We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kylie Westphal a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kylie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
Two things I have learned over the years that significantly impact the way that I manage and run my business: Passion and customer experience overall.
First, passion:
I think a lot of people may not realize the true depth of commitment and drive it takes to start a business, and push yourself beyond the exhaustion, stress, and overall lack of presence you have in life outside of the business.
It is not done overnight. Passion is what drives those who are successful. I sacrificed many things to be where I am today. Time with my family and my kids has significantly been impacted to get where I am now. Some days working from 7 am to 2 am to manage the workload on the time I had. Even through all of those long days, I wouldn’t change a thing. My kids are learning that success isn’t handed to you. You have to earn it. Passion pushes you forward, and it keeps you current with competition. If you don’t make changes and grow with the industry, your business won’t succeed.
Second, is the customer experience.
I have really made a point to invest in a personal experience with every one of my clients. I am not just a one time, stop and go part of the wedding process. I work with most of these brides for a minimum of three months, and over that time we have a lot of communication with each other. I’ve gotten to know so many of them over the years on a personal level. With so many, by the time they leave, I am hugging them as they walk out the door. To this day, I get the joy of having returning brides come back to visit with their new babies and I get to watch the next chapter of their life begin. These are strangers when they first come, and I have found that by giving them a memorable experience, I can take some stress off their plate, while they plan the most important day of their life.
Kylie, 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?
As a kid, we moved around quite a bit but home for many years was Grand Rapids, MI. I grew up with a passion for sewing very early. As a child, you could always find me watching my mother sew. I would lay on the floor in her sewing room and scavenge through her piles of fabric scraps, and sneak off with an armful of fabric to play with. I remember her dragging us to every fabric store we could find and to this day we still venture off fabric hunting!
As a young mother, I moved to Hawaii and kept myself busy sewing all kinds of things for my two kids as babies. That slowly started my first business I ran from approx 2009-2017. I designed and made purses, diaper bags, blankets, and so much more to honor military service members. I sold everything online, but felt I was missing that personal one on one experience with customers. I moved back to michigan in 2010.
In 2015, I was approached by a lady looking to hire a new seamstress for her alterations store. Initially, I laughed because this is something that I had never even considered before. To this day, I still smile at the fact that I told her I only wanted to learn the basics and specifically said, “this isn’t a career thing for me, don’t count on me full time….,” Little did I know, I fell in love with it and did in fact want it full time! Within a year, I worked hard, and was promoted and took on the challenge of managing my own alterations department at a different location. Over the next few years, I gained a ton of experience in so many areas of the business working with different people for other companies. I started recruiting and hiring in my own team, and watched them learn and grow just like I did.
While working in the bridal alterations industry, I got the amazing opportunity to dive into the pageant world as well. I had the unbelievable honor to be the seamstress for Miss Michigan 2019 and watch everything I had worked for up on that stage for the Miss America Pageant. This is when it hit me, that I had found where I belonged career wise.
In 2020, I decided to take a huge risk. I wanted more freedom to run things my way, with my own name on it. After leaving my job, I remodeled the entire lower level of our home, and turned it into my studio. I knew it was only the beginning, and that it would take a lot of work to get where I ultimately wanted to be. I created a 5 year plan, and set small goals. I put myself out there, introduced myself to different bridal stores in the area and made myself available whenever they had questions or needed help. I felt like we’ve worked as a team and that has created wonderful relationships with the owners and employees of several stores I work closely with. It has also allowed me to create very special memories and relationships with so many of my brides over the years. They are overall, what got me where I am today. I am so grateful for that more than anything.
Overall, my biggest accomplishment came just a couple of months ago. I finally opened a beautiful bridal alterations storefront in September. Before opening the store, I dreamed everyday of the space that I one day would own. It became all I talked about. Watching that dream come true in less than the 5 year goal I had set for myself, has been one of the happiest moments of my life. I did it in 3 1/2 years. Once I chose the space, it went from an absolute mess, to complete remodel and completion in 2 months time and I was exhausted! It was worth every single moment of sleeplessness. I don’t think that I would ever say, “I wish I had done it sooner,” because I know everything lined up perfectly at the moment it was meant to.
Sew Lovely Alterations to me is more than just a name. It holds everything that is “so lovely” to me. Just this year, I created my LLC. The name of it is very personal, and incorporates part of my children’s names because they are the true inspiration behind why I work so hard to give them a life they deserve. My next goal is to expand my current business and open a bridal shop within the next two years!
Today; I work with and alter wedding gowns for over 200 brides a season, and over 150 bridal party members. These women are what keep me going everyday. Every one of them has a beautiful story that brought them to me, and I am so incredibly grateful that I get to be a part of such a special time in their life.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
I have always loved managing a team in this industry. Mainly because I love watching growth in others. There is something very rewarding about seeing people succeed that you encouraged and trained from the ground up.
When I first got into bridal alterations, I was very nervous that I was going to ruin a gown, and I feel like that held me back quite a bit in the beginning. I know that when I bring someone in to be a part of my team, majority of the time they are very nervous. I really try to figure out their comfort level right away and build from that. It is extremely rewarding to watch someone on my team grow because ultimately I see myself in so many of them. I want them to feel that positive energy and passion just like I do everyday in the shop.
While some of the people I learned from over the years, were encouraging and wanted to see me succeed , not all of my leaders had this same vision or drive. At one point I almost walked away from this career because I felt so defeated and cut down. What that helped me realize when managing my own teams, is that not everyone learns the same, or visualizes things exactly like me. Looking back at how I got to where I am, I realized that the reason for that is because I think outside of the box and my mind works backwards on projects sometimes. Someone who has been in this industry for let’s say, over 20 years may be very comfortable and confident with a specific way of doing alterations, but this industry is constantly evolving, and with that there needs to be an evolving art of alterations to go with it. This was often looked at in a negative way from leadership in some of my experiences , because creativity was limited to the boundaries of what they were comfortable with. In venturing off on my own, It allowed me to really trust my creative instincts and keep pushing to show others that the sky is the limit!
A true leader wants to see success in a team that they built. Allowing other people you work with to present and explore new ideas, and possibilities is what creates change and success. It’s not always comfortable and sometimes accepting criticism can be difficult. Adapting to that and understanding that not all criticism has to be taken negatively will really change the mindset of a group of individuals that all want to contribute to the success of the business.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I did not start out well known in my area originally. Working for different companies before I owned my own shop, I realized my name was not my own. Any work or recognition that I had done while working for those companies ultimately belonged to them. Understandably so, I had to create a name for myself from scratch. I started small. I personally introduced myself to one local shop to start. Then another, and another. I worked to build up social media to help promote new projects I was working on, and to document the progress of gowns that came in on a weekly basis. I still regularly keep in contact with several of the stores to share end results and in-progress notes and pictures from the brides they ultimately sent to me. It’s an experience we share together and I love that. It also helps them to be able to share and sell gowns moving forward if they have me their to partner with to help complete a vision a bride has.
I believe that my reputation locally has evolved over time due to the fact that I am not afraid to try something new or different And I don’t give up. I always figure out a way to finish a project I start. That’s not to say that it doesn’t come with a little bit of stress. It may take a few days and sometimes tears of frustration on my part, but seeing the end result and a glowing bride, is the best pat on the back you can hope for.
I don’t think that I will ever stop learning or attempting new things. I am constantly educating myself and keeping up with new styles and trends that enter the bridal market so that I can always stay ahead of the game with what is to come as far as alterations go. It helps me to constantly stay in style and be able to offer new ideas to brides as they come in each year. this helps keep me current with the stores that I work with regularly as well so that I constantly know what they have coming in and know how to work with it when it comes to me.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100057472307272
- Other: Email; [email protected]