So, I decided it was time to start this whole thing. I had a passion burning inside me that needed to get out. I was tired of building other peoples dreams and not my own. Well, I still am building other peoples "dreams" that probably don't support me building my own, but that is a whole different story. Anyway, it was time to do something for myself. If you have gathered I am a person who makes other peoples success and failures, fuel my fire. Not saying that I feel like I need to feel superior or like to watch people fail, but I do watch what is successful for them or may not be successful for them and apply it to myself. A live and learn situation. So I started, but didn't bust out until Watertower Festival.
"...We had heard about your business, LC Design, that will be debuting at Watertower Festival, we would like to do a feature article on you, if that is something you'd be interested in..." Those were the words left as a message for me on my voicemail as I was going into work June 8th. How do I remember? Because I still have the voicemail, haha! Who would have thought that the word would have found it's way around town in that short of time and I hadn't even sold a single thing to the general public yet?! I still have people to this day come up to me at my normal day job saying they saw me in the paper. Maybe they should do a follow up?
Then came Watertower Festival. People still barely knew we existed. Like 200 Facebook likes if we were lucky. It was pretty successful for a first show and we had a lot of people coming to stop and chat about pieces, the paper feature, and being new(er) residents of Pipestone. Still, I wanted/needed more. I made a point that every season we would have at least one sale, boy is that changing.
Kind words continued to flood in from community members, complete strangers, near and far fans, and business people. We even started doing window displays at one of my favorite places, Reggie Gorter Performing Arts Studio. We have taken a break with the cold season and sealing the windows up. But hopefully get something in there again soon.
Our next big sale was Luverne's Winterfest. It was great! Just like every show we have found out there is dead points, but people were just hauling our stuff out and by the afternoon we were looking pretty sparse. We have also found out that after every show for about a month we are swamped with orders. We. love. it!
The Christmas season was sooooooooo good to us! People were ordering gifts non-stop. I am glad we were stocked up. Nothing makes our hearts warm and asking ourselves what is the next big thing, like that. We always want to push ourselves to give everyone something cooler than last time. What were the most popular, trees and pillows. We sold more pillows than imaginable. We now have a huge pile in our guest room closet just to stay on top of it. We also started shipping stuff! If that isn't crazy?! We had an order from New York City going to the Twin Cities, order going to California, lots going to the Twin Cities, and recently Texas has been very good to us. This. is unbelievable. There are some people who don't enjoy the whole online shopping experience because it takes away from the "shopping local" aspect. Trust me, this is just as great. You are helping an extremely small business who isn't in a brick and mortar hopefully get to that point. You are doing great things by ordering from us.
The end of the "year" came, so here came taxes. It was kind of nerve wracking to say the least. We knew we sold a lot, but we also know to start selling 6 months prior that we had a lot of expenses that we were probably far in the hole. A lot of business don't expect to take any money home in the first year, or second, or fifth, maybe even tenth. Well, we did! Though it wasn't a whole heck of a lot I felt good about it. With having to buy less tools and less "supplies" it should make out for an even better year. We have no one else to thank besides everyone who has made us a successful, small, home based business owners, than y'all!
We then started stock piling for the next shows ahead of us. In the meantime, I weighed the pros and cons of becoming a Pipestone Chamber Member. I felt it might be weird to become a chamber member only being a home-based business and only doing shows or selling through Facebook. So far Erica and Tom have been great getting the word out there that we exist. We attended the annual Chamber Banquet and being the new kids on the block was pretty awkward, but as we sat in the corner, by ourselves, we watched people mingle in their groups of friends and knew at that point that these are the people to reach out to and to hold ourselves up to. Don't get me wrong, we were frightened to talk to people who are old enough to be our parents or our grandparents, that we didn't really put ourselves out there and welcome ourselves into their groups to chat. So thank you to the few people that did talk to us, haha. Im sure it was just as awkward talking to people your children's age as it was for us to sit there as the new comers. In the end, we looked at it as these people are business people of Pipestone and so are we. We thought to ourselves if we went around the room asking each person what they were doing at our age they probably wouldn't be saying sitting at a Chamber banquet as a member or even having a business. It also helped that Patri, my boss at AcV2, saying "I would've sat with you. I would've been beating people to be at your table. Don't give up. You got this!" Sometimes you need that reminder that people do believe in you when you feel like the out of place new kid. I bet this experience will only go up from here!
Any who! The next show was this month, April. It was in our own town so we decided to only bring our top selling items and the new creations. We did great! The show was kind of slow, but people were just dragging stuff out and leaving us big holes and big impressions! It was great hearing everyone so excited to come out and see us or say they were only coming because they heard we would be there. I am sure my big smiles freaked people out, but my heart was so full. Not to mention I got to (re)meet a fabulous woman who dropped off some of her junk on my porch this past summer and made us have the biggest looked at Facebook post for us, ever. Our yoke light reached 1.543 people...we don't even have that many Facebook friends! Because word was getting out, our next post with a peek at what things we are bringing to the Spring Fling: 3,867 people reached! That is cruising up to the population of this town!
So now what is next? This is where I said "each season having a show" is changing. This summer we are so busy. We know for sure three shows we will be in, contemplating two others. Summer is the key time to hit these shows. Our customer base expands, as it should, every show so it just keep getting better. Also, we have been considering opening an Etsy shop this summer for our smaller, popular items. We are still hoping to see the building we have our eye on, to open up. I say to myself everyday "Why can't I just have a shop?" I know that in time it will tell and we will open outside of shows and our basement. It has to be the right time and the right place. Currently, we have 485 likes on Facebook and growing literally everyday. Everyday we are doing a new project just to keep up or to keep a stock pile for the next show. We are living and learning this and totally loving it. Spring is now upon us and we are about to hit the planting season so things will be slowing down in one area and picking up in the other. It will be a two-ish- three week of idea turning and figuring out what is the next "thing." As I scroll through these photos and this post I cannot believe how far we have come from just a wild idea to a real fan base and requests for new pieces. We have reoccurring customers from near and far. We couldn't be happier with where this adventure is taking us.
Next show: Buffalo Days in Luverne. See ya there!
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