130 | Balancing a Brick & Mortar Shop and Wholesale Line with Meg Sutton of Belle & Union

Are you ready for round two? Because we are! This is the second of two special episodes this week, featuring Paper Camp alumni who are taking us behind the scenes of what it's like to run a manufacturing business and brick and mortar retail shop simultaneously. Yesterday, on Episode 129 we heard from the Los-Angeles based, Katie Wilson. Now today, on Episode 130, I'm sitting down with Meg Sutton, the founder of Belle & Union, based in San Antonio Texas.

Meg first shared her startup story back on Episode 7. If you're curious about how Meg launched Belle & Union and the motivation behind her products, definitely head back to give that episode a listen. Today we're diving even deeper into Meg's business journey. We're sitting down to talk about how Meg decided to open her brick & mortar shop, how she layered that into her existing business model, and how she keeps perspective through it all.

ON TODAY'S EPISODE:

- How Meg balances time between wholesale and her shop

- The importance of great employees

- What Meg does to carve out time for creativity

- Some misconceptions about stocking for retail vs wholesale

- How Belle & Union has evolved over the years

- What Meg wishes she knew before opening her shop

- Choosing your location wisely

- Advice on how to deal with the unexpected

- How diversifying revenue streams has impacted neighborhood visibility

- What's up next for Meg and Belle & Union

KEY TAKE-AWAYS:

"I need to be better about saying, "Okay, Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:00 to 1:00, that's my creative time. But as any creative knows, you can't really force it." – Meg Sutton

"I'm not a great people manager. I can be a leader. But when it trickles down, like I kind of need somebody else to handle that." – Meg Sutton

"Having a good support system truly helps, especially as you start to scale your business. You can't do it all. You shouldn't be doing it all." – Katie Hunt

"I will be the first to admit I have not been the best about figuring out that balance with my time to the point that I know our product line has suffered because of it." – Meg Sutton

"There are things we're not good at. There are things that drain us. There's things that just we shouldn't have our hands on, or we don't need to have our hands on." – Katie Hunt

"No matter what your business is. Wholesale, retail, pantomiming on the sidewalk, whatever it is, know your numbers." - Meg Sutton

"It's totally appropriate to keep something in the retail space, even if you're not selling it in the wholesale space. I think that's another misconception." – Katie Hunt

"As hard as this last year has been in retail, I don't regret it. I love having the store." - Meg Sutton

"I love the community that we've built, and I want to be able to expand on that even more." – Meg Sutton

LINKS

KENDRA SCOTT HOW I BUILT THIS

WEBSITE: Belle and Union Co.

FACEBOOK: @belleandunionco

INSTAGRAM: @belleandunionco

TWITTER: @belleandunionco

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ABOUT PROOF TO PRODUCT:

Proof to Product is hosted by Katie Hunt. Since 2011, Proof to Product has worked with thousands of product based businesses to help them up level, scale, and build profitable sustainable companies. You can find our show notes and additional resources at ProofToProduct.com. If you like what you heard today, please head over to Apple Podcast to leave a five star review and subscribe. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a new episode!