221 | What It Takes to Run A Brick & Mortar Business with Jen Palacio, Tiny Turns Paperie

If you’re like many of the people in our LABS and Paper Camp communities, you’ve pondered the idea of opening a brick & mortar shop for your business. In this episode, you’ll hear from Jen Palacio, owner of Tiny Turns Paperie, a brick & mortar shop in Somerville, MA.

Jen uncovers what brought her to the idea of opening her own brick & mortar shop and some of the misconceptions people have about owning a physical store. She talks about how she intentionally set boundaries and the shifts she made during COVID to ensure her business survived. She also shares her thoughts looking back and why she wishes she had prioritized hiring a team sooner.

You'll learn:

The top misconceptions about having a brick & mortar shop
Why hiring support is critical to growing your business
Shifts she made during COVID that helped her growth

ON TODAY’S EPISODE:

What led Jen to open her brick & mortar shop [3:13]
Jen’s original intentions for her shop [6:35]
Her core customer and the types of products she carries [7:19]
Misconceptions about opening and running a brick & mortar shop [9:31]
How she feels about how hiring has helped her business growth [13:17]
What her team looks like now [16:05]
Shifts and changes she implemented when COVID hit [19:22]
How her decisions during the pandemic strengthened her relationship with her key employee [25:36]
Jen’s favorite part about being a brick & mortar shop owner [28:14]
What she’s excited about coming up [31:44]

Download These Quotables to Save and Share

KEY TAKE AWAYS

“Eighty percent of my sales are people looking for unique ways to connect with folks.” - Jen Palacio [7:43]

“It's really hard to be a maker and run a brick & mortar at the same time.” - Jen Palacio [9:47]

“I knew logically I can't work seven days a week. I need a couple of days off. I needed a real, actual employee or assistant. Somebody who's going to take on some portion of the actual strategic running of the thing is really what it takes to make it both mentally and emotionally possible to survive and grow and be flexible.” - Jen Palacio [11:14]

“I think it's human nature to think, OK, I can juggle this all on my own or I can manage these pieces. But I think we underestimate the amount of actual work that has to get done, as well as the emotional and mental, that additional layer of the mental labor that we do.” - Katie Hunt [12:18]

“To some extent, we do have to make the leap and do our best to make everything work out.” - Katie Hunt [18:53]

“Nothing ever works exactly as planned.” - Katie Hunt [18:59]

“We're only as good as the artists that we carry.” - Jen Palacio [31:31]

RESOURCES

LABS
Paper Camp
Sign up for the Free Class here: Deciding What to Delegate in 3 Simple Steps

MEET JEN:

I’ve always enjoyed making things. In 2002 while working as a project manager for a very large corporation, I started meeting with a group of ladies for monthly crafting dates and discovered my love for creating handmade greeting cards & gifts.

In 2011 I started selling my work at local markets under the name Just Enough Nonsense. In 2012 I learned letterpress printmaking, and caught the bug - I purchased my first antique letterpress in 2013, and the second in 2014. In addition to greeting cards and custom stationery, I enjoy making large format work like posters and limited edition prints.

I opened Tiny Turns Paperie, a brick and mortar stationery & gift shop in Somerville, MA in April 2019. My focus since then has been to support independent artists and makers and provide unique products to our customers and community.

In addition to the shop and studio, I teach courses in the Sustainability Program at the Harvard Extension School.

CONNECT WITH JEN

Website: www.tinyturnspaperie.com | Instagram: @tinyturnspaperie | Facebook: @tinyturnspaperie

Connect with Katie Hunt

Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.

Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct

Transcript for Proof to Product Episode 221

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221 | What It Takes to Run A Brick & Mortar Business with Jen Palacio, Tiny Turns Paperie

[00:00:03] Katie Hunt We're taking you behind the scenes with entrepreneurs that run product based businesses. There is so much information out there tailored toward service providers. So we have carved out a space just for you, the creative entrepreneur making and selling physical goods, whether you are just starting out or a seasoned business owner. This podcast will shed light on new strategies, inspiration and action steps to help you grow your product based business. Hey, friends, and welcome back to Proof to Product, I'm your host, Katie Hunt. Today on the show, we have Jen Palacio, the owner of Tiny Turns Paperie, a brick and mortar shop located in Somerville, Massachusetts. Jen opened her stationery and gift shop in April 2013. And her focus since then has been to support independent artists and makers and to provide her customers and community with unique products in addition to running her shop. Jen also teaches courses in the sustainability program at the Harvard Extension School. On today's episode, we're talking about misconceptions people have about opening and running a brick and mortar store. We talk about how Jen intentionally set personal boundaries when she opened her shop and shifts that she had to make when covid hit. Jen and I also talked about how she wished she had prioritized hiring a team sooner rather than later. And she talked about what her team looks like. Now, before we jump into this episode, I wanted to share what we've been up to inside of our Proof to Product LABS community lately. Last month, I held the training on discontinuing product, including how to decide what you should discontinue and then how to communicate product line changes with your customer. This month we're tackling SEO strategies, and next month we're focused on learning how to batch create our social media content to complement our live trainings. Each month we also host power hours and this is where members come together and work, basically implementing all of the things that we learned that month. So it's a dedicated block of time to take action on all of the things we learn. We don't want you sitting in on these trainings and filing it away for something to do on your to do list later, if you would like. Access to these trainings had to ProoftoProduct.com/LABS to join the waitlist for my 12 month group coaching program. All right, let's dove in. Hey, Jen, welcome to the show.

[00:02:18] Jen Palacio Hi. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:19] Katie Hunt It's my absolute pleasure. I'm so excited. This is actually the first time we're meeting, although I feel like our paths have crossed so many different times through people we know mutual contacts in the industry. And I'm just so grateful that they've connected us now so that we can have this conversation. And you're also going to participate in our upcoming labor camp program as a speaker, which I'm thrilled for. So thank you again for just sharing your time and your talents and your insight with us here today.

[00:02:44] Jen Palacio Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. I've been listening to the podcast for a while. And yeah, I do feel like it's weird that we don't already know each other.

[00:02:51] Katie Hunt I know, right. So the industry is so big but so small all at the same time. So well, before we started recording, you had shared with me that you never intended to open a brick and mortar shop. And I would love for you to share what led you to opening Tiny Turns paper, which is your brick and mortar store in Somerville, Massachusetts. Do you mind giving us the back story there?

[00:03:13] Jen Palacio Yeah, sure. So much like many of the people in the paper industry, I started off just making stationery because I loved it. And so I was kind of making it for my friends. I had a full time career job sort of thing, and I ended up ending that and going to grad school. And during that time, I worked for a small independent retail store in Somerville, Massachusetts, called Davis Squared. And while I loved working there, it made me think like, wow, I never really want to do this. It's like just all the different pieces that were involved. And I learned from it. We're great, but it just didn't seem like where I wanted to go with my art and how to do what I really loved, which was make cool stationery that helped people connect. And I guess what ended up happening is I started doing all the pop up markets, craft markets and things like that, and meeting a bunch of other great makers. I met Janine from Qwotations through David Squared and I started a letterpress studio. And so I thought I was just going to be kind of on that end of it, just producing and making things. And through a couple of different events that happened, I was able to realize that it ended up being a lot of the relationships that I was making that were much more important to me. And so it was just by happenstance that the brick and mortar happened. I started doing more community events and I thought that was the route that I was going to go. Janine and I actually did a couple of long term like three walled sheds in the winter, kind of things like those Christmas markets. And so it gave me a lot of insight as to what parts of the stationery business I really enjoyed. And working with other artists ended up being a little bit more important to me than making my own greeting card line. And I found that through my letterpress studio. I liked making kind of the more conceptual art, which is not really where you can make money in the industry, but is super fun and I think really important. So I started to think about how can I marry these two things a little bit better? And so I started doing a few of those longer term pop ups. I ended up working for a really great stationery shop that was in Bow Market before I was there. And I think a lot of our mutual friends know Calliope Paperie, which is out in Natick, so she had me come in as a Thursday girl because I was trying to figure out how to get some stability in this kind of art focused world but have a little bit more structure to it. And when she ended up deciding to consolidate back into one store, I had a relationship already with the people that own Bow Market. And I was like, hey, people need a local stationery store. So what if I did this here? And so it was not an intentional path at all. It just ended up organically happening. And I'm really glad that

[00:06:09] Katie Hunt I love that you seized the opportunity and that you saw there's a need for this in the market. Obviously, the store was doing well here. Like, let's see this through further and also the community and relationships that you talked about there. Did you intend for it to be more of a community space where you would teach classes and have people come and rent time on the letterpress? Or did you know that you wanted it to be more customer facing retail, traditional brick and mortar?

[00:06:35] Jen Palacio I was and still am really open to all the possibilities and potential of it. So for sure, I was a little bit more drawn to something that was more interactive than just a retail store front like I was thinking about. We've had some fun experiences having people come and print their own wedding invitations or print posters for protests and things like that in our letter studio. And trying to marry the two is something that's always been of interest to me. And then we've covered a lot of that got put on hold.

[00:07:08] Katie Hunt Yeah, I definitely want to talk about covid in a few minutes, but let's actually rewind a bit. What types of products do you carry in your store and who is your core customer? Who are the people that come to shop with you?

[00:07:19] Jen Palacio So that the core customer and the people that come to shop with me has evolved a lot over time. So originally and when I say evolved a lot over time, I've only been open since 2019. So it's evolved a lot very quickly.

[00:07:32] Katie Hunt Very quickly. You've had to adapt to many different types of customers.

[00:07:35] Jen Palacio You know, originally it was definitely people that love stationery. Greeting cards are one hundred percent my number one. Eighty percent of my sales are people looking for unique ways to connect with folks and in this analog way that we all love. But I also carry everything that's kind of adjacent to that. So anything that is related to writing or journaling, a lot of the fun things like washi tape and all of that for keeping things organized, like paper clips and fun stickers. So stickers are going crazy right now. They're everywhere like they are very close. Second too greeting cards for me at the moment. But the other thing that's been really fun that I didn't carry when I open and I didn't think that I was going to carry were kind of like home accessories. So candles have been super popular and things like tea towels. So I would say that. At least for me, because I'm a printmaker, it kind of started off with things that are printed on paper and then all of the kind of little tendrils and avenues that you can get from there. So there have been some really cool poster artists that have started putting their stuff into greeting card form or into tea towel form or on cool sort of everyday items, but with a screen printed image on it. So like in terms of design and packaging and that sort of thing.

[00:09:10] Katie Hunt That's cool. So, you know, there's a lot of people in our community that are like, I want to open a brick and mortar store, like this is one of their dreams and it's a lot of hard work. Right, Jen? And so what is a misconception that you would think or that you see that most people have about opening and running a brick and mortar shop?

[00:09:31] Jen Palacio So I think a misconception, and this has happened with a bunch of people, including myself, is that you can run a brick and mortar in order to give yourself a great outlet for your own work. And it's really hard to be a maker and run a brick and mortar at the same time. And so I very quickly, like my original formula, was like, OK, I'll have like maybe twenty five percent of the stuff in the store is going to be all stuff that I make, even if it's manufactured by somebody else. But it'll be my design stuff and the other twenty five percent will be other artists that I love and that's really great in theory. But in practice, like I ended up putting my handmade business on hold for I only just recently started bringing it back like within the last couple of months. And the first year of that had nothing to do with the craziness that's happened in the world. One hundred percent had to do with what it takes to have a store run. And the thing is, I knew this because I worked for a small independent retailer and

[00:10:34] Katie Hunt You had the experience.

[00:10:35] Jen Palacio Yeah, it wasn't that the reason why I had said when I stopped working for them because I worked for them while I was in grad school, wasn't because I didn't love the store or the products or the customers or any of the things like that. I was like, oh, this is your whole life. This is one hundred percent your whole life. And I, I know and respect and admire a bunch of people who do it all on their own or within their family. But I think the number one thing I took away from it is that as soon as I could possibly afford help and even when I felt like I maybe couldn't, I should have done it.

[00:11:08] Katie Hunt You should have hired help.

[00:11:10] Jen Palacio Yeah, I should have hired like real. I always had, like, friends that were helping out or part time like so because I knew logically I can't work seven days a week. I need a couple of days off. Right. But a real, actual employee like assistant, whatever you want to call it, somebody who's going to take on some portion of the actual, like strategic running of the of the thing is really what it takes to to make it both mentally and emotionally possible to survive and grow and be flexible in those sort of things. And I say that as somebody who didn't, I tried to do most everything myself for almost the first year for at least the first like eight or nine months. The only help I had was like literally a body to run sales on days when I couldn't physically be in the store. And I wish I had. I wish I hadn't waited so long to do that.

[00:12:08] Katie Hunt I am so glad you brought this up, because I think this is true for brick and mortar shop owners. I think this is true for manufacturers. I think this is true for anyone running a business. I think it's human nature to think, OK, I can juggle this all on my own or I can manage these pieces. But I think we underestimate the amount of actual work that has to get done, as well as the emotional, mental, that additional layer of labor, the mental labor that we do. So hearing you say that you wish you had hired sooner and once you did, it sounds like it really helped you. I felt the same way in my business. As soon as I started hiring people to implement the strategies we'd already put into place where I started the framework of but hadn't gotten to because we just didn't have enough hours in the day, my business skyrocketed and it became much more of a and I wonder if you felt the same way. Like I was able to focus on the things that mattered most for the business. But I also started to get my life back a little bit. I wasn't working nights and weekends and all that, you know, every waking hour of the day, it seemed. What about you? Do you feel the same?

[00:13:15] Jen Palacio Yeah, I. I definitely feel like it. It brought a level of sanity that I didn't really know that I needed. So the other thing I decided to do when I opened the store, which I don't. Not everybody has the luxury to do and I know it is difficult, as I wasn't going to go into any kind of debt to make it work. So I felt like I had enough experience with ten years of doing handmade stuff and then working for a couple of different small retailers to have an idea of how much it would cost. So I think this is what I'm going to allow from our personal life. Obviously had a lot of conversations with my husband and and like, this is the amount and we're not going to go below this amount and we're going to like build the right kind of triggers in place so that if we will if we feel like it's in danger, then I'll I'll have an out. So I had a very short term lease compared to a lot of folks. And that was also a testament to what the folks that own the building that I'm in we're trying to do is give people like us a shot. But what that meant is to pay for my life. I had to keep my other part time jobs. So I was also teaching night school for some local colleges and also still trying to fulfill like a couple of custom orders here and there and figure out how to. So I was really working like three jobs and the store was more of a full time job than I realized because I was sort of thinking, OK, I'll be open Wednesday through Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to do my other things. And it'll all work out great. Right.

[00:14:47] Katie Hunt It makes sense on paper and it makes sense in our head. But then in practice we're like what we do.

[00:14:53] Jen Palacio So like, I'm not sleeping. This is not this is not working.

[00:14:57] Katie Hunt This is not sustainable.

[00:14:58] Jen Palacio Yes. And I think the other thing that helped is the other deal that I made with my husband is that we wouldn't put any of our big life plans on hold just because I wanted to try this thing. So we had already penciled in a trip to Japan for two weeks. And I'm like, that's going to be like a little bit of research because there's a lot of stationary stuff out there, but also what we're going to do. And so that means I have opened in April. I was like, I have until August to figure out whether or not the shop will just be closed for two weeks or I'll find some people to help me bridge that gap and. So having to make those kind of like I don't know what you call them, but kind of like cut and dry decisions like these are what I'm not willing to give up at all, I think was another boundary boundary.

[00:15:41] Katie Hunt You set boundaries, which all of us need in our life. I love it. It's great to think about them and say this is what I want to do. But to actually hold those boundaries and hold yourself accountable to it, it can be tough. So the fact that you, like, set out to have this debt free business and to make the business kind of pay for itself and to hold the space for you guys to take this trip, I think that's phenomenal. You know, what does your team look like now? How many team members do you have for the shop?

[00:16:05] Jen Palacio So I have a full time manager, shop assistant and two part time employees. The second part time employees, like both of the part time employees, have only been on for maybe a couple of months. The most recent one just finished training. And we may pick up one more person to keep scheduling balanced and help with potential starting to think about future projects. But I think it's because it's August now and the holidays are coming up. And I don't want to be training someone during the peak season. So hopefully I'm hoping that that the the people that are on the team now will at least through the end of the year, because that will make everything a lot easier.

[00:16:46] Katie Hunt Oh, so much easier. A couple of my coaching clients have brick and mortar shops and we've already been talking about, you know, staffing up for the expected holiday season and what that's going to look like. But it's tough, too, because you want to know, you want some flexibility, too. You don't want to have, like, a full team if you're not going to need that. But you don't want to have people just on call either. So, yeah.

[00:17:08] Jen Palacio And it's been interesting to try and figure out how to balance that, because I want to be somebody that people can rely on if they need the hours on a regular basis. But I also like the downside of the kinds of boundaries that I set is the one that I did not set was to pay myself. So I'm not actually paying myself yet, which is not.

[00:17:30] Katie Hunt Jen we're going to have to have a conversation off the air about this.

[00:17:34] Jen Palacio Which isn't to say that I am, I just don't have it as a set as I would like it to be like. So I haven't been able to let go of the part time extra work in the way that I wanted to. So if everything had gone according to plan, which nothing ever does, I would be teaching one less class this fall. And so the idea was to slowly replace my other sources of income with income from the store. And yeah, if I'm being really honest, it might be just a little bit like a fear of pulling the trigger on that boundary more than not being able to do it. But I think it's. I think it's also just because the last year has been so the way the last year has been more than anything.

[00:18:15] Katie Hunt Well, I can relate to that. I mean, I had overlap with my day job and my stationery brand couple designs and Proof to Product. Well, let me with my stationary brand and my day job, I had four years before I made the jump to go full time. And I started Proof to Product about a year before, just over a year before a year and a half before I went full time. And I will tell you, I've had this conversation with a lot of different people and it never feels like necessarily the right time or you never feel as financially secure or as time secure or like all of the different fears and worries we have. So to some extent, we do have to make the leap and do our best to make everything work out. But to your point, nothing ever works exactly as planned. So I think you need to make it comfortable for you in that process. You mentioned already that you opened your doors April 2019, you know, and COVID hit before you even had your one year business birthday there. What types of shifts did you have to make during covid and its closures and all the other things that were going on?

[00:19:22] Jen Palacio Yeah, so I live in a pretty health conscious, I guess is the best way to say it city. And I think they made a lot of really great choices. And I, I appreciate that they put safety really density of the population first and foremost. So when the closures came, they came real fast and they were much like everywhere else, kind of unexpected. But one of the fun things about where I am is that we're able to organize and host events. And so I had sort of started doing this annual book fair event at Apple Market. And we had that event, unlike the first weekend of March. And then five days later, everything started rolling in the shutdown leg and we had to be close completely. And at the time my store was one hundred and sixty three square feet. So you can't go six foot distance and sixty three square feet. Right. And I didn't have a website and I didn't yet like Katie. She was my shop manager. Very, very part time at the time, I think she was working for me maybe 10 hours a week and she was looking for a full time job and everything kind of went on pause. So I didn't have a website, so I didn't have to wait for a way to make sales. We couldn't have people in person. Katie and I couldn't even be in the shop to do things together at the same time. So it was a real hard, hard left turn. And I had always intended on having some sort of online shop for the business and just, you know, in the first year, apparently got kept pushing away. And so as we saw that the closure was going to be more than two weeks, we started off with, OK, we're going to use these two weeks to do inventory. We'll just trade off days that were there and like figure out how to get everything in in good order, to start getting things on a website and then with things staying closed, then eventually made the calls like, look, I don't know what's better for you, if it's better for you to, like, just be fully unemployed and, like, get whatever benefit we may or may not get because we didn't know at the time things weren't still there were still not any of the benefits or any of the relief packages. I was like, this is and I was really probably more straightforward than most people would be with an employee is like, this is how much money we have. I'm willing to say pay you for however many hours that goes until either something good happens or we run out of money and then we have to make very different decisions and figure out what's going on overall for the fate of the store. What ended up happening in the interim, and I'm really glad I did it, is she figured out our inventory system. We got a website up, so I stayed at home. She lives like a couple blocks from the store. So it was like, this is now your office to keep everybody safe. Since we don't know how to handle this situation, I will not enter the store while you're in it. So if you need me to do something, I'll come after I like your shifts or before and drop things off for you. Otherwise, we did everything on facetime and we got a website up for pickup. And I did like I drove around in my little Subaru and dropped off local orders that people had coming through. We tried a bunch of crazy things with some of our neighbor retailers where we would have a story sale and then people could come pick up, pick up their orders, or we would send them invoices and I would deliver them. So we basically just did whatever we could. And then once the government and city benefits started rolling in, I spent a lot of my days filling out grant applications. It just felt like I was just doing paperwork like crazy. And fortunately, the upside of being in the kind of city I am, one of the benefits that ended up we ended up calling for qualifying for actually the only benefit, because since I married, my husband has a career like I did in the store itself, didn't qualify for anything. But because we were creating a job and supporting that, I was able to qualify for Grant. That allowed me to hire Katie full time and like and pay for that. And that got us through the gap because we were closed to the public from I want to say it was like March 15th or even earlier until June 26. So, no people, no nothing couldn't. And we probably got the website up just a little bit after our store anniversary. So at the end of April.

[00:23:50] Katie Hunt OK, that's still pretty quick. Jen likes to say, all the inventory that's impressive.

[00:23:56] Jen Palacio It wasn't perfect but but

[00:23:58] Katie Hunt Let's be honest, they're never they're always a work in progress.

[00:24:01] Jen Palacio It worked like it took orders. We were able to get people things that they wanted. We live in a very supportive community. So that helped. And it really just for me, helped me mentally frame what ended up what I didn't realize was actually important to me in the store. And like in having a store and being part of a community and in selecting the people and brands that we select have in the store, it really ended up being a good learning. I wish it didn't have to happen the way it did, but it ended up really coalescing a lot of the priorities. If you would ask me when I opened the store, well, like our mission statement was and like now how that's different. The priorities are quite different.

[00:24:45] Katie Hunt Yeah. I have to imagine to you that it really strengthened your relationship with Katie and the fact that you were so transparent with details with her, even financial details, and then also getting that grant to be able to employ her full time. I'm sure that that has created a lot of loyalty on her part to you, to the fact that you did prioritize her and it wasn't just a cut everyone cut every expense cut, you know, I mean, that's what some people did because they were coming from a place of fear and not like a place of how can we make this work? But I have to say, this is super impressive. And it shows that you're a good leader and a good I don't say boss, but like, you're a good leader of the business. It sounds to me that I would assume that it's really strengthening your relationship with her and her loyalty to your business, would you? Do you feel that's true or?

[00:25:36] Jen Palacio I hope so. Like, I'm one of the ways it reframe things I was thinking about. Like so being on the other end of it, having worked in small retail, I never really I just assumed it was something that I did because I enjoyed it. And I like being around the stuff. And I always liked working for the people that I worked for, but I always knew it was their very much theirs not not mine. And I think it's important to me for Katie to feel like that, that she's a part of this and that it doesn't have to be like an interim to something where she's going to like we now have the ability to have the kinds of conversations with like I would love for you to be able to grow with the business in the way that you might want to, because she's also a letter-er. She's also an artist. We were able to figure out how to, like, help her of coach her through figuring out how to do things like product design and actually like get something manufactured. So I had had tote bags in my previous life that I've done. And I was like, you know, what would be great for our anniversary, while we have this time while we're sitting around, is to design like a tote bag released for our second anniversary since we missed our first anniversary. And so, like being able to work with her through that and kind of get the experience of like, OK, well, what's it like when I have to let go and not do all the illustrations of and how is it going to be to have like a shared vision? And maybe that means we end up being able to have a tiny turn's line where, like, some of the products will be profiteered or like whatever different ways she wants to test it out in a safe manner for what she wants to do. And hopefully other people want to do that as well, because both of the part time people that work for me one is actually a long time friend that I've done a lot of press with for years. She's also trying to, like, move a little bit from hobby to more of a brand line. And our most recent hire is also an illustrator and designer. And she has her own stationery line that she's been working on independently. So it's been kind of nice too. To be able to feel like it's not just going to be it can be for the people we can hear

[00:27:46] Katie Hunt like an incubator.

[00:27:47] Jen Palacio Exactly. That's no way for me, I always wanted there to be a community aspect for it. I just didn't think that it would be in the employment like portion of it.

[00:27:58] Katie Hunt Yeah. Most of the time we think of the community aspect in terms of our customers or the people we're serving, whereas this is your team is part of the community like it's a sub community. That's awesome. What's your favorite part of owning your brick and mortar shop?

[00:28:14] Jen Palacio My favorite part is seeing all the cool things other people make. And so I'll often laugh when I see a car that somebody just released and I'm like, oh, I got that right away from the store. And then I get to laugh again when somebody else buys it or is looking at it and laughing. And I just love that aspect of it. Feeling like seeing a little bit more of the different ways that people are connected to their art. And also when I buy something and I get an email from the owner of a brand who's like, I'm just so glad that you like that. I was worried it wasn't good or I was having a bad day. And I'm like, hey, you know, and I know a lot of the people that I work with listen to this podcast. So I'm just going to put it out there. If you're feeling like you're having a bad day, send me an Instagram message or an email. I will tell you how many compliments that you've gotten that week, because we get them all the time on very specific items. It's not just like, oh, you're so cute. You have a lot of stuff. I mean, I love hearing that, too. But I love like when somebody says like this sent from the Card Bureau's Candle makes me feel good every time I smell it. So I hope you never run out of stock because I know that it's going to make my day every time I like it, like I will call me, I will tell you all the cool things I love.

[00:29:32] Katie Hunt I love hearing that. I will tell you one of the things I've been hearing, feedback from the manufacturers I work with, with the last year and a half with trade shows not really happening, although we're starting we're starting to open those up again. Right. But craft shows, too, like people manufacturers haven't had that direct contact with their customers. So they haven't been standing at a craft show and seeing people pick up their product and laugh or pick up their product and turn to the people they're with and say, oh, my gosh, you have to see this. And I will tell you from creative and you know, you're creative. From a creative standpoint, though, we need that interaction with our customers and we need to know that the things we're dreaming up in our heads actually are what people want to hear resonate with people. And so thank you for sharing that, because I know all of us have felt so isolated for the last 18 months. And yes, we're selling things online. And yes, we're hearing things from people through the computer. But it's very different when you have that face to face response or you see the reactions that you're seeing in your shop. So thank you for sharing that with us.

[00:30:35] Jen Palacio Yeah, I mean, it's you're right that that kind of like immediate, like human response is it was the thing that was missing the most when we were closed. But I, I will say that like, yeah, I love the brands that I work with. Everybody is doing such great stuff. It's, it's, it's inspiring to me. Like I don't know that I would feel like I would want to make any kind of art if I wasn't doing this, because it just all the energy gets kind of it's hard to rebuild it. And when you're surrounded by cool things that people are trying to make, like that's for me the ranking is like keeping my employees feeling good and getting what they need and then paying the artists. Like if it weren't for all the small brands, like, I don't think I, I don't think I would have made it because I think there's not a way for me to make my store look as unique or accessible to people without the stuff that people are making. So we're only as good as the artists that we carry.

[00:31:35] Katie Hunt On that note, thank you for sharing that. What's next for you? What do you have coming up that you want to share with our audience? And, you know, what are you excited about?

[00:31:44] Jen Palacio I'm excited about the holiday season. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it. I think people want to feel good. And I'm really excited about some of the things that I've been seeing people previewing and letting go out there. I'm excited for bringing back community events. I don't know what that's going to be like. So it's hard to say that we definitely have anything in the works. But I'm hoping that maybe next year things like workshops are like meet the maker kind of things that I've always wanted to do can come back in an in person kind of way. I'm excited about being on Paper Camp and talking to people.

[00:32:22] Katie Hunt We are excited to have you. And that whole interview is going to be very different. We're going to get deep into the weeds of what do you want to see from manufacturers? How do you want to be pitched? What kind of follow up annoys you? All things are where we're going with that. But yeah, there's a lot of exciting things. I think, too, to your point of community and where you're located to is such a huge piece of what you do, so I can see all these live events really bolstering what you're already doing in a lot of ways. So I think it's interesting to me, and this is kind of a sad tangent, you know, some places are really open. Some places are not very open. And I think it's important, too, that all of meaning open for events, larger events, conferences, trade shows, smaller events too. And I think it's just super important that all of us kind of do what feels comfortable and right for us at the time.

[00:33:10] Jen Palacio So I 100 percent agree. And I think that's, you know, one of the things that maybe comes a little bit more naturally to some than others is being really flexible. But we've all been forced to have to be really flexible. And so that's why I would love to be able to say I'm planning this thing for Small Business Saturday, because that was the other big event that I always even before I had a brick and mortar, I was always involved with it in that neighborhood. Yeah. And we're going to do something. But like, I don't know what it's going to be like. I don't like it is going to depend on, like, what the community thinks is safe. We're like people are well, I don't want I never want to have the people that I part with have to invest in something that they're not sure they're going to get a return on. So that's something that I'm kind of constantly trying to keep in mind is like I don't want to waste anybody's time. And if we can figure out what's the best way to, like, keep that sense of community going, but also not pull people's energy. Like we said, we're like boundaries like you only have so much you have to dedicate. And I really want to make sure that if you're working with me, it's going to pay off.

[00:34:15] Katie Hunt Absolutely. I feel the same way. And the comfort level, I want everyone to be comfortable in whatever setting they are in. Well, where can people find you online to shop your new website, new ish Web site and also to connect with you on social media?

[00:34:30] Jen Palacio Yeah, so I am Tiny Turns Paperie on all of the things so TinyTurnsPaperie.com is our website and Tiny Turns Paperie on Instagram and Facebook. Yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

[00:34:42] Katie Hunt Fantastic. We will include those in the show notes. Of course, for anyone that's looking to find you and Jen, just thank you for your time and thank you for this insight. I think there's a lot that you all do as brick and mortar shop owners that is unseen work. Right. And so for you to come and share what it's been like having a team and growing a team and things, you know what it was like through covid. I just very much appreciate you kind of shedding some extra light on the challenges you've been facing as you've grown this arm of your business.

[00:35:10] Jen Palacio Thank you. It was really great talking with you.

[00:35:13] Katie Hunt You as well.

[00:35:14] Katie Hunt All right, friends, I hope you enjoyed this episode with Jen Palacio as much as I did. A key takeaway that resonated with me is what Jen said about hiring. We both wished that we had hired help in our businesses sooner than we did. So even if you don't feel ready to add team members to the mix, I want you to start daydreaming about what your team could look like. Think about what tasks and roles you would want to delegate. What responsibilities and outcomes would each of these team members be responsible for and even think about the order in which you'd prioritize the different roles. Which ones would you hire first if you had the opportunity? And if you need help figuring out what you should be delegating, please be sure to check out my free master class called Deciding What to Delegate in Three Simple Steps. You can sign up at ProoftoProduct.com/delegate and I'll show you how to stop being a bottleneck in your business. All right, friends, have a great week.