Imagine being able to call yourself a company CEO by age 20. What would it be like realize that 16,700 people on Instagram love your idea? Can you picture bringing a business to life in just under a year, and watching as it expands into multiple states?
For Payton Anderson, that’s real life.
Anderson, the founder and CEO of Southern Country Clothing, started his business last September. He designed the company to offer a high-end clothing brand with a small town feel. What began as a selection of two t-shirts in a few different colors is now expanding to include hats, pullovers and dress shirts with a touch of Southern Country charm. The sky is the limit for Anderson, but it wasn’t an easy journey. In fact, he didn’t originally intend to be a businessman at all.
As a kid, Anderson dreamed of playing professional baseball. After he graduated from Oconee County High School, he decided to move to Alabama in to attend Jacksonville State. He played baseball for his college, but a surgery on his left elbow pulled him out of the sports world for a time. While he was recovering, he had time to brainstorm about his business and hammer out a plan. His baseball team was ready to help him out. They were completely on board and proved to be his best customers. With that support behind him, he took off.
He started his foray into the business world by creating Southern Strong Apparel, a brand that specialized in outdoor gear. He encountered a challenge from another company over the name of his business, and he decided to go for a full rebrand. That’s when his company really took off. Once he changed the name and logo, he watched as his Instagram followers jumped from 500 to 16.7 thousand people. He moved from Jacksonville to Athens, and is in talks with local stores about expanding his company from online only to in store.
Anderson is currently working on his business full time, and he’s been riding the learning curve of the business world. He spends his days working with Southern Country Clothing’s manufacturer in China, planning with photographers for an upcoming photo shoot in Birmingham, coming up with new designs for his products, designing social media marketing plans and making endless amounts of phone calls. He is determined to meet his goal of offering his line in 40 stores by the end of fall 2016, and he estimates that he has called between 300 and 400 stores thus far in an effort to make that happen.
His company may be growing, but he’s determined not to lose that small town feel. Customer service is extremely important to Anderson. He wants anybody that calls the company, be it a regular customer or a big retailer, to be able to speak with him personally. Southern Country Clothing is currently run by Anderson with the help of his friends, family and roommates. He credits his dad as his role model, and believes that he set a good example for how to run a business.
What’s next for Anderson? He’s in talks with stores in and around Atlanta, as well as in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina. He plans to unveil a huge new line in the spring, and has a goal of selling his products in 150 stores. He’s been accepted to the University of Georgia for Spring 2017, where he plans to pursue a major in Marketing. As a junior in college, Anderson has accomplished an incredible amount, but he has only just begun.
If you’d like to check out what Southern Country Clothing has to offer, you can visit the company website at southerncountryclothing.com. They also have active social media pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
