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

Alana, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

I believe I would have personally benefited from a more varied approach to education. So much of our learning comes from doing and most of my education was spent sitting at a desk. I’ve been fortunate enough to send my kids to a local Montessori school and what I love about this approach is the child leads their own learning journey. This way from a young age they are encouraged to explore the topics that interest them the most along with other subjects. I also think some practical, real life tips could be taught in high school. Our young adults need more information about how to file their taxes or how to budget and invest, which is something every American has to do. More information on how to pick out your health insurance, which is something I spent hours researching as a person with a chronic illness. These things would be very useful along with more offerings for trades. I believe encouraging our kids to pursue their passions is a great way to lead all people to a more fulfilling life and career. Also, taking the emphasis off of your job defining you. There is so much more to life than what we do to earn a paycheck.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

alanamae studio was born out of my search for high-quality pieces to wear and use around my own home. Shortly after my son was born, I spent a lot of time looking for nursing-friendly tanks for the hot summer in Texas. I became obsessed with fabric content and was tired of feeling suffocated by polyester. When I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, I got my husband’s sewing machine out and began making my own. I was hot and holding an infant most hours of the day and never felt more motivated to make my own clothes. I had heard about the benefits of wearing 100% flax linen. I was also really coming from this place mentally where I needed a creative outlet, but also something that was my own so starting a business was in the back of my mind.

Shortly after falling in love with wearing linen, I experimented with making linen bath and hand towels. I shared them with friends and family and, after some encouragement, I opened up alanamae studio. I design, make and ship all of my items out of my home studio. My process varies: my items are either made to order or one-of-a-kind pieces.

I am committed to practicing zero waste where possible and I strive to be environmentally-conscious when designing and creating new products. My focus is on creating functional, high-quality goods that will last a lifetime. I also support other US based artists/makers; I source my 100% cotton twill labels and care tags on Etsy.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I have an Etsy shop to sell all of my products. The benefit of using a site like this is the initial investment is very low. It only costs $.20 to list an item on Etsy. They also increase the traffic to my shop for me so I don’t have to put in extra time and energy figuring out my own marketing strategy. The cons include a pretty saturated market. There are a lot of Etsy shops like mine and it’s easy to lose consumers to another brand or maker as we are all listed on the search page side by side. My long term goal is to make my own website. I have not made the move yet, but I do plan to in the future when I have more of a following. Etsy has been great in many ways. They offer incentives to sellers and they will optimize your SEO (search engine optimization) if you provide things that most customers want like free shipping. This can also be a challenge for many sellers with lower cost items. I’ve personally found Etsy to be a great starting point. The exposure and experience has been great for me as I continue to operate as a one woman shop.

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

I use social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest to stay in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty. I also respond to all messages on Etsy quickly so my customers feel heard. I keep up with direct messages and occasionally take polls to see what customers want to see next in my shop.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/alanamaestudio
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alanamaestudio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alanamaestudio/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alana-clay-jones/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/alanaclayjones