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

Alright, Lena thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

During COVID, tourism in Guatemala came to a complete standstill. Many of our artisan entrepreneur partners were impacted greatly and turned to social media to find new ways of selling their products. Inspire Me Latin America continued to connect with and acquire new artists under the brand and successfully ship products to the United States for a series of pop up’s across Texas.

In person events were difficult to find, so Inspire Me Latin America shifted focus to identifying e-commerce and social media solutions that would support our company. In July 2021, Co-founder Lena May and Michelle Elkin met in Guatemala City when travel opened back up, met with artists in person and aligned on a plan to launch a virtual influencer program.

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

Inspire Me Latin America’s mission is to create opportunities for women & indigenous family run businesses in Central America who wanted to do business with the United States for the first time. We are a fair trade brand representing 15 artisans and 168 team members who create leather goods, hand-made jewelry, scarves, kimonos and bilingual learning materials.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Inspire Me Latin America has recently invested in technology to launch an affiliate influencer program. Our goal is to build our customer base by partnering with our community of supporters. The program will offer an incentive for participating as a virtual brand ambassador.

Another key aspect of building our audience will be shifting focus to the story telling aspect of our artisan entrepreneurs. Inspire Me Latin America encourages our partners to share anecdotes about their communities, traditions and daily lives.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Inspire Me Latin America ensures that the entrepreneurs who we work with are paid a timely, fair wage for the products they provide under our brand. This has allowed us to maintain solid relationships with our makers, discuss design ideas and collaborate on special order collections.

Our products undergo a two point inspection process to ensure that our customers can order with the ease of knowing they will be shipped a quality made product.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.inspiremelatinamerica.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiremelatinamerica/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inspiremelatinamerica/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcHMX4xnFKs