We recently connected with Victoria Beers and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Victoria, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

My name is Victoria, owner of Tootsy’s Footsies, Custom Fitted Toe Rings and Permanent Jewelry.
Starting the business was a bumpy process and, also an exhilarating one, to think I was actually doing it. Obviously the first step was coming up with a product, the ultimate quest for any entrepreneur. After a horrible night at my job as a server, I sat outside by the dumpster crying, thinking, “What am I going to do to get out of this?” My dad told me the way to freedom and success is to start your own business and that is what I was going to do! I knew what my product was that very night, Custom Fitted Toe Rings! I knew it would be a success and that was the path I needed to take.
My husband, Dylan, picked me up from work that night and I told him, “I have an idea for a business we can start” Now, with my husband being an entrepreneur himself, but hadn’t found that elusive product to sell yet, he was all ears. I told him, Toe Rings! Most husbands would have said, “You’re crazy!” but not mine. He also thought it work. He told me, “Let’s do it, we’re not going to know unless we try!’ We both looked at each other and said, “Where do we start?”
There are many ways to start a small business, but we chose the “grassroots” approach. We needed two things to start, a source to buy rings and a place to sell them. After extensive searches to find vendors to buy rings from, we narrowed it down to two vendors. There was one slight problem, they didn’t offer all the rings we needed to run the business, so we just decided to start making our own rings! As far as where to sell them, we knew we were going to sell at festivals, trade shows and Fairs. This is what we referred to as our “grassroots plan.” Once we built an extensive customer base here in Florida, we could then open a storefront. That process took 9 nine years on the road to successfully complete, but we did it!
Making our own rings and finding festivals was difficult at first, but we knew that we just had to do it. We had no idea how to make rings, so we watched a couple Youtube videos on it and got to work! My husband set up a tent in our backyard, bought all the tools we needed and just started making rings! They were rough at first, but got better and better over time! At this point we had the products to sell but still need to be at a festival in order to sell them. We had no idea how to get into these festivals, so we did some research and found some websites where you could book spots at these festivals! We booked our first festival and we were so excited! Keep in mind, I had never sold a Toe Ring before and we had never set up at a festival before. We bought a tent a couple tables and some chairs and set up our first festival. We started the whole business for about $800, which was almost all the money we had saved at the time. It was a flower festival, but we didn’t care. we just wanted to see how they would sell. THEY WERE A HIT!!!! Our spot cost $35 and we sold over $400 in Toe rings! We knew we had a successful product. There were about 800 festival goers, so we did the math. If we could get in front of bigger crowds, we would sell more Toe rings and generate more revenue. We did just that. Over the 9 years we were on the road, we figured out how to get into the biggest festivals so that we could see the most people….and the rest is history!

Victoria, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Victoria, proud owner of Tootsy’s Footsies, customer Fitted Toe Rings and Permanent Jewelry. I would consider myself an entrepreneur. For many years I toiled in the food service industry trying to come up with a plan to get out of it. When I finally came up with a product i believed would sell, I got to work. There was no one there to teach me, I just learned everything as I went. Did I make mistakes, yes, but that is how you learn. Am i proud of my successes, yes, but the failures are where I became stronger.
Being that jewelry business is so competitive, you have to set yourself apart. What Tootsy’s Footsies offers is not just s piece of jewelry, but a spa-like experience. We customers ar pampered from the minute they walk in, sitting in big comfortable chairs in our cozy little shops. They are offered all different styles of rings and chains, which we try on them until the decide exactly what they like. I am most proud of the fact that everyone who leaves my stores has big smile on their face and the feel much better about themselves.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

We faced a critical juncture with our business when Covid hit. Remember, we used festivals and trade shows as our vehicle to sell our products. When Covid hit, what was the first thing that got shut down, large gatherings of people, what would be the last thing the opened back up, large gatherings of people. Festivals and Trade shows fell under both. What that meant to us was that we had no more revenue coming in. The bills didn’t stop, but the money did. We faced losing the whole business unless we made a drastic change. We had a big enough customer base that we could market and sell online. We did that, but we knew it would not sustain us. We HAD to make a move., and fast! We decided that we had to open a storefront, it was our only option. Finding one would prove very difficult. The search went on for almost two months before we finally found a store that we could lease. It wasn’t in the greatest location and we would have to do heavy marketing to make it work, but we had no choice at this point, we had to take it. All this time we had another area in mind that we knew we would be very successful in, but it was just to expensive. Even though we had tried for years to get in to this area and failed, we had to see one last time before we moved forward on the space we had. One phone call changed our lives. We had been in contact with a store owner who had another space that he leased. We asked him if the current occupants were still there and he told us yes, so the space would not be available. Keep in mind after Covid hit, unfortunately, many businesses shut down. This would prove to be beneficial to us. After the owner told us his space was not available, he said, “BUT, there is a space right across from me that just became available this morning” He gave us the phone number and we spoke with the owners and the next thing we knew we were setting up our new storefront in the exact location we wanted! And the rest is history…….

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

Since opening Tootsy’s Footsies, we have branched out and started to expand. After the first two years in our original location, we were able to secure a second location in the same area. Even though it’s in the same area, St George Street in St. augustine, FL, there are enough tourists to keep both stores busy. After another two years we stepped into the restaurant business and bought a pizzeria, Cicala’s Pizzeria & Restaurant in lakeland, FL. Buying both business was very streamline and easy. Although we had a few hurdles to climb buying both business, we persevered and got them both done. Now that we have those businesses under control, we are looking for our next venture…..

Contact Info:

• Website: www, TootsysFootsies.com
• Instagram: tootsys_footsies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tootsystribe