We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shannon and Vanessa Basco Chernivsky. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shannon and Vanessa below.
Shannon and Vanessa , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business
After about six months our subscription boxes weren’t performing as we’d hoped. Vanessa was busy with her family. Shannon was busy with her other company, and scaling with employees. We both felt like we didn’t have enough time to devote to Fierce Earth. We talked about ending the company at the end of the year. During that conversation, we received another subscription order. We then connected with Illuminate Festivals and did our first maker’s market. It went incredibly well. We’ve since done three other maker’s markets and have our regular subscribers. This moment opened up a pivot for our business, and we started making products that gave us the creative outlet we were craving and pushed us to continue Fierce Earth. We love spending time with each other, creating products, spreading self-care, and connecting with people that are drawn to our products and mission,
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Vanessa and Shannon wanted to make products for self-care in 2016, We were using CBD in homemade, organic, body products. Vanessa got pregnant after our first batch, and Shannon was starting her massage business at that time. Although we wanted to continue the time wasn’t right. Once Vanessa’s kids started school, and the pandemic slowed down the massage business we started talking about doing subscription boxes. We noticed people were subscribing a lot, but we didn’t find a box out there for us. We wanted to bring holistic care into people’s lives by giving them items for mind, body, spirit, and home. It was important to us that those items came from small, women-owned, eco-friendly businesses. We have since expanded to making our own products and doing custom orders and gift boxes while continuing to support other women. Another part of our mission is giving back. We donate a dollar from each order to a charity quarterly. So far we’ve donated to a local animal shelter, a women’s health alliance, domestic violence prevention, and a homeless shelter.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
We have found through doing makers markets that we can’t predict yet what will sell. We recently did a maker’s market in Wisconsin during the holiday season. All of the things we connect with like sage, candles, crystals, and body products sold. None of the holiday-themed items sold. This has shown us what we connect with and helps us to speak to customers and them as excited as we are. It also shows that you can’t judge clients by how they look when it comes to spirituality. There are many people seeking the things we think create an impact.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
We have learned that it’s very vulnerable to put things you’ve made out there. It’s hard to share those things even when you promote other people’s ideas and businesses. When it comes to talking about your own business it can be terrifying. However, seeing other people find comfort and joy in something you made is very rewarding. As it happens more and more you gain confidence and realize you have things to share with others and they have things to share with you. That connection has been amazing.
Contact Info:
- Website: fierceearth.shop
- Instagram: fierce_earth
- Facebook: Fierce Earth Boxes