Kerry’s story, from @flynnhomestore
Dear Fellow Students,
From the bottom of my heart, I couldn’t be more excited for you to be taking these first steps down a beautiful path full of pinch-me moments, exciting new opportunities & growth in yourself and in your businesses.
I found that it was from the moment I ‘walked’ out of class & put the books down that the true magic of the journey began for me.
While it may feel overwhelming right now to imagine yourself contacting influencers, sharing your story with the world without Sarah by your side, remember that Sarah & this community is holding every ounce of space for you no matter what. That’s the thing about this school and its community, you have a whole village of incredibly supportive & like-minded people cheering you on because we’ve all been there too and we know the magic of what’s to come.
Sarah asked me to share my journey with you & I am so happy she did because when I got to take a step back and look at what we have accomplished in the past year, I realised just how much has changed for the better – thanks to Sarah’s gentle guidance and the incredible learnings that came from Sarah’s school.
Flynn Home came from one of those fork-in-the-road moments where my husband had recently taken a leap of faith into woodworking and we had just had our second child.
We opened our online shop mid-2019 selling our wood boards & stands as well as my curations of heritage and vintage pieces – a fusion of the things we loved to make & source. From the beginning, our biggest focus was purely on the practicalities like the product and the sales, but I can see now there were some big pieces of the puzzle that we were missing.
In those early days, our business was buoyed by our friends and family as we got on our feet and tried and tested new products and collections. We still needed our other trade and freelance work to support us, but we were so incredibly happy and motivated to be building something of our own.
However, the months rolled on into 2020 and our sales weren’t improving and I was beginning to get a little disheartened. It was around this time that we tragically lost my little sister and my world was turned upside down.
Like other tough times I have experienced in my life, I decided that sinking myself into a learning environment was my only way through it all. As serendipity would have it, I filled that last seat in one of Sarah’s classes. I looked forward to the classroom more than anything and nestled into the workbook whenever I could. It was like being in a wonderland of new ways of doing things and with just enough structure to stay on track but not too much so my creative ideas and daydreaming could still flow.
The most poignant moment for me in the class was when Sarah got us to put to paper the daydream that plays in our minds, asking us what it looked, smelt, heard and felt like. This is when I began to understand how things are truly sold to us and I’ve realised that without this deeper understanding of the components of our story we would remain in a state of relative superficiality in our businesses. Even my marketing degree failed to teach me that!
It’s been almost a year since completing my course and I can see now it was a state of mind that was taught to us, I see every aspect of my business now through this lens.
Since finishing this workshop our shop has thrived. Our monthly sales have doubled since the same time last year!
We now have solid backend processes in place and we refer to the decision-making formula, which you will find in the final lesson in this class, to regularly to help us answer those daily questions that pop up from new challenges and opportunities. Along with increased store traffic and sales, we have had to look at new ways of sourcing to increase our heritage ranges & have introduced batch-working in the wood shop which has helped us manage demand.
A big milestone for us happened more recently, as we have expanded our product range to include other Australian maker-made pieces. With the new traction in the shop it has allowed us to diversify our range which we knew we had to do to remain a sustainable business. When we are researching possible new products for the shop we constantly refer to our story and whether or not it makes sense or not for our audience.
Another creative milestone for me has been finally starting the Flynn Home Journal. This has been a dream of mine for a long time; to share conversations with people who are also living their own creative life and what that looks like for them. As I write this I am preparing interview questions for interior stylist Lynda Gardener and Sarah herself was on the journal last week! These are the pinch-me moments that I could not have imagined a year ago.
For our business, none of this would’ve been possible without Instagram. The community-building, reach and direct access we’ve had with our audience has been an incredibly important marketing tool for our business. Running an online business, I have found the direct messaging aspect of Instagram to be the best & most popular place for customers to ask their questions & have a chat with people, just as you would in real life.
One of the biggest learnings from this school for me was that my story didn’t have to include me all the time and that it didn’t need to be deeply personal to be authentic and successful. My heart is already on my sleeve every day in running my own business so I didn’t need another place where I had to be vulnerable every day, and that’s where I have found the storytelling element of Sarah’s work invaluable. The story has provided me armour when I’ve needed it and allowed me to always have something to post or share without feeling I needed to share too much of myself.
While I am still freelancing for a few clients, I am glad we kept this diversity in our work especially during the uncertain times during Covid as it threw additional challenges at us with regards to sourcing and wood supply amongst other things.
But as we look into the future I am excited to see the shop continue to grow organically as we refine our business processes, participate in & support our amazing community and continue to live creatively.
When we opened Flynn Home I knew nothing about telling a story, taking a photo or how to grow my business. I learned every aspect along the way with a whole lot of hard work, persistence and mentorship from Sarah.
And what’s next for Flynn Home? Continuing to collaborate with Australian makers & artists on new products for our community, hosting more conversations with people living their version of a creative life and we can now see a realistic view to moving Flynn Home out of the home studio and into the real world in a year or so which will be a dream come true.
If I could bottle up what I believe has impacted me the most & what I would love to share with you, it’s this:
Participate in Sarah’s online community by using the community hashtags and following and interacting with other like-minded students. It is full of supportive, business-minded, interesting and creative people just like you. This community that you’re now a part of will give you back as much as you put in. I’ve been the recipient of invaluable feedback, incredible support, so much kindness and positivity and more recently invitations to real life catch-ups with amazing students who I now get to call my friends. What a gift!
Trust that good things take time. Things will ebb and flow over time and taking the advice and really sitting in the advice takes patience and persistence. It took a solid 6 months to see the effects of Sarah’s teachings and to really get our audience. Your story deepens and becomes even clearer over time too, it turns out I was only just skimming the top of my story when I finished the class. The beauty is in the next year ahead for you.
If you want your business to grow, follow Sarah’s marketing advice on influencers. Influencers are just people with influence, in real life most of us have influence in some way or another on our families and our communities. Be thoughtful in your communication and be a true follower of their work before you reach out, it will give you more time to craft something genuine to talk to them about when you do decide to reach out. Being associated with people we admire has impacted our business in so many positive ways.
A last little note from me … your love for what you are doing is the most interesting part of your story. Wishing you every success and I can’t wait to watch your story unfold.
With love,
Kerry xx @flynnhomestore