We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer Cerretti. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer below.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Hive & Forge was created for one purpose only. To give the opportunity for small businesses and folks beginning their craft to offer their work to the community. Our shop as a support system to help members grow their brand and have better representation. This dream began within the walls of a place called Mill No. 5 in Lowell, MA where I met my business partner Rachel Chandler. We began our connection as neighboring shops within the 4th floor streetscape in the restored textile mill housing small businesses and so much more. Along my journey within these walls I took over coordinating the art and makers market that was well attended on Saturdays called A Little Bazaar. This market allowed me to create amazing relationships with many local makers. After a few years of managing the marketplace, I felt like I could do more that just a Saturday market. I missed having a shop location where I could offer my own work and I was ready to take the leap. Hive & Forge opened in Salem, MA, September of 2018, with only 15 members. Now almost 5 years later we have curated a great selection of over 60 plus passionate artists, makers and curators offering their work in not only our Salem, MA location but now our Lowell, MA location back within these walls of Mill No. 5.
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?
When I thought about what I wanted to do with my life at a young age, when I thought I was actually figuring out what life was, I knew I always wanted to do something creative. In high school art and sculpture classes were my absolute favorite. However, telling my Dad I wanted to go to art school wasn’t in the cards. After high school I went to hair dressing school and was sure after all the hair cuts I gave friends, family and even myself, that it was the road for me. Unfortunately not too long after working at a salon I realized it wasn’t. It was pretty discouraging and I felt pretty lost. Many years of retail management in Mall stores entered my life after hair dressing didn’t work. Certainly didn’t pay well for the amount of work you have to do as a manager for corporate retail, but I learned a lot. Managing young kids and making them care about their jobs, visual merchandising became one of my favorite parts of the job, I brought stores that were not doing well and completely flipped them to making sales goals and increasing yearly goals over 20%, also turned into an ocd inventory master! Looking back I’m proud of my time and friendships I made in the mall retail workforce, but believe me, I have nightmares of it happening again!
In my late 20s my best friend and I got together a lot in talks about creating an etsy shop and both honing in on our craft. She had gone to art school and I always enjoyed drawing and creating. We would visit Salem, MA almost every Tuesday summer into fall of 2013, and that is where my first art business Bad Moon Shop began. One of my favorite forms of artwork, in which I still do today is hand draw illustrations on ethically sourced animal skulls and bones. Bad Moon Shop was that neighboring shop to Rachel Chandler at Mill No. 5 before my best friend decided she was ready to move on. That’s why I moved onto running the art market and I was the events coordinator at Mill No. 5 and then came Hive & Forge.
We curate our members at Hive & Forge through an application process. We look to have folks that are elevated in their craft and what they are curating in our shop. With this curation process we also look to not over saturate our own shop or the neighboring shops that surround us. We want to stand apart as a shop where you can find many originals and one of a kind pieces that you would have a hard time finding in a lot of other shops. Each year we grow and learn so much more. Our members have noticeably progressed within their work and some folks have been with us since the very beginning. We have coached many of our members with insurance & tax questions, social media marketing, mentorship and much more. We also offer a space for workshops that gives members the opportunity to teach their craft to the public.
Behind the scenes, we have the best team ever! I can’t express how grateful I am for my staff. My Salem, MA shop manager Ken Welch has really been such a key player in helping Rachel and I bring Hive & Forge to the next level the past few years. If there is anything I am most proud of besides our shop, it is creating such a dedicated team that is behind our mission and cares about our space.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
What I have always wanted to be is a good neighbor. In our Salem, MA shop or within the walls on Mill No. 5 in Lowell, MA. To me that means always supporting surrounding small businesses beyond our walls. Being a support system like that builds strong local economy and creates positive relationships between small businesses. Salem, MA is a community of many small businesses that go through an insanely busy season mid summer through October. That city is madness and we are right in the heart of it with many other businesses. It can be really competitive. What I’ve learned from boosting up small business within my own shop, is it doesn’t hurt to get folks to shop with your neighbors and just get eyes on what each city our shop is in has to offer. It makes the area more interesting to folks visiting. I’ve noticed we have shops now tagging us in posts because they know we will repost them in our instagram stories for more eyes to get on their business. It means so much to me that we have built such good rapport with other small businesses working their tails off just like us. My staff and myself are also super friendly and attentive. I think we have built a shop that is a safe space for ANYONE and folks have mentioned the positivity they feel being in the shop. Good vibes all around!
Any advice for managing a team?
Believe me, I didn’t go to school for management. I don’t even know if this will be helpful to anyone. I’ve learned a lot from every single job I’ve had in the past 25 years! Especially the type of manager I don’t want to be. One major thing I will always do, is treating our staff like they are human beings and creating job descriptions that they are happy and comfortable with. Something that makes our staff excited to go into work. As small business owners, sometimes you want to take on everything yourself, but having staff that you hold accountable and know that they are an important puzzle piece in the big picture has created buy in with our staff. We have watched our own staff grow in roles we didn’t think would even exist years ago.
Not all days are sunny and go perfectly. I find that open communication and being a support system to our staff and even between Rachel and I have helped get through the bad days. We are a small and tight team that are there for each other in work and life. Again, everyone is human, we absolutely have expectations and hold staff to them, but we have created a workplace in which Rachel and I are approachable and we work hard together.
Contact Info:
- Website: hiveandforge.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/hive_and_forge
- Facebook: facebook.com/hiveandforge