We recently connected with Eve Lowry and have shared our conversation below.

Eve, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. 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 began with adding embroidery to handmade baby gifts. I would get referrals from friends who wanted to give nicer presents at baby showers. It did not take long to realize that my one machine was not enough so I began to look for an additional machine. I looked for marketplace deals on used small embroidery machines and eventually found another barely used machine for half the price of a new one! Eventually, I did end up purchasing yet another small embroidery machine on a local online marketplace that wasn’t used much. This allowed me to get more orders done all at the same time while running three small sized home embroidery machines. It enabled me to grow because the small price of the machines made supplies affordable and easy to source. I was able to add to my business services by offering other small scale embroidery jobs such as patches and left chest logos for other small companies. This period of growth also enabled me to teach others on YouTube, so as I learned new techniques I would share them online. The online instruction began to grow bigger than the embroidery work! I found that there were other embroidery projects out there that people wanted to learn how to do which opened up the desire for a larger machine for larger projects. It took a few months, but I eventually was able to get a large multi-needle machine! Once my customers found out I had the bigger machine, business ramped up with embroidery customers wanting larger jobs. One is a regular customer who orders cheer duffle bags and team jackets which I still do now. One point I wish I had of known prior to getting a larger commercial machine was that the supplies to run the machine are larger and cost more. Larger cones of thread and larger stabilizer are also not something I could run to my local craft supplier to pick up! It was definitely a step towards the big business arena. I began teaching larger embroidery projects on YouTube which enabled our channel to grow. To this day, I have added one more large multi-needle embroidery machine, a sublimation printer, a laser machine and quite a few other things. I stay pretty busy with the online instruction tutorials so I only serve one customer now with embroidery.

Eve, 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?

I come from a crafty background on my mother’s side and an entrepreneurial background on my father’s side. I was able to combine my love for both in a small embroidery business making baby shower gifts. I found that there were others out there that had the same embroidery machine I had and did not know how to use it. Since I struggled to learn how to use it myself due to a lack of video instruction, I decided to make video tutorials to help others learn exactly how to use the machine. I enjoy teaching, so it enabled me to break down the information in a way that was easy to understand with step by step detailed instructions. I found that I prefer to teach over filling orders, so I chose to discontinue selling embroidery services and focus solely on YouTube. I now teach many different craft projects such as sublimation, laser projects, rhinestones, and more!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

YouTube is a bit different now than it was when I started over seven years ago. When I began my career on YouTube, I had no goal to grow into a much larger channel. My intention was solely to put a video out there that would help anyone else that wanted to learn the ins and outs of embroidery. I knew there were others who would want to learn how to do many of the projects I was working on and I was right. The YouTube channel began to grow organically among others who purchased the same small embroidery machine or others who wanted to grow their embroidery services with new projects they wanted to try. My advice would be to just be yourself! Don’t get on social media to solely “make money”. Find an area that you don’t see very many videos on and focus your energy there. It will grow, just enjoy what you do and the audience will find you.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

I try to ensure that I listen to what my audience has to say. I do have a feedback option that they can use to voice their concerns or commendations. My husband helps me go through them, but between the both of us we do read them all! No matter what the information is on the feedback we receive either on the form or via email or messages on Facebook, we take them all into consideration as an opportunity to grow or improve. We feel that because we take that extra time to hear what others have to say, it lets them know we value their opinion which our audience appreciates.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thebabysbooty.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebabysbooty
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebabysbooty
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/thebabysbooty
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/thebabysbooty
• Other: https://thebabysbooty.store