We were lucky to catch up with Laura Karol recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Laura thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

Three years ago I sat in my kitchen at midnight, probably my third coffee of the night. I had sore fingers and arms from blowing up balloons by hand (before I realized there were devices for this).

That was the night I started my business. I am now 2.5 years into it and I own 3 balloon machines.

I realized the next day when I got to showcase me hand blown 8 ft balloon garland I needed to scale up.

Invest in yourself: I took three online courses and two in person classes. I learned the tricks of the trade that successful business owners had learned before me. Then I gave it my twist. No matter how many years you are in your business, there is always room for growing. Never stay stagnant, because there is always someone else who is figuring out something new and appealing to clients. Once my business took off, it got hard to challenged myself and create new arrangements and easy to keep going what I knew, but then I realized that I needed to carve out time.

Also every time I attended a class, I made a new contact. This scaled up my business because now I had a community of balloon artists who I could depend on.

In February 2022, while it was a little quieter, I did a product photoshoot and show cased new arrangements I was dying to put together.

I am my businesses. When I invest in myself, I scale up my business.

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 back background and context?

During university I worked for an event planner and so I always had a creative itch in me.

I graduated with a social work degree and have worked in the violence against women sector for 14 years.

I love the work I do, but I contemplated a creative outlet.

I offer balloon arrangements of all types: garlands, helium displays, and some event decor for all functions from birthdays to anniversaries and corporate events.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy is consistency. Consistency in my work, consistency in posting on social media and engaging with my clients, consistency in sharing information about myself to my audience (even if no one is laughing at my stories except for my mom!)

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

I have so many stories!

One word: Art gallery of Ontario! Fine it’s 4 words but like come one, I was so excited that one of my balloon arrangements was going to be showcased for a product launch.

Resiliency comes from perfecting through the hard and challenging times.

The pressure for this set up was insane. The backdrop was broken, I ran out of balloons (ya you heard me) and people were pouring in while I was finishing lasting touches.

I wanted to give up after that.

I sat in stress for hours.

I really tapped into all the affirmations I could.

I spoke with my friends and supports.

I reminded myself why this made me happy still.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @lalaballoonsandevents