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

MARICA, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

In my opinion what matters most; in achieving success is your drive, your willingness to never give up. Becoming and being a small business owner is not easy, they’ll be days, sometimes weeks, and even months of no sales/income, you’ll lose inventory, due to unforeseen circumstances, you’ll experience unhappy customers and sometimes these events can happen ALL IN THE SAME DAY. So I say that your drive and willingness to never give up, matters the most in achieving success, because giving up is not an option, failure is never an option; when striving to be successful in the small business world. You have to know that This Too Shall Pass and that just because you Lost, doesn’t make it the end.

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?

My name is Marica, preffered name: Rica. I gew up in the small town Seffner, Florida; located on the outskirts of the Tampa Bay Area. I am a proud graduate of Armwood High School, Bethune Cookman Univeristy and University of Florida. My hobbies from childhood were running track&field specializing in triple jump, American Sign Language Club, And working part time at the local grocery store. In my early thirties I began doing research on YouTube about Arts & Craft, that lead me to pick up the hobby of handmaking waistbeads, it all started in 2017 as a hobby to keep my mind off of the worries of my world around me. My hobby soon blew up and turned into something huge. I created my website from scratch, alone in my room; while quarantined due to the Pandemic, Brainstorming on a plan to help continue bring money into my home. (This is where I came up with my company’s name) We’ll get more into that later. Once my website was up and running consistently, Brainstormroom’s Instagram page began to lift off, along with Facebook, I stumble across an ad inviting me to be a vendor in the Clearwater, Fl area. I instantly signed up, With The Market Culture. Becoming a vendor was the best business move I’ve made thus far, Brainstormroom’s handmade Jewlery prducts became POPULAR fast, with customers who look forward to Brainstormroom’s pop-up shop at the local markets. We have traveled to St. Petersburg, Wesley Chapel, Clearwater, Lakeland, Brandon and Many more cities to come!!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building Brainstormroom’s audience on social media was not an easy task. But the most important key to building and keeping your audience attention is consistent posts, interact with your followers, FOLLOWING BACK (this helps make your customers feel important, keeps them updated on your locations, and makes the experience much more personable.) I also learned that #hashtags are EXTREMELY important, this helps your profile and product show up on many news feeds of potential customers. Amongst these tasks, what worked for Brainstormroom is as i’m vending at the local Makers Markets, My customer service is A1, TOP NOTCH, I make sure that my customers NEVER forget me, we take photos together, we find eachother on social media, we network, but favoritely; we become FRIENDS.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Keeping in touch with customers/clients is not an easy task, however the Square app helps. I consistently send out coupons, rewards, birthday gift cards, holiday gift cards, friendly reminders of pop-up shops, all through the square app. I highly recommend the square app, and all it has to offer for small business owners.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ricasbrainstormroom.com
• Instagram: Brainstormr00m
• Facebook: Brainstormroom
• Twitter: Brainstormr00m
• Yelp: Brainstormroom
• TikTok: Brainstormroom

Image Credits
Photo Credits: @Brainstorm00m ( [email protected] )