We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joseph Bott. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joseph below.

Joseph, appreciate you joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

Several months back, I received a letter from a couple in another state letting me know they were interested in purchasing my business from me. I had not given much thought to selling my business as I love the studio and the many customers who visit.

As I talked with the couple several times, they arrived at an offer that they formally sent me and my wife for us to consider. It was one of those offers that you have to stop and look at several times and make sure you read it correctly.

My wife, Emilie, and I took several days to consider the offer, but our minds kept coming back to one idea that we could not let go…our studio customers and artists are our family. We love all our artists and customers and treat them like a big family when we see them. We laugh and play together. We share stories and just sit and visit as we are in studio making creations. We just could not give that up.

It was this situation that helped us know we are truly in the right place in life and that we hope to continue in this family for many years to come.

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

My name is Joe Bott, and I am the owner/operator of The Tilted Kiln in St George, Utah. I purchased the business in 2015 while I was teaching high school in Enterprise, Utah. After 9 years of teaching, I decided I wanted to own my own studio and this little company came up for sale. It was a perfect fit for us. We took ownership in 2015 while it was named Desert Light Pottery. In January 2017 we officially changed the name to The Tilted Kiln and have been growing ever since.

We have Paint Your Own Pottery in studio that brings in many families and parties. A lot of businesses will use this as a team building activity or just a relaxing day off work for their teams.

We have an open pottery studio that is home to many different artists who create and sell their work all over the region. Along with the open studio, we have a classroom where we teach people of all ages how to use a potter’s wheel and hand build different pottery projects.

The Tilted Kiln is also the regional distributor for many clay and supply manufacturers. We provide clay and supplies to all of Southern Utah and Southern Nevada and handle the supplies for several school districts as well. We are hoping to expand into other regions near by, but it takes time and investment that we are slowly working to acquire.

WE love the fact that we treat everyone who comes into our studio just like we would our own family. Their support of our studio and store helps us keep our business alive and we hope to keep offering great activities for others to do.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We really saw a struggle, as everyone did, throughout the Covid years. Our customer numbers dropped and our distribution went down as schools closed for a while and didn’t order items. It was a very down time for us. However, we pushed through it and learned many lessons as well. One thing we did was we started offering Take-Home kits for painting ceramics. Customers loved it. They would be able to come to the studio, have one person come in and select the projects they wanted, and could then take them home and have their families or friends paint them at home. Once pained, they returned all the projects and we fired them. It was a great way to get projects into their hands and not have them in studio when times were worrisome.

We were pushed to use all of our savings and credit so that we could make it through, but we did and have now been able to grow back to pre-covid numbers and start working on clearing up those debts to get back on track.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

We pride ourselves on taking care of customers no matter what needs to be done. When we purchased the business over 7 years ago, we were constantly being told that the prices were too high and the service was too slow for what most people wanted. When we bought the studio, we went through and completely redid the entire business model and adjusted prices so that we were inline with market value and perhaps even better. It showed our customers that we cared about them and wanted to treat them fair. It earned their trust and we have many repeat customers who tell us they will never go anywhere else. our reputation is how we can show future customers that we will take care of them and treat them with fairness and integrity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thetiltedkiln.com
• Instagram: @thetiltedkiln
• Facebook: thetiltedkiln
• Twitter: @thetiltedkiln

Image Credits
Marjorie Eno, Joe Bott