Star Lee Magazine

When custom bag designer Melissa Lewis was told that she was going about her marketing all wrong, she stopped and thought about it. And didn’t change a thing. Without apology, Melissa followed her instincts and, exclusively using social media with her own unique “rules,” has quadrupled her sales in the last nine months, increased her brand visibility and built a loyal community of customers, fans and friends.Melissa’s life as a mompreneur began when both of her children entered school full time in 2008. She wanted to bring in extra income working from home and remain available for her family, especially her daughter Satori.

“Because my daughter has a profound physical disability and misses an average of 40 days of school a year, I have to have a very flexible schedule,” said Melissa.

Satori (Tori) was diagnosed early in life with spinal muscular atrophy, and depends on a wheelchair for her mobility. Melissa’s business inspiration sprang from her daughter’s disability, specifically her need to use a wheelchair, as Melissa looked for a way to style-up Tori’s chair.

“I made Tori, who was 9 at the time, a bag for the side of her wheelchair,” she recalled. “We had looked for one but couldn’t find anything remotely ‘cool.’ The bag had pink skulls and fake pink fur trim.

“I got so many comments about how great the bag was and ‘Where did we get it?’ that I thought I would give it a go selling them as purses,” she said. I turned to something I loved and was good at, opened a shop called Haut Totes on Etsy.com, and it’s been a roller-coaster ride ever since.”

THE FIRST YEAR
From the beginning, Melissa knew that she needed to choose a path that involved something she loved. She said that because she couldn’t make money with her first love, napping, she decided to turn to sewing the bags that she had received so many compliments on.

“I knew that the only way to make a business work for me was to have a business that I love, because who has the willpower to devote so much time and effort to doing some-thing you don’t like?” said Melissa, who averages six to 10 hours of work a day on her custom bags, seven days a week.

While she did have the support of family and friends, there were some who tried to dissuade her from what they considered a risky venture. “I was told I was crazy to try to start a business out of my sewing room, especially in this down economy,” Melissa said.

Melissa persevered, however, and started Haut Totes from her small sewing room in her family’s house in Dayton, Nev. Haut Tote bags are custom-made with looks derived from the unique fabrics Melissa uses, ranging from pink skulls and zebra stripes to vintage pin-up girls and Japanese anime.

“The first piece of advice I’d give any entrepreneur just starting out is, “Believe in yourself and your product! I wasted a lot of time obsessing over when and if those first bags would sell and questioning the viability of my product,” Melissa shared.

Melissa spends long hours custom-making each bag from orders taken through her Etsy shop, an online site helping crafters of all types to “Buy, Sell and Live Handmade.” Her room has an entire wall dedicated to her fabrics, almost 3,000 yards worth, and from which she finds her inspiration.

ZERO-BUDGET MARKETING

Melissa realized that for many customers, buying handmade is as much about the artisan as the item. “People who buy handmade like the idea of the human hands that created their item,” she said. “They want to know about you, they want to know what makes you create.”

She knew that although she was selling a niche product, she still had to compete with larger, more established suppliers both domestic and foreign. She realized, though, the value of promoting what makes her unique.

“Never forget, buyers are incredibly loyal to brands or artists they feel a connection with,” Melissa said.

But with no money for a marketing budget, where was a girl to turn? Melissa was soon introduced to the emerging world of social networking. Initially skeptical, Melissa found that she had a knack for connecting with people and realized successful growth by, ironically, breaking the rules she was given.

“I was told not to mix my personal life with business when using social media,” said Melissa. “I was told that people don’t want to know all that about me … and that’s total crap!”

Melissa knew that to build her business, she needed to really connect with her customers and followers on Twitter. “You aren’t going to get very far if you just talk about your product and post links all day.”

Melissa started building her audience on Twitter by running contests to win her product.

“At first I said the 150th re-tweet would win a new bag,” Melissa laughed. “I got those 150 re-tweets within two hours! I thought, holy cow, there is major potential here!”

Giveaways have been a successful promotional tool Melissa has used on Twitter. “I recently offered a bag from my shop to the 750th re-tweeter of my promo, which linked to the bag in the Etsy shop. Within two days I had over 5,000 hits to my shop from Twitter and 400 new Twitter followers.

“A giveaway isn’t much good if you can’t translate it into sales, so I announced the winner on my blog, which then advertised a sale for my Twitter followers that resulted in tons of sales.

“(Twitter) takes time and energy and not everyone has the personality for it,” said Melissa. With entrepreneurial multitasking spirit, she set up her computer in her sewing room to make going online throughout the day more convenient. “I tweet during tea breaks, thread changes, etc.,” said Melissa. “I can easily get my thoughts out there; all I have to do is rotate my chair.”

Melissa only talks about her business once or twice a day via her Twitter account. The rest of the time is spent sharing thoughts about herself and her life. “I tweeted about a stray dog and my attempts to locate his home. I posted pictures and talked about falling in love with him. Now, whenever [my followers] see a pug they’re going to think of me – and my bags.

“When I tweeted that my 6-year old daughter, Sydney, had forged my name on her reading log for school or when I overheard her asking her dad if you could fill a bathtub with spit (“depends on how many people are helping” was his answer), I got tons of people telling me about the fi rst time they forged their parent’s signature or other funny kid stories,” Melissa laughed.

“My first full month of sales, in October 2008, I sold 28 bags,” shared Melissa as she reflected on life before her social media endeavors. A little over a year later, in February of this year, Haut Taut’s sales quadrupled to 131, and the numbers are climbing.

Realizing her success with Twitter, Melissa next created a Facebook fan page, following her same rule of mixing persona with business.

“Again, I don’t just post photos of my stuff . I try to make it very interactive and fun, I post questions about which fabrics and colors people like best, pics of my pets,” she said. “I show pictures of new materials. This gives people the opportunity to see it first and even leads to sales of items that haven’t even been made yet.”

“I also post photos of my prototypes and ask for opinions; it’s a great way to get feedback from my customers without lots of time or money. Plus people love to feel that they are playing a part in the evolution of a line,” Melissa said, sharing that often these feedback interactions end up with even more orders for the products under discussion.

THE POWER OF AUTHENTIC CONNECTIONS

As a testament to Melissa’s ability to connect authentically with her followers in social media, she and her family realized an amazing outpouring of support from around the world in response to an idea she had. Closing her Etsy shop for the month of March and a small part of April, Melissa devoted her time to her daughter, Tori, now 10, as they traveled to UC Davis Medical Center for spinal fusion surgery.

With an idea to help boost Tori’s spirits and turn a scary situation into a positive one, Melissa started a social media campaign called “Postcards for Tori,” in which she asked followers to send postcards to her daughter at the UC Davis hospital. The response was instant and overwhelming. Melissa’s request was repeated around the world, her tweets even gaining the notice of celebrities such as Demi Moore and Jimmy Fallon, who seconded the request via their personal Twitter accounts.

As of mid-April, Tori received nearly 2,000 postcards, cards and letters from around the world, and the postman brings more each day.

GROWING PAINS
Back at home now from their hospital stay, Melissa reopened her Haut Totes shop on Etsy and the bag orders are rolling in. Grateful for her success thus far in her venture, she realizes that she is now at a critical juncture with Haut Totes and is debating what her next moves will be.

“I’m at the point now where I do get overwhelmed,” confessed Melissa, who recently has had to turn down a few custom orders and even close shop for short periods in order to devote time to her family or just to catch up.

“I spent so much time wondering what I would do if this didn’t work out I was completely unprepared for the sales that started to come in,” she said. “I’ve grown my business as much as I’m able to right now on my own.

“I’m at a point where I need to make a decision about getting help,” she said, noting that areas of her personal life are beginning to feel the strain. “I don’t cook as many great meals as I used to,” she said, noting that her husband, Jeremy, has transitioned from occasionally running to the store for a gallon of milk to doing the full shopping and a lot of the cooking for the family.

“It’s a tough balancing act,” Melissa said. “I’ve been really lucky in that I married a great guy who has been super supportive of my shop. We had a big family meeting awhile ago with my kids where we talked about the pros and cons of my business growing so much, and they all were a part of our decision to keep moving forward.”

Melissa is still working with ideas of hiring out piece-work for her bags, such as attaching handles, without losing what makes her business unique – custom bags from a unique woman who steadfastly is following her heart.

BY DAWN MENA

Tags: Business, Custom Bags, Dawn Mena, Designer, Entrepreneur, Haut Totes, marketing, Melissa Lewis, spinal muscular atrophy, star-ptreneur

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Star-Preneurs, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.