We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brandi Lewis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brandi below.
Brandi , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a customer success story with us?
I create products in which provides that special touch which empowers and uplifts women through creativity and innovative stationery. My products consist of things that I personally enjoy (ie fashion, coffee, cute sweet alcholic drinks, shopping, tea, travel, Paris, Christianity, sweets, florals and motivational sayings. My target audience are those who appreciates the same things that I like (a few or all). I have several customers who will buy cards and put in frames inside their homes because they identify with it as well as purchase for friends/ family, etc.
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?
To share a little bit about Brandi Creations, it comes from my first name Brandi and Creations is well just the creations/ designs created by myself.
My cousin introduced to me the world of scrapbooking and fell in love with it. This was what I turned to on the weekends, after school and/ or work while watching Lifetime to even turning to it on bad days. It brought me so much joy in how relaxed I would be, motivated me to improve my creativity and is my sense of happiness.
Brandi Creations was established in October 2013 shortly after my first card making class where I would make cards for friends and family. I became OBSESSED with it and decided to create a business out of it. My creations are created to uplift, motivate and provide that special touch with fashionable and classy taste that is authentic to my personal style. Brandi Creations is my heart and soul in which I love thinking, creating all of the designs, creating the wording, picking out envelopes, pitching, sharing content on social media, etc.
My products consist of:
-Greeting Cards
– Wooden Gift Card Holders
-Stickers
I pride myself on providing excellent customer service in which I know firsthand about customer service as I have worked in customer service jobs ever since I was 16
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Yes so in 2018, I was an exhibitor at my first Tradeshow in New York and I did not do well at all- just received several compliments. I looked at so many other stationery booths and noticed how different my card looked (they were 3D). Everyone else was digital/ letterpress. I talked with other exhibitors/ stationery designers and they would ask how are you going to mass produce if a order comes through. Long story short… they were right all while working a full-timeb job too. I later saw an article that Beyonce (my favorite artist) did regarding Ivy Park in which she first released it and it didn’t do well but she took some time to do a lot of thinking on how she can improve upon. I let this be my goal is to take time, enroll in some wholesale intensive classes/ workshops to create my brand.
I re-launched my wholesale brand in January 2022 and each year I can tell a big difference and I am falling in love with the development and with my designs.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
So my dad purchased my first cricut along with all of my supplies and then from there my full-time job has paid for everything else (ie workshops, trade shows and other supplies). to be honest I refuse to geta credit card to pay for it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brandicreations.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/BrandiCreations/