We were lucky to catch up with Beverly Cunningham recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Beverly, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

Starting this business I never imagined how much support I’ve been blessed with by my family and close friends. My husband helps create along with me and comes up with ideas for new displays. My mother in law is one of our main artists for art prints. My sister in law has helped with hand sewn items and gemstone wrapping. My neighbors and close friends have donated so many free materials to us. Even my kids get involved with helping promote and modeling our work. It’s nice to come up with an idea and then turn around and see a huge support system backing it up. My family trust my guidance and have amazing creative concepts to share in support of this business. Simple put, this is indeed all of my family’s business. A small company like this definitely needs a village. The key to it running smoothly is good communication, compromise and lots of love.

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?

Our company, Simply Be, is a SoCal family based in (North County) San Diego. The items that we sell are anything that we found moved our spirit. Our family stands for openness and that each individual soul has a place beyond the trappings of this world. Beyond judgements, opinions and conditions. We sell a variety of art prints, gemstone jewelry, spiritual tools, spa items, dried terrarium, candles and room sprays.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I had started gaining follows for my business though my personal IG account. Majority of my followers continually are through my personal account. Seeing that I’ve done lifestyle blogging and influencer series. It was a easy transition. I like to show all behind the scenes. I’ve recorded or have snapped pictures of us stringing beads, preparing our candle wax, even going to our supply places to pick out material. I feel like when you share the process of preparing a product people understand how much work really went into it.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Vendoring for other boutiques has really helped spread our brand and reputation. You learn so much and get to meet other small businesses.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.simplybesd.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/simplybe.sd

Image Credits
Beverly Cunningham