We recently connected with Robin Garrett and have shared our conversation below.
Robin , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
I grew up without much money, always understanding you must work hard for what you want out of life. As I navigated single motherhood and positioning myself to keep improving my income through better jobs, I still was always working for somebody else. It wasn’t until my late forties, with absolutely no education or background in retail business, I bootstrapped my company and opened the area’s leading destination for garden and unique home design shopping. I reimagined and redesigned a dilapidated mid-century gas station into an indoor/outdoor experience where customers reveal to me daily how much they feel at home and at ease visiting our shoppe. The risk involved was not always easy, but I will say has definitely been worth it and very rewarding in so many ways!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Without necessarily ‘planning’ to, I collected all the hobbies I have always enjoyed and folded them into one beautiful business. I love the challenge of shopping on a budget, designing and decorating my personal spaces with unthought-of items and objects, gardening to fit the location and personality of my home, and (while it should not be considered a “hobby”) I have always found pleasure in just being NICE to people and the reciprocation that can happen when you are. So, taking all of the above, I created a shopping experience that inspires our customers with easy, unexpected ways they can recreate a design they see at our store in their own home. They can achieve it because we keep our price points affordable. They’re comfortable asking questions or seeking advice because we take THEIR space into mind and help them develop their individual aesthetic for their home. And we do all of this being genuinely NICE. The feedback is consistent that our store and our staff are always helpful, never pushy and simply a pleasure to be around. To me, this seems like it should be common sense in business practices, but more and more I think people are finding the opposite approach when they choose to shop brick and mortars, so I guess that makes us stand out. We each truly enjoy going to work and that mentality shines through from the moment a visitor enters our gate!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I think a few things have contributed to our great reputation and they all fall under the heading of Consistency. We don’t vary our hours as many small businesses do. Barring a flat-out emergency, we are open when we say we are open and our customers can rely on that. Personally, nothing frustrates me more than pulling up to a business that has some sketched sign on their door with a lame excuse of why they are closed that day. Our pricing and our products are consistent. Every item that is available in our store is hand selected and chosen because I personally want it. That connection flows through and the customers can feel the warmth in our merchandise. We also (rarely) only raise prices to keep up with increases in our costs, never more. We want our clientele to be able to afford us and come back for more! And lastly, we are consistently authentic! If fake, or trending, or influencer-y is what you’re looking for, we probably are not your store. But if you like genuine, caring people and products that are here for their good time as much as yours, well…. welcome!
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
While I have tried and paid for a few different kinds of advertising over the years, I finally figured out 6 or 7 years ago that no matter how much I spent, word-of-mouth was our best advertising investment. At that point of realization, I quit any form of paid advertisement and focused all our strength into continuing what we were already doing. We emphasize our customer service + pleasant atmosphere and that has caused the word-of-mouth advertising to spread like wildfire as we welcome close to 100 first-time customers every week!. So while simply following our existing friendliness program, I was able to take our advertising dollars and donate it all to a worthy cause. We earmark a percentage of EVERY sale (big or small) the entire year to a charity we feel is deserving of our efforts. There have been many different national and local charities that we’ve supported, but for the second year in a row now, we’ve chosen to contribute regularly to Tunnel to Towers Foundation. (t2t.org) 
Contact Info:
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