We recently connected with Karen Holcomb and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Karen, thanks for joining us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

I opened the “Boutique Marketing Studio” in 2019 after owning a Boutique myself, since 2016. During this time, I witnessed firsthand the lack of marketing help the internet had to offer those in our niche. I had already held a marketing degree and so I put it to use helping other Boutique owners with their marketing. Over the years I have had to do some pivoting, as any small business owner needs to do from time to time. Due to small business owners still trying to recover from covid, I needed a way to offer them professional looking emails and websites without over stretching their budget. However, I still wanted to set our clients up for success, regardless of their design skills.

I have recently launched our plug and play (or drag and drop) templates for our clients who want to save a little money by keeping their marketing in-house. This is proving to be one of our greatest pivoting moves so far! Our templates easily convert to use with any Canva plan so anyone can use our templates. They are fully customizable to keep our clients’ branding on point!

Later this week I will also be launching our monthly subscription for our templates. Our clients will get new recurring templates and banners each month at an unbelievable affordable price. I am so excited for this upcoming launch!

I am very fortunate to have such an amazing tribe of women behind me and so blessed to work with so many women-owned boutiques all over the world.

Karen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have always been told I was born stubborn and determined. I grew up poor, in a single-parent home after losing my father to a brain tumor and cancer when I was 12 years old. After losing my father, I completely lost myself. From there, I bounced around from detention homes to foster care just trying to navigate my new world.

You can say my life pivoted in 2002 at the age of 17. I had my life all planned out. As soon as graduation was over, I was heading off to be a Marine Biologist. I have always dreamt of being a Dolphin Trainer. I didn’t realize it at the time but sometimes dreams quickly fade when life doesn’t go as you planned it. Shortly after I graduated, I prepared to become a young mom. Marriage and baby number two quickly followed. Before I knew it, I found myself a single mom of two, working two jobs and going to college at night for my Marketing Degree.

In 2009, I finally landed a job that paid enough for me to work one job and finish my degree. By 2012, I found myself laid off and tired of making someone else rich while I worked for less than my worth. I knew I wanted to do the things I loved and believed in myself enough to be successful. So, I opened Great Lakes Parrot Place (GLPP), where my motto was, “Raising baby parrots in a home, for a home!” Shortly after, I moved to a larger city and married my now husband. It was a lot of change, but we were creating a beautiful fairytale for our family.

In 2016, my husband’s company changed some rules which allowed us to live anywhere we wanted. Because our kids were still young, we decided to move back up north to be closer to family. Although successful and highly demanding during our summer months, we closed down GLPP and decided to open up my second company running an online women’s Boutique. I quickly found my tribe of women who also learned I had a degree in marketing. I found myself helping other Boutiques with their marketing for free. I loved it, and it was my passion, so I truly enjoyed it. During this time, one of the Boutique owners asked me, “Why are you not running your own Marketing Agency?” For someone who always has something to say, it was shocking, but I was speechless. After all, I had college debt and wasn’t putting my degree to use. So, in 2019, I put my Boutique aside and focused fully on my Marketing Company!

Boutique Marketing Studio is focused on Boutique Owners and Small Business owners who struggle with time, money, resources, and expertise. We are here to help all business owners generate new sales and create repeat customers. The best advice I have ever received is, “Do what you do best and hire the rest!”

My company helps others reach their goals without the owners having to sacrifice their precious time to do the stuff that they love doing!

We have been blessed to work for so many women-owned boutiques all over the world. We are helping other moms achieve their dreams and to me, that is priceless!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I truly believe covid illustrated any small business owner’s resilience. For some of us, we have had to build a business from the ground up. We had no mentor or someone who would share all of the business success secrets with us. It was a solo mission full of mistakes and lessons.

What we earn is what we get. If it’s not enough to pay the bills, we have no choice but to keep going whether we want to or not. When you own a business, you are constantly in a fight or flight response. As we look back on our past failures and success, which we often do, that is when we can hold our heads high. That is when we see how resilient we are/were and that feeling keeps us going during the hard times.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Joy. Happiness. Peace. Those are my missions that drive my creative journey. If it doesn’t bring me joy and happiness while creating my work, then to me there is no point in wasting the time on that journey. If I don’t get peace knowing I helped solve a problem for a business owner, then there is no point in wasting the time on that journey either.

A Journey is supposed to get you from one place to the next. YOU get to decide what kind of journey you want. My creative journey is one that is full of fun, and I’ve always held the belief that you cannot fail when your only mission is to have fun!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.boutiquemarketingstudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karen_holcomb_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketingstudio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-holcomb/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/MarketingStudio19/for-the-love-of-marketing/