Brandy McNair comes from a long line of entrepreneurs. Born and raised in Harrison Arkansas, she observed the art and struggle of owning a business on both sides of her family from her maternal and paternal grandparents. That same spirit was passed to her father and now she carries the trail blazing torch with her business Bella Vita Jewelry. Brandy founded Bella Vita in 2008 and opened a store in 2014.
No stranger to hard work, Brandy began working for her aunt at age 12. She swept the floors, cleaned and ran the register at the sandwich shop her aunt managed. At 14 she began bussing tables at her family’s restaurant. Working her way up to waitress, she stayed there for about 10 years. In the fall of 1996, she got a job at Crescent Moon Beads in Eureka Springs and dabbled with her love of design and antique jewelry. In 2003, she began the U of A and in 2007 graduated with a degree in Interior Design.
Like most entrepreneurs, she held a slew of jobs while building her own business. In 2013, she was completely self-employed. She volunteers at 2nd Friday Art Night in Downtown Little Rock and supports women starting businesses in ablog called Boss Lady.
Up In Your Business is a Radio Show by FlagandBanner.com
[0:00:12] TB: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Stay tuned and hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents. Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.
[EPISODE]
[0:00:28] BM: In your business. Thank you, Tim. Like Tim said, I'm Kerry McCoy and it's time for me to get up in your business. Before we start, I'd like to introduce the people at the table. We have who you just heard from, Tim Bowen, our technician, who will be managing the board and taking your calls. Say hello, Tim.
[0:00:44] TB: Hello, Tim.
[0:00:47] KM: Recording our show today to make a podcast available next week at flagandbanner.com is our technician, Jesse. Thank you, Jesse.
[0:00:54] J: No problem.
[0:00:55] KM: If right now you're sitting at your computer, you might want to watch us live on flagandbanner.com's Facebook page. It's fun to see what goes on behind the scenes. I forgot my script and just had to rush around five seconds ago and find it in my purse. I almost had a panic attack. We would really have to wing it. That would see if I'm a real professional at this, or not by now. But it's fun. I will be on Facebook live at flagandbanner.com for about 10 minutes, 15 minutes. At the break, I'll come back and sign off with everyone.
If you listened last week, you know I was not here and we did a rerun of Anne McCoy, who was the Special Assistant and Social Secretary to President Bill Clinton. She ran the governor's mansion for eight years in Arkansas. Then she went up and was with the president for eight years in Washington, D.C. What an experience. She told us great behind the scenes stories. Even though I wasn't here, I listened again to it. I was surprised at how interesting it was. It was really good. She's just a really interesting person. Did y'all like it? Did y'all listen?
[0:02:03] TB: Oh, yeah. I love Anne.
[0:02:04] KM: I know. She's great. She's gonna have to come back and tell us some more stories. The reason I was away is a whirlwind week. My son, middle son, Matthew, got married to Sarah Slimp, the girl he dated for five years, who happens to also be a friend of my guest today, who gave jewelry to the wedding, which we'll talk about. Because my guest today is Brandy Thomason McNair. She's a jewelry designer in Little Rock, Arkansas. I met her a couple of weeks ago, when we went over there to look through some of your jewelry, antiques and self-made jewelry. It was beautiful stuff. We had eight. She's nodding. I'm going to have to teach you, you can't nod on the radio.
We had eight events in five days. Talk about Millennials. This was one of my favorite weddings of all times. Because it was so different from anyone. Now my daughter's wedding was priceless and wonderful. I wanted my kids to do some traditional wedding. I was disturbed when they first started talking about how they weren't going to be completely traditional, because they were all raised in a church. Then all of a sudden, it took off and became their personality. The wedding could not have been more their personality.
The bridesmaids and the groomsmen were gender neutral, which means there were some on both sides, which is the way I like to roll. They were of all ethnicity, colors, and sexual orientation. I loved it. It was such a great. But because of that, the traditional party that you would have on the bachelor's party, you know how you had the bachelor's party? It's all men, and they called in strippers that jump out of a cake and their pimp stands at the door. That's the way I was when I was growing up.
That's not the way it is anymore. Even mom got to go to the bachelor's party. We had so much fun. I laughed so hard that I thought, “Oh, my God. I'm going to hyperventilate, and they're going to have to take me to the hospital.” The men, straight men dressed up as women, and they did a drag show. Straight women dressed up as men. I just had so much fun. That started the party off on Wednesday. Then Thursday was the rehearsal dinner. Friday was the Holy Eucharist. Friday night was a welcoming to all the out-of-town guests, a 100 people at my house.
Saturday, you'll love this people if you're listening, they got up and played kickball. I bet we had 80 people playing kickball, and we all wore T-shirts the bride brought us. So much fun. Got all the nerves and energy out of you. Then Saturday night was the wedding. Instead of the first dance, guess what they had? Brandy, were you there?
[0:04:53] BM: I was there, yeah. I was actually. It was very beautiful.
[0:04:56] KM: Did you stay for the whole thing?
[0:04:58] BM: I did. I don't know if I saw the first dance, though. I might have even eaten cake. There was like, eight of them.
[0:05:01] KM: That's because they didn't have a first dance.
[0:05:02] BM: Oh, they didn't? Okay.
[0:05:03] KM: Guess what they had?
[0:05:05] BM: Was it the karaoke?
[0:05:06] KM: Yes. They had the first –
[0:05:07] BM: Yeah, okay. I did see a lot of karaoke.
[0:05:09] KM: They had the first karaoke. Oh, my gosh. The couple got up and sang a duet.
[0:05:14] BM: I totally missed it. Yeah.
[0:05:15] KM: It was great. You missed it?
[0:05:17] BM: I was probably eating cake, because there were so many delicious cakes.
[0:05:19] KM: Yeah, how many cakes did they have?
[0:05:21] BM: I think there was eight or nine different ones.
[0:05:23] KM: Yeah, she's a baker by trade. We had more cakes than you knew what you would. Then it landed on Sunday with a farewell brunch at my house. It was really quite an event. It was really, really fun. I'm glad you were there. Let's get on with the show.
This show, Up in Your Business began with me, Kerry McCoy, for entrepreneurs. It was a platform for me, a small business owner, and a guest to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way. With all the endeavors, it's had some unexpected outcomes, like the show is not just for entrepreneurs and want to be entrepreneurs, but for everyone. Everyone can listen to this show and get something out of it.
We're all inspired by every day's people that make American-made stories and make America great, and about how every one of us works hard, takes risks, and finds our voice. Another interesting outcome was that the business is creative and that all businesses are creative, more so than really you ever think, and that last, behind each of my successful guests, I have found out that almost all successful people have the heart of a teacher.
Joining me today is the hard-working, creative, jewelry designer Brandy Thomason McNair that you just heard from. They came to my son's wedding. Who is also a community volunteer, a blogger, and founder of the ever-evolving, and I'll say ever-evolving, Bell Vita Jewelry and Gift Shop. If you're just tuning in for the first time, you may be asking yourself, what's this lady's story and why does she have a radio show? Well, Tim is here to tell you.
[0:06:53] TB: Thank you, Kerry. Over 40 decades ago – or 40 years ago, not 40 decades. Let's start that over. Over 40 years ago, with only $400, Kerry McCoy founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. During the last four decades, the business has grown and changed dramatically, from door-to-door sales to telemarketing, to mail order and catalog sales, and now Flag and Banner relies heavily on the internet, including our newest feature, Live Chatting. Each decade required us change in sales strategy and procedures. Her business and leadership knowledge grew with time and experience, as well as the confidence to branch out into multimedia marketing that began with our non-profit Dreamland Ballroom, as well as our in-house publication, Brave Magazine, and now, this very radio show that you're listening to.
Each week on this show, you'll hear candid conversations between her and her guests about real-world experiences on a variety of businesses and topics that we hope you'll find interesting. Kerry says that many rules like, treat your employees well, know your profit margin, and have a succession plan can be applied across most industry. What I find encouraging is her example that hard work pays off. Did you know that for nine years while starting Flag and Banner, she supplemented her income with many part-time jobs? That just shows that her persistence, perseverance, and patience prevailed.
Today, Flag and Banner has 10 departments, and I have 25 co-workers. It reminds us all that small businesses are the fuel of our country's economic engine, and that they empower people's lives. If you would like to ask Kerry questions, or share your experience or story, send an email to questions@upyourbusiness.org.
[0:08:33] KM: Thank you, Tim. My guest today is Brandy Thomason McNair, the Founder, designer, and hardworking owner of Bella Vita Jewelry and Gifts in the Lafayette building in Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.
Brandy knew as early as age 10, she had a love for creating jewelry, but it wasn't until 2008 that she turned her hobby into her business and founded Bella Vita Jewelry. The hardworking adjective used to describe Brandy is true. At the age of 12, she begged her way into a job at her aunt's sandwich shop in Harrison, Arkansas. By the time she was 14, she'd landed another job at Crescent Moon Beads in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. In high school, she enrolled in a work release program that allowed her to leave school early, so she could rush to her restaurant job in the afternoons and keep her bead store job on the weekends.
Her work ethic continues today as she creates and manages more businesses. In 2008, she took the entrepreneurial leap and founded Bella Vita Jewelry. In 2014, she took further another step and secured a retail storefront in Downtown, Little Rock and called it Bella Vita Jewelry and Gifts. Today, she has expanded her company from retail to include wholesale distribution, hocking her original designs at the Dallas, Atlanta, and New York gift shows.
She has a bi-weekly online publication called Boss Lady. Because she can't let any stone go unturned, she has a small antiques booth in South Main Creative Antique Mall. Featured in both Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Southern Living Magazine, it is a pleasure to welcome to the table the hardworking and creative, Brandy Thomason McNair, and she's blushing.
[0:10:22] BM: Hi.
[0:10:24] KM: Welcome to Little Rock. How long have you been living here now?
[0:10:26] BM: Oh, gosh. We've been here 11 years now.
[0:10:31] KM: You said you had no idea when you took a job that moved you to Little Rock, Arkansas, that you would fall in love with the city and start a business here.
[0:10:37] BM: I had no idea how much I love it here.
[0:10:39] KM: What happened?
[0:10:40] BM: Well, it helped that my husband introduced me to his group of friends that are really close knit. I moved down here for the job and he stayed in Fayetteville to finish school. That helped having a quick core base of friends to hang out with. That really helped. Then I fell in love with the city, like just Downtown Little Rock. I would come down here on the weekends, go to the farmer's market. 10, 11 years ago, there wasn't a hole I'd go in on downtown. I would see all these buildings and just dream of a day that they were being renovated. Now, I feel like I'm a little bit of a part of it.
[0:11:14] KM: That’s nice.
[0:11:14] BM: Having my shop downtown, yeah.
[0:11:16] KM: Your dad was an entrepreneur.
[0:11:17] BM: Mm-hmm. He's a farmer.
[0:11:20] KM: And your mother?
[0:11:21] BM: My mom's a nurse. She had a job at the hospital in Harrison, where I'm from. She worked there for 43 years. The same job.
[0:11:28] KM: Can you imagine? Well, I've been doing this 43 years, exactly. Yes, I can imagine. Then your aunt, she was an entrepreneur?
[0:11:38] BM: No. She just managed the same shop that –
[0:11:40] KM: She managed it.
[0:11:40] BM: Mm-hmm. She let me come work on Saturdays and pay me out a petty cash.
[0:11:44] KM: How did that all come about? How did her boss let you work there?
[0:11:48] BM: I don't really know, honestly. I mean, that was – I was born in ’82, so I was around 12. I guess, he probably didn't know. I don't know.
[0:11:57] KM: I think that they've made rules so strict for young people to work now. There's trying to protect everybody so much that they're really actually handicapping people.
[0:12:06] BM: That was one of the best experiences I could have ever had and taught me how to work hard. Not that I necessarily worked hard at that job, but it taught me a work ethic.
[0:12:15] KM: And team playing, and that what you do matters.
[0:12:18] BM: Yeah.
[0:12:19] KM: I remember my son, Jack, wanted to get a job at a restaurant when he was in high school, 10th or 11th grade. I said, “No, you cannot get a job and work in a restaurant. I worked in a restaurant. I know too much about what goes on down there.”
[0:12:33] BM: Oh, yeah.
[0:12:35] KM: I said, “You're two formative years.” He, of course, did it anyway. It was one of the best experiences he ever had. It's fast paced, what you do matters. You learn to work with a team.
[0:12:48] BM: Yeah. My uncles, when I moved, when I turned 14, I was able to work at their restaurant on the books. My grandfather started a restaurant in Harrison called Davidos.
[0:12:56] KM: Oh, I see.
[0:12:58] BM: When I turned 14, I started working for them also. I love waiting tables. I think that did a lot for my personality, too. Brought me out of a shell. Because I had to talk to people. I love that I started working at such a young age.
[0:13:13] KM: People skills should not ever be undervalued. Then you already knew you like jewelry.
[0:13:18] BM: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[0:13:20] KM: You're already playing with that, because your grandmother collected jewelry, I think.
[0:13:23] BM: Yeah. Both grandparents had antique businesses. Both grandmothers had random jewelry always around.
[0:13:30] KM: Both of your grandparents were antiquers, or junkers, or whatever you want to call them, and scavengers. I thought I always called my dad, he just scavenged for stuff all the time. He loved doing that. Then your father was a farmer.
[0:13:48] BM: Mm-hmm.
[0:13:50] KM: You have this in your background.
[0:13:52] BM: I think so, yeah.
[0:13:54] KM: Then you decided when you get out of the – when you get old enough to drive, or maybe not old enough to drive, to go to the neighboring town in Eureka Springs, and you landed a job with Crescent Moon?
[0:14:05] BM: Crescent Moon Beads. Yeah. I think my aunt and my uncle has another restaurant over there, too. I think they connected me with the beads, too. I think my aunt would get me gift certificates for birthdays and such. I think that's how I came across the beads store. Then the woman that owned the beads store, her daughter was coming home that year from college, and she was going to run the shop for her. I was 14. My mom would drive me over there. I'd work one or two weekends a month, but it was mostly – I think they both did it for me to stay creative and they saw how much I loved making jewelry. Before I was able to drive, I would just work a weekend or two here and there, and my mom would hang out with my aunt and uncle. Then whenever, when I was able to drive in high school, I would drive over and I would stay the weekend with my friend, my boss who owned the store.
[0:14:51] KM: Are you mentoring somebody in the same industry?
[0:14:54] BM: No. Not yet. I mean, I'm not opposed to it.
[0:14:57] KM: Hadn't happened yet.
[0:14:57] BM: I have young girls that work for me, but they always go off to college.
[0:15:02] KM: What's Crescent Moon? Isn't that person famous? Didn't she write a cookbook? Who's the lady in Eureka Springs?
[0:15:20] KM: When I read that, I thought maybe they were affiliated.
[0:15:21] BM: No. No.
[0:15:23] KM: All right, so now you've graduated from high school. I guess, you've been selling beads.
[0:15:28] BM: I have been selling jewelry. Yeah, a lot of jewelry. I worked pretty much every weekend, because I got out of school early. I'd work on the weekends in Eureka and stay with my boss and stuff. Yeah, we made tons of jewelry. I mean, it's a tourist town. I got a little burnt out by the time it was time to think about going to college.
[0:15:47] KM: What'd you do?
[0:15:49] BM: Well, I went to community college for a year in Harrison. I had an art scholarship. I did that. Then that summer after I finished a year, I moved to Eureka and worked full-time for the bead store. Then, I think, I worked at a restaurant at night, too. Then went to community college in Rogers. Still didn't really know what I wanted to do. I just took core classes. Then I took a year off and then a friend told me – I was working for a friend at the entomology department, of all places, at U of A. I just desperately needed a job. She hired me and she just laid it out for me one day and she was like, “Why don't you look at it –” apparel studies are interior design and I just chose interior design. I did four years. I got a bachelor's degree in interior design from U of A. That whole time, I just took a break from jewelry making and just did college.
[0:16:35] KM: Do you think that helps you with your jewelry making?
[0:16:38] BM: Oh, yeah. I do. It taught me how to do presentations. It taught me how to pay attention to detail, all of those things. I mean, I really loved interior design. I I didn't care for my options out of college, sitting in an office really. That wasn't me.
[0:16:57] KM: You did get a job right after college.
[0:17:00] BM: I did, yeah.
[0:17:00] KM: Where?
[0:17:01] BM: I got a job down here in an architecture firm.
[0:17:03] KM: That's when things begin to change. All right, this is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we're going to find out about the move to Little Rock. You're listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with Brandy McNair, designer, owner, and founder of the retail and wholesale company, Bella Vita Jewelry and Gift Store in Little Rock, Arkansas.
[BREAK]
[0:17:24] TB: You're listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbander.com. If you miss any part of the show, or want to hear more about Up in Your Business, go to flagandbander.com and click on the tab ‘Radio Show.’ Or you can subscribe through iTunes, SoundCloud, or your favorite podcast app simply by searching flagandbander.com. Lots of listening options. We’ll be right back.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:17:53] KM: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with Brandy McNair, owner and founder of Bella Vita Jewelry and Gift Store in Little Rock, Arkansas. I should say, designer, jewelry designer extraordinaire. You're out of school, you've landed a job, you've moved to Little Rock. What was the name of the company? I forgot what you said.
[0:18:11] BM: I worked at Williams and Dean architecture firm.
[0:18:14] KM: Oh, an architect firm. How did that work? Did you keep it long?
[0:18:19] BM: No. Nine months. I'm pretty proud of that.
[0:18:22] KM: Just like an entrepreneur. I was there for nine months.
[0:18:26] BM: Well, I had never worked in an office. That was a whole new lifestyle to me also. Just remember, I worked in small business and in restaurants. Their office life was a totally new –
[0:18:37] KM: Culture shock.
[0:18:38] BM: - thing for me. Yeah. And sitting down all day.
[0:18:41] KM: Yeah. When you’re how old? 24?
[0:18:43] BM: I think I was 25 when I landed that job, yeah.
[0:18:48] KM: You gave them your notice, and what?
[0:18:50] BM: After that, I went to another commercial furniture store that didn't work out either. Then I got all my jewelry making stuff out and went and applied for a job at Argenta Bead Company, and she hired me. Then I also went to the oyster bar, and she hired me. That's when Bella Vita was born.
[0:19:08] KM: Back to your roots.
[0:19:09] BM: Yeah, exactly.
[0:19:10] KM: To start, so did you go and buy – you got a job at you said, at the Argenta Bead Company. Was it as a subcontractor, or was it in a –
[0:19:19] BM: No. It was just at sales, yeah. Employee. Just a sales person.
[0:19:22] KM: Why do you say Bella Vita was formed? Because you were actually employee of two places.
[0:19:28] BM: Right. But I also was doing Bella Vita on the side. I would go to every art market, farmer's market that I could.
[0:19:32] KM: Could you put a permit from the city?
[0:19:34] BM: Yeah. I mean, I'd started the business then.
[0:19:36] KM: How'd you come up with that name?
[0:19:39] BM: Bella Vita means beautiful life in Italian. My roots are Italian, so I wanted to do some nod to that. That's how it came up.
[0:19:48] KM: I think that's nice.
[0:19:49] BM: Yeah. I started the business in 2008, but I also knew that I wasn't going to make money to live off right away, so that's why I had the two part-time jobs.
[0:19:56] KM: That's right. How long do you have to do that?
[0:19:59] BM: I worked at the bead store for quite a while. Somewhere around 2010, my husband and I moved to Oklahoma for him to go back to school. We lived in Oklahoma for three years, but we've been back here for, it would be five years this summer. I worked for the oyster bar in Argenta Bead, until I moved away. Then I worked, sub-contracted with the bead store and did some newsletters and online stuff for her for a couple of years, while I was in Oklahoma. Then once we moved back is when I didn't have any other outside employment. I've been self-employed for five years now.
[0:20:36] KM: That's what I was going to ask. How long did it take before you could be completely self-employed?
[0:20:41] BM: Bella Vita will turn 10 this year. I was self-employed about five years, the first five years, or the last five years.
[0:20:49] KM: Yeah. Since it's 10, you can go either way. Five years is the length of time you had to work part-time jobs, while you grew your business. I think everyone needs to hear that. I hear that so much over and over. You didn't really have any money to start with?
[0:21:06] BM: Well, no. But I did have a box of tools and a box of beads. I made do with what I had. Because I had all my bead making, my jewelry making stuff from when I was a lot younger, and I have my hands, so I put it all to work.
[0:21:21] KM: You didn't have a storefront.
[0:21:23] BM: No.
[0:21:23] KM: Your only expense was the cost of your goods, your beads.
[0:21:27] BM: Exactly. Yeah.
[0:21:27] KM: That was really, because your time was free, whatever you made, you made. You said, you began with social media, but that it's gotten too hard. What do you mean by that? You said, you began your sales really – you began to really market – I'm sorry, I should have been more clear on that. You said you began to really market your business through social media.
[0:21:45] BM: Yeah. I mean, 10 years ago, social media was totally different than it is now. We used to do really good on social media. I would post something and it would sell quickly.
[0:21:54] KM: Post it on Facebook?
[0:21:55] BM: Yeah, Facebook. I mean, Instagram. We've been on Instagram a while now, too. It's just not the same as it used to be at all. I mean, you have to do a lot more work to show up in people's feeds.
[0:22:06] KM: I hear that over and over and over. Everybody's disillusioned with all of that, and everybody – there's so many different options of social platforms you can be on now.
[0:22:15] BM: Oh, yeah. It's overwhelming. It's time consuming. It takes us forever to – I mean, we plan our social media. That takes a lot of time.
[0:22:24] KM: How much do you do today? Are you still doing as much as you used to? Or did you let it –
[0:22:29] BM: Me personally?
[0:22:30] KM: Or how are you doing it? You hired somebody to do it?
[0:22:32] BM: Yeah. No, no, no. Well, my employees help me for sure. Because we have a couple of accounts. I have the jewelry line account, and then I have an account for the shop. Then I have a third account for my side hustle, the vintage, or the vintage business.
[0:22:44] KM: What do you mean you have three accounts?
[0:22:47] BM: For Instagram.
[0:22:48] KM: You're mainly doing Instagram.
[0:22:49] BM: Instagram, yeah, I think is the biggest.
[0:22:50] KM: You have the jewelry store. Then you have, what was the other one?
[0:22:54] BM: The jewelry line. Just Bella Vita Jewelry. It's all jewelry focused.
[0:22:57] KM: Oh, one's Bella Vita Jewelry, one's which is the line. Then there's Bella Vita Jewelry and Gift, which is the retail store.
[0:23:03] BM: Mm-hmm. Exactly, yeah. We just keep them separate, because I don't want the products we carry in the store to clutter up the jewelry feed, because we wholesalers, so our wholesalers are seeing that stuff, too. They don't want to see all the stuff we sell in our shop. That's my personal opinion. I might be doing it all wrong. I have no idea.
[0:23:20] KM: No, I think that sounds right. I was going to actually ask you how you keep your wholesale separate from your retail, because I've never been able to wholesale, because of that very reason right there.
[0:23:30] BM: I don't know. I mean –
[0:23:32] KM: It sounds like you're doing it good.
[0:23:33] BM: Yeah. I mean, I'm trying. I don't know. I had a lady call today that had been on my retail site, but she's a wholesale client, so.
[0:23:39] KM: Did you told her to go over there? They don't compete with each other, because your retail site is more expensive. Your products cost more.
[0:23:45] BM: Well, yeah.
[0:23:47] KM: You came and sold wholesale to us, didn't she, Tim?
[0:23:50] TB: She's about to.
[0:23:51] BM: We’re working on it. Yeah.
[0:23:52] TB: We’re working on it.
[0:23:53] KM: She's got some great jewelry.
[0:23:53] TB: Yes.
[0:23:54] KM: We're going to put in the Flag and Banner showroom. Adrienne's nodding her head over there. She loves it. She's patting her heart. I like that. I think that's smart. But that makes a lot of work for you. Three different Instagrams that you have to post it. Do you do it every day?
[0:24:12] BM: No, we don't do it every day. I try to do two to four – pretty much about two to four on each account. The vintage business, it gets neglected sometimes, because it's just a fun side business.
[0:24:26] KM: Yeah. It doesn't make you that many. Instead of putting it in your garage, you put it in there, the antique mall. If someone buys it, you're like, “Okay, good.”
[0:24:34] BM: I get to curate and merchandise, which is some of my favorite things to do, so.
[0:24:37] KM: Well, most people that I know that like to collect stuff like that, they like to have it in their house for a little while, and they're like, “Done with that. Let's go put it at the mall. Maybe somebody will buy it, and I can put something else in there.”
[0:24:46] BM: It’s like that. But we do good with it, too. It's fun.
[0:24:52] KM: You post to Instagram three or four times a week.
[0:24:57] BM: Mm-hmm.
[0:24:57] KM: Do you post the same thing each time?
[0:24:59] BM: No. We try to switch it up. Lately, I've been trying to do better about it. For the jewelry page, we're trying to have more of a plan. One of my employees is helping me with that. I still have a say in all the posts, but she's helping me come up with the content, and she's a photographer. She's a photographer, so she helps a lot with the photos, too. We work with a few other photographers as well. So, we just have a stockpile of images that we can go through.
[0:25:26] KM: Don't you just link them back to your website?
[0:25:28] BM: Yeah, try to. But I don't want to be over-salesy either, so we try to have a good balance of informative, personal, and pretty jewelry.
[0:25:37] KM: Your website looks really professional.
[0:25:38] BM: Thanks.
[0:25:39] KM: I think the pictures are really nice. Did you buy an out-of-the-box platform?
[0:25:43] BM: We use Shopify. I had someone set it up for me a couple years ago, and had to pay for that. It's super user-friendly. I just went in the other day and updated all the photos from a photo shoot that we actually did last spring. They're timeless photos, so they're expired yet.
[0:25:59] KM: You've got spring of 2018 already on there. I was real impressed at how you keep it up, because you don't have a big staff.
[0:26:05] BM: No, I don't, but I do have to give a shout-out to one of my helpers for that, Mickey. She helps get all that updated and keep it updated, because all that stuff is so time-consuming.
[0:26:14] KM: How many products do you think you have online?
[0:26:17] BM: I don't know. We have several. I mean, I really don't know.
[0:26:30] KM: How many followers do you have on Instagram?
[0:26:32] BM: I think we're close to 6,000, maybe.
[0:26:34] KM: It's good. You've also decided to open a storefront, because you did your jewelry forever. You've been in business for 10 years, but in four years ago, you opened up a gift shop. That doesn't seem very smart to me. It seems like, you've got everything going. Why do you need a retail store?
[0:26:55] BM: Well, I mean, it started as I wanted a place outside of the house to work, because those three years we lived in Oklahoma, I worked in the house, and I knew I didn't want to do that again. The main goal was to find a studio space, but also, have a small amount of retail in where the studio would be. Over time, the retail has just gotten bigger and bigger inside our shop, and our workspace is getting smaller. It works for us, because if the store isn't busy, we're always in there working on making jewelry, either filling our backstock, or filling our wholesale orders.
[0:27:28] KM: You mean that store that I have seen? You make the jewelry in there?
[0:27:31] BM: Yeah, the table that we have the antique jewelry spread out on is where we do production.
[0:27:35] KM: So, you stand up?
[0:27:36] BM: No, there's chairs.
[0:27:37] KM: Is there?
[0:27:37] BM: Yeah. I think the chairs were full of antique jewelry that day.
[0:27:40] KM: Oh, and then, yeah, it's packed.
[0:27:42] BM: Yeah, I know. Yeah. I mean, we would love more space, but we have a really nice thing going there.
[0:27:48] KM: For our listeners, it's in the bottom of the Lafayette building, which is not a retail space, really. It's a business, it's an office building on a really untraveled corner in Downtown Little Rock. It was hard for me to even find a way in there and figure it out. Do you have any foot traffic?
[0:28:06] BM: We do, actually. I mean, three years ago, it wasn't that great. In the last three years, just recently, threefold moved in.
[0:28:15] KM: What’s threefold?
[0:28:17] BM: The dumpling restaurant. Have you been there?
[0:28:19] KM: Mm-mm.
[0:28:20] BM: Oh, it's great.
[0:28:20] KM: I'm gluten-free.
[0:28:21] BM: I think they do that, too. Anyway, they're really great and a destination downtown, because they have a really good following.
[0:28:27] KM: Oh, so you get some traffic.
[0:28:28] BM: Yeah. I mean, we're getting more and more traffic. I started putting out two chalkboard signs, instead of one. There's one on Main Street and Louisiana Street.
[0:28:34] KM: Oh, those sandwich boards? Okay, yeah.
[0:28:35] BM: Yes. Those help, yeah. I mean, I know people probably think I'm crazy for being in there and not being in a higher traffic area, but –
[0:28:42] KM: Rent must be cheap.
[0:28:44] BM: It's affordable. I wouldn't say it's cheap at all, but it's affordable. We do, my customer comes to me, because I have 10 years of email list signups and 10 years of going to art shows and festivals, like Harvest Fest and stuff like that. My customer comes to me. People do walk in off the street. Within the last couple of months with the two or three restaurants that have moved in close to us, our foot traffic has picked up tremendously. It's been nice.
[0:29:07] KM: Really, the main goal of your retail store was to get you out of the house.
[0:29:11] BM: To get me out of the house, and then to have a place. When we first opened, we were only open three days a week. This last December, I decided to open up Wednesday through Saturday, just because we have a need for it. I'm in there working. I go to work Monday through Friday, 7.30-ish to 5-ish. I'm in there working all the time. I get –
[0:29:28] KM: Making jewelry.
[0:29:29] BM: Yeah, making jewelry, working on computer work.
[0:29:30] KM: But the store is not open.
[0:29:32] BM: The store's not open Mondays and Tuesdays, but I get people knocking on. Tuesday, I had a great day, and it wasn't even open. Because I can't turn someone away that's knocking on the doors.
[0:29:40] KM: Well, no.
[0:29:41] BM: Yeah.
[0:29:43] KM: You actually are at the store Monday through Saturday. Now, you wish you were back in your house again?
[0:29:48] BM: No. Sometimes I wish I had an office to go shut myself off in.
[0:29:53] KM: How many employees do you have down there?
[0:29:54] BM: I have two part-time girls and then a freshman in college that's about five hours a week, five or six hours a week.
[0:30:00] KM: You need more space. You need more staff?
[0:30:03] BM: Actually, well, I actually just met a new contract employee that knows how to make jewelry that's really saved my behind this year.
[0:30:11] KM: You give her the design and say, “Make this over and over, repetitively.”
[0:30:14] BM: That's worked out wonderfully for us. No, we're pretty good right now with the amount of help we have.
[0:30:20] KM: I love it. This is such a grassroots way to start. Do it in your home. You do it on your own money. You work part-time jobs. You're exactly what the American dream, what people want to do. You get your independence. When I read your story, I felt like I was reading my story, because I started Arkansas Flag and Banner in my home. Worked part-time jobs for nine years, built my inventory. We are kindred souls.
You decided to go into wholesaling. I have tried this, and I failed. I want to hear all about how you went into wholesaling, how hard it was to get started. First, let's start with why you decided to do it. Then we'll talk about how hard it was to start and how much work it is, because I know it's a lot of work.
[0:31:02] BM: It is a ton of work. I decided to go into wholesale about four years ago, I think. I just felt like I had maxed out on the retail level, because at a time, I was only doing retail shows, such as the farmer's market, or a craft market, or Harvest Fest, types of shows like that.
[0:31:23] KM: Or the War Eagle Festival.
[0:31:25] BM: Or War Eagle. Yeah. Well, I did War Eagle for the first time this year, which was great. Those are what I call – when I say retail shows, that's what I'm referring to, because I'm selling at retail. I felt like I had maxed down on that level of – I mean, you can always make more money, but I needed to find another outlet to make money.
[0:31:42] KM: Revenue income stream.
[0:31:43] BM: Exactly. I thought selling to stores, you know I had a handful of wholesale accounts at the time. I did consignment with a few places, but I wanted to cut all that consignment out and just do wholesale.
[0:31:53] KM: Yeah, because you have to keep up with the money.
[0:31:54] BM: Yeah. It's too much paperwork. Yeah.
[0:31:55] KM: Like, did you sell this? Did you sell that?
[0:31:57] BM: Especially with jewelry. One-of-a-kind jewelry, because see, at the time, all my jewelry was one-of-a-kind. I would sit down and make 20 necklaces at once that were all different, or 20 pairs of earrings. That was really hard, too.
[0:32:06] KM: She’s a hard worker, just like I said.
[0:32:07] BM: That was really hard, too, but it was also something nice about my jewelry. Whenever I switched – I didn't really switch to wholesale, but whenever I started wholesaling, I had to think in quantities. Can I make 100 of those earrings if somebody were to order them? I started having to order my supplies on that system, too. That was a hard thing to learn also. I decided that I wanted to try wholesale. I took an online course with a jewelry designer in Pennsylvania. She did these online, had a wholesale.
[0:32:37] KM: There's an online course –
[0:32:38] BM: There’s an online course for everything now.
[0:32:40] KM: All right.
[0:32:41] BM: I've thought about it, too. Sharing my knowledge. Anyway, so I took her wholesale basics course, or whatever she called it. I signed up for the gift market in January at Dallas Market Center, and drove down there by myself. One of my friends met me there to help me set up, because I was nervous. I'd never done anything like this. I was on 13th floor of the Dallas Trade Center. She came in and we got set up and it was such a learning experience. I didn't even rent lights for my booth, my set up.
I mean, it was a cute set up, but, I mean, if you could see it then and see it now, you would know exactly what I'm talking about. It was a great place to get my feet wet, because Dallas, it was at the time, the most affordable trade show to do. I could drive in and I didn't have to fly and ship my freight, which now I have to do all that. But yeah, I covered all my costs. I made a little money and filled my orders.
[0:33:37] KM: You went to the Dallas Trade Show, which I actually went to school in [inaudible 0:33:41].
[0:33:41] BM: I heard that. Yeah.
[0:33:42] KM: Uh-huh. You went to the temporary –
[0:33:45] BM: The temps. Yeah. In the temps.
[0:33:45] KM: You set up in the temporary, because all those trade shows will have a temporary section for people who want to try it out new. You got your 10 by 10 booth and you set up a eight-foot table and sat there with the table cloth, I guess, on your table and laid out your jewelry?
[0:33:58] BM: Yup. Yeah.
[0:34:00] KM: How many different pieces did you display?
[0:34:02] BM: Oh, at the time I didn't have – oh, I don't know. I mean, my collections are large. I mean, there was probably 50, 60 samples that I was selling off of then. I also, over the last four years, have developed my collections. They're tighter than they've ever been before. They're about to be even tighter, because I'm really excited about some new things that I'm going to work on.
[0:34:22] KM: What's the name of one of your collections?
[0:34:23] BM: One's called Vintage Redo. We have Vintage Redo. We have hand-stamped and then we do the seasonal line that you're talking about, the spring, summer, or the fall, winter. Then we do a delicate collection.
[0:34:35] KM: I think they all look delicate.
[0:34:36] BM: Thanks.
[0:34:38] KM: I like them all.
[0:34:38] BM: Thanks. My favorite is the Vintage Redo. That's the one that I'm about to really develop here in the next few weeks and months. I take old antique buttons from my grandmother's collection and make molds of them and then cast the pendants. I have moods and stars. I have lions. I have birds. I have all these fun little picture –
[0:35:01] KM: What do you cast it with?
[0:35:02] BM: We use bronze and sterling.
[0:35:05] KM: Do they tarnish? I guess, they just tarnish, I mean, just –
[0:35:07] BM: I mean, all metal tarnishes, yeah. You just have to take care of it and polish it.
[0:35:10] KM: You just polish it with a polisher. Wow.
[0:35:15] BM: Back to the Dallas. It was a successful show, but it was most of all a learning experience. Yes, you can do this. You've got this. Go do it. Go bigger. The next summer, I did Atlanta. I actually had a friend flying with me there, too. She was able to do it. She came in. Then after that, I was like, I got this all on myself.
[0:35:34] KM: What did you do different about the Atlanta show?
[0:35:37] BM: I changed my –
[0:35:37] KM: Better booth.
[0:35:38] BM: I changed my booth a little bit. I had more designs. At that point, I started sending out postcards to people before the show, trying to set up people – tried to set up appointments. Nobody really likes to make appointments, which I understand. Because you're at market, you want to go through fast. Just trying to get people to my booth. Yeah.
[0:35:59] KM: Did you make any money in the Dallas show? Or did you just break even no matter how much?
[0:36:02] BM: I did. I made it a little. I mean, I think I made a couple hundred dollars over breaking even.
[0:36:04] KM: It's like a dollar an hour.
[0:36:07] BM: No. It was a great learning experience.
[0:36:09] KM: Yeah. Then the Dallas show, the Atlanta show, which I've also been to, is big like that, too. You had to fly your stuff in.
[0:36:17] BM: I did ship my stuff in. I pack a freight pallet and ship it in. Then I fly in. It's nice, because it’s there waiting on you. You don't have to – Some of my friends that live in the area, they haul it in up all those floors, and –
[0:36:28] KM: Because they'll put it right at your booth and wait for you.
[0:36:30] BM: Yeah. The freight department just drops it off. I come in, unwrap it, set it up.
[0:36:33] KM: With all those additional expenses, did you make any money with it?
[0:36:36] BM: Yeah. Surprisingly enough, the return on that show was pretty good.
[0:36:40] KM: Do you have to change your prices to make money? Were your original prices just cheap?
[0:36:44] BM: No.
[0:36:45] KM: I think all entrepreneurs do that.
[0:36:47] BM: It takes a lot of math and it took a lot of learning. Whenever I first started the business, I was pretty much selling at my wholesale price. I learned that quickly. That was a hard thing to basically, double what I was selling for. I might have been selling earrings for $15, where I should have been selling them for $30.
[0:37:00] KM: You’re talking about in your retail store?
[0:37:02] BM: In the beginning.
[0:37:03] KM: In the beginning of your retail store.
[0:37:03] BM: Like, 10 years ago. In the retail business.
[0:37:05] KM: Everybody does that.
[0:37:05] BM: Yeah. It's very common. I see lots of artists doing it now. Because I'll ask somebody if they wholesale, because I want to pick them up for the store. They will say no, and that's why.
[0:37:13] KM: Because they're already selling wholesale to the public.
[0:37:15] BM: Yeah. Exactly. Luckily, I learned that really soon. My pricing was pretty much set up for wholesale. I had to spend lots of hours putting it into my formula and coming up with the wholesale price. Then I go by perceived value a lot, too. I eyeball things. Once I get a hard number, I eyeball it. I'm like, well, it could go a little up, or it could go a little down.
[0:37:39] KM: That's exactly the way we did it at Arkansas Flag and Banner, ain’t it, Tim?
[0:37:43] TB: Absolutely.
[0:37:43] KM: Tim's the purchasing agent. He wears many, many hats. We did the exact same thing. We have our methodology for pricing. Then we look at it. You get your hard number, and then you look at it, and you think, what's the value of that really and truly? It took me a long time. You've only been in business, doing this for five years and you've already learned that. I think it took me a long time. I can also say this, that for 10 years, I didn't raise my prices. Everything around me went up. I didn't raise the prices at Arkansas Flag and Banner for 10 years. I kept selling more, but not making as much, and I couldn't figure it out. An elder gentleman came in and mentored me, and said, “When’s the last time you raised your prices? You know shipping's gone up. Doilies have gone up.” I was like, “Oh.”
[0:38:23] BM: Well, I had to be really conscious of it, because of the metals market. Sterling and gold fluctuate so much back and forth. We have to be real conscious of all that.
[0:38:31] KM: How do you mold metal?
[0:38:33] BM: Well, I mean, there's a million different ways to do it. Yeah.
[0:38:38] KM: You go to shop down there, can you do it?
[0:38:39] BM: Yeah, I mean, I have this –
[0:38:40] KM: Really?
[0:38:42] BM: I don't want to give away all my secrets. But it's really easy, yeah.
[0:38:46] KM: Okay. While you were gone doing your wholesaling, who's managing the store?
[0:38:50] BM: Syra works – she's our shop manager. She works. I have her schedule to work the shop every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. That way, if I'm going to be away at a show, there's always someone constantly at the shop on the days that we’re open. Then Mickey, my other behind the scenes assistant, she works the shop on Wednesdays.
[0:39:10] KM: You get these orders from these people, and you tell them you're going to deliver when? You got to the wholesale show –
[0:39:14] BM: It depends.
[0:39:15] KM: - you got orders from other retailers and you say, “Okay, I'm going to deliver.” They tell you when they want it delivered. They say, “Deliver at the spring, or deliver at March.” You go back and just start working your little fingers to the bottom?
[0:39:25] BM: Yeah. Most recently, we do Atlanta. Atlanta is in July and January. Then New York is February and August. January and February, I would just tell people, when people were writing orders in Atlanta in January, I could get those done quicker. Then once we get to New York, it's going to be probably middle of March. Yeah, we've just been filling orders since February, the beginning of February.
[0:39:53] KM: Which is your best show, Dallas, Atlanta?
[0:39:56] BM: Honestly, Atlanta's been the strongest.
[0:40:02] KM: I don't like the Atlanta show, I must say.
[0:40:03] BM: You don't? I hear lots of feedback on all the shows from people. I haven't been back to Dallas. I just do Atlanta and New York right now. I might try Dallas again. Dallas is a little bit harder market. I don't know that they appreciate the handmade side of it as much. My price points might be a little higher for that market. I also talk to some friends that do it that have successful shows. I might check it out again.
[0:40:26] KM: Let me see if I've got all your sales channels, little busy woman. You sell on your website. You sell at your retail store. You sell at your gift shows, which is wholesale.
[0:40:36] BM: The trade shows, yes, wholesales.
[0:40:36] KM: Trade shows. Then you also go and – are you still doing little small farmer’s markets?
[0:40:43] BM: No, not the smaller shows. That's just too much now, especially with the shop. I'm not doing as many shows this spring. I have one show lined up and that's the little crash show in Springdale, Missouri, or Springdale, Arkansas in a couple of weeks. Then this fall, we'll get back and do – we'll do War Eagle. We'll do Harvest Fest here. We'll do the Main Street Food Truck Festival.
[0:41:06] KM: Which was your best one? Out of all those [inaudible 0:41:08], which one – it's got to be wholesale.
[0:41:11] BM: Well, honestly, with the store and the retail shows, they are balancing each other out right now.
[0:41:17] KM: The retail shows are what you're calling War Eagle.
[0:41:20] BM: War Eagle. Yeah. There's a show, the little craft –
[0:41:21] KM: Craft shows.
[0:41:22] BM: The little craft show’s a great one. It's an indie artist craft show that they started up in Northwest Arkansas. They're actually coming here for the first time this –
[0:41:29] KM: Really?
[0:41:29] BM: - this December, yeah.
[0:41:32] KM: This is a great place for me to tell everybody that you're listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with Brandy McNair, designer, owner and founder of the retail and wholesale company, Bella Vita Jewelry and Gift Shop. You also do more than that. You have an online publication called Boss Lady. How did that one come about? Why are you spending your time, as busy as you are, on doing that? Because it doesn't sell anything.
[0:41:56] BM: Right, it doesn't sell anything. Probably for the same reason you're doing a radio show.
[0:42:00] KM: I'm telling you. She should be my daughter. Exactly.
[0:42:04] BM: It's just a passion project. I mean, I've meet – That's the other thing about the trade shows and my travels for work. I meet some of the most amazing entrepreneurs and artists and just make some of the best friends and relationships. I don't know. I dreamt of Boss Lady probably two years ago, and it took me a year to get it started, because it took me that long to sit down and answer the questions. I was like, I'm not going to ask these women to answer these questions when I haven't even done it. I finally made myself sit down and answer the questions.
[0:42:36] KM: They were the questions you made up yourself.
[0:42:37] BM: Yeah. The questions that I made up myself. Stuff that I would want to know.
[0:42:38] KM: You’re like, “If I can answer these.”
[0:42:40] BM: Mm-hmm. I probably need to go in and edit them a little bit. Anyway, so I've met all these people. I just wanted to start something that could maybe inspire other young women, or women of any age really, to take that step and do what they're passionate about.
[0:43:00] KM: There's your teacher. Didn’t I tell you, everybody's got to – every successful person is a teacher. It is the weirdest thing. I never knew that about this, about entrepreneurs, until I started this radio show. You just got inspired, you laid in bed, you couldn't quit thinking about talking about supporting other women and that's how it came.
[0:43:18] BM: Yeah, yeah. I want people to know the good and the not so good. I hope that the people that we interview show – there's all sides of business. It's not always, you know –
[0:43:29] KM: I thought you might run out of –
[0:43:30] BM: - easy.
[0:43:31] KM: I was looking at it today before the show and I thought, “Surely, she's going to run out of people.” I just wanted to see if you'd really posted anything. You say you do it twice a month. I wanted to see if you really did, and you did.
[0:43:43] BM: Yeah, we do.
[0:43:44] KM: You do.
[0:43:44] BM: I know.
[0:43:45] KM: I was surprised. You actually really post twice a month. You have a lot of women. I thought, where is she going to find enough women business owners? But you've got a lot of them on there.
[0:43:54] BM: Yeah. We're not just sticking – We do a lot of local by Little Rock and Arkansas women-owned businesses, but we're not – I mean, we'll take submissions from anyone. The only criteria is that you have to sign your own paycheck. You can have partners, but you have to – you can't have a full-time job and this be your side hustle. It has to be your money, it has to be your income maker.
[0:44:16] KM: Can't be your side hustle.
[0:44:17] BM: No side hustles.
[0:44:18] KM: Your side hustle, though, is the main street creative antique mall, where you keep all your stuff.
[0:44:23] BM: South Main Creative, yes.
[0:44:24] KM: Oh, South Main Creative.
[0:44:26] BM: I just moved into a bigger space. I mean, it's like, I think around 80-square-feet now.
[0:44:31] KM: That's pretty big.
[0:44:32] BM: Yeah.
[0:44:32] KM: Where do you find this stuff when you're –
[0:44:36] BM: Well, like I said, my grandparents were in the antique business. I've collected lots of stuff over the years from them.
[0:44:41] KM: You're just cleaning out your garage?
[0:44:42] BM: No, not necessarily. I mean, they have a big antique business up in Harrison still. I go up there and pull stuff and buy stuff from them at a good price and bring it down here to sell. Then I also, just, I go treasure hunting. I go to estate sales, auctions.
[0:44:57] KM: You work seven days a week. You make jewelry at night. You blog on your website and you write Boss Lady. When do you junk take?
[0:45:05] BM: Whenever we go on road trips. I'm going to go home this weekend and visit my grandparents, so I'm sure I'll make a stop at the antique store, pick up a few things.
[0:45:13] KM: I’m thinking about your Boss Lady. I met you because of Boss Lady.
[0:45:18] BM: Yeah.
[0:45:19] KM: Then, I also met you because my – because you were doing the jewelry for my son’s bride, for my new daughter-in-law and doing the jewelry for her wedding party. I also originally first met you, because you contacted me about Boss Lady. It was very flattering that you wanted to do an article about me. If you're going to branch out into others, that's a very creative social way to get people to know about you also.
[0:45:42] BM: Yeah. I guess so.
[0:45:45] KM: I mean, you're going to reach out to people in other states and say, “Hey, I wanted an article about you and this who I am.” All of a sudden, they find out about you, too.
[0:45:52] BM: That's true. Yeah. I mean, I had heard about you through some mutual friends. Then, I think, I got one of your magazines in the mail. I was just really impressed. I wanted to know more. That's why we reached out. Yeah.
[0:46:05] KM: See, the magazine is the same way. There's somebody at my office that loves making that magazine, but it's the same grassroots marketing. We don't make any money on the magazine. It's like your Boss Lady. But it gives you credibility. It gets you in the community. It's an odd way of advertising, though.
[0:46:23] BM: I get so much good feedback from Boss Lady, and that's enough for me. I don't have to sell anything.
[0:46:27] KM: But you do indirectly, probably, and don't even know it.
[0:46:35] KM: Which I gave to somebody. I gave it to my daughter. She coveted it. What's next?
[0:46:42] BM: Oh, goodness. Well, I –
[0:46:44] BM: I know you've got something you're thinking about.
[0:46:45] KM: Yeah. I'm working on new collections for wholesale. Because we'll go back to market in July and August. I had a big epiphany the other day and I'm excited to execute that. That's what I'll be working on for the next few weeks, and fill in the rest of our orders.
[0:47:02] KM: I read somewhere when I was researching you that you wanted to go to Los – you want to start the Las Vegas show.
[0:47:07] BM: Yeah. I would like to do Las Vegas. The trouble with that is the way the dates fall for the shows. The Las Vegas market that I want to do falls at the very same time as the New York market, and I just haven't figured out how to duplicate a wholesale. I've done two retail shows at once, but I haven't figured out how to do two wholesale. Because that entails flying an employee to Vegas, or to New York.
[0:47:29] KM: Make any money.
[0:47:31] BM: Yeah. I mean, those charges are really expensive, too. Yeah.
[0:47:34] KM: Does your husband thinking about coming to join you?
[0:47:37] BM: We've talked about it before.
[0:47:38] KM: My husband came to join me. My husband was a bond daddy. He sold stocks and bonds when he graduated with a finance degree from college. Then he did that for a few years. My business was wearing me down. His boss at the bond house said, “Your wife has a nice little business. Why don't you all build a business together?” We really talked about it and thought about it. Cause his was a family-owned. The bond house was actually a family-owned business, too. We ended up going into business together, and it’s doing fine.
[0:48:13] BM: Really? Yeah. Yeah, we've –
[0:48:17] KM: I did throw my keys at him once on my employees. That's when they said, “You got to get her off that floor with him. He's got to move to another floor.”
[0:48:24] BM: That's hilarious. No, we've talked about it. He'd be a great HR department.
[0:48:29] KM: What's his specialty?
[0:48:31] BM: He's works for state parks and tourism. He's a grants analyst for them. Then he teaches geography online for Euler, but communication is his specialty. He's a good writer. He's a good talker. He's a good people pleaser.
[0:48:45] KM: Did you hear I got a Dreamland Ballroom and got a grant?
[0:48:47] BM: Yes, I did. Yeah. Congrats. That's awesome. You know I love Dreamland.
[0:48:50] KM: I know.
[0:48:50] BM: We did a photo shoot there once.
[0:48:52] KM: Oh, that's right. I forgot about that, too.
[0:48:54] BM: I love it in there.
[0:48:56] KM: It's a gem. It is really a jewel and the crown of Little Rock, Arkansas.
[0:49:00] BM: Yeah, it's beautiful.
[0:49:01] KM: It's beautiful. People come from all over the country to come and see it. For us to be recognized by the National Park Service is a gift. I mean, it's one of those things for all the listeners out there, you just keep trying and all the naysayers tell you that it'll never happen. You just keep trying, because you know in your heart, it's the right thing to do. I have to tell you, sometimes I thought, “What am I doing, spending all this time doing that?” Do you do that about anything that you're working on? You think, “Why am I spending all this time at this?”
[0:49:33] BM: Oh, gosh. Probably.
[0:49:34] KM: Every night. Probably every day. Yeah, we're really thrilled to get that grant. We're excited about it. It's going to be a slow process. Your husband being a grant writer, you'll have to tell him about it. I might have to ask for him some of his advice. I heard it's complicated.
[0:49:50] BM: You should meet him.
[0:49:51] KM: I'd love to. Was he at the wedding?
[0:49:54] BM: He did come to the wedding. Yes. Yeah.
[0:49:55] KM: Did I meet him and don't remember?
[0:49:56] BM: Actually, I think you poured some champagne in his glass at one point.
[0:50:00] KM: Oh, I remember that.
[0:50:01] BM: I pointed you out, and I never got a chance to come say hi and introduce you.
[0:50:04] KM: That was when those gentlemen were singing the champagne song. What champagne song was that? Go ahead and sing it, Brandy.
[0:50:09] BM: I don't know.
[0:50:10] KM: It was something about, pour me more champagne, pour me more champagne.
[0:50:13] BM: I don't know. It was just a really good time.
[0:50:15] KM: Gosh, it was. It was so much fun. All right. You volunteer.
[0:50:22] BM: Yeah, yeah. That's a big passion project that takes a lot of my time lately. First second Friday, art night, which happens the second Friday of every month in Downtown Little Rock. It's free to attend. My shop participates and there’s other – about nine or 10 other participants that stay up and late and have wonderful programs, or opening shows.
[0:50:43] KM: Did they do something in the Lafayette building on art night to bring people down there?
[0:50:46] BM: Just my shop.
[0:50:48] KM: Just you.
[0:50:48] BM: Just my shop is open, yeah.
[0:50:49] KM: Because you're a little bit off the beaten path.
[0:50:50] BM: We do really fun stuff. For April, next Friday is second Friday. We have three guest pop-up shops, basically. One is the Dandelion Kitchen, which is a local lunch delivery service.
[0:51:02] KM: Are they going to be in the lobby of the Lafayette?
[0:51:03] BM: They're going to be right out in front of my shop. Then one of them will probably be in the shop at the back table. We clear out some –
[0:51:08] KM: There’s more room in your shop.
[0:51:09] BM: It's very cozy and fun. It's really fun. We have wine and stuff. Then we have the pop-up people. Yeah, it's a good time.
[0:51:17] KM: You're just one block off of the Friday night Art Walk. Is it mostly on Main Street, would you say?
[0:51:22] BM: No, no, no. No, no. Art Walk is all over downtown. It's historic Arkansas Museum, Old State House Museum, the Butler Center Galleries, Matt McLeod, he's my neighbor. Gallery 221. We're spread out. That's why there's this group of us volunteering our time to work together to make it more connected and encourage people to walk, or take our free trolley.
[0:51:40] BM: When is that? Friday night.
[0:51:42] BM: It's Friday. Second Friday nights, 5 to 8.
[0:51:44] KM: Is that this coming Friday night? No. Yes.
[0:51:47] BM: Not today. Today's Friday night.
[0:51:48] KM: Two weeks. Two weeks from today.
[0:51:50] BM: No. It's next week. Next Friday.
[0:51:52] KM: I thought you said it’s the second Friday.
[0:51:53] BM: Oh, my bad. It is. Yeah. Sorry.
[0:51:54] KM: Okay. Two Fridays from today. I'm going to come down there.
[0:52:00] BM: Oh, you should. Yeah.
[0:52:00] KM: I am absolutely coming down there –
[0:52:02] BM: Come check it out.
[0:52:02] KM: - to the second Friday art walk in Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, and support that cause. We're running out of time. You're really, really interesting. I really enjoyed talking to you.
[0:52:14] BM: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[0:52:16] KM: You're so welcome. Thank you so much for coming on. We didn't get to talk about her gardening. She's a big gardener.
[0:52:20] BM: Oh, yes, yes.
[0:52:21] KM: That's how she relaxes. Y'all believe, she even ever relaxes? She relaxes by working in her garden.
[0:52:28] BM: It's therapeutic.
[0:52:29] KM: No, it's not. It ruins your nails.
[0:52:31] BM: I mean, I enjoy making it ruin your nails.
[0:52:32] KM: Gives you a backache and make sunspots on your face. Yeah, it's real therapeutic. If you're lucky, you grow something beautiful, instead of weeds is what I always grow. Here's your present. Thank you for coming on. It's a T-shirt from Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. It's a red T-shirt. It looks like it'll fit you and it says, “Up yours. Up your business.”
[0:52:55] BM: Thank you.
[0:52:56] KM: You're so welcome. I've really enjoyed talking to you. I’ll see you in two weeks. How do people get in touch with you?
[0:53:03] BM: They can come find us at 523 South Louisiana Street in the Lafayette Building, or online, it's bellavitajewelry.net.
[0:53:11] KM: No .com.
[0:53:12] BM: No .com. It wasn't available back then.
[0:53:14] KM: .net. Bella, B-E-L-L-A-vitajewelry.net. You can log on to flagganbanger.com. We'll have this podcast up next week. We'll have all the things that she talked about. We'll have all the links there. There'll be a contact information for Brandy, if you want to ask her, if you're somebody who's dying to get into business and inspired by her story. We'll have a connection there so that you can talk to her. Who’s our guest next week, Tim, do you know?
[0:53:41] TB: Next week is going to be Judge Vic Fleming.
[0:53:44] KM: Y'all know this guy?
[0:53:47] TB: I'm not familiar.
[0:53:48] KM: He's an Arkansas judge. But you know what his claim to fame is? He was in the movie Wordplay, and he sang a song and played the guitar. Judge Vic Fleming writes crossword puzzles for the New York Times.
[0:54:05] BM: Oh, wow.
[0:54:07] KM: He's right here in Little Rock. He is so interesting. He and Bill Clinton wrote a puzzle, a crossword puzzle, I think, for the New York Times together. He's a really interesting guy. They did this documentary, all these nerds get together that like crossword puzzles and all kinds of games and puzzles and they have a convention and they get together. Liz is grinning over there, because she and I are both crossword puzzle nerds. I could tell that about her, before I ever even knew she was, because she uses crossword puzzles when she talks, words when she talks. She says things like, “Oh, ilk.” I okay, that's a crossword puzzle. I said, “You're a crossword puzzle worker.” She said, “Oh, yes.” Those people have all the same ilk. I said, “Oh, nobody says that, unless they work crossword puzzles.” She says, “Tome for book, nobody says that, unless they work a crossword puzzle.”
Anyway, there's a place where nerds that like crossword puzzles go and get together and have conventions and play games together, and he was at that convention. Somebody on HBO, or Netflix was doing a documentary and was there and they – and he stood up and played a guitar song, and it's in the movie Wordplay, if anybody wants to see it. He'll be our guest next week. Anything else, Tim, that I'm missing?
[0:55:26] TB: Oh, no. I believe that will be it.
[0:55:28] KM: Okay. If you have a great entrepreneurial story that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you. Send a brief bio or your contact info to –
[0:55:37] TB: Questions@upyourbusiness.org.
[0:55:39] KM: Finally, to our listeners, thank you for spending time with me. If you think this program's been about you, you're right, but it's also been for me. Thank you for letting me and Brandy fulfill our destiny. My hope today is that you've heard or learned something that's been inspiring or enlightening, and that it, whatever it is will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. I'm Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on Up in Your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:56:12] TB: You've been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you'd like to hear this program again next week, a podcast will be made available online with links to resources you heard discussed on today's show. Kerry's goal, to help you live the American dream.
