Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amanda Peña Bustillos. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Amanda, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

We are 3 generations of family working together at Wild Birds Unlimited of Dripping and we absolutely love it.

It’s a dream come true to do what I love while spending time with my family.
As a mom, I especially appreciate having the flexibility of a family business as we raise our children.

Our customers have become extended family to us over the past 5 years and it’s really special that they love keeping up with our family and watching our children grow too.

A lot of our favorite places to shop at are local family businesses right here in our community… We have gotten to know them over the years and know how hard they work and how much they give back to our community. The connection we have with them is so meaningful to us and we are proud to support them.

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?

I studied broadcast journalism and worked on-air in radio right out of college! My heart was in TV, radio and all things communications and I quickly fell in love with marketing too. After several years of working in marketing for healthy food and wellness companies, the entrepreneurial bug was biting me! I really wanted to be use my communication skills in a business of my own.

Thankfully the entrepreneurial bug was also biting my folks who were retired! My parents and my husband are the hardest working and most honest and good-hearted people I know, so the thought of starting a business with them really felt like an incredible idea.
We had all shared a passion for nature and feeding the birds so we looked into what it would take to open our own Wild Birds Unlimited shop in our hometown of Dripping Springs. It was one of our favorite stores to shop at and the franchise seemed like a good fit for us.

What sets Wild Birds Unlimited products apart is the quality of the items we offer! Many of the feeders have lifetime guarantees and the birdseed is free from fillers and other things birds don’t eat.

We hoped that if we sold the best product for a hobby we loved and paired it with giving the absolute best customer service, our little shop just may have a chance. We hoped it would be a successful business, but more so that we could make a positive impact for the songbirds in our community in the process.

We love feeding and watching the birds in our own backyard and our goal is to share this joy with as many of our neighbors as possible! We love to troubleshoot any issues that folks have had with bird feeding in the past and make it a stress-free hobby that brings peace and connection with nature to our customers.

As I reflect on the past 5 years of business, I feel so proud of our family. We have given our little business 100% every single day. When we started, our main goals were to educate our community on how to save the songbirds and to make a positive impact here in our hometown. I feel in my heart that we have done this and hope for many more years of being able to do so.

More than anything, I feel a sense of immense gratitude for our customers who have become family to us these past 5 years. I am forever grateful to them for supporting our family’s business and for loving nature and making Dripping Springs one of the greatest places to watch and care for wild birds.
I always joke with our customers that I may seem like the cheesiest and most emotional gal in town because I tell them how grateful I am for them often and it usually brings me to tears.
I hope if there’s one thing I never lose as a business owner, it’s this overwhelming feeling of gratitude that I feel each day.

We were told that our business probably wouldn’t make it since we are the smallest population store of all Wild Birds Unlimited shops. Thankfully, because of our incredible customers, despite the pandemic and other major obstacles, we are still here and thriving.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Our youngest kiddo, Joaquin, who is now 2 1/2 years old, was born the week the pandemic started. I can still remember sending an email to our customers and making social media posts that we were needing to close our doors for an unknown amount of time and we were going to somehow find a way to operate and continue business in this new, extremely frightening reality.

We were the only car driving through Austin on the way to the hospital to have our son while realizing that our small business would be facing its biggest challenge yet.
To feel such joy and such fear at the same time while trying to completely change everything about how we operate our business was truly a time where I realized how resilient our family would be as business owners.

Our son spent his first few days of life in the NICU with breathing issues so we knew we would not only have to figure out a new way to run our business, but do it in a way that would keep our family healthy…
We all juggled major changes in our business together, while caring for our children and grandchildren, and though we look back on those times as insanely difficult- we are proud we made it. We are still here. We were even awarded the title of Business of the Year for 2020 by the DS Chamber of Commerce.

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

We love to keep in touch with our customers through social media! Our 6 year old daughter has shared these communications duties with me since she could speak. We especially love Facebook Live videos so our customers can interact with us.

I believe our brand loyalty is fostered through the relationships we have made with our customers! They know our family and we know and love them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://order.wbu.com/drippingsprings
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildbirdsunlimitedofdstx/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wbuofdrippingspringstx
• Other: https://drippingsprings.wbu.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=local&utm_campaign=localmaps&utm_content=501

Image Credits
Claire Mulkey of Rising Oak Images
Amanda Wilkins of French Press Photographie