We recently connected with Sammi Malone and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sammi, thanks for joining us today. Do you manage your own social media?

Currently, I manage all of the social media for SJC. It is a lot of work to manage all of the content on top of running a business, but I truly enjoy it. The social media aspect is one of my favorite parts of the business because I get to show my creative side through all of the content. I also get to interact with other business owners, customers, and anyone else who is following my business journey. One day I hope to grow the business to a point where I can build a social media team, but for now it’s just me.

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 started Sammi Jean Creative in May 2020 as a way to keep busy during quarantine. In the first year, the business was quite chaotic. I sold personalized onesies, wood signs, and I even dabbled in custom shoes. At the time it was still just a hobby, so I would only work on items here and there, but there was no consistency. As I entered year 2 of the business, I decided to take it more seriously and condense the product base to apparel only. This proved to be very beneficial because I could focus my energy on quality over quantity. Social media played a huge part at this time as well, and contributed to a big majority of SJC’s traction during year 2. As the business grew, I started looking more into how my business could stand out from the rest small business’ started during the pandemic. So I decided to niche down even further.

Today, Sammi Jean Creative is a shop for all things aunt-related. The goal is to be the shop for current aunts to get gear for themselves and for their nieces and nephews, for nieces and nephews to get gear for themselves and their aunts, and for women to get items to announce their pregnancy to future aunts. The shop currently sells apparel, stationary, and glassware, with hopes to sell much more in the future.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

Currently, I use Shopify to sell all products. Shopify is a great platform because it allows me to easily build and maintain my own website that is unique to the SJC brand. I would suggest using Shopify once you have an established brand, or you can guarantee you can bring traction to the site. Shopify does have a monthly cost associated with it as well, so that is something to factor in when decided on a platform.

Although SJC has its own website now, it started on Etsy, and it worked great! In my opinion, Etsy is the best platform for businesses when they are just getting started. It is extremely easy to get started, and there are no monthly dues. Additionally, Etsy has an established reputation and a huge customer base that can help bring attention to your business. The downside of Etsy is that it has high fees associated with each listing, and your competitors products are shown directly next to your own.

Both platforms are very user friendly though, and I would suggest either site to future business owners.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Hands down the best method for growing a business in today’s world is social media. For me, Instagram specifically has been the main source of growth. In September 2021, I decided to do 30 days of reels to gain some momentum, and the results showed immediately. In the 3 months following, I grew my account from 400 to 15k. This was huge for my business, and it showed in orders. Since then I have scaled back the amount of content to a weekly schedule that fits my needs better, but I suggest the 30 days of reels to anyone trying to gain some quick traction on social media.

Contact Info:

• Website: sammijeancreative.com
• Instagram: @sammijeancreative
• Facebook: facebook.com/sammijeancreative
• Other: TikTok: @ShopSJC