We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Karen Smoots a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Karen, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

It was a snowy, wet winter when my boys were still in elementary school. They would come home with wet gloves or mittens on a daily basis that were stuffed in their backpacks. I remember vividly it was Friday and my youngest son Nolan got off the bus and handed me his backpack and ran back outside after grabbing a dry pair of gloves from our mudroom. Snow was on the ground and he just wanted to play outside. So I started unloading his backpack and of course the wet gloves from the last recess were on top. I was so frustrated because under those stinky wet gloves was the “Friday Folder”. This folder came home on Fridays with all their work in it from the week. Their accomplishments, art, etc. Everything that was in that folder was a soaked mess from the wet gloves and I mean squeeze the liquid out wet. I layed all the work on the table hoping it would be salvagable enough to save. I remember feeling so frustrated. I was so tired of this problem. Endless attempts to dry the inside of gloves in the dryer, which always ended up drying the outsides fine but the insides always remained damp and wet. I’d dry for 20-40 minutes at a time and no success. Wasted electricity with no end in site. I also tried to prop them up on my registers that were on the floor and they would always fall over or still the heat would never get all the way inside. The next morning I told my husband we had to find a solution to this problem. We have to come up with something that will sit on top of the floor registers that will capture the heat and dry the inside of these gloves. So Saturday morning my husband headed out to Home Depot to gather supplies to engineer our own contraption to solve our problem. Ironically, my husband is an engineer so this was right up his alley. After about 8 hours in the garage, building and constructing, we came up with a design made of pvc and tubes and glued it together. We gave it a whirl that Saturday night after the boys got done playing outside in the snow. I placed all their wet gloves on the plastic dryer, 3 sets of gloves, six in total went on the new contraption and we set it on the floor register, turned the lights off and went to bed. Of course our heat was running all night on/off. I remember coming down the stairs in the morning like it was Christmas morning. Tiptoeing down…excited, anxious and hoping all those gloves and mittens would be dry inside. THEY WERE. EACH AND EVERY STINKING ONE OF THEM WERE COMPLETELY DRY. TOP TO BOTTOM. INSIDE OUT. It worked,!! I started jumping up and down. From that day on throughout that winter we used it daily, primarily at night when the heat runs non stop which is the coldest time of the day. Our journey began that winter of 2014 and we are still going strong.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Karen Smoots. I am a entrepreneur at heart. I am 46 years old and a Mom first (the best job I’ve ever had). I have always loved being and independent thinker, creating my own path which is why entrepreneurship fits me like a “glove”.
I have been a business owner for almost 20 years. I created KMS Designs Inc. in 2014 after we invented our glove dryer, TheEcoDryer. Accidentally is how it happened for this business. We never set out to create another business, but because we are forward and creative thinkers in our family, we decided to take a leap of faith and it has surely been an adventure.
We operate our small, micro – family business from our home and our boys are still involved to this day. From packing glove dryers, to taking deliveries to UPS/FedEx or USPS, everyone pitches in.
Our proudest accomplishment thus far is having the largest utility company in Michigan, Consumers Energy believe in our product and partner with us to put glove dryers in elementary schools across the state. To date, we have placed dryers in 68 of 73 counties in Michigan. We have 5 to go to finish the entire state of Michigan.
We are a hands on company and our family of four has surely enjoyed this adventure. For the past FIVE years, our EcoDryer has been the #1 selling glove dryer on Amazon. The largest retailer in the world and we are #1 in our category.

Finally, as the mom who wears all the hats of the business (sales, packing, manufacturing, billing, shipping…YOU name it, I do it) I love talking to customers. I absolutely love it when a customer calls and I can actually talk to them. Yes, I answer the phone, No automated system. I ship out every single order placed on our website. I also include a hand-written “thank you” in each and every order. Why? Because I am grateful. I know without our customers and their excitement and word of mouth, we would not have a business. I want them to know their business means everything to us. It’s not just an order. It’s a welcome to the family for us.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Entrepreneurship is not always glamorous. Most people think “oh you own a business, you must be rich”. That is farthest from the truth. It’s a lifestyle. We chose this yes, but it is hard. You work 24/7, sleepless nights, worries daily. You can go from the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in a 24 hour period multiple times a week. You worry about finances, how to pay the bills, marketing, sales, etc.

Then there are the victories that keep you going. You have to wear a teflon suit and be tough. I’ve learned that real fast, especially in manufacturing, which is what we do. Plastic injection molding to produce our TheEcoDryer.
Manufacturing is tough. I use contract manufacturers and have been lied to, had purchase orders copied and transposed, recalled product the manufacturer won’t replace so we had to pay to replace all product, and more. Not to mention the belittlement of women in business, talked down to as if I was an id*ot and more.

I fought back. I did the right thing. I found a new place to go. Then it would happen again. I wanted to give up. I wanted to quit. But I knew it wasn’t in me. I was a fighter. I knew it was my fault for not being diligent about character and so I found a new place. I knew our product was too good and helped so many families and kids in schools that I could NOT give up on them. It was a solution to a problem that I solved and so I treated manufacturing as such. It was a problem and I had to find a solution. I tried to never take the negative personal. It was business and some people just suck at business. Some people are just awful humans and I had to move on and not dwell on the past. Only move forward and stay positive.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

Brand Loyalty is everything. Our customers are everything. They are our family. In each and every order there is a hand-written thank you note expressing our gratitude and appreciation.
Word-of mouth is our main source of advertising, so brand loyalty is the most important to us. Standing behind our product and company at every turn. Always putting ethics before profit. ALWAYS. We’ve lost money and made money but will never compromise ethics over profits just to make a sale. We reach out to our customers, and solve their problems too. It’s not an accident we have over 1400 nearly all FIVE star reviews on Amazon and the negative reviews came primarily from our recall when customers were unaware. WE fixed/replaced each and every one of those orders at no-charge to our customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theecodryer.com
• Instagram: theecodryer
• Facebook: Theecodryer
• Linkedin: Karen Smoots
• Youtube: KMS Designs