A Ruby Ribbon Story & #SpreadTheKindness Link Up #73

May 22, 2018 / 47 Comments

Over the past few months, I have written about Ruby Ribbon, a wonderful company which I recently discovered that specializes in shaping camisoles that allow you to ditch your bra! They also offer an amazing line of shaping swim wear and other women’s apparel. If you missed my previous posts and would like to catch up, you can find them below.

*This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.

I have praised the products that I have tried and many of you have expressed an interest in them. I know some of you have even reached out to my Ruby Ribbon Stylist, Carol Tsacoyeanes. I met Carol back in April at a vendor event that I was attending and she and I hit it off immediately. She has a contagious energy, a zest for life, a love for human interaction, a passion for her business, and a desire to empower other women to be the best versions of themselves and follow their dreams. She is definitely the kind of woman I want in my corner as I travel this crazy journey through midlife. So today, I want to share with you her story because it is one that is important and powerful, moving and inspirational, real, raw, and genuine.

Meet Carol Tsacoyeanes, Ruby Ribbon Stylist and Team Leader

Like many women facing the onset of empty nest syndrome, Carol found her life’s path completely altered in 2011 when her youngest daughter left for college. When Carol’s children were young, she made the ultimate decision to leave a career and stay at home to raise her children, a decision that many of us make not realizing the implications that come with it once the stay-at-home mom role comes to end. The role of stay-at-home mother that had defined Carol for so many years was suddenly gone. While I have not yet had to face this type of transition, I can only imagine that it can bring into question your entire identity and purpose.

In an effort to rediscover her purpose and redefine her goals, Carol began actively job searching. She found a direct sales company that produced athletic wear which seemed to her to be a calling of sorts. As a former student-athlete in college who embarked on a career in Health and Wellness, Carol was always interested in all things related to athletics. At the time that she entered the empty nest phase of life, she was heavily involved with coaching and instructing fitness classes and had subsequently moved into managing wellness programs and fitness facilities. Selling quality athletic wear seemed like a natural fit for Carol especially in a direct sales environment where she could essentially be her own boss. She embraced this new career with enthusiasm and dedication and quickly realized that her true purpose and passion was to assist women on a journey to loving their wardrobes, owning their personal style, and ultimately feeling as beautiful and confident as possible.

For three years, Carol built her business in her home selling women’s athletic apparel through personal and group styling appointments, fashion shows, and fundraisers. She loved helping women find the perfect outfits for their body types and personal style. But even more, she enjoyed building relationships with interesting women and empowering them along the way. Then suddenly, Carol’s division within this apparel company closed and three years of building relationships hung in limbo. To make Carol’s journey that much more challenging, her husband was diagnosed with multiple health issues right around this time. She became his primary caretaker and as his symptoms worsened, she found that her tasks were increasingly becoming very demanding. Now Carol was faced not only with the emotional turmoil of watching her husband’s health decline but she also needed a means to generate income while maintaining a flexible schedule in order to meet her husband’s needs. Her financial “why” had seemingly changed overnight and she was determined to make it all work out.

As she reflected on the fact that her direct sales business in the women’s apparel industry placed her firmly in the element where she felt most passionate and purposeful, she wondered how she could continue this journey after her division had closed. As generally happens when you put goodness into the world, goodness will come back to you. While the door on her three year career had closed, another door quickly opened in response to Carol’s warm, caring, kind, and passionate personality. Ruby Ribbon, a young fast-growing company that was unknown to Carol, reached out to her to join their team. At first, Carol was hesitant, as most people are when recruited by a direct sales company. But leaving her options and her heart open, Carol began diligently finding out more about this infant company.

Her hesitation quickly began to fade away as she read the Ruby Ribbon story and discovered more information about Anna Zornosa, the remarkable CEO and Founder of this fledgling company. She learned that Anna is tremendously passionate about helping other women. Anna saw a need for a specific product, created the product line, implanted it into the necessary niche market, and started a business that offered flexible jobs that would help other women stand independent and empowered in their own right. Anna launched her Ruby Ribbon camisoles and was met with so much positive feedback as consumers loved the result that she had achieved in her shape wear prototype.

Women have long since been fond of the smoothing and lifting effects offered by shape wear. While they love how shape wear can make their clothing look better, many women have expressed discontent with how uncomfortable and confining shape wear can feel from the task of squeezing their bodies into these torture chambers to losing their breath throughout the day from how extraordinarily confining shape wear pieces tend to be. Anna was on a mission to rectify this situation for women everywhere. She hired a designer and created dozens of prototypes before she finally hit the jackpot with the shape wear carried by Ruby Ribbon today. The shaping camisoles and other shape wear pieces offer smoothing support without the discomfort of other shape wear that is available on the market today. She quickly branched out into other women’s apparel. The entire product line makes women feel supported, stylish, and comfortable all at once.

Ruby Ribbon CEO and Founder, Anna Zornosa, with Product Designer, Megan Boynton

As Carol learned all of these details about Ruby Ribbon, she realized that Anna’s mission was completely in line with her own purpose and passion. She does admit that initially she was skeptical about the products. Could they really be all of this…supportive and comfortable and high quality? However, despite her skepticism, Carol took a leap of faith and launched into fitting women in Ruby Ribbon products. She states, “I was not confident in their ability to do what they said until woman after woman became very excited about ‘ditching their bras’ for a more comfortable yet supportive alternative. With so many products out on the market, many women, myself included, have wasted a lot of money and time purchasing. It’s extremely overwhelming and intimidating. All of this is a direct result of being let down and made you, as a woman, not feel beautiful and confident in your skin, not to mention constantly fixing and being self-conscious in your clothes. How could this one product help women?”

Fairly quickly, Carol began seeing the proof she needed. One woman called her very early on and asked her if she could fit a 38JJ size. In her honest and truthful manner, Carol stated she was not entirely sure, but invited the woman to come to her home for a fitting. The customer arrived to try on some Ruby Ribbon camisoles. While the woman was in the fitting room getting into a camisole, Carol was met with a moment of silence. She became nervous as she wondered if the customer needed assistance getting into the camisole, if she was already in it and hated it, if she was appalled by the entire experience and disappointed once again by the promise of comfortable and supportive shape wear. Finally, the woman emerged from the fitting room in a flood of tears wearing the camisole. Carol was overwhelmed with a barrage of concerns: was it uncomfortable, was it the wrong size, did it need adjusting? Her concerns were put to rest when the woman exclaimed, “THIS IS THE MOST COMFORTABLE THING I HAVE EVER WORN!” This satisfied customer could not wait to stock up on Ruby Ribbon camisoles and ditch her bras forever. For Carol, this moment was pivotal as it validated for her the true feat of engineering that is inherent in Ruby Ribbon camisoles. As a woman steps into one of these camisoles, it is designed to lift and support in the right places while affording the freedom of movement, proper breath control, and all day comfortability. From the confines of any fitting room, we all ask ourselves that one colossal question, “Does it make me feel beautiful?” If the answer is “yes” then you have found a winning product.

As Carol quickly immersed herself into her new Ruby Ribbon business, she also discovered exponential benefits from this company in addition to just offering an amazing product. Ruby Ribbon and all of the stylists that are part of the team have formed a sisterhood across the country that has not been duplicated by any other establishment. As direct sales companies have become notoriously recognized for their competitive, cut-throat sales leaders who will stop at nothing to push their careers and sales numbers ahead, Ruby Ribbon fosters an environment of support and teamwork among its team members. They engage in friendly competitions that are designed to guide stylists to support one another, share ideas, and challenge each other to achieve their personal goals. And most importantly of all, the educational training sessions and annual conferences attended by this group of like minded women has enabled Carol to forge lasting and meaningful relationships with the other stylists.

On her Ruby Ribbon journey, Carol has become even more passionate about serving women and helping them to feel more comfortable and more confident in everything they wear and how they present themselves to the world. She has also discovered that Ruby Ribbon products are perfect for women who have had surgeries, back issues, scoliosis, osteoporosis, pregnancies, nursing and other conditions. Due to her undying dedication and endless efforts in the pursuit of her passion and goals, Carol has earned a significant income as well as a multitude of awards and other designations.

  • Two all-expense paid beach vacations to five star resorts in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
  • Various rewards of jewelry and luxury handbags.
  • Over $60,000 in income since joining Ruby Ribbon.
  • Membership into the Ruby Ribbon $100,000 club.
  • Designated as the Queen of Swim.
  • Various other sales and leadership awards.

Carol has successfully trained new stylists and promoted others into leadership roles. When the company introduced a new swimwear line, this certified aqua fitness instructor had finally found the perfect marriage between her passion for guiding women to feel more beautiful and confident with her love of fitness. Carol has continued to grow her business and her team of Ruby Ribbon stylists in the Northeast United States. She is excited and determined to continue supporting women and to provide the right tools to build self-confidence. As an active member in the Chamber of Commerce, Carol enjoys giving presentations on topics such as dressing for your body type and creating a capsule wardrobe. She is also an active member of the Connecticut Chapter of the eWomen Network for entrepreneurial women. It is organizations like these that are essential for involving more women in the pursuit of empowering all women. Currently, Ruby Ribbon has only one stylist for every 65,000 women across the United States. Carol is on a mission dedicated to change this statistic while striving to provide opportunities for more women to become financially independent every day.

Are you exhausted with fussing about undergarments? Have you had enough with your shape wear rolling up? Are you tired of losing your breath because your shape wear is too tight? Are you sick of not feeling beautiful in your clothes? It has long been said that your undergarments can make or break an outfit. And Ruby Ribbon camisoles can breathe new life into your wardrobe. Carol is here to serve and support you to look and feel like the best version of yourself, confident and beautiful in your own clothes.

To connect with Carol or to obtain more information about Ruby Ribbon and its products, please visit Carol at Ruby Ribbon. You can also find Carol on Facebook at her Facebook Exclusive VIP page. To contact Carol directly, you can call her at (860) 205-2372 or email her at ctsacoy+ruby@gmail.com.

I do hope you have found Carol’s story interesting and inspiring and welcome her to our amazing community of people who empower women!

And now the featured favorites from last week.

Yvonne of Funky Forty shared her post, Why every woman needs a wrap dress! And I mean, yeah, when you look as fabulous as Yvonne does..even pairing trainers with her beautiful dress, I have to agree…every woman really does need a wrap dress.

Yvonne of Funky Forty

And my dear friend Chrissy of Granola and Grace is at it again sharing her wonderful fashion sense in combination with her brilliant sense of humor in her post, I’ve Tried Pink, So Why Not Blue? This woman never ceases to make me smile with her wit and style!

Chrissy of Granola and Grace


Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Linking up with these Fabulous Link Ups.

I am a midlife woman, wife, and stay-at-home mother of 2 boys and 2 cats. I have a passion for helping other women feel fabulous in the midst of this crazy, beautiful life.

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