Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Karen Brace. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Karen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The idea to create an opossum-themed retail store was a couple of years in the making. I’d started as a wildlife rehabber in 2012 and raised and released squirrels, bunnies and groundhogs. Then, about nine years ago, someone brought me a box of eleven baby opossums. I knew nothing about them, other than they were the cutest things I’d ever seen. I reached out to an opossum rehabber friend of mine, she agreed to help me learn to care for these babies. As I learned more about opossums, I realized how many myths and misconceptions surrounded them. People think opossums are vicious, aggressive, dirty and that they carry rabies. I vowed that if I ever got one who couldn’t go back to the wild, I would start to do education programs with them and correct some of these falsehoods. About a year later I got a tiny little 27-gram opossum who I named Stuart. Stuart turned out to be non-releasable due to a lack of hip sockets. I immediately applied for the extra state and federal permits to be able to keep him, and he and I started Awesome Possumz in April 2019. Watching this sweet, gentle animal begin to change hearts and minds was amazing. We went to schools, community groups, Scout troops, senior facilities, fairs, festivals and anywhere people wanted to learn about opossums. Later in 2019 I got a four month old female who had lost her tail and Bobbi Sue was added to our opossum family.
Wildlife rehabbers do not get any state or federal funding so I started to sell fun things like plushie opossums and fun socks at our events to raise funds for the rehab opossums and the two permanent residents. I started to find more and more fun things to sell and it became fun to watch people’s reactions to the fun merchandise. As the opossum “ambassadors” and merchandise continued to expand, the thoughts of a retail store began to emerge. In the fall of 2021 I decided to take the leap, leaving my secure, well-paying, work-from-home-full-time government contract job to make this crazy notion of an opossum-themed store a reality. I found space in January 2022 and opened the doors to Possum-bilities in downtown Fredericksburg in March 2022. Talk about taking a risk! But I knew there were people out there who loved opossums, and others I knew WOULD love them. In addition to selling fun nature and wildlife-themed products, I also started to rent space to local artists, giving them a place to physically display and sell their art.
The idea certainly did take off, and in May 2023 we tripled our space when the business that we sublet space from went out of business and we got the entire 5400 sq ft building! The 16 local artists I had in May 2023 has since turned into 50 and we now have event space. Possum-bilities is known as a fun place where people can come to shop, explore, laugh AND meet an opossum (plus one of the reptile ambassadors we also now have).
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I explained most of this in the prior section.
What Possum-bilities provides for downtown Fredericksburg and the surrounding areas is a place where people can come and enjoy an experience, not just shopping. We have an opossum ambassador in the store Thursday through Monday and you just never know what other critter may be around. Sometimes there’s a big tortoise walking around, or a smaller tortoise. Sometimes there’s a bearded dragon hanging out on the sales counter, ready to greet people as they walk in. Sometimes there’s a snake friend there, or a big lizard. One of the artists has a pigeon who makes an appearance about once a week. Customers know that they can bring in their well-behaved pets so you just never know what you’ll see. We are spreading the word that opossums, and all wild animals, have a specific purpose in nature and that they are all important. I am often able to help people deal with wildlife issues and I serve as a resource for those who find injured or orphaned wildlife (I now only rehab baby opossums).
In addition, Possum-bilities supports local artists. We have 50 local artists who sell their art at the store, plus well over 15 other artists. We support over 80 other small businesses and I like to show customers how many small businesses their one purchase has supported.
Education and rehab is the mission of Awesome Possumz, but education is also very important at the store as well. We host various educational programs in our event space, have animal books and more. We even just started a free library in conjunction with FredParent Magazine, the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and the Fredericksburg Bookmobile. I network with other businesses and groups to promote awareness for other issues as well. The store truly has become the community space I had dreamed of when I opened the doors, less than two years ago.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
While I do advertise in a variety of local publications, make the occasional radio appearance and have Facebook and Instagram accounts, the best source of new clients has undoubtedly been word of mouth. Businesses can spend thousands of dollars a year on advertising and marketing to tell customers why they should visit the business, but having your customers tell others for you is the best way to get the word out (it’s also free!). Having fun products, giving your customers a great experience and making them feel welcome and important is the best way for them to not only remember you and return to your business, but also for them to recommend your business to their friends and family.
I always like to ask people where they came from and how they heard about Possum-bilities. Now a lot of folks travel from out of state because they saw us on social media, but a lot of times they will also say that a friend or family member showed them a post, or has visited the store themselves. We have customers who have come in and made videos of the products that show them having fun in the store. They then post those videos on various online platforms and we don’t even know about it until we start to get customers who say they heard about the store from a Tiktok video!
Customer referrals and recommendations are the purest, most organic form of growth you can have. I read and try to respond to every Google review that is posted, and thank people for coming in. We have regular customers who always bring new friends and family in whenever they have visitors. And family day at Mary Washington University is always a busy day for us, as the students bring their families in to meet the opossum.
My advice? Make your customers feel welcome, important and give them a great experience. Even just great customer service counts if you don’t happen to have an opossum :-)
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
My absolute favorite business book is “The Business Boutique” by Christy Wright. Packed full of insight and stories, it is a fabulous book. It’s the only business book that I’ve ever read cover to cover and didn’t skip any sections. Wright shows readers how to take a “hobby” and turn it into a business. She also references the second book I’d recommend, which is “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek. Before you start any business, you have to know WHY you want to start it. What’s your passion, your purpose? This is the force that drives you, and what keeps you from giving up after a hard day. It’s the “secret sauce” that makes your business special. And, if you don’t know what your why is, your customers certainly won’t either!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://awesomepossumz.com
- Instagram: @awesomepossumz1
- Facebook: Possum-bilities in the Burg2