We recently connected with Chanel Hamilton and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chanel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Coming up with Coyote Brand U.S. was completely trial and error. I knew I wanted to start working for myself, so I gave myself a timeline… and just did it. This seems very simple, but it was not. After failing to launch a few times, I told myself; “Just do what you’ve been doing forever”, which was creating skincare and home goods. The brand launched itself, besides the “sympathy sales” from friends and family, the public supported my products. The orders started flowing in, clients kept returning, and referrals continued. The behind-the-scenes work came from sitting down one day and researching the structure of similar businesses. I conducted a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) plan for those companies and decided to do everything opposite. I also developed a plan B, and full contention (lemonade) plan. All of the businesses include a similar element of massive production and expansion. I decided to do the complete opposite! I wanted to stay small, be environmentally and community centered. I want to connect with all of the people that purchase my products. I have a reduce, reuse, and refill environmental program offering discounts to people who bring their glass jars back to the pop-up markets, and a cap on how much skincare would be produced in a year. I started my home goods by making blankets for the unsheltered in Jacksonville. Once people started purchasing them, I never lost sight of community. Therefore, I decided to make a few blankets throughout the year: one for breast cancer and a few for the unsheltered.

Chanel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

At the age of 13, I learned how to crochet, from my mother’s co-worker Ms. Sandy. She taught me how to make Afghans, and gave me my first set of crochet needles, which I still use. I may have been born with a talent of creating but understanding my purpose to create took a bit longer. While my formal education is not in the arts, I utilize a range of styles including abstract, modern, constructivism, and contemporary. Over time, I’ve learned basic sculpting, soap making, and other mixed mediums.

Like many people during the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an overwhelming emergence of self-reliance. Businesses started shutting down and I could no longer frequent my favorite places for skincare. Therefore, I started making my own. My passion for art and creating home goods reemerged. The pandemic provided me with a lot of time to create paintings, skincare, and other items. Eventually, when the markets reopened, I decided to start selling these items because they were taking up space in my apartment. I started going to farmers’ markets, selling online, and the rest is history… Mostly, it’s about passion and doing what your called to do. I spent a lot of time in the planning phases instead of just doing what came naturally. I want people and my clients to know that I love what I do. Work never feels like work when you love what you do.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I think manufacturing is a great topic. When conducting research for a new brand there are many resources for manufacturing. A new brand should consider if they want to be involved in every step or if they want to use a third party. While third parties may seem easy, reliance becomes a major factor. Which stimulates the conversation among small businesses of “do you engineer of the products you sell, do you know the how the ingredients are sourced, do you understand the chemistry of creating product, or are your just packaging and selling the item”… Manufacturing your own product comes with credibility. I don’t know any business that doesn’t procure simple items, but brands should be accountable for the quality of their products. When push comes to shove a business should have to rely on other parties to be effectively produce. This is the problem a lot of businesses found themselves in after covid-19. Our brand is involved in every step of the process from developing herbal infusions for skincare, testing items before sending them to market, and overall assurance of naturally sourced ingredients.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building social media takes time. A lot of people think that having a lot of followers will equate to a lot of sales. This is not necessarily true. My social media is an intimate setting. While the general objective is to generate sales, we take the time to highlight other brands to create interaction and reach out to our followers to see what their needs and wants are. Social Media allows brand owners to connect without the sales, sales, sales mentality. Coyote Brand essentially uses social media as engagement research. We use the Insta photos, ad Facebook posts to gauge the response of what’s working and what’s not working.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://coyotebrand.us/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coyotebrand.us/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coyotebrand.us/

Image Credits
@mynameisrayray personal photo credit. @coyotebrand.us for product pictures.