226 – Concept to Wholesale in One Year with Meg Sutton of Belle & Union

Gift biz on wrapped episode 226 she said,

I don't understand why you're so upset.

I'm like,

well, I don't know anything more than I did when I

got here.

And she said,

well, of course you don't.

You already knew you could do this.

At Tinton,

gifters, bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is give to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there Sue,

and I'm so happy that you're joining me here today.

I'm in the middle of a lot of travel right now.

I was just in San Diego for a conference.

For those of you who might be familiar,

Pat Flynn had his very first conference,

Flynn con number one.

So this was an investment in my own self development.

We talk podcasting,

online courses and overall business growth online.

See I practice what I preach.

This was an investment in myself and my business so that

I can show up better for you guys.

Then I jumped over for a quick trip into Mexico,

like a two day quick trip because it was a family

birthday celebration that I kind of snuck in between two other

trips and now this week I'm going to be headed out

to Phoenix for a couple of days for the national gift

basket convention.

I'm logging lots of air miles,

which is really good because I always take specific,

really intense projects and I use that airtime to really focus

because there's no phone,

there's no email and I can really just stay in tent

with no distractions most of the time anyway,

I'm planning to do a meetup while I'm in Phoenix,

so if you're in the area,

I would love to meet you in person for all the

details. Jump over to my Facebook group,

gift biz breeze.

That's where I always announce if I'm going to be out

of town,

possibly in your town and scheduling a meet up so there

you can see what towns and then I give you all

the specifics.

So if you're in Phoenix,

let's see each other this week.

Before we get into the show,

I have a question for you.

How'd your day go yesterday?

Maybe a crazy question.

I know and yes,

you heard me right?

If you were to rate yesterday,

how much did you get done?

How far did you advance toward your goal?

Or maybe in your mind saying what goal?

Many of you have told me you aren't sure whether what

you're doing is the right thing for your business.

You're confused that you may be focusing on the wrong things

and wasting time and money and you compare yourself to others

and feel like you're just not up.

Sound familiar?

Maybe you find that you're busy all day long,

but when you finish up,

you haven't accomplished much of anything at all.

I've been there too until I started working with what I

now call the power of purpose.

I made a free video for you that explains how to

boost your productivity and get results using the power of your

purpose. Isn't it time to make all the effort that you

put into your business and your life do for you what

you've intended.

Now, full disclosure,

this video does lead into showing you my brand new inspired

daily planner,

but listen,

you don't need the inspired planner to get all the advantages

out of the power of purpose that I show you in

this video.

So if you're interested in discovering a new way to work

through your days,

so your time is intentional and your results are real,

I encourage you to go over and watch this video and

you can find it at gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash planner.

That's gift biz unwrapped.com

forward slash.

Planner. I'm really excited for you to hear from our guests

today. Last week I teased about the industry she's in because

it's a gift biz on wrapped first.

Meg is a stationary designer.

Well, she started that way and still is today,

but today she's so much more than that too.

It's always interesting to see how the first vision that someone

has for their business adjusts and morphs into something a little

bit different as time goes on.

One of the things about the guests side bring on the

show is that even if they have a different product blind

than you do,

they are all still makers,

so you can always learn something from people outside of your

specialized product niche,

sometimes even more because you can get so cocooned into your

category and so single focused the sometimes you miss other opportunities,

thought creative things that you can bring to your product,

marketing of your business,

et cetera,

that you find from learning about someone in a totally different

product space than your end.

I know you're going to find a ton of value in

Meg's story and her advice,

so without any further delay,

let's move into my chat with Meg Today.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Meg Sutton of

Belle and union.

Meg is the boss lady and doodler behind Belle and union,

a company that sells letterpress printed cards,

art prints,

Southern inspired wrappings and handcrafted artisan goods brimming with vintage wit

and wisdom.

The total little bit of a foodie twist,

all 100% made in the USA.

while working in a boutique shop,

Belen union launched their first brick and mortar store in San

studio as well as offers creative workshops across a wide variety

of subject matters.

Meg values encouraging people to slow down and enjoy the sweet

moments in life.

Gathered round a table filled with smiles and laughter and when

she's not doodling or coming up with Bella and union's next

great product,

you can find her sipping Thai tea,

chasing her pup with her husband and curling up with a

good book.

Oh my gosh,

Meg, that life sounds fabulous.

Welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm thrilled that you're here with us and as tradition has

it on the show,

I'd like to have you give us a little feel for

who you are by describing yourself through a motivational candle.

So if you were to help us envision what this candle

looks like by color and quote,

what would it be?

So this is actually a really fun question because I'm attempting

to work on a candle line right now.

Oh boy.

And I'm all about candles,

so that's great.

So it's definitely been forefront of my mind.

I would definitely say my color would have to be white

cause I want it to go with anything,

any decor,

no matter what room of the house.

Plus white to me is just clean and classic.

Definitely sophisticated too.

But as far as what I think I'd want it to

say, I've kind of fallen in love with this quote by

max Dupree,

who was the head of Herman Miller,

the office furniture brand.

Such an amazing iconic company.

Yeah. But he said we cannot become what we want by

remaining what we are.

And I just find those words really powerful and inspiring right

now for a lot of reasons.

But I think a lot of small business boss ladies and

entrepreneurs in general can really relate with that.

Just knowing you got to take that next step to really

get where you want to go.

Absolutely. And that's a little bit fear provoking and all,

but it's exciting at the same time you're moving into something

different. Kind of like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon or

something maybe.

Yes, yes.

Oh, got it.

Well Meg,

give us a little bit of your backstory.

How did you get to where you are today?

Sure. So I studied graphic design in college,

so I've always kind of been in a design mindset you

could say.

But like most designers I wasn't necessarily thrilled with the idea

or maybe not most.

I personally was not thrilled with the idea of going super

corporate. I love the ability to make things by hand and

really have something tactical.

Cause unfortunately with graphic design,

so much of it lives in the digital world and so

it wasn't quite as fulfilling for me as an artist.

And ultimately a maker.

But after graduating school,

I didn't dive quite right in,

I guess you could say.

I did go work at an advertising agency for about a

year as expected.

I hated every minute of it.

It just wasn't a good fit for me.

Again, it wasn't making things and I didn't really feel like

my voice was being heard.

So on the side I was doing wedding invitations as I

think most designers do at one point in their career.

It's just kind of a Rite of passage.

And it got to the point where I was doing so

much of that work that I essentially had two full time

jobs. So my advertising job was about an hour away from

where I was living.

I would have to be out of the house by seven

and I wouldn't get home till probably at least seven to

eight at night.

And then I would start my other job with the invitations.

And so after that first year,

my husband put his foot down and said,

Nope, you got to pick one.

I don't ever see you.

You're buried.

It's too much like pick one.

Well, I can tell you that our listeners,

a lot of them are in that situation right now and

can completely relate.

And I would venture to say,

don't have a husband who say please,

It's a lot.

I was running myself into the ground and that's just not

sustainable as a human being or as a business either.

And in the back of my mind,

I had always had this idea of having my own line.

So while I was in school,

I worked at in doorbell,

little boutique in Savannah,

Georgia. And that was where I first discovered the art of

letterpress. So we sold letterpress greeting cards.

And it was amazing to me that there were people out

there whose job was to design and print cards and like

they, that was their life.

They made a living doing it.

It was amazing.

So I was fortunate enough to go to the national stationery

show a couple of times with my boss as a buyer

and I just felt like my eyes were open to this

whole world that I didn't know existed.

So while I'm working this advertising job and doing all these

invitations, like in the back of my mind it's like,

okay, could I maybe work for myself?

to walk it and see,

okay, is this realistic?

Can I do this?

And I remember sitting on the staircase of the Javits,

which is this huge staircase for anybody that hasn't been there.

And I was crying and the woman that was with me

was laughing because she said,

I don't understand why you're so upset.

I'm like,

well, I don't know anything more than I did when I

got here.

And she said,

well, of course you don't.

You already knew you could do this.

To me,

that was kind of this really big aha turning point.

So I went home and quit my job at the ad

agency and I spent the next year working on our first

with my own line.

And that was kind of,

as they say,

history, That is such a great story on so many levels.

First I have to tell you that I used to show

at Javits all the time at the stationary show.

In fact,

I think it's just been recently as circulation and people walking

the floor seems to have started going down that I stopped

doing that show cause I'm out at a lot of shows

still. But that's not one of them anymore.

So we were probably there at the same time probably sadly

the stationary show it was doesn't even exist anymore.

It just kept getting smaller and smaller and so they ultimately

York now,

which is the gift show that happens twice,

right? It's not the same by any means anymore unfortunately.

But there is something wonderful about stationers there.

They're just a big happy family and it's a very supportive

industry feel so lucky to be a part of it.

I find your story really interesting too because the person who

responded to you and you were sitting on the steps crying

saying, you really already know.

Why is it that we don't recognize that in ourself?

You know,

take somebody to tell us that I've heard this in different

variations over and over again.

Why do you think that is?

I think a lot of times as artists,

there's just this innate central feeling that I don't know that

we're just not capable.

We can see it in other people,

but we can't turn it around and see it in ourselves

for some reason.

Yeah, exactly.

I don't know what that is,

but it does seem to be this like central artist connection

that we just all question ourselves.

I think of imposter syndrome,

that's so common with so many artists.

I know I struggle with that,

but it's just feeling like you're out there faking it and

really you're not.

I mean,

we're, everybody's taking it one way or the other.

Some of us just might do it better than others,

I don't know.

But it does seem to be a common thing and I

wish we all just believe in ourselves even a little bit.

And I know I'm bad at it too,

so. Yeah.

Well, I always say that just acknowledging and recognizing that everybody,

even people,

I mean people can look at you Meg and say,

look at all of the success she has and what she's

doing, and she still has imposter syndrome.

How can that be?

So just acknowledging that that happens.

The bigger,

the more known,

the more successful you get doesn't mean that that imposter syndrome

goes away.

Not at all.

It might diminish,

but it rears its little ugly head from time to time.

It definitely does.

I mean,

I think about Kate spade and her incredible story and just

how heartbreaking it is.

That's somewhat in our eyes who was so wonderfully successful,

still struggled internally so much so.

I mean we're definitely not alone by any means.

Hopefully all are surrounded by these wonderful communities and you are,

even if you haven't found it yet,

but they're there and just knowing to take advantage of that.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to get to a topic like this

that's so heavy so fast,

but just to share with our listeners,

what do you do when those thoughts come up?

How do you handle them?

I try to just kind of approach it very logically and

take a deep breath for small and just kind of talk

my way through it.

If I can talk it through with somebody else,

that certainly helps because then I can kind of get out

of my own head.

But if it's just me and I'm really struggling with something

like literally just taking the time to stop and think about,

okay, look around you,

look at what you've built.

Because I have such a tendency myself to ignore all of

that and just forget how we got here and there's so

much amazingness in and of itself and that part of the

story. So just taking a deep breath,

stopping and I guess taking stock,

how we got to where we are.

I mean it wasn't luck or magic or anything like there

was a lot of hard work and doing something right.

You know,

this idea also just occurs to me because I didn't read

in the intro your whole bio because it's really long,

but you have a lot of features in well-known publications,

country living,

Rachel Ray,

Southern weddings,

et cetera.

Do you put like a board or anything somewhere where you

could look at that sometimes and say,

okay, this is good.

I don't,

I should,

I have a stack of most of the magazines that we've

been featured in on my counter and I mean it's,

it's gotten pretty deep.

Um, we've been very fortunate to be featured quite a bit.

So that could be something someone could do.

Like when you get accolades,

and it doesn't have to be some of these big names,

it could be just a local magazine that's highlighting you.

How awesome is that?

That helps bring you back and just remember that you've made

progress in,

you've come along.

Absolutely. So let's go back.

We're still on the steps.

Javits. Okay.

So now you're motivated and,

okay, you've got this.

What are the first steps that you did to get a

line ready?

Because you're saying the very next show you were there exhibiting

I was,

so for me,

I did things a little backwards even though in my head

it was entirely logical.

Most people I think probably start retail.

So they opened a little Etsy shop or maybe they just

have their own website so it's direct to consumer.

Whereas for me,

I knew starting out I was not going to have enough

of a customer base to make the business sustainable from day

one. So in order to get gain more momentum and really

get the name of the brand out there,

I knew we needed to go wholesale.

So with wholesale you're selling direct stores but they are having

to buy certain minimums so your orders are going to be

a lot bigger at least hopefully.

And that answers the question of why you would go back

and exhibit at Javits right away.

Right. So literally I had not sold a single card,

not even to my mother when I stepped foot in Javits

the next year.

Literally that was my debut to the stationary world was at

that show.

Okay. So this is going to be really helpful to our

audience. I know because they're not necessarily cards,

but whatever the product is that they have.

What did you have ready?

So you spent your whole year getting set then for the

show. I'm guessing For the most part,

I mean I probably could have been a little more productive

at times.

I feel like that last month before is when all the

good stuff happened.

But you had to design your car like you had to

create your line,

right? Yes.

And formally start the business and all of that stuff.

Of course.

Well, and I had to learn how to let her press

because quite frankly,

I didn't know how to do that yet.

So we ended up finding a little tabletop letterpress in an

antique mall in Florida,

which we were living in Georgia at the time,

so we had to drive down and pick it up.

But I mean,

I didn't know anything about it other than the fact that

I loved what it did and I assumed I would love

the process,

which fortunately did turn out to be true.

But yeah,

so that year was spent like learning the craft of letterpress.

Designing for letterpress is a little bit different than just designing

for digital printing.

So just kind of having to reteach myself in some ways

and then also deciding how the heck do you make a

cohesive collection because I could have just designed whatever I wanted

and put it out in the world,

but that wouldn't have necessarily made any sense.

So I knew I needed to present a line to these

retailers that they could merchandise and have it all make sense

together. Just that cohesive brand identity and vision across the board.

So something as simple as picking a limited color palette.

That way everything falls in the same range.

And in the beginning with our cards,

I had decided to stick with this idea of Southern phrases

and so that was another underlying thread to everything And that

stayed true to this day with all your products.

It has like put a little asterisk.

So we're in the process of moving away from that and

we actually have been for several years for a lot of

reasons Moving away or integrated or diluting it a little bit

and having other things as well.

Both. I would say I don't currently have plans to add

any more of the Southern based lines or phrases to the

line. In fact,

we just did this huge purge of the collection,

so I think we had about 150 cards and what we

call our general store line,

which is the one with all the Southern base phrases.

And I think we got it down to about half that

think it's between 50 and 60 cards right now.

And I think it's just going to be that is that

line for better or worse.

So it's our favorites and top sellers,

that kind of thing.

But really we're kind of moving forward with the brand and

I think that's why I liked that quote so much.

Right now we cannot become what we want by remaining what

we are.

And I think in a lot of ways hiding behind the

southernism system,

he called me back.

So it's been really challenging in the best of ways to

figure out,

okay, what is it I really want to design when I'm

not necessarily hiding behind something else.

Interesting. Were you feeling like add,

you were bringing new products that there was more interest.

Was it a numbers issue too?

Like you're seeing that some of the other things that aren't

as Southern phrased or all that or selling more?

Yes and no.

It just depends.

Obviously when you're selling to the entire country and you're going

to see trends,

you would think that the Southern isms would sell best in

the South.

But believe it or not,

they did better in the Pacific Northwest and California and new

England. No kidding.

Yeah, it's the funniest thing.

I know if they just think it's kitschy or what.

But the South like on the whole has actually been kind

of my worst interview sales,

which I still find hysterical but I don't know,

it's just,

I started this business when I was 23 years old and

I've grown up a lot since then and I need the

line to grow up with me I think.

So it's a combination of product and then just also what

you have interest in.

Sure. Absolutely.

Even where you're gravitating to and all that.

Okay. Let's jump back one more time.

Cause I do have a question.

One final one.

I promise we're going to move forward on this.

No worries.

I really do.

But we're still at that first show.

Take us through how things went at that time.

The stationary show was maybe two and a half or three

days long.

How did it go?

Any learning or advice cause you were new and young then

doing your first show.

Granted it was to a wholesale market versus consumer because we

have a lot of people who listen,

who do the craft shows,

you know,

not necessarily the wholesale shows,

but how did you do,

what learnings did you have from those first few days at

your very first show?

Sure. So I very much was focused on getting to that

show, showing my line.

Like everything I did in that year was about get to

the stationery show,

which while I was very focused,

I think it was also kind of a mistake.

Running a business is a marathon,

not a sprint.

And people that have listened to me talk before.

No, I say that a lot.

And it's true because you have to look beyond that one

show and unfortunately I didn't do that,

but we'll circle back to that,

but keep that in mind.

So at the show itself,

I launched a line that had I believe 32 greeting cards

because I wanted to have a good range for people to

pick from to be able to meet our minimum and not

feel like they had to order everything.

Which I do think is key for new businesses that are

considering wholesale is make sure you're offering your retailers a variety

without forcing them down this path of literally they have to

order every skew from you to hit your minimums.

But we had 32 cards,

I think 12 gift wraps,

60 towels for notepads,

like it was a pretty wide variety actually for just starting

out. In fact,

a woman walked by and said,

there's no way this is your first year,

like you know what you're doing.

I'm like,

no, I just came prepared a big planner so well that

had to make you feel good.

It did.

Absolutely. I will have to give some credit to Katie hunt

of trade show bootcamp,

which is now called proof to product.

Yep. Katie's been on the show.

Yeah, I love Katie.

So I took her series back when it was still a

teleconference, so I think I was in like the second alumni

class or something.

So way back when,

but definitely her series was super helpful in terms of planning

for wholesale.

So everything from what is a line sheet versus a catalog

and like how do I price myself all this stuff,

how do I build a booth?

So we actually decided,

I'm a firm believer in presentation is everything.

So I did not want anybody to know that it was

my first year.

Like they're not going to know I'm a one woman show

and we're doing this in my garage and that kind of

thing. So we invested in having a booth built for us

for that first year,

knowing that we could use it year to year after that.

So while it was more money up front,

it was going to save us in the long run,

which I think was smart.

In fact,

I just sold that booth earlier this year,

so it's lasted us seven years.

So I've definitely saved a lot of money in the long

run, but I don't know,

I, we presented ourselves best foot forward and I went into

that show wanting one order because I remember Katie had said

in one of our calls,

shows are about more than just orders.

You're networking,

you're planting seeds.

Like don't be discouraged if you only get one order.

So that's all I wanted.

I just wanted one.

So what's your guests?

Do you think she got that one order?

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We walked away with over 50 accounts.

Wow. That first show,

I was riding a high for sure.

That must have blown your mind.

It absolutely did.

I mean,

I literally launched a business and a matter of three and

a half days,

so that was a pretty incredible feeling.

Well, congratulations.

But circling back to what I mentioned before,

that whole,

it's a marathon,

not a sprint.

So I had spent pretty much every dime that I had

saved for my wedding invitation business to get to the show,

not considering that when I got home and I had all

these orders to fill,

how the heck was I going to pay for all that?

Right. So I think we wrote around $15,000

worth of orders for that show,

which keep in mind those shows are really expensive.

I mean,

I probably broke even all things considered by the time you

factor in.

Yeah, transportation and food and lodging and the show itself And

the booth cost and all of that.

Exactly right.

That's a good thing to just pause here for a minute

and to have people understand is some of those bigger trade

shows are expensive.

So you really want to think and be prepared.

This isn't like a last minute,

like the craft shows are a little bit less expensive.

Some of the concepts are the same though,

Meg, in terms of what you're doing there.

You want to sell product,

but it's,

I call it one big focus group.

You're able to interact with people who may or may not

buy your product,

lot of learning and all of that,

but the big shows.

Yeah, 10 or 15,000

easy. Oh,

very easy.

I mean that's even being conservative.

It would be very difficult for you to get out of

a show for less than 10,000

just because your booth cost alone is probably at least $6,000

and lodging in New York city for a week is probably

$2,000. Like it just adds up very quickly.

Well, in Javits charges for anything,

like you're not allowed to carry a box in practicum.

They're going to charge you for drayage and all that.

Yeah. You can't lift a hammer or you'll get in trouble.

Right. It's a lot.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, so you've got $15,000

worth of orders and now,

so what did you do?

I cried a lot because I realized that's not going to

help Meg.

No, I know you gotta know your numbers.

That's really what the key takeaway of this is going to

be. So I had $15,000

worth of orders and it was going to cost me $20,000

to create all of the inventory that I needed to fill

those orders.

No, obviously that was more inventory than I needed,

but because of things like minimum order quantities.

Right, exactly.

Got it.

Not even taking into consideration all the money that I just

spent to be at the show,

it was going to take all of this extra money to

actually fill those orders.

So that was a hard lesson learned.

So was it a bank loan was,

it was a mom didn't want to see me fail from

day one loan.

I was very lucky in that she basically guaranteed she was

my loan in the sense that she knew I had that

money coming in and that I could immediately turn around and

pay it to her.

Right. And so that's what I did.

So pretty much our net ended up being zero after that

first show.

But it got us off the ground.

But then you had inventory of which to build.

Exactly. Yes,

correct. Yeah.

Well thanks mom.

Yes. No,

mom is a lifesaver.

Mom is actually still a part of the Bella union team.

She's our operations manager.

She keeps me online,

still checks the books on a weekly basis.

So I'm very grateful to have her as part of the

team. That's fabulous.

Okay, so you filled the orders.

How did you interact with the different shops in terms of

understanding if the product was moving and then getting reorders and

all that?

How does that work?

I will be the first to admit I was not very

good at followup and it's something that is being ever worked

on to this day.

We've made a lot of changes to fix that,

but I had just hoped like I would send off these

orders and they would sell out and then they would order

again. And unfortunately it doesn't really always work that way.

Being a shop owner myself now I understand how easily things

get forgotten.

So what happened?

So yeah,

so share with us so that we understand better,

cause I'm imagining as a shop owner you've got people approaching

you with product all the time.

I mean for us it hasn't been that bad yet because

I think a lot of people understand that we're mostly carrying

our own product or right,

but it's also a little bit different.

So with my line being 100% made in the U S

I wanted the store to be the same way and that

immediately cuts the playing field down quite a bit.

We get submissions occasionally and we've got a file cabinet that

maybe the timing's just not right at that particular moment,

but we like their stuff and we'll hang onto it.

I in a group with ShopKeep ladies and everybody kind of

has a different approach on how they handle those sorts of

things. Unfortunately,

I know no answer has kind of become the new no,

which I personally hate being on both sides of it.

Like I just don't think that's fair.

I mean if you're taking the time to reach out now

I say that with a caveat.

If it's very clear,

it's just some form email or whatever,

like where you didn't actually do your research.

Well, I can't promise I'm going to give you the time

of day,

but if I can tell that you really made an effort,

but maybe it's just not the right fit or the timing's

not right,

I want to give you that feedback because I know back

when I was starting out,

I would have appreciated that.

So I try well and then they're not going to approach

you again either if they understand that.

Right, right.

Yeah. So I mean it's twofold in that sense,

but I don't know.

It's, we haven't been discovered maybe yet as a store,

so we're not dealing with hundreds of submissions per week like

some of my friends are,

which sounds crazy.

But yeah,

followup was definitely not something I was very good at.

We launched at that first show and then it became,

okay, well now we need to launch a holiday collection.

And so really I would only reach out to my retailers,

whether via snail mail or email,

if I had a reason to just to say,

Hey, this product is new Christmases coming up.

Do you need holiday cards?

So and I started working really on the next line to

go back to the show the following year.

Okay. And so a little different for you for sure,

especially now because you've got your own shop,

et cetera,

but what would be a best practice?

What would you advise people who are in that situation where

they've already placed product,

when they have a list of retailers,

how often and in what manner should they follow up with

people? So we've actually implemented something that I think is really

cool and I don't really see other people doing.

When we send out an order,

two to three weeks later,

we send a handwritten note just to say thank you and

to check in obviously being a card company,

like it's kind of duh,

why wouldn't you send a card?

But it's just that extra point of building that relationship with

that retailer and we're starting to see that come back to

us because you're just taking the time to remember them.

It's not simply a sales transaction at that point because that's

something that I've noticed as a retailer now.

It's like I get my order and then I never hear

from you again.

I don't know.

I kind of want you to check in with me.

I may be the total opposite of most shop owners,

I don't know.

But as far as best practices,

don't call.

Nobody wants to talk on the phone.

Quite honestly,

especially if you're pitching a line.

But email is great just to drop me a quick note

and say,

Hey, hope you're loving everything.

Let me know if I can get you anything short.

Sweet to the point.

Just let me know that you actually care and are thinking

about us and that I wasn't just dollars in your bank

account. Right.

It's a personal thing in a lot of ways.

Our shop is pretty small,

so for us to add you like it's a big deal

to me and I hope that you feel that way too.

Well, you're sharing your whole customer base,

the whole audience with whoever it is who's providing that product.

So it reflects on you as well as them.

Sure. So you want to be selective for sure.

I'm also thinking that trade shows are really good for this

too because let's say you're not exhibiting,

but you're going and looking at product,

you can also then go and meet with everybody who's product

you're carrying to deepen the relationship.

For sure.

I mean trade shows are funny beast.

They've gone through a lot of transition.

I feel like in the last few years,

even since I started,

I've seen this huge shift.

Less people are going to the shows both on the vendor

side and the retailer side,

which makes it difficult because the shows are so expensive.

If you're not writing the orders,

that return on investment becomes questionable.

I know for us personally,

we exhibited in New York last February,

worst show we had ever had.

I don't think we even broke even like it was pretty

depressing. So we took the rest of the year off because

we were focused on getting the shop opened.

So I will admit wholesale kind of suffered for us last

year, but it was just because we were otherwise focused.

Right. And then we decided to change it up this year

and we did Atlanta for the very first time back in

Oh my gosh,

Atlanta, you'll do double what you do in New York.

Like it's going to be great.

And since it's in the South,

it's totally a perfect fit for you.

It was by far the worst show I've ever had.

I hit the same experience with Atlanta.

It was awful.

Yeah, it was funny.

We won an award for best visual display and I kept

joking that it was just my constellation prize because the show

was just so horrible.

And I hate that.

I hate to say that.

Well, and it's so big.

It is.

And we were in a great section.

I wasn't going to do it unless I got the section

that I wanted.

And I have a friend who was in that same section

who said it was one of the best shows that she

had ever done.

No, granted,

I have no idea what that actually means.

Her best show could be the equivalent of my worst show.

I don't know.

But it was enough that we are certainly questioning our presence

at trade shows,

which makes me sad At trade shows overall or that show

in particular Trade shows.

Overall, I don't see us going back to Atlanta.

The one exception would be perhaps if we were in a

rep group,

but I have not necessarily found a lot of success with

those either.

So there's definitely a lot of unknowns right now as far

as how do we reach our customers.

There's just this big flux happening with wholesale.

I feel like there's so much emphasis on direct to consumer

right now and I think wholesale is just kind of getting

lost in that process.

Well, and I definitely have seen the same thing with trader

Joe's. I used to go to about 12 a year,

then I dropped to six and now I may be at

really four where we're exhibiting really big and then I do

really very narrow industry shows that are more learning versus traits.

So we do both,

but it's not those big ones anymore.

I'm seeing much more success in the smaller shows.

Interesting. Yeah,

just a whole different thing.

12 shows sounds really exhausting.

Like I'm just tired thinking about,

I would never do that again.

Even if the shows were good,

I would never do that again just because I don't know

if you set up your own booth or you have someone,

so like just the setup and tear down and all of

that. It's a lot of work.

We did three shows I think two years in a row

and that was about enough to do me and yeah,

so I cannot imagine 12 but they're fun.

They are.

It's wonderful.

Interacting with people,

seeing customers,

meeting new people,

love all of that.

But I could have someone do the front end and the

backend of it until I go just do the booth.

I'd be happy camper.

That would be the way to go I think.

Yeah. Okay,

so we are so off track here.

Let's go back.

Let's go back to,

I really want to talk about how you decided to add

in a brick and mortar store into the mix.

Was this always something you were thinking about or was there

something that sparked the decision?

It was definitely not an always,

in fact that boutique that I had worked at in college.

So she closed before I ever even thought about exhibiting with

my line.

had said to me,

don't ever open a store.

So that was kind of always in the back of my

mind. So I had met my husband in Savannah,

Georgia and that's where I started the company.

He was in the military at the time,

but when he got out he decided to go back to

school, which brought us to Texas.

So we were in college station for four years and then

he graduated.

Got his dream job eating ice cream for a living.

Yes, it's a real job.

Oh my God.

I know.

Are you serious?

Like he's a flavor ice cream flavor testers.

So he is a food scientist and product development.

His first,

I guess team that he worked on was the frozen team.

So he worked on ice cream a lot.

He's in deli and bakery now,

so it's not as fun.

Like, I think his project at the moment is salads,

which is just not nearly as exciting and better for the

waistline. But I agree.

Go by Joyce.

He got his dream job,

which is in San Antonio,

and I'm fortunate in that with what I do,

as long as I have access to FedEx and the post

office, generally speaking,

I can work from anywhere.

But I decided that with this move,

if I was going to try my hand at retail,

this was the time to do it.

And the reason for that was it didn't make sense to

me to go rent commercial space for our studio because up

until that point I had been in the garage essentially.

Now it was a really nice garage and we made it

work, but I was busting at the seams and quite frankly,

I wanted to feel a little more legitimate as a business

because I think we were going on five or six years

and at this point.

So it just didn't sense to me to rent commercial space

because then you're shelling out money for rent every month and

that's just taking away from any profits that you might have

from your orders.

So in my mind I said,

okay, let's have the cute little shop in the front and

the studio can be in the back and the shop will

make enough money to cover the rent.

So wholesale can continue operating at no additional overhead.

This was my big plan.

Sounds good.

Yeah, it sounds great.

It sounds really,

really simple and straightforward.

I wish it would've gone that way.

Not so much,

but it was a good effort,

we'll say.

So what happened?

You know,

life happens.

So I was not familiar with San Antonio.

I grew up mostly in the Houston area of Texas.

So it was this whole new city to me.

I don't know a soul in it.

So I'm researching all over town.

Where do we need to be with our store?

Cause there's not really,

what I would call it,

a centralized kind of shopping area in San Antonio.

Like there's little pockets here and there and they all have

different vibes and that sort of thing.

So I researched everybody and got a feel for what the

rent was in each area.

The space that I settled on is a little bit North

of downtown and it is definitely an established retail development,

but it's not one that I would say a small business

friendly. I mean if you're talking,

these are major chains.

Like at the time that I opened there was a Starbucks

on the corner or a trader Joe's.

Kendra Scott is next door to me.

So I mean you're talking major brands,

but no,

I think that would be great for you because of the

traffic that comes into those stores.

Exactly. That was my thought process.

I said,

you know what?

Nobody knows my brand from a hole in the wall.

Seeing Belle and union on the side of the building means

absolutely nothing.

So I cannot have any sort of a location that is

going to be considered destination cause nobody knows me.

So I need to be found,

I need to be discovered.

So we signed the lease,

which was higher than we probably would have liked,

but it doesn't matter how little your rent payment is every

month if you're not getting foot traffic,

because if you're not getting foot traffic,

you can't pay the bills period.

And so,

you know,

I've got friends with shops all over the country and they

had said it's going to be worth the higher rent if

it means you're getting that foot traffic.

So we bet it all in a lot of ways.

And we had done all the math.

I had every kind of spreadsheet you could imagine.

months of opening four businesses around me closed.

No. Yeah.

So that was a pretty big hit.

One of the businesses with Starbucks and that was just depressing

on a personal level.

Well that's shocking.

Well, yeah,

from one Starbucks lover to another,

I mean,

kind of broke me with my habit a little bit,

I guess you could say,

but Oh God.

Yeah. It's really hard when someone that's kind of already fighting

with this idea of imposter syndrome.

Here I am the small business trying to play with the

big boys and Starbucks can't even pull through like that was

a big hit mentally for sure.

So it's,

we've definitely had a lot of learns in the last,

But what would you have done differently?

What were your other options?

Looking at different places.

It would kind of be luck of the draw depending on

anywhere you went because you would never have expected that to

happen. Exactly.

I mean,

I couldn't have planned for that.

I mean short of taking a lawn chair and sitting in

one location for a week to see what foot traffic was

like, which I mean is really,

if you were considering opening a store,

not half bad idea,

I would slightly recommend it actually.

But you had that foot traffic at first when you went

in, you had that foot traffic because it was full.

I mean,

I felt good about it.

I mean,

I don't give him the information I had.

I think I made the best choice that I possibly could

have. Okay,

so now you have this challenge,

your foot traffic has dramatically dropped.

Yes. And we're talking within just this year.

Cause now you're just,

you're in your anniversary right now when your anniversary.

Yeah. So what types of things did you do to try

and overcome that?

The foot traffic problem?

Sure. So one of the big things that we did pretty

early on was added workshops.

No one in San Antonio was really doing anything like that,

at least not consistently.

And so we knew that that was a way to kind

of differentiate ourselves and get people through the door because that's

the thing that we've learned.

If we can get them through the door,

generally speaking,

they're going to buy something,

which is great.

Our conversion numbers,

like the individual sales data that we have is wonderful.

That's what I keep telling my Baker,

but just not enough of it.

Just need more feet through the door.

So doing workshops early on,

we don't necessarily make a lot of money off of workshops

because you're having to pay the instructor and buy snacks and

all that kind of stuff.

But it's more an investment.

And again,

getting new people through the door and getting the word out

there that we're here.

That's been a really big part of it.

Yeah. So did you find people that were going to the

workshops then shopping and buying something in the store also?

Yeah, so what we do is we offer 10% off your

purchases the day of your workshop.

So generally speaking,

people will come in and take their class and then shop

afterward. It's kind of funny,

the patterns we see in certain classes,

I swear nobody shops and then other classes,

everybody shops,

it's hit or miss sometimes.

And you don't know that until that day.

But I love that you're doing the 10% the day of

the workshop because it's not like the thing,

Oh I need to go now but I'll come back.

Cause you know a large percentage of them will forget,

lose the coupon or however it is.

But if they're right there,

there's a sense of urgency.

If I want to use this,

I've got to use it now before they leave.

Yeah, it is Plan in the moment thing and I mean

I think that's been a big part of what we have

been good at so far.

Wonderful. Yeah.

What I really Like about this is you just didn't curl

up and say,

okay, these big stores are gone.

Hopeless case is not going to work for me.

You just took control of the situation.

Right. Again,

maybe for a minute,

and it's funny,

I sound like I'm a crier,

but I'm really not.

It was one of those things that even if I had

wanted to curl up into a ball and just say,

okay, we're done.

Quite frankly it's too expensive to do that.

Right. Cause you had signed a lease.

Exactly. Yeah.

So even if my shop wasn't here,

guess what?

I'm still stuck paying rent on the lease until that's up.

So it's kind of like,

alright, we're going to push through.

We have to make this work.

Like we have to,

this is what we have and if I give up,

it's going to take the whole business down with it,

not just the shop.

Right. And so you got creative.

We've certainly had to,

Yeah. With your workshops,

anything else that you would say or if someone finds themselves

in a similar situation?

Any advice Patients?

Honestly, we're still having people to this day come in and

say, Oh my gosh,

did you just open?

It's like,

well, no,

we've been here almost a year.

There's actually apartments that are above us and some of the

residents, they'll come down and be like,

when did you open?

So people just,

I don't know if it's a technology thing that they're just,

they're so focused on going from point a to point B

that they're literally not looking up and looking around.

As silly as that is,

it's kind of true and I've,

in fact,

we have people say it all the time,

like, Oh,

I just ran into Kendra and was going to go back

to my car,

but I caught you out of the corner of my eye.

So we definitely hear that a lot.

But we've definitely started dabbling with more paid advertising.

It wasn't something that I wanted to do or hoped that

I would need to do,

but it's definitely helping.

It's simple things.

Just boosting a post for an event on Facebook or through

Instagram, something like that because it's pretty amazing what you can

do with targeting these days in terms of advertising,

so you can say specifically like only target women ages 25

to 45 and a five mile radius of the shop.

Like you can get so specific to,

you know that you're reaching only the people that are most

likely going to come And you're seeing the results when you

do that,

you're seeing an increase in traffic.

Yeah, this slow growth thing,

we definitely have people come in and say,

I always saw you on Instagram or something on Facebook.

We've been doing a lot to try to stay in the

forefront of people's minds via local media,

so there's a couple of local shows that they'll bring us

in and I'll do like a father's day gift guide or

whatever it is.

Staying again in the forefront of people's minds in whatever way

that's possible,

whether that's a local magazine or a local TV segment.

We try to do at least one thing a month.

They consistent.

And so do you have someone helping you with this?

How is your back of the house starting to get structured

in terms of people helping with marketing promotion or advertising campaigns,

all of that.

Sure. So I am definitely not a one man show anymore.

I could only do so much.

I a girl who does just contract work for me.

So she's based out of Dallas,

which is about four hours away and she handles anything that

falls under the PR umbrella.

So whether that's getting a podcast interview or local media segments,

anything like that,

she's the one that spends between five and 10 hours a

month. So you know,

not a huge investment but enough that it's getting our name

out there on a consistent basis.

So I have that.

I have another woman who does a lot of the social

media management and marketing because honestly social media can get overwhelming

very quickly.

And I think as small businesses,

there's a lot of pressure on ourselves to do that on

our own.

And quite frankly,

I don't think it has to be that way.

So Allie,

her company is actually for a past creative.

If anybody wants to check her out.

She's really wonderful.

But she does pretty much all of my photography so I

don't have to worry about that anymore.

She does everything from helping me schedule posts to pushing ads

out. Like she is basically my right hand gal these days.

It feels like in a lot of ways,

but just learning,

you don't have to do it all on your own is

really important.

So those are my two contract.

But then I've also got a full time shop manager.

She came to me via Instagram actually of all places heard.

We were opening up in San Antonio and just wanted to

put a bug in my ear.

But she came to me with tons of corporate retail experience.

So she had been a manager at a restoration hardware and

an anthropology,

like all these incredible retail giants.

And here she was wanting to work for my tiny little

small business.

But that has been a wonderful partnership and I owe a

lot of the success that we have had in the last

year to her.

And then in addition to that,

we have a few part timers who help carry the load

both in the retail and wholesale actually.

So they may have a shift where they're watching the shop,

but say no one's in the store.

They can be packaging cards for wholesale or something like that.

So they're kind of doing double duty,

which is really great.

Right. But it sounds like each person clearly with your PR

person in your social media for management and marketing,

those tasks are specifically under their jurisdiction,

which is great because then you can do what you're supposed

to do.

And I think so many times as a business owner,

we don't do that.

We do try and keep everything ourselves because it's a cost

savings. Let's face it,

and somehow we say like we're not big enough for,

we shouldn't be doing it yet.

Where really I think we start to stunt our growth because

we're doing a lot of things maybe a little bit.

Well, instead of really having someone who knows what they're doing,

do it.

You've got your small business,

like a big business at the end of the day,

whether that's just the systems that you use to stay organized

or asking for help when you need it to get the

right people.

I mean,

yes, it's going to cost you some in payroll,

but if you're hiring the right person,

they're going to bring back tenfold,

which you're spending on them.

So that's definitely key.

And the other thing is I heard at a conference one

time, the speaker was talking about how as the boss,

you need to make sure that you're chasing the hundred dollar

bills and not the single dollar bills.

Your time is unbelievably valuable as the head creative or whatever

it is you're choosing to do in your business.

So you need to make sure that you're doing the things

that only you can do.

It's hard to do though.

I mean it's easy to get wrapped up,

but the little day to day things when really it's like,

okay if I take a step back and honestly even just

taking out a pad of paper and a pen and being

like, all right,

what do I Meg actually have to do?

What can no one else do?

And you might surprise yourself by what it is that you

can and cannot let go of Or you might need a

little mind adjustment that says,

do you really have to be the one who does this?

Sure. I'm struggling with that right now with some of the

podcast stuff cause I'm still holding on to way more than

I should and I know it.

I'm getting there.

I'm almost at that line.

Not quite,

but I'm almost there.

That's half the battle for sure.

For sure.

It is.

Well I just love everything that we've talked about.

You have had such great insight for,

I know a lot of our listeners and we've gone into

some topics that we haven't covered in depth here,

so I really,

really appreciate that.

Share with us a little bit.

You were mentioning in the beginning that things are changing,

your product lines,

changing a little bit,

et cetera.

Can you give us a little peek into the future here?

Sure. When I'm not hiding,

I guess behind someone else's words in a way,

like via the Southern items.

I find currently that I'm really being inspired by color and

texture and I want to kind of use those to really

push the limits of what I can do with letterpress.

We've kind of pulled our focus in word for awhile there.

We were working on gift products that other people were making

for us,

but honestly my job became so much supply chain management,

but it was a lot in,

you're actually making less money,

so anytime you can do things yourself from a product perspective,

obviously you have to balance it out with the labor and

your time and that sort of thing.

But anything I can do internally printing myself is kind of

the goal,

so I'm just really playing with how do I think outside

the box and do things that we haven't seen done before.

Let's see.

Sneak peeks.

I'm definitely playing with handmade paper,

which is not really something I've seen a lot of yet

in the stationary industry,

probably because it's costly,

right? That will be your upscale line for sure.

Yes. Oh,

it's definitely that.

But then how can I make something,

maybe that's not handmade paper,

but have that handmade feel?

So whether that's using torn paper and layering it and then

putting a coat on top of it.

There's a lot of possibilities there.

Honestly, it's so early.

It's been brewing I think really since the store opened because

the store to me is where I want to go with

the line.

So now it's just trying to figure out,

okay, how do I get the line to catch up to

where the store is?

So I've kind of been playing with this idea of sophisticated,

whimsy being really what kind of defines fun as a whole.

Oh yeah,

I love it.

Yeah. All right,

well now I'm going to have you take it up even

a further notch and this is kind of a virtual thank

you. On behalf of myself and our listeners,

I want to offer you a virtual gift.

So this is a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for the

sneak peaks that you said.

So even more than that,

your future.

So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you'd wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What's inside your box for the future?

I'm so cheesy and like literally the first thing that comes

to my mind is like,

Oh my dad is paid off.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with that.

Feels some obtainable at the moment for sure.

I'm honestly daydreaming these days about beyond my lease,

what that looks like and I would love to be able

to own my own space so I get to be the

landlord and I want to bring in others in the community

with their amazing gifts and almost have this artist collective.

We started working with a local Potter to teach our workshops

and I want her to be able to have a space

to have her wheel and just make,

and who knows.

I just,

all these amazing talented people are in the San Antonio community

and I don't feel like there is this space for everybody

to come together and share their gifts and be able to

work outside of their garages.

Oh my gosh.

I could totally see that.

I really could.

Yeah. That's really what I want to work toward and there's

a lot of obstacles in the way.

Mostly involving money.

We're like putting this out there in the environment so that

it comes back to you.

Yeah. Really just being able to own my own space and

have this kind of artist collective and be able to really

focus on the making.

Again myself,

because I think a lot of small business owners know pull

reason. You started this business becomes such a teeny tiny part

of your day to day.

I think you go away from it and then as you're

suggesting, then you come back to it as you've gotten bigger

when we can spin off some of the business stuff to

others. Absolutely.

Alright. If our listeners want to know more about you online,

where's the single place you would direct them?

Let's see.

Probably my Instagram that's,

we're updating that almost daily.

You can find out the current news workshops we have in

the shop or if there's a sale on the website or

anything like I feel like everything's in Instagram and our handle

is at Bella and union co.

Okay, Perfect.

And give this listeners,

you know,

there'll be a show notes page with all the other links

to Meg's website and everything else.

So feel free to resource that when you want.

And I definitely,

my favorite line so far as I was snooping around your

website was the bread and butter cards.

I thought those were so fun.

So I'm not telling you guys what that's about.

You got to go check it out yourself on the website.

So Meg,

thank you so much.

This has been just an unbelievable talking with you,

hearing about your experience.

It's so fun that we were at the same stationary show

way back when doing different things,

but how you've evolved since then.

So thank you so much for sharing everything that you have

today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you guys for listening.

It's always an honor to share my story.

Such a great journey Meg is on with her business.

I wish I could have known her back in those early

days of the stationery show,

the years when she was just getting up and running.

It would have been such a joy to watch her progression

along these past years,

but we can all now watch her grow into the future

and I know it's a bright one for sure.

Next week we have a guest whose story put me in

one of those speechless moments.

I have so much respect for the challenging path she's faced

and worked through with courage and strength.

She shares her struggles with us and has a ton of

advice on protecting your business and your brand.

Okay, so here's a little bit of a teaser.

My guest next week has played a part in preserving Rosa

parks legacy and has worked on the estate for a Reetha

Franklin, but that's all you're getting for me.

Until next week.

I'll see you all then and until next Monday.

Make it a great one.

Bye for now.

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Apple podcasts.

That way you'll automatically get the newest episodes when they go

live, and thank you to those of you who have already

left a rating and review.

By subscribing,

rating, and reviewing,

you help to increase the visibility of gift biz on wrapped.

It's a great way to pay it forward to help others