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

Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

Disney’s The Little Mermaid first came to theaters when I was a little girl, and Ariel was instantly my favorite and remained so for many years (she still is, really!) When I was about 7 or 8, my grandparents took me to a magical little Florida theme park called Weeki Wachee Springs, whose main attraction is its underwater theater featuring live mermaid performers. I was old enough at the time to know that they weren’t “real” mermaids, but performers in mermaid tails, and I knew then that THAT was what I wanted to do.
I grew up, moved north to Nashville, then Chicago, away from the beautiful waters of Florida, and felt my dreams slipping away, and aimed for more practical work, but making a mermaid career out of it was always still in the back of my mind.
With the rise of social media, I joined mermaid-related groups and watched the community grow. As it grew, tail-makers started creating more realistic fabric tails, and not just the thousand-dollar silicone ones, and swimming as a mermaid became more accessible. Then I started looking to see if there were any local groups that got together- and just by luck, I found one that had only recently started. I started mermaiding as a hobby, and Emily the Joliet Mermaid was born! Eventually, I was given the opportunity to do a couple of birthday parties, and I was hooked. In other community groups, I found that a few people were putting together the first Pride festival in Joliet, Illinois, so I reached out and offered to be a part of the fun- and it grew from there!
I was keeping myself busy with my day job, and taking parties and festivals and anything else I could find on the side, but hated turning folks down when I wasn’t available and knew I needed to grow, so I formed Windy City Mermaids. I did a lot of Google searching about starting a small business, read books about the mermaid business, took classes about contracts, and made connections and friends with similar businesses in other cities around the country. I formed my LLC, got my EIN, set up an account with Square (which works well for my needs), started more social media pages, and started making more connections, networking, building my team, website, – everything. It’s a lot. It definitely helps to have a team to throw the parties out to so that I can grow and build in other areas.
Today, Windy City Mermaids LLC is a trademarked, multifaceted business. I’m still a sole proprietor, contracting out my performers, but I have my main mermaid team, a junior team, a nationwide team, a spooky team (the Blood Sirens), and my new fairy team (Windy City Fairies), and am working to launch the Windy City Mermaid School. I also have an online shop, featuring apparel and other goodies. I’m also a PADI-certified mermaid instructor, so that will likely become an extension of the Mermaid School. We’ve performed at Renaissance festivals across the midwest, many local area Pride festivals, corporate events, parties, and more!
I’m still learning, and still growing. I’m sure I always will be. Every day is different, I hope to keep moving on to bigger events (traveling for aquarium shows is a big goal of mine), and eventually quit the day job, but until then- I just keep swimming!

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?

We provide professional mermaid and fairy entertainment. Our performers are fully insured and have various safety certifications. The mermaids are also always escorted by a “Mermaid Security” handler who helps keep an eye out for safety.
We are in the process of starting the Windy City Mermaid School, where kids and adults can learn how to safely swim in mermaid tails while still having tons of fun, and for the more serious mermaiding-enthusiast we can also offer PADI mermaid certification classes.
We also have an online shop, featuring athletic apparel, tees, and other mermaid-related goodies! We have a wide range of sizes and leggings with pockets!

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

Some of our biggest bookings, I got my just interacting or reaching out to businesses that would be a good fit for our services on social media. A hotel with a small indoor waterpark for example. Their social media engagement was a bit low, so I started interacting from my business account. Showing love, lots of “likes” and relevant comments. Enough for them to notice but not be annoying. They ended up reaching out, and we planned a couple pretty awesome mermaid events at their location.
Another was a unicorn-themed traveling pop-up event. I simply reached out on facebook expressing interest if they ever came out to Chicago, and a few weeks later, they reached out.
So don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. The worst they can say is no (or nothing at all.)

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

My team are all contractors. Recruiting mermaids is easy, so many dreams of becoming a mermaid, and making money doing it- heck yeah! But not everyone can work independently, or is good with kids, or is a skilled performer. So finding the right ones, can be challenging, but I’m working through that with a more involved audition process, as well as standards for equipment, certifications, and insurance.
To keep the team happy, I keep very open communication, letting them know what’s going on, and valuing their input. I seek out great opportunities for them as well.
We’re all different, and have different goals, communication methods, lives, etc- so keeping that in mind is important as well. My team is small, and I try to get to know each of them and also give them opportunities to get to know each other without me around as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.windycitymermaids.com
• Instagram: @windycitymermaids
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/windycitymermaids
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/windy-city-mermaids-llc/

Image Credits

the Chicago skyline pictures were taken by Sweet Memories Photography