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

Keiomi, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

In order to be successful in a small business you have to take your time and do your research. Know your target audience. You must be prepared to make tough decisions both mentally and physically. Know your operational needs. Don’t depend on friends and family to support your business. Your biggest customers are those you don’t know and those you have not meet yet.

Keiomi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hello everyone, I am Keiomi Woodson and I am the owner and CEO of Kay’s Fashion Boutique LLC and Kay’s Candles & Melts Collection. We are based in Sanford, NC. Our business is located in 4 different locations within the PaintedTree Boutiques. We have a location in Cary, NC, Matthews’s, NC, Gastonia, NC. and Virginia Beach, Va.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My business was inside my own brick and mortar in Aberdeen, NC. When we first went into this location, we thought it was in a perfect location. But then we quickly discovered, it did not have a lot of traffic even-though it was anchored in a Staples Shopping center with a Walmart. We survived a year and then decided to close the doors because the profit was not there. Thats when we discovered the Painted Tree Boutiques. They are located across the stated and they gave us an opportunity to continue our business within their store. That was a total game changer. We was able to go from 1 brick and mortar into four different locations across the stated and finally see the profit we knew we deserved.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We manufacture our own candles & wax melts line within our clothing boutiques. Learning how to make candles was a trial and error process. You need to invest a lot of time, money and have a lot of patients. Once we got the hang of it, not only are we able to sell our own candle line within our business; We also landed deals with Wal-mart.com and Amazon.com to be able to sell world wide.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kaysfashionboutiquenc.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaysfashionnc. and. https://www.facebook.com/kayscandlesnc