“I thought I worked a lot, today I work a lot more than before,” says Carol Bassi

Entrepreneur sold her brand to Arezzo & Co.

A year after selling her brand to Grupo Arezzo & Co, owned by Alexandre Birman, Carol Bassi talks about the changes the brand has undergone, the process of national expansion, with plans to open five more stores next year , and how she migrated from going from a family business to a publicly traded one has made her work much harder than before.

“In companies with open capital the demand for goals is very high, it is very strong. I thought I worked a lot, today I work a lot more than before. I say that I spent a year with a lot of adrenaline,” the entrepreneur told journalist Sofia Patsch in a telephone interview.

Despite all the accusations, Carol ends 2022 with a smile on her face. “We reached our target, which was very high, on November 24th. We also grew by 45% in the last quarter.” Check it out below.

What has changed in your brand one year after the acquisition of Grupo Arezzo?

Look, many things have changed, but I only really understood what was happening in my life, in my company, on a daily basis. We think we know what awaits us, there are many things in the contract, but in reality we will only understand it live.

Are you afraid of losing your essence?

Alexandre (Birman) has great respect for each brand of the group, he respects their identity and DNA. He therefore he is a relief, a blessing. I’m a very real person, I can’t work if I’m sad, I can’t work if I’m not well, so this freedom that he has given me, to be able to continue doing my own thing, brings me a lot of peace.

Also because you are the soul of the company, the brand is very much about your lifestyle.

That’s right, a lot. It carries more than my name, it carries my energy, what I believe in. So, for me, that was key. But, on the other hand, what Arezzo presented to us was a structure that you only need to experience to understand. Within the group each sector has its specialists, who are very competent people, so we started flying. Before the sale, the brand already had great strength, it was already doing very well, but now we have the structure that has led to Arezzo, where you can really get a lot of help from all sides. So, it’s been really good for me, I’m very happy. Now there are challenges too, it’s not for the weak (laughs).

Is there a lot of charge?

In open capital companies, the collection of targets is very high. Alexandre (Birman) is an example, because he is tireless, so everyone works very hard. I thought I worked a lot, today I work a lot more than before. I say that I spent a year with a lot of adrenaline. We hit our goal for this year, which was super high on November 24th. The goal was to be achieved by 31 December.

And how is the national expansion of the brand going with this entry into the Group from Arezzo?

Full steam ahead, very structured. This year we have opened a shop in Belo Horizonte, a very large one in Rio de Janeiro and one in Trancoso, in Quadrado. We opened the website, Carol Bassi was a brand without a website, so when Arezzo bought the brand, all that turnover (when it was acquired by the Arezzo Group, the brand had a turnover of R$ 58 million) was without e- commerce. We opened a super modern e-commerce site and increased our revenue by 45% last quarter. We plan to open five more stores next year, so we’re really in a booming time.

And what are the plans for 2023?

Continue this expansion, without losing our essence, because more than a brand, we sell experience. I think that today I can dedicate myself much more to what I do well. When we were a family business, run by my husband, Caio Campos and I, we didn’t have the structure that the Arezzo group and Co. had. I used to put out fires everywhere, had to fix things that weren’t entirely within my purview, because I didn’t have enough manpower for that. And not today. So, I can focus more on the creation part.

And what is it like working with your husband?

Look, I say it was a meeting of souls. We first dated in our teens, then I married someone else, I was married for eleven years, we met again after those eleven years and it was the right time, it was the right time. It just happened very naturally, there’s a divide between what he’s good at and what I’m good at and we respect that a lot. Caio is the brains of the brand, he is a concentrate of intelligence, I certainly wouldn’t have gotten this far without Caio. He is a strategist and I am not. We complement each other.

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Source: Terra

Camila

Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.