We recently connected with Sara Butler and have shared our conversation below.
Sara, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
My parents were incredibly hard workers and very family oriented. My father was a surgeon and had a family practice, where he made house calls regularly to his patients. My mom is a photographer who refined her skills and utilized them to give back to the community, head start programs and local pre schools and elderly programs. There were both very involved our community, and community organizing. Growing up my sisters and I learned the importance of community and of not compromising family time in pursuit of career. As hard as they worked, my parents made sure we knew we were their priority.
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’m Sara Butler and I’m the founder of South Bay Artist Studio, where people of all skill levels can learn pottery (both hand building and wheel), glass fusing, sewing, knitting, quilting, painting, even glass blowing. You name it, we can probably teach it. We service everyone from corporate groups having one-time team building events to members who come multiple times a week to work on their art form. It’s incredible to see the creativity of our students, and watch them flourish, but the thing I’m most proud of is the community we’ve built. Art is so undervalued in today’s society, and creating a place that says “your art matters and we’re here to support you” has been so rewarding. Everyone, from students to teachers, is so supportive of each others’ journeys, no matter where they are in their skill progression, and that’s the most important thing we offer.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
The most effective strategy for growing your clientele is having a good product. All the marketing in the world can’t hold a candle to simply being a value add for your guests. When guests come in, have a great time and feel they’ve learned something new, that feeling is priceless and they want to share it with those around them. We strive to be about the process not the product. Enabling our clients learn new skills and refine what they know without the stress of will it be “good enough” is our goal,
Almost all of our marketing is word of mouth – people bring friends, or they come in for a team building pottery class and learn we teach sewing and say “I’ve always wanted to learn to sew.” But they keep coming back because they had a good experience.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Above all else, the most important skill for managing a team is flexibility. Especially in this business – most of our teachers are artists themselves. They have other commitments and other requests on their creativity. I am thankfully able to work with their schedules and that flexibility has allowed us to draw a higher caliber of teachers and artists than if we demanded full-time availability. My team knows they can be open about what’s going on in their lives, and they extend the same courtesy to each other – in the case someone has to cancel at the last minute, someone else is always willing to rearrange their schedule to take over.
Contact Info:
- Website: sbartiststudio.com
- Instagram: sbartiststudio
- Facebook: sbartiststudio
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/sara-b-5ab55227