We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Summer Smith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Summer below.

Summer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

I was talking to my cousin and literally said “what if we brought the CPR training to the client’s door?” Like CPR at your door! It was just that simple, CPR at Your Door.

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 relocated to Plano, Texas from Shreveport, Louisiana in March of 2009. My reasons for moving were very simple, I wanted to be able to provide a stable home for my two children, daughter 17, and son 15 and allow them to receive an excellent education. I wanted better job opportunities and higher salary offerings and I wanted to go back to school. I felt that Louisiana just couldn’t offer that to me, so I left. Fast forward seven years, I graduated from school with my degree in Paralegal Studies and was working as a compliance analyst for a prestigious bank making almost six figures a year.

My kids were doing well in school, very active in activities, my son a football player and my daughter a cheerleader, we couldn’t be happier. Then it happened, in December of 2017, I got laid off. The lay-off was unexpected and hit me very hard. I exhausted my savings in a matter of months and unemployment just wasn’t enough. My cousin approached me about an entrepreneur-type of the business offer. Several members of my family are nurses or work within the healthcare field and when I was younger, I initially went to nursing school but never finished. While I have always desired to help others, nursing just wasn’t my thing.

The opportunity she presented me with was instructing CPR and 1st Aid courses. I have taught in the past on a part-time basis for some residual income, but the thought of pursuing it full time never even crossed my mind. My cousin helped me, gave me the tools I needed and mentored me regarding the steps to take to start my own business. It was like the best of both worlds, I was able to set my own schedule and work from home on the days I needed to without having to answer to anyone else, I felt a sense of empowerment. I begin to research ways to make my business more successful and how I could be more involved in the community. Through this research, I found out that there were several cities in Texas where there were higher rates of cardiac arrest-related deaths and apparently this was partly due to limited instructor presence.

I wondered if there was a way to get to these cities and offer my services. It was also at this time, that CPR at Your Door was born. Along with myself and two other instructors, since 2017, we have expanded to cover Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Nevada. CPR at Your Door’s mission statement is: We are committed to creating awareness in the community and empowering individuals by providing fundamental life-saving skills. We have come a long way since 2017 and have plans to incorporate a non-profit division as well. While the journey has been far from easy, it has been well worth it. I could never have imagined that I would be where I am today.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

My son plays football and my daughter is a cheerleader so I am always purchasing custom shirts for their games and events. I would spend so much on shirts only to wear them once or twice, so I wasted quite a bit of money. I then had the idea that I could make my own shirts, it should not be that hard. I decided to watch some youtube videos and do some research and figure out how to get started. I found a local t-shirt supply shop and purchased supplies and I was able to find a used cutting machine online. I played around with things until I figured out how to make a shirt. Myself and three friends were literally in my living room making shirts with just an iron, it took us hours to make just 4 shirts. I said, this is way too much work, I don’t know if it will really be worth it after all. But I didn’t give up, I kept trying, kept working at it until I got it right. I decided I really needed a heat press because the iron was just not cutting it, so I got online and found someone selling a brand new heat-press for barely anything. After a few months, the shirts were looking really great, so I decided to make several shirts for my niece’s graduation party. When we posted the pictures online, so many people were commenting saying how nice the shirts looked and asking who made them. I say well we made them ourselves, but we don’t sell them. Some of my friends didn’t care, they still wanted to order shirts, so I accepted the orders. As those people posted pictures on social media, more people requested shirts. I decided maybe I should create social media pages for the shirts since be now we had made so many. I thought, well now we have to come up with a name; since it was myself and my 3 friends, I had the perfect name: Circle of Friends or COF for short, and COF Dezignz was born. We started with just t-shirts which then progressed to other apparel, hats, shorts, pants, hoodies, etc. After a while we even ventured out to cups, mugs, bags, and other items. We have grown into a successful custom apparel and items business.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Honestly, word of mouth. For all of the businesses that I have, I have received so many customers who have told me they were referred to me. Having excellent customer service and a good attitude goes a long way and I strive to ensure my customers leave completely satisfied. This has ensured repeat customers and those customers have no issue telling someone else about myself and my services.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cpratyourdoor.com
• Instagram: @cpratyourdoor @cofdezignz
• Facebook: facebook.com/cpratyourdoor; facebook.com/cofdezignz
• Yelp: CPR at Your Door