We were lucky to catch up with Crystal Lee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Crystal, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

I have a natural curiosity for learning what separates the good from the great. So I feel like I’m always a student in the footwear industry and always pursing business developments opportunities like attending seminars, motivational conferences, and listening to business podcasts, etc.

In 2014 I launched my e-commerce site: www.munroeshoetique.com to be the top online shoe retail site for women shoes, where they can shop good quality high heels at affordable prices. I worked incredibly hard over the years to build my shoe retail brand through fashion style collaborations and influencer marketing but by 2018 I was starting to feel burnt out and bored with this approach. I felt like I could be doing more or something different to grow my brand and I knew I didn’t want to quit shoe retail, just was looking for another way to reach my target audience. A lot of times when entrepreneurs reach this time in their journey they react by going wide and adding more types of products to sell. I decided to focus on going deeper into my industry and remain passionate.

While attending a business conference in 2019, a statement was made about entrepreneurship “If you’re not solving problems, you’re not doing entrepreneurship”. That instantly added validation to an idea I already had to teach women how to walk in heels to pipeline into my shoe retail site. Being shoe retail, I’ll always come across women who want to purchase a pair of high heels from me, but didn’t because they couldn’t walk in them. Solving this problem scaled into the Munroe Walk Workshop 101, a beginner friendly setting created by me to coach women on how to walk in heels without struggles. The workshop has become the face of the Munroe Shoetique brand. In 2020, I was able to scale the Munroe Walk Workshop into digital services such as mentorship membership, online heels classes and e-books. This provided a repeatable process at a steady pace.

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?

I’m Crystal Lee, the owner and creator of the Brand- Munroe Shoetique based in St. Louis, MO and am known for my e-commerce site: MunroeShoetique.com and for High Heel Coaching. My business vision was inspired when I was completing my undergrads program. I was a college student who loved high heels but couldn’t afford a pair made from genuine materials like suede, leather and had to settle for of course affordable heels but the material made the heel design obviously cheap looking. That made me cringe, why weren’t there better options for us women who couldn’t afford the designer brands? So In 2014 I launched my online retail site with women heels that only look expensive, designer inspired but remain affordable. I collaborated with fashion bloggers and influencers to help promote the Munroe Shoetique brand, raise brand awareness, and maximize your brand in the footwear industry.

In Oct 2019, I created the Munroe Walk Workshop 101 to transform women’s confidence, rhythm, and fierceness in heels by teaching women how-to walk-in heels correctly. My workshop has helped impacted 1000s of women plus help them to understand that when shoe shopping you don’t have to settle for a cute shoe that hurts or an ugly shoe that’s comfortable. A year later I was able to expand the Munroe Walk Workshop to a digital program to teach women How-to Walk-in Heels- that can be taken anywhere, at any time. In March 2021, I added Shoe Designer to my brand list with the release of my own designed collection, MxM. The purpose of my shoe line is to further serve the shoe lover community with high heels that are luxe, unique, and comfortable to last longer in. Today the Munroe Shoetique brand has evolved to champion femininity, confidence, and empowering women through high heel shoes!

As you can see now I really enjoy being the beauty and brains of the Munroe Shoetique brand supporting women’s empowerment! I’m well known for my consistency and authentic confidence! I’m forever a steward to my customers and am always studying about the fast-paced changes of the footwear industry and my own experience to understand what my business is going to do next. I specialize in solving problems and offering value in the footwear industry. Entrepreneurship sought me out to create a brand that allows women to talk about things that really matter to them and light them up! Looking back, I most proud about building pipelines into my business that is accelerating all in one place and that bring women together in a eccentric way.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Yes, a book that was essential to my business development is: When the Miracle Drop| By Jesseca Dupart.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Social media sites such as Tiktok , Facebook and InstaGram always help me reach new customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.munroeshoetique.com
• Instagram: @Iam_Crystalee
• Facebook: Munroe Walk Workshop
• Youtube: Munroe Shoetique