We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jenn Peraza a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jenn, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name for my business occurred to me after designing and customizing a pair of “glamour Crocs” for my mom for Mother’s Day. This style of shoe was trending all over social media. Rather than spending money purchasing a pair on one of the many social media pages that offered these shoes, I decided “I can do that”. After realizing how much I enjoyed the process of taking an item and enhancing the look of it, I decided I would create an IG page and start selling my service of designing custom Croc shoes. That was going to be the first service offered by my business. When trying to decide what to name the business, I wrote down a few options and went with combining the words “Glamour” and “Crocs” and ended up with the name Glamorocs. That’s how I came up with my business name Glamorocs Designs. I have since expanded from designing Croc shoes to creating and designing many custom items at the customers request.

Jenn, 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 am a 47 year old boy mom of an 11 year old. During the pandemic, I decided to design and customize a pair of Croc shoes for my mom as a Mother’s Day gift. This style of shoe was trending all over social media at the time. I’ve always been crafty and a creative so doing something like this wasn’t far fetched. I’ve always had the “I can do anything if I really want to” mentality. I figured out that many people were actually making an extra income selling items using social media platforms so I went ahead and created an IG page and started Glamorocs Designs with the intention of selling custom glamour Croc shoes to have another stream of income. In January of 2022 I was laid off from work after being remote for two years. I realized maybe I should expand the items and services I offered to include tumblers, straw toppers, pens, keychains, t-shirts and so much more. I felt like going back to the 9 – 5 workforce wasn’t what I wanted to be doing especially at such a scary time in life. It was then that I started doing my side hustle full-time.

I had no knowledge of what it took to create these products so I buckled down and started doing research. I started following others in the same industry creating similar items. I downloaded, watched and read many tutorials. I studied YouTube videos and tried to learn about everything I needed to succeed in this business. I also, followed a lot of content coaches. There is a lot to learn about all aspects of content creation as well as selling products and I am still in the process of learning. Overall, what I want to offer my customers is a unique one on one experience where I am able to bring their vision to life. Anyone can go into stores see an item they like and purchase it, but getting the item in a specific color with a specific design made exactly the way they’ve envisioned it to look is not common. I am proud of the relationships that I’ve formed with my customers where they can contact me directly and discuss their custom needs with someone they can trust to make sure they get a product that they are 100% happy with.

Glamorocs Designs started with custom Croc shoes, but has since expanded to Logo design, Branding, Apparel design and much more. Basically, I am a one stop shop for all your custom needs. I like to joke that when a potential customer reaches out to me and ask “Can you do that?” my response is always going to be “Yes” I may not have done it before but I can certainly figure it out. One thing that’s certain is I love to take a basic item and give it a little bit or a lot of Glam.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One thing I had to unlearn is the thought or idea that social media followers and likes are important to be successful in business. It really was something I was struggling with. The algorithm can be really confusing. I was always under the impression the more followers you have and the more likes you receive the better it is for your business success. I was overwhelmed with the idea of needing to post content consistently and trying to gain followers. It wasn’t until I started following a woman in business that had low engagement and a similar number of followers on her social media platforms. When I looked further into her business I learned that she was also selling her products through different big name companies like Amazon and Walmart and was even featured on QVC. I realized then that IG and some of the other social media platforms do not dictate success in business for many businesses. What’s really funny is that I recently participated in a Career Day at a public school and one of the kids asked me a really good question. His question was “How do you feel if you don’t get a lot of likes on your post.” I was happy to answer that question after unlearning the theory that social media “Likes” mean everything to a business.

Have you ever had to pivot?

This journey of trying to maintain my business full-time and my desire to not want to return to a 9 to 5 has definitely created the need to pivot not only in business, but in my personal life as well. I am still in the learning curve of it all, so I can’t say that I’m even close to reaching my full potential in the world of business. There are many highs and lows with trying to keep up with the trends. I find myself having to pivot more times than not with what I need to produce in terms of content and products. My insights were showing that my content with the most engagement were the ones where I showed my face in the videos, so keeping that in mind is something that I’m working on doing in order to keep my audience interested in my content. I’ve also had to pivot in my personal life in terms of the reality of having multiple streams of income in order to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. Glamorocs Designs is my passion and I want to continue to do what I love, but the reality is that in this economy having a steady income as well as multiple streams of income is necessary, so I’m currently looking into ways to grow my income from other avenues as well.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glamorocs_designs
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Glamorocsdesigns/