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“In the very beginning, it was three priorities,\" she said. \"I wanted to be a mom so family was incredibly important to me. I wanted to be in fashion which I dreamt of doing and I wanted to give back to my community.”

Scott’s store opened only two years after the 2008 recession and she distinctly remembers how stores around her were closing their doors one by one. As her surroundings gradually turned into a “ghost town,” Scott decided to do it differently and instead get radical with retail.

“For us in a time when everybody was shuttering, I thought let’s do something,\" she said. \"Let’s try to open a store so that I can learn from my customer because I hadn’t been able to talk to her directly.”

From then on, Scott sought to engage with her customers on an interpersonal level by making sure her product was freely displayed for customers to touch, try on, and customize right there in the store.

“You have to engage with your customer, excite them, have reasons for them to come in,\" Scott told Jarvis. \"And you also have to be able to connect with her or him in a meaningful way.” Adding, “The minute that you become complacent you’re going to fail.”

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To bring this Collection to life, we traveled to Amangiri. It's a truly magical place that balances the modern with the organic. The canvas this Collection deserves. | #KSFall18 Launching Wednesday

A post shared by Kendra Scott (@kendrascott) on Aug 5, 2018 at 8:09am PDT

Scott has come a long way from her first store as she told Jarvis that while she heard a lot of encouraging voices, she also heard from a lot of naysayers along the way. But hearing the word “no” instead gave Scott the fuel to build the Kendra Scott brand into what it’s become today.

“I think that’s so important for anybody to remember that you can hear a lot of voices of nos. I always say that 'no' in a mirror is 'on.' So, to me, we’re just talking,” she said.

Hear more from Kendra Scott on the newest episode of the \"No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis\" podcast.

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