We were lucky to catch up with Miranda McIntire recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Miranda, thanks for joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I love owning my own business! There is no other way I would have been able to raise my kids right here with me every step of the way. They have been able to play, learn, and paint in my shop their whole lives. It has been very beneficial as a single mom. Most of my employees have been wonderful to help me with them if needed and I have been able to take off to be at their events, sick days or for appointments. There was a time before the wholesale line started that I thought I needed to be using my college degree to make better money and was looking at applying for an Extension Agent position. I was divorced, left with a lot of debt, no child support and two little girls to care for on my own. While applying, I realized how much I would have to be away from my kids at stock shows and other events. This would not be easy having to rely on family to keep the girls for such long time spans. So, I ended up sticking it out, working long hours to establish the wholesale line and thankfully things took off from there!

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?

I grew up playing in my Uncle Ronald McIntire’s saddle shop, we farm and raise cattle and horses on our family ranch, so naturally we used saddles and tack, wore belts, boots, chaps you name it. I learned to care for those items at an early age, and that turned into watching and learning how to make some of things we needed. I started taking it more seriously in High School when I worked for my uncle through the High School Ag work program. I went on to college and continued to rope and ride and worked for a few other saddle makers to learn more techniques. All of these jobs and even my Ag Business degree helped shape me into the business woman I am today. Many things learned were trial and error, but I have had great mentors as well. I used to do mainly custom leather work and go to trade shows, but eventually shifted gears and have gotten into the wholesale end of it and also have a website we keep stocked with some of the items. We make leather patch caps, earrings, cuffs, hair clips, handbags, belts, wallets and other accessories, along with our complete home/car scent line. It includes leather car scents, room sprays, melts, candles and coasters in 29 western themed scents. I have also developed my very own leather cream, that we use and sell! We do still keep some tack items made up for the local cowboys that stop in to visit at the shop.
I am very proud of the handmade quality that we strive for in all of our products, one of the things I say to my employees is, “If you wouldn’t buy that product at a store, don’t send it out like that.” I have never wanted to get anything back because of poor quality. I added a tag line to my logo a few years back. -Branded with Quality- This means if it has a McIntire Saddlery or Miranda McIntire stamp on it, I want it to be a good quality product. That goes for the leather goods, scents and basically everything that is made in my shop!

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

We do manufacture nearly all of our products here in my workshop. My uncle always handmade all of his saddles and tack, so we have always handmade all of our leather goods in house, and have taught our employees to cut out, stamp, paint and sew to keep the quality and production we require. I have outsourced some non-leather products in the past to add to the wholesale line and learned some hard lessons about people and loyalties from this. Although there were valuable lessons learned, this only grew my experience as a business woman and pushed me to take more legal business steps to secure my trademark and confidentiality of employees and product manufacturing.
After that, I have strived to make anything and everything we can in house. This allows me to control quality and quantity so that we can produce the items on time and have control of the whole process. Many times this has been beneficial on the profit margin end of things for the business as well. On the flip side, if it requires skills that are out of my wheelhouse or I know it can be printed elsewhere less costly than what I can do it, then outsourcing as local as possible has also been a good business decision.

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

Brand recognition and quality! By far these are what has helped my business grow. My uncle and McIntire Saddlery was already known for quality leather work and I had an article in Western Horseman in July 2014 highlighting my custom belts and tack. So brand recognition had already started for us from years of hard work. I started the wholesale line by sending a few items with a family friend as a sale rep to a WESA market and got orders for a handful of stores. Next thing I knew more stores were finding out about the line or seeing customers with caps on and asking where to get them. Word of mouth was essential, because this was before the influencers took over the social media marketing. After a year or so of getting product out, then we were able to market more on socials and use customer pictures and influencers to help show off the new items. Now when people message us about a particular cap or scent, they like to tell me about their collection! That speaks volumes that they love the products enough to have multiples and be repeat buyers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mcintiresaddlery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcintiresaddlery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mcintiresaddlery/
• Other: TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@mcintiresaddlery?_t=8e8756EofPe&_r=1

Image Credits
Photography by: McFarland Productions, Natalie McFarland and McIntire Saddlery