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

Alright, Kathryn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

One of my favorite sayings is that you can’t take an elevator to reach success — you must take the stairs. Over and over again as I near a decade as a Creative Entrepreneur, I’m reminded of this in different ways. Opportunities arising simply as a result of continued resilience and persistence. Opportunities fueled by passion and purpose which lead to a path of excellence. Each individual also has their own ideal of what success means to them. For me, making progress each day is where it starts. Through trials and tribulations, I’ve learned along the way that you have to keep evolving your business each day in response to unexpected and unforeseen circumstances. These lessons have had even greater importance to business owners in recent years of seemingly unending pitfalls — changing lives overnight, at times without warning.

In my corporate years, the most meaningful takeaway is that you just can’t put all of your eggs in one basket. This reality is ever important to a creative, who in order to weather the storms, must have different income streams and creative ways to pull all of their many passions into one cohesive plan. So that when it’s all said and done, the sum of many parts equal an entire means to thrive. We have to train our mind to have an entrepreneurial mindset — one which involves taking risks and staying observant of the big picture. Often, we get so caught up in our vision we forget how to translate that vision to others. But at the same time, our vision is ours alone. Which means that others may not necessarily get it. And that’s okay. My greatest achievements haven’t involved looking to others for validation in fulfilling my own mission.

Life’s circumstances have been the catalyst for needed change to scale up out of necessity. Through the loss of my father in the past five years, in addition to other mitigating circumstances, one thing is for certain. Those circumstances haven’t gotten easier to deal with — I’ve just become stronger to push through and do what it takes to thrive each day.
I continue to work each day on myself to build a stronger foundation — one in which outside factors aren’t taking me off course like they used to do. My vision of transforming my creative ventures to a heavily eCommerce-based model had come to fruition long before I took action to make it happen. My father’s passing made that decision for me. I’m forever grateful to the support system which allowed me to spend his last several weeks by his side. I don’t ever take that for granted and am fully aware that not everyone gets that opportunity. But I did, and for that I am thankful. It allowed me the time to say all of the things I needed to say to reach closure and acceptance of the difficult journey ahead for me and those around me. And I’m able to demonstrate to others how a life of faith and hope can bring us strength to carry on.

Each storm which occurs in our lives gives us an opportunity to level up and become stronger each day. Sometimes that requires us to pull away from the norm in order to find our way again — to just be still and struggle to find the good of purpose in our pain. To use that pain to help ourselves and others to persevere. And that in the end, we can survive the unthinkable. We are fully capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for. It all starts with a determined mindset to find a way, make a way. My personal faith has taught me that we don’t have to understand why everything happens in our lives. But that by having hope, a way can be made when there seems to be no way to overcome battles.

I’m forever grateful to each person in my creative journey who in their own way has helped me keep leveling up. For me, scaling up means finding ways to create passive income – as we only have so many hours in the day. Stronger together for me shows the importance of community and partnerships — locally and beyond in a global landscape. We don’t have to face our daily challenges alone. There have been people in my life who are an everyday example that all might not be perfect in the background. Healing starts when we take the pain in our lives and show that we are unstoppable through forgiveness and rising above the hurt. Scaling up means pushing myself to limits, but also making time to rest and reset.

It’s hard to say thank you to everyone who has had an impact in my life. So, having an opportunity like this for me to share my writing is a way to pen an open letter expressing my utmost gratitude for each and every person — whether you meant to or not, you’ve helped me build a growing resilience. And I certainly didn’t do that all by myself. THANK YOU!

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 background and context?

Though my branding has evolved over the past decade, my creative journey clearly started as a child. I’ve apparently always been drawn to greeting cards — viewing them in stores and creating my own. Handmade cards have become a core part of my craft. And I’ve seen the impact that offering custom cards can have on an individual. I’ve seen many circumstances where they have a situation in their lives and just can’t find a store-bought card which holds the right meaning.

For this reason, most of the greeting cards which I’ve created are blank on the inside. And I offer the ability to customize both the inside and the outside of greeting cards — or simply picking what the inside will say, when applicable. Through custom stamping and original creations, these greeting cards aren’t only a piece of artwork, but can be a catalyst for change. The lost art of writing can become relevant again when we take the time to put down in words our feelings and emotions. A greeting card has the ability to not only change someone’s day, but quite possible the trajectory of their life.

The SOS in SOS Art Gallery (@SOSArtGallery) not only stands for Studio Orlando Services, but depicts the solutions which be tailor-made to help each individual where needed. Through cards, gift and artwork, these creations have the ability to foster healing. @BizOrlandoFL Consultancy is the overarching brand which I’ve created to give me an ongoing opportunity to help my clients in different ways based on their own needs and situations. I’ve created an evolving online portal at www.BizOrlandoFL.com and a website at www.BizOrlando.com to present these varied solutions and offerings.

@BizOrlandoFL Consultancy stands apart from other entrepreneurial ventures through these unique solutions — further strengthened through local community partnerships. And by focusing on online resources, I’m able to help more people simultaneously from anywhere in the world. And I’m able to shift my focus where needed according to shifts in demand.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

Through the years, I’ve tried different eCommerce platforms, including eBay and Etsy. When I started out, I sold my own creations online and used these platforms as a means to maintain inventory control. But after shifting to a retail model after several years of vendor markets, I learned to scale my business by additionally marketing and selling for other local artists.

Upon this expansion, the fee schedules of these platforms simply didn’t support what I was building: logistically or otherwise. So I began building my own online card and gift shop using Shopify more than 6 years ago and I’ve stuck with it ever since. I’ve been impressed how this platform continually evolves due to changing needs, economic factors and trends. Their dashboard also provides high level updates on ways to continue improving our own eCommerce sites.

I’ve also been involved in behind-the-scenes quality assurance testing for various improvements that software companies have made and/or testing for future developments. I enjoyed being a part of this process being that the largest part of my corporate career involved proprietary software development and testing. In the end, I believe most eCommerce platforms either charge too much for local business owners and/or take advantage of access to their creative intellectual properties. To me, retail or eCommerce opportunities shouldn’t involve overcharging through unending fees or stealing ideas for financial gain. I continue to try out other eCommerce platforms as well for other types of sales.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson that I continue to try to unlearn is being in the business of busy-ness. Through shifting to a mainly eCommerce model and by having an office by appointment only, I’m able to take needed rest and gain more balance in my life. The days of 7 days a week and 12-14 hour days are far behind me. I may now do some type of work each day to grow my business, but my days are filled with more downtime and an ability to shift efforts in response to fit both my needs and client needs.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.BizOrlando.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/BizOrlando.FL
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/BizOrlandoFL
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/BizOrlandoFL
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/BizOrlandoFL
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMHZpAvq5IuF8IiDWvDW2g
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bizorlando-fl-consultancy-orlando
• Other: www.BizOrlandoFL.com

Image Credits
Copyrighted by Kathryn McHenry 2022 Copyrighted by @BizOrlandoFL Consultancy 2022 Copyrighted by Stampin’ Up! 2022