to convince the store to stock her products because she had taught there. She then began collecting fabrics. Tabor didn’t think 20 different styles would provide enough variety. So, once she began to make some money, she channeled those into acquiring more styles.
Tabor also sold the straps at craft fairs. “I got to deal with customers directly and find out what they wanted in a guitar strap. That feedback led to many changes in my products,” she said.
Souldier straps are now in about 250 MI stores, 96 percent of which Tabor has visited. “But they are only in independent stores,” stressed Tabor. “There’s always someone who comes up to me at the NAMM show and tells me how great margins can be if I sell my product in large chain stores.”
Tabor joked, “Honestly, what I do is the same thing I used to do when I met guys at the bar. I give them [a false] e-mail address. I don’t want to know how I will benefit. Once I lose control of the production aspect, the quality goes down.”
Another reason for sticking to independent stores is Tabor can quickly make changes to straps based on customer feedback. Quality control remains at its highest level.
Loyalty is another reason. “Independent stores have supported me from the beginning,” said Tabor. “We can give them an edge over big-box corporate stores.”
Fashionable Female
Being a female in MI provides advantages and disadvantages. One big advantage: Fashion is often what makes straps sell. Men often trust women for their fashion sense. “Stores often appreciate my advice,” said Tabor. “They often tell me they might make the wrong purchasing decision. I tell them I will pick out a great selection of straps that will sell.”
The negative is some people don’t believe Tabor owns a business. But that’s due as much, in part, to her being young as being female. “I don’t wear makeup,” she said. “But when I exhibit at the NAMM show, I put on makeup to appear older to people.”
Speaking of NAMM, Tabor intends to make her booth as green as possible next month. She plans to have a vintage couch, vintage table, and will probably design her own carpet from recycled felt. “We also will display a new recycled seatbelt stick bag we will now offer,” she said.
It’s All About Soul
Tabor, who, by the way, is also the mother of 2- and 4-year-old daughters—“the next generation of the business”—thought of the name Souldier because she always had the famous image in her head of hippies placing flowers in the guns of National Guardsmen. “We want to march on and be soldiers in this industry regardless of what happens. Also, right after I thought of the name, the band The Killers came out with a song titled ‘I’ve Got Soul, But I’m Not a Soldier.’ It was a perfect fit for me. The Killers now use our guitar straps.”
Tabor even comes equipped with a tip for you. “Retailers should find the employee who has a good fashion sense or who takes pride in how they look whenever they walk into the store. There’s always one. Take that kid and put them in charge of something. It could be straps and accessories. Let them reorganize and rearrange the products. Put things in order by style. If you open up the opportunity for them to look at something in a different perspective than yours, you might be impressed. Teenagers are often into their looks. They really care what they look like. A second benefit of doing this is that employee becomes a specialist in those products. The employee will know exactly what’s there because they organized it. The kid will also have a great sense of accomplishment. They’ll be proud."
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