We recently connected with Lori Brenneman and have shared our conversation below.
Lori, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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?
Thank you for asking this question 💕 Mainly because I spend so much time telling others that I mentor this exact thing ~ that there are so many mistakes, and so much trial and error, and “figuring it out” along the way … that we’ll get there eventually, even if it’s not quite the timeline that we originally thought. My story started with a website. My son always wanted to design a website so he did one for me. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t even have had the confidence to pay someone to create a website for me but my son insisted that he could do it. So he did. I was afraid to mess with it for fear that I’d mess it up but he taught me and gave me the confidence to navigate it and assured me that if I made a mistake, I wouldn’t accidentally delete the whole thing! (these are the crazy things I would worry about) My son, Matt, just kept insisting that I just TRY and if I hit the wrong button on the website, we’d fix it, and it’s not the end of the world … that nothing horrible is going to happen. I try to remember that in most things with my business ; nothing horrible is going to happen if I make a mistake … just try!
After I got a website, I experimented with an Etsy page. Those both went pretty well, but I have always been a people person so I get my satisfaction and happiness from working with my clients face to face so when I had to opportunity to open up my brick and mortar shop, that’s when I had a real decision to make … should I go for this?
I had some sales from my website and my Etsy page and some sales from word of mouth and the couple shops that sold my pieces downtown but now I had the opportunity to apply for a real shop , a part of a Marketplace that was going in the center of our historic downtown. My husband and I talked about it and we decided, what the heck! Nothing horrible is going to happen if it’s a mistake and I’m not successful … I’ll try! So, I did!
I opened my little shop in October of 2019. One of the things I was worried about was being able to pay my rent. What if no one bought my jewelry? My friend and I came up with this idea ~ what if I started a jewelry subscription club that provided income that I could count on to help pay my rent even if the shop wasn’t successful. I would create exclusive pieces of jewelry for my subscribers and mail them out to them each month in beautiful packaging with occasional surprises and birthday treats ~ we would call these monthly treats “Happy Mail” . Then, I could go into this feeling a bit more confident about paying my bills. We decided to do just that and “TFC + ME” was created. (we just started our 4th year of TFC + ME!)
I opened my shop and I loved it! I loved working with customers, I loved making my jewelry, everything was going well. Then Covid hit in March. We were forced to shut down for several months. More big decisions ~ how do I pay my rent? How do I pay my employees? We just decided to focus on what seemed to be the right thing to do. We made signs saying that we appreciated our front line workers and put them in the grocery store , and police department parking lots. I bought lots more signs and advertised for my customers to pick them up so they could paint or draw on them and deliver them to their favorite nurse’s yard or anyone who they wanted to thank. Doing this project just seemed to be more important than selling jewelry. I asked my employees if they wanted to work while we were shut down and if they did, I gave them things to do at their house ~ bead bracelets, work on our newsletter etc. If they wanted down time to just relax, they had that option as well. We just got through this time by “figuring it out”. As I still feel, most things in business and in life, you talk to your support system and just figure it out. There’s no right or wrong, just go with your gut. Trust your intuition and do what feels right.
Shortly after we got back to our shop, I got invited to change locations and be part of a big gorgeous shop downtown ~ just about a block away ~ but a chance of a lifetime to be part of this amazing shop… kind of a store within a store. Although It was scary to pack up and move, my intuition told me that I would be crazy not to take this opportunity! So, I did! I moved my shop right smack in the middle of Covid! It turned out that I got a lot of publicity for taking the chance to expand in the middle of a pandemic, ha ha, and it turned out that it was the best decision ever. Now, fast forward two years, I am expanding my shop in the same location. We are actually closed for construction / renovation this month (August) as my shop has been taken down and is being rebuilt over twice it’s size. It’s been such a blessing to be part of the bigger shop, Papilio, that we need more space, and the owners of Papilio have been so generous to let me expand. We are so excited to be enlarging our footprint so there will be more space for our customers to shop and have fun with jewelry!
I am so thankful for my amazing support system ; my husband, my family, my friends, my business owner mentors, my business coach and most importantly, my TFC Family who supports me and my sparkly little shop. I make most all my decisions based on what feels right and what my gut is telling me I should do and that has served me well in my life ~ both in business and otherwise.
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
I own a sparkly little jewelry shop in historic downtown Mount Dora, Florida but I was a dental hygienist for 30 years in PA and MD! I practiced for 25 years in the same dental office in Columbia, Maryland where I got my nickname, “The Tooth Fairy”. My husband got transferred to Florida in 2010 and it was then that I found out that Florida didn’t have reciprocity with Maryland for my dental hygiene license so I was unable to practice. I got a job in a home furnishings shop downtown and the owner wanted to add handmade jewelry to her shop. I have been making jewelry as a hobby since I was a teenager so I told her that I could do that for her. And so “Tooth Fairy Creations” ~ TFC~ was created!
When I worked in that shop, I made whatever pieces the owner needed for her shop and clientele and learned a lot about retail in general and serving the needs of customers. When I had the opportunity to open my own shop, I was armed with retail knowledge and experience in working in downtown Mount Dora ~ it was a great way to start my journey as an entrepreneur. There are several things I pride myself with and that is that my jewelry is high quality ~ I shop all over to get the best quality materials for my pieces and take the extra time to make sure that they are made to my very high standards. It is also very important to me that my customers are always treated kindly and that they know that they are the most important part of my business. I know it and my employees know it. We all try to have our customers leave feeling happy that they took the time to enter our sparkly shop ~ whether it’s with a package for themselves or others or just to feel some of our magic and then look forward to returning the next time.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I was a dental hygienist for 30 years in Maryland. It’s all I knew how to do. I started dental hygiene school when I was 17 years old. One time, I remember it vividly, our receptionist was out at lunch when I finished my patient so I had to check her out with her financial stuff and I couldn’t figure out how to get the credit card machine to work. ( I was never really shown and not something I ever did) It was apparently easy to do, or so I was told, and I felt stupid that I was not able to perform this simple task. All I knew how to do was be a dental hygienist.
At the age of 48, I moved from Maryland to Florida. My husband got transferred with his company so that brought us to the Sunshine state. I found out that I wouldn’t be able to practice dental hygiene in Florida without going back to college and I really didn’t want to do that. I loved dental hygiene and loved seeing patients. But now, I had no idea of what my next path would be. What could I do? Dental hygiene was the only thing I knew. I couldn’t even run a credit card machine. I was in big trouble.
Life kept us busy searching for a house, then building a pool, then decorating our house and I ended up working at a home furnishings shop in downtown Mount Dora. It was there that the lady who owned it wanted to add hand crafted jewelry which I had done as a hobby since I was a teenager so I volunteered to do that. The customers seemed to like my jewelry and that’s when Tooth Fairy Creations ~ TFC ~ was born. I never dreamed that one day, it would turn into my new passion and my very own shop in historic downtown Mount Dora, Florida. I still sometimes call my customers patients and then have to explain why, but I am very good at operating my credit card machine! ha ha ha
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
When I was about to open my brick and mortar shop, of course I was scared that I would be successful. Would anyone buy my jewelry? What was I doing ~ having my own shop? This town is FULL of artists … why would I survive? How would I pay my rent? So many doubts (especially right after I signed the lease!) So, one of my best friends and fellow entrepreneurs, started brainstorming and she heard about jewelry subscription clubs. She said, “what if you had a subscription club and had enough members with monthly income that would pay your rent?” I am great at making jewelry and coming up with jewelry designs but figuring out the nuts and bolts of a subscription club and how to make that work…. no way! My friend kept saying “we’ll figure it out!” So, we decided that we should do it! As soon as we made the decision to figure it out, I noticed a facebook post from a young lady saying that she was a business major in college and interested in an unpaid internship with a small business locally in Mount Dora. Was I dreaming? We met and she was familiar with subscription clubs and she was very interested in getting “TFC + ME” set up for me! And get this…. she was going to school at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA …. the same place that I graduated from! CRAZY! Anyway, she was amazing and we worked together with the help of my friend and in the middle of July, my club launched. It launched at noon one day and right at noon, the three of us were all together and we started hearing these non stop “dings” on my computer. They were subscribers signing up! We just started our 4th year of our club and many of the women who joined on that July day are still receiving their “Happy Mail” and loving their trips to the mailbox. I am still grateful for their support and continue to try to surprise them with exclusive pieces of jewelry that are ONLY available to my club members. It was scary to put myself out there but it is a very special and favorite part of my business and one that almost didn’t happen without two very special and supportive women by my side.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jewelrybytfc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jewelrybytfc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JewelrybyTFC
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrzbnnL2Wf3D_Cnjdy_XazA
Image Credits
Stephen Salvatore Ali Pauluhn Hidi Stephens