I’m very excited to be sharing the first episode of the spring season of Keeping Shop with you! Today I’m speaking with Stephanie Campbell of Blue Willow Boutique in Maryville, Missouri. When we connected, I knew nothing about Stephanie or her shop so I got to discover her story right along with my listeners. Stephanie tells us all about why she started her shop; it has to do with a big move for love, a community forced to find gifts at Walmart and the desire for real, honest community creation.

Stephanie shares her tips for creating a trusting work environment and building a staff that will go to bat for you over and over again. She shares the way she makes sure she pays her bills, pays herself and makes sure she’s profitable so that she can do things like open a second store, which she just did a few months ago.

A big thought-provoker that I took from this episode is the concept of giving clients what they want even when your concept would point you in another direction. Stephanie experienced this, and Meredith and I did too. For both of our businesses (and I’m sure so many others) within the first month our customers let us know, (loudly) what they wanted to see on our shelves. And we had a decision to make; would we continue stocking for the business that we envisioned, OR would we move in the direction our clients wanted us to take. For both of our shops, this switch up was successful, (Stephanie even says that it saved her business!) but there’s such emotional component of scrapping elements of your concept and starting to move in another direction. Stephanie shares what helped her through this decision and how it not only benefitted her shop financially but also served to build the type of community she longed for. There is so much value in this episode and I’m so excited to kick off this round of Keeping Shop with my chat with Stephanie. Enjoy.