We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brittany Meade. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brittany below.

Hi Brittany, thanks for joining us today. So, one thing many business owners consider is donating a percentage of sales or profits to an organization or cause. We’d love to hear your thoughts and the story behind how and why you chose the cause or organization you donate to.

Yes, we have donated a percentage of sales to different organizations and causes.

We have a close relationship with Julie Shay, who operates an amazing non profit organization called Good Neighbors Group. They focus on charitable giving, environmental issues, and connecting people and groups to make benefit both parties, and make the local community stronger.

For Good Neighbors Group, we hosted an event with them at our store, where a fair trade brand called Noonday Collection came and setup a table out front, and sold clothing and accessories, and a percentage of all of the sales was donated to the group. Additionally, we all advertised it as a shop and drop event, so a lot of people dropped off clothes they no longer needed or wanted to donate to thredUP.

Also, we are animal lovers, so we also have supported the SPCA. They had a fundraising walk in Annapolis recently, so we had a weekend where a percentage of all sales went to the SPCA.

We chose to get involved with both of these organizations because we feel strongly about what they support and do, and believe in their ability to execute and follow through with their missions.

Brittany, 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?

My name is Brittany Meade, and I own Park Home with my husband, Ted. I grew up in the Annapolis, Maryland area, about 5 minutes from the Chesapeake Bay, and 30 minutes from Washington D.C. I went to East Carolina University, and majored in Interior Design. After college I went straight into kitchen and bath design, doing that for numerous years. Additionally, I’ve had experience with general interior design, wedding planning, and I owned and operated a DIY Workshop business for almost 5 years. We got the opportunity to take over Park Home from the original owners last year. The store had been in operation for about 5 years, was nicely done, and had a great reputation, so we decided to jump into it.

Park Home sells home decor and gift items. We have incorporated a lot of blue items in the store that lend themselves to the coastal style of this area, but we’re always trying to diversify to satisfy the wants and needs of our diverse customer base.

It’s been fun, but it’s definitely been a learning process. We offer complimentary design consulting services in the store, since a lot of people sometimes need some guidance when trying to furnish a place, or improve the look and feel of a room. I enjoy getting to problem solve, and work with people. With us regularly going to markets, and having access to lots of different quality suppliers, it allows us to give the customers quite a lot of options. It’s satisfying to help people, and to see pictures of the transformations that we helped to make happen.

We are most proud of our customer service focused way of operating, and the fact that we are able to curate a variety of products to sell, that represent a lot of the bay culture that this area is known for.

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

We have a pretty large email list, which allows us direct communication with our most loyal clients, clients that opted to receive communication from us directly and regularly. We also strongly value our social media followers, on Facebook and Instagram. When we have sales, news, or special announcements, we put the message out through these platforms, which makes our followers receive this information before anyone else.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

Yes, so we took over this store last February, from Scott and Heather Summers. They had the store for about 5 years prior to this, and were ready to move on. They did a wonderful job during that period, gaining a great reputation in the tight knit Severna Park community, and Park Home quickly became known as the local place to find unique products, and get lots of help with design. Between the time we first saw the store and the time it became ours, it was several months. There were quite a lot of steps to getting everything transferred over, but luckily we had some great people who helped us, such as the business broker, and the lawyer and realtor that we hired.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.parkhomestyle.com
• Instagram: @parkhomestyle
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parkhomestyle/