We recently connected with Makayla Clanton and have shared our conversation below.
Makayla, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?
Eclective Boutique, a unique Women’s Clothing Store located in Lake Worth Beach, FL was closing. Jennifer Mooney-Thompson and I, having zero retail experience, didn’t want the store to close – so we purchased it! At the time of our purchase, the store was open 3 to 4 days per week for just a few hours per day. Sales were dismal and the inventory minimal. We used our business sense, talked to other small business owners to identify potential downfalls and jumped right in. We’ve turned the business around and are now a sought after Boutique in South Florida. As our brand has grown, we’ve reached out to local entrepreneurs to offer them a space within our shop to sell their products. Currently we have 2 local Artists, 2 local Jewelers and a local Soap/Candle Company selling their wares in our Boutique.
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?
Neither Jennifer or I have any retail experience. I was working with my husband running a small Sandwich Shop in Lake Worth Beach (L-Dub Subs) and Jennifer, a pharmacist by trade, was working in Research & Development in the pharmaceutical field. We started by making a list of what we needed to learn. We sought out experts in each area and got answers to our questions. We established a budget for interior updating of the Boutique and clothing purchases. We used social media to announce our purchase, advertise the new/updated products available at the Boutique and promoted the Boutique with frequent customer facing events. Most importantly – we stayed focused on our goal of being profitable.
We’re successful! Our business is profitable and we have customers finding us on social media and shopping at our Boutique regularly.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Eclective Boutique was an established business when we purchased it. While we knew the sales numbers, these numbers came from before/during and after COVID. We didn’t know what to expect going into a more normal life again. Would we be able to keep our customer base? Would we be able to grow our customer base? Would we be able to sell enough product to pay our bills?! We analyzed the sales numbers, were careful in our cost as we purchased for the winter season and we made sure to price products so we would make a profit but not lose customers by keeping out prices at a point that was still affordable.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
The best source of new clients for us has been word of mouth, customer referrals and of course social media. We treat our customers as family, getting to know each as time goes on. Our customers love the clothes they purchase from Eclective Boutique and they tell their friends, who then come in and shop. Social Media has given us a platform to reach many prospective customers.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eclectiveboutique/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=eclective%20boutique