We recently connected with Joseph and Kristy Griffin and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joseph and Kristy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

We founded our business “Genuinely Blended Prints” in June 2019. We saw a need in our community and surrounding areas that would fill the void of custom printed services. We initially offered custom printed services in the form of party invitations, programs, business cards, obituaries and anything printed that could be used for a party, gathering or program. Our business was flourishing for about 9 months and then March 2020 things took a turn for the worse once the pandemic hit.

Our business went into a dark phase as the world was on lockdown and quarantined. No one was having events, no one was having parties, no one was sending invites to anything! Our services were not needed, and sadly enough our business became irrelevant. We didn’t completely give up on our business and all we worked so hard to establish, but in better terms we decided to “put it on the back burner.” The way the world worked was changing and we had to evolve, everyone was getting used to a new way of life. We remained in business, but the interest was nowhere near what it was pre-pandemic. We went from numerous sales a month to maybe 1 or 2 sales every 2 months.

Honestly, we became stagnant and other things took priority and began to consume our daily lives. We were tasked with conducting remote learning with our twins for their schoolwork and working remotely with our regular full-time jobs. Our business was still present, but it was a distant afterthought of what used to be. It slowly faded away in our minds until June 2022. We wanted to focus on bringing back what we worked so hard to establish. We decided that we need to alter our business model to adapt with the changes that had taken place within the last 2 years.

We saw it more worthwhile to pivot from offering printed paper products to offering customized home decor, kitchen decor, crafts, and apparel. We made this decision solely off providing products that can last for years for our potential customers. With that decision we felt that the new products were items that would be sought after year-round for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and special occasions. Within 3 months since we made the decision to rebrand, we officially relaunched our business in August 2022 as “Genuinely Blended Crafts & More”.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We have been married for 13 years and have been blessed with 3 children (11 year old twins and a 1 year old). We are not only proud business owners but also content creators on YouTube. Our channel “Keeping Up With The Griffins” provides family friendly content that is suitable for all ages. We believe in the importance of quality family time, positivity and having fun while learning and growing together. We also enjoy encouraging and motivating everyone to enjoy life & have fun while doing so! Our main focus is to share our journey of life, love and family bonding with the world!

When we first began YouTube in 2021 our main focus was to document our journey as a family and have memories that will last a lifetime. As we became more involved, we learned that our content provides encouragement for other families as well. After about a year into our YouTube journey we began to form meaningful friendships and bonds with people we met on the platform. Those friendships eventually led us to travel and meet many of these content creators in person, further solidifying our bond as content creators but most importantly friendships that could potentially last a lifetime.

With that being said we came up with the slogan called “Family Vibes”. Family Vibes is our self-proclaimed motto and it embodies the energy we carry on a daily basis. Whenever you hear “Family Vibes” we want you to feel that dynamic of love, friendship and a peaceful atmosphere.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

As business owners, our preference is to sell through our personal website, www.genuinelyblended.com. We’ve always viewed this as a convenience versus platforms that require percentages of your profits and earnings. Even though we pay a yearly fee for our website we do not have to worry about other accommodations besides our revenue that we bring in. The main pro that we’ve notice is that it’s easy for us operate on the back end (looking at sales reports, updating inventory, billing, etc.) The major con we realized is the amount of time invested in making the website user-friendly and easy for customers to use and maneuver to our product offerings. It can be a major time consuming task, but it is necessary to in order to have a simple to use website for customers to utilize.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Building our reputation in the market came fairly easy, mainly because image is something we pride ourselves in. That goes for our reputation in everyday life as individuals as well as our reputation as business owners. With the mindset that we have, we know reputation is everything when it comes to retaining customers and attracting new customers in the future. When it comes to business hours we really don’t have any. Our customers can contact us at anytime of the day or night. That is how invested we are into our business. We believe in treating our customers like family with the utmost respect and compassion. When a customer needs a last minute order we make sure we can provide them with the best services in a timely manner that will meet their needs. Our customers also help orchestrate some of our products. They inquire on if we can create a product and we execute their vision. This provides us with new opportunities to add to our website. Having a reputation in the market is something we don’t take lightly or take for granted.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.genuinelyblended.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genuinely_blended/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083620380071
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KeepingUpWithTheGriffins
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/keepnupwiththegriffins/ https://www.threads.net/@keepnupwiththegriffins https://www.facebook.com/genuinelyblended/