Turning a Local Art Store into a Thriving Online Community with Beth Bluestein

Lyric Kinard (00:01.218) Hello friends, we are so glad that you're back with us. I am here today with Beth Bluestein, We met at NAMTA, which is the National Art Materials Trade Association. It takes me forever to remember that name every time. Right? But. Beth Bluestein (00:24.095) No, it's quite an acronym. Lyric Kinard (00:29.3) It was so fascinating to hear your story. And I loved walking around, just watching you talk to the distributors and manufacturers of different art supplies, because I geek out about art supplies too, but I geek out even more about the how the stuff works behind the scenes. So listening to you talk about how it would fit in your physical shop, in your business was really fascinating. And I'm just going to ask you to tell us who you are and what you do right now, and then we'll get a little bit into your backstory. Beth Bluestein (01:06.581) Well Lyric, thank you so much for having me here today. I am thrilled to be on your show and honored to speak with you. Yeah, so you already touched on it a little bit. I am a business owner. I own a retail art supply store in Middlebury, Vermont. I'm also an artist myself. Yeah, it's an art supply store with paints, drawing materials, sketchbooks, canvas. We actually just introduced a fiber art section or really expanded our fiber art section beyond little embroidery kits. Now we have a little bit of yarn, some knitting kits, punch needle. Anyway, so I know a lot of your listeners are fiber artists, so I thought I'd plug that. And I know people can geek out about that. Yeah, what else, Lyric? Lyric Kinard (01:49.613) Yay! Lyric Kinard (01:54.873) So how did you end up, first of all, tell us how old you are and tell us how you ended up having a brick and mortar shop where you do. Beth Bluestein (02:06.209) Oh my goodness. Well, I'm 34 and oh my gosh. Oh, that is so funny. Yeah. And how I ended up here, you know, my husband and I, we were living together at the time back in New York City. Back, I lived there for about almost eight years. Then we came up on COVID and my husband's job went Lyric Kinard (02:09.59) and you look 15 by the way, just for all those listeners. Beth Bluestein (02:35.233) remote because of it and I was unemployed because of it. And I think for a lot of people during that time, like a lot of people during that time, we reassessed what was important to us, what were our priorities, where did we wanna be, what did we wanna be doing? And ultimately we decided we wanted to move out of New York, which was a crazy concept because I thought I was gonna live there forever. And we ended up buying a house up in Vermont and... Yeah, you know, because I was unemployed during that time, it really gave me an opportunity to get back into my art and my own creativity. And I worked at a local school, an art school part time for a little bit. I exhibited in a gallery for a little bit right when we moved here. And then, yeah, I was trying to figure out what my next thing was going to be. And then I heard that our town that we just moved to was hosting a business competition for new and expanding business ideas. there was, the prize was grant funding to start your own business. And what I realized was, you know, when I was unpacking boxes, when we moved into our new home, I was like, look, I pulled up my phone, I was like, where's the art store in town? And there wasn't an art store within an hour of here. So I was like, hmm, that's very interesting. And I just heard about this business competition. So I was like. All right, well that's a very interesting idea. I mean, I know just in the short amount of time I've been here that there are a lot of creatives in this area and this feels kind of weird that there's not an art store. So I threw my idea in the ring and then yeah, went through several rounds of this competition, putting together a business plan, pitching the business. And anyway, I was awarded this grant funding to start the business. So that's ultimately how I landed. opening this store, I definitely would not have opened a store in this way at that time without that funding. So it really made that possible and both financially and just that the town believed in the idea that I had thrown out there. anyway, wow, I felt like that was maybe a little bit of long-winded way to get around to it. But yeah, that's how I opened my store. Lyric Kinard (04:49.718) I find it fascinating and I've seen pictures your shop is named. Beth Bluestein (04:54.143) Sparrow Arts Supply. Lyric Kinard (04:56.318) And it's tiny. It is really tiny, right? How many square feet do you have? Beth Bluestein (05:03.041) It's 750 square feet. Lyric Kinard (05:05.586) so, you know, just really small for an art supply store. You know, if you're so lucky to live near a good art supply store, we have Jerry's Art-O-Rama and it's huge and has everything and just, could get lost for hours wanting to try and do and make all the things, all the different ways. Beth Bluestein (05:11.85) Yes. Lyric Kinard (05:33.091) So one of the things you have to manage is how do you keep enough inventory and supplies for people in such a tiny space? It was fun to listen to you think, well, I can't just think about this supply that my people would enjoy. I have to think about a display and how will it actually fit in the space I have? So making that all work was just, love watching business minds work. I love watching how businesses function together. Tell me a little bit because you don't just sit there in your store and wait for people to come in and buy art supplies, which I think you're still around, right? So they do. Yeah, they do come in and buy art supplies, but you've done more than that, which is why small businesses and which is why creatives. Beth Bluestein (06:21.395) Yep. Lyric Kinard (06:31.766) I think especially make excellent business people. So tell me what you've created around this physical space. Beth Bluestein (06:39.915) Sure. Yeah, the physical space, as you mentioned, it is a small store, but I really curate the products that we have in there based on what customers have expressed that they specifically want, things that they have expressed that they're interested in doing, and then also providing things that maybe they don't even know about that I've come across that I think that I'm like, well, I want to use that. So I think someone else might. So that's part of it is creating a really curated spread of product. But then, yeah, it is about creating a community within the store. It's creating a place that people wanna come to that they feel comfortable enough to come shop in person in regards to their creativity. Because being creative and being an artist can be very vulnerable. I constantly, I try to express to my customers, Yeah, being an artist, have to be really brave to come in here and decide you want to make something. So we have to make that very comfortable environment for people to come into. And then on top of that, you know, we we're not Amazon. We, you know, we can't sell products for for cheap. We can't sell them, you know, you know, rock bottom prices. We're not doing flash fire sales. So we have to provide value in another way for people to understand the value. of the product that they're buying. So we also have to bring in expertise to the customer about the product, about a process, giving suggestions on their project that they have coming up. So that's another part of it is being a resource and an expert in the arts in our community. That's a big reason why people come in. What's that? Lyric Kinard (08:25.975) And how do you deliver it? How do you deliver that knowledge and that expertise? It's not just you or an employee in the store talking about it, right? Beth Bluestein (08:37.345) A lot of it is. A lot of it is. So people come in and they come straight to the desk and they say, I have this project I'm working on. And then they say what the project is and how can I make this happen? So, you know, I draw on my experience as an artist and my experience as a set designer doing kind of all sorts of unconventional projects. You know, and same with my employees. They're all creative themselves. And so you really have to have a passion to be there and share. Lyric Kinard (08:39.363) Yeah, but there's more. Lyric Kinard (08:52.975) Mm-hmm. Beth Bluestein (09:06.305) what you have done in the past that might help someone else in the future. I think, I don't know, I think I answered your question. Lyric Kinard (09:14.157) Yeah, what I'm actually digging for is what I find really fascinating is you run events for local people in person. I was looking at plein air painting things. And the reason why I want you here talking to our lovely community is because even though you are so grounded in a physical place, you've added something online to support that. And it just fascinates me how the two can work together. Because usually we think online and we think, that means shipping all over the world. And that means gathering in people from so many different varied places, which it can do and is beautiful and expands businesses beautifully. the way you've done it is really interesting. Why don't you explain to me what you have? online that supports and strengthens your community. Beth Bluestein (10:16.993) Absolutely, yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. working in my store, I was constantly hearing from customers, because we're always listening to our customers in all sorts of ways. Who do I ask about this? Where do I go for this? Do you know of anyone else who does this kind of a thing? Also expressing that they're kind of lonely. Making art is a very solitary activity. Yes, you ultimately have to do the art yourself, but it can be really lonely, especially once you graduate from school, you're not surrounded by peers who are doing the same thing every day. So anyway, I was hearing that and I was like, you know what? We need to make a group, some way for people to meet up and share, commiserate, show each other work, maybe get critique. you know, how can we do this? And so yes, that's how I launched, it's called Sparrow Artist Collective. So it's a membership that, you know, it's a monthly membership subscription. There's two different types of membership. we have a virtual membership, which is all online, and then we have an in-person membership, which is all the online stuff and some. So we do in-person meetups. discounts at our store, other local discounts within our community. yeah, it's honestly been really, really lovely. So it's been a really nice component to add to our retail experience. Yeah, we started it, I guess we now have, we've had it going for two years and we've had some really core members for that entire time, which is pretty cool. And yeah, you know, so the... The in-person part of it, definitely because we have an in-person brick and mortar, it made sense. Definitely it was, okay, well, we have this store. Why don't we push themselves out of the way? We'll set up some tables and have people come meet in person to chat, to hang out, to do critique, to, yeah, just as I said earlier, just commiserate as being an artist. And then the online portion, that came into play. Beth Bluestein (12:34.225) simultaneously all this came together at the same time, the online portion was really about communication with our group. What was going to be a centralized place to be able to communicate with our group and provide the group an opportunity to communicate with each other. So we have an online forum where us as the store will communicate things like here's our next meetup, here's our next, we do virtual seminars. So I kind of. I kind of frame it as everything but the art making. It's kind of like all the other skills that you need as an artist, but you never really learned. Maybe you learned how to paint, but you didn't know how to make prints or how to photograph your work or how do you sell your art at markets? Like a farmer's market or an artisan market. So there's that. that lives on the forum. that's stuff from us, but then a really big part of... Lyric Kinard (13:15.503) Mm-hmm. Beth Bluestein (13:29.909) The concept behind this was to be able to have artists to openly communicate with each other when they have a question. Hey guys, where do you get stickers that are based in Vermont? I want a Vermont made sticker company for my stickers. Or I really need some frames on the cheap. Does anyone know, is anyone looking to offload any? or we've we've also done, I should say that made me think of, we've done supply trades too. So we've done like at our meetups, like, everyone, you want to offer supplies? Let's do like a supply swap. But yeah, so that's where the, that's where the virtual part really comes into play is the communication between members. And that has honestly been super Lyric Kinard (13:54.851) Yeah. Lyric Kinard (14:09.935) Right. And that's what online can do because when you're in a physical place, it's beautiful and wonderful to have that interaction. It's vital to our existence as humans, I think. But having the ability to have a membership online, have one place where people come and you're unified in your love for this thing. at the same time, there's such a broad variety of ideas and minds and techniques and all the things that artists do, right? So tell me, describe how the membership works. First of all, what platform do you use? That's always interesting to us and we'd love to hear what you love about the tech side of the platform, what you struggle with, because I haven't found one single platform yet that doesn't have at least one thing that it's good to be aware of that this is something you'll have to deal with if you're on this platform. Let's start there. Beth Bluestein (14:42.486) Yeah. Beth Bluestein (15:09.877) Yeah, so the platform is on Mighty Networks. It has a lot of great things about it. And as you mentioned, it also has some frustrating parts about it. think every community has its own needs and demands. And I'm sure it's just hard to make one that fits all. But what I really do like about it is it has a great app. It has the ability to post. Lyric Kinard (15:25.75) Mm-hmm. Lyric Kinard (15:29.507) Yeah. Beth Bluestein (15:36.801) create channels for people to talk on with different categories. Yeah, can put events on there that people can RSVP to, which is really great. It does generate an email blast when I post something as the member host. So that can go out to people, which is really great. we had a meetup last night, and I posted on Tuesday morning. Hey, guys, just a reminder, we have our Sip and Sketch tomorrow. Lyric Kinard (15:54.071) as admin, Beth Bluestein (16:06.485) love to see you and it's like it gives me the option to like notify members that this was posted and I think that's that's really useful. It has scheduling options for posts which is again really great because I can especially when we so we host creative challenges I guess like maybe around four times a year we do month-long challenges and that's really great like the month before I'll come up with all the posts I'll batch create them like just sit down for like an hour and just like Lyric Kinard (16:10.48) Mm-hmm. Beth Bluestein (16:34.453) churn them out and then I can schedule each of them for the very specific day that they need to come out. So that's really useful. Try to think what else. Yeah, I can upload the videos of our seminars. That's great. Try to think what else is really good about it. Lyric Kinard (16:51.79) We actually use Mighty Networks for the Academy private membership. Yeah. Mighty Networks does community better than any other platform I've seen. There's a lot of online course platforms that are adding in community, but Mighty Networks started there. And then they added courses and things. it's, there's so much capability inside it. You can create whole courses inside of the membership. You can have Beth Bluestein (16:55.101) fantastic, yes. Lyric Kinard (17:21.456) paid courses that either people see and pay for inside or people outside the membership can just come into that course. It basically has all the functionality of Facebook looks better than Facebook, you know, with the feeds and the discussions and the chats and the message groups, private groups, without being Facebook, which is really nice. Beth Bluestein (17:47.905) Very true, very true. And you can put your own branding on it too. So ours has our branded colors, our logo, which I think goes a long way as well. It seems like it's a small detail, then you can customize it to your own business. Lyric Kinard (17:56.474) Mm-hmm. Lyric Kinard (18:05.072) It is really nice to have that on there. The limitations I have found with Mighty Networks, and they're getting better. They keep adding new things. And when I finally have time to go in and see all the updates, it's like, whoa. All of a sudden, they've added the ability to behind the scenes manage things in a different way. So that's really good. Lyric Kinard (18:33.57) So one of the limitations that really isn't a limitation, you were saying you can send email blasts. You can send email blasts to targeted people if they're in a certain space. You can create different spaces like a private. We have a free public membership, Campus Commons, where we schedule guest seminars, where we have open Zoom roundtables, and people come in there and they just click there and go straight to the Zoom meeting. or the Google Meet or however you want it. You can actually host the live. You can get on there and talk to people like live on Facebook. But then you can also create these private spaces that are gate-kept in some way, either only available by invitation. You can make them open or closed. You can make them paid or not. And you can send emails to those people. You can't format the emails. You just write the words and they go out. And often, I think the last one I sent out was like, why are they always center justified? I find it hard to read sometimes. Beth Bluestein (19:40.769) Yes, I agree with that. That's a big gripe of mine is their formatting. Yeah. Lyric Kinard (19:45.889) Right. So being able to format your outside landing page really in an interest, it's limited that way. And it doesn't have, it does have those scheduled posts and scheduled notifications, but it doesn't have, it's not your email list. It's not your public email list where you can set up automations and sales funnels and all those kinds of things. But like I said, Mighty Networks does. Beth Bluestein (20:12.289) Yeah. Lyric Kinard (20:15.674) community far better than any other platform I've seen. And it's fantastic. Beth Bluestein (20:23.809) Yeah, yeah, and right now, mean, what we're paying a month really is worth it compared to like the membership that we, you the charge that we, you know, what we charge for the membership. really feel like there's a lot of value and we're not even paying for the most expensive, you know, subscription. We're paying for, I think, like the minimum one and it's not bad. There are a few things I know if we upgraded, we could get more like statistics on watch count on videos, probably structure our seminar videos, not just a video that someone watches, but we could structure it, yeah, as you mentioned, like a course. But we're still, I think, really feeling out the membership. So right now, it's been pretty good overall. Lyric Kinard (21:10.51) Yeah, it's a fantastic, wonderful platform for that. As long as you know going in what it's great at and what its limitations are, I highly recommend it for memberships and for that building of community. So having this physical place and then having an online place where you know you have something in common. Do you have people outside of your local area who also join the community? Beth Bluestein (21:43.809) So far it's only Vermont based artists. So some of them are over an hour away from our store. So I think that's pretty good. I think the benefits, and they're actually signed up, those people are signed up for the local membership, even though they very rarely can come down for them. But they, I think, really understand the value of being part of the community. And it's also... Lyric Kinard (21:47.834) Mm-hmm. Lyric Kinard (21:55.556) No. Beth Bluestein (22:13.119) You know, just as a business owner myself, have now met, I've met artists that are also business minded, produce great work, and I've ended up featuring them in my store. So we also have, have a little gallery space in our store and we have a like local print wall, local as in like state of Vermont print wall. And many of those people are folks that are in our collective and that have really, you they've been a pleasure to work with and. I thought, you know what, yeah, I really would love to feature them in the store. And then that's just created another layer to our relationship. Lyric Kinard (22:48.464) Right. It's wonderful. And I have seen other people who use, I think I jumped into Mighty Networks because there was a sewing shop, I think in Atlanta, Georgia. And it's driving me crazy that I can't remember the name. But during COVID, they went full on private membership and it was a local brick and mortar. And by the end of the year, they had a worldwide audience because, you know, people couldn't go in person. Beth Bluestein (22:49.568) Yeah. Lyric Kinard (23:18.33) but they were providing so much value to their customers. They would have just meetups on Zoom where people would get together and they're all just doing their own thing, but they're chatting together. they had, here's a kit that you can buy on this day. We're going to have this workshop and it's just a live Zoom that somebody comes in and teaches you about how to use the materials that you bought from the shop. And I think they had, it was shoemaking. Beth Bluestein (23:18.399) Yeah. Lyric Kinard (23:47.854) It was so cool. was like, this is yeah, like what you could make your own shoes. But the way they were using it expanded their reach so phenomenally that I was just like, this is this is really and I participated in it before I chose. If you my friends are thinking of creating a community or using a platform. Beth Bluestein (23:48.661) my gosh, that's awesome. Lyric Kinard (24:11.435) See if you can find a course to take or a community to join on that platform and watch how other people use it from the student, the community member side instead of the admin for a minute. And it will really tell you a lot about how you want it to function and how, you you'll see all the good things and all the frustrating things and, you know, it's great. Beth. Beth Bluestein (24:38.891) Yeah, it's very inspiring to look at how other people are using it. Lyric Kinard (24:42.893) Always, always, we have so much to learn from everybody. Beth, what in this? Let's go just not thinking right away about here's a physical shop and here's an online community. Let's talk about the businessy part of business because we're all professionals. There are all things that. It's like, I just want to make my art. I just want to I just want to teach my students. I don't want to deal with all the the managing and then the administration of a business, but we're professionals. That's what we have to do. So what are some things that like What is the part of your business that you're like, ugh, I hate doing this? And what are some things maybe you've struggled with? And then we'll get on to the, but they're worth it because part. Beth Bluestein (25:47.807) Yeah, you know, when I have to do things that I don't love to do or I'm tired of doing, I remind myself, okay, this is my business and I choose to be here every day. And if I were at another job, there would also be, you know, things I wouldn't enjoy doing as part of it. And, you know, that's just a part of any endeavor you're gonna do in life. So I remind myself of that. And I also remind myself, I'm making the choice to do this. So, which is good to keep in mind. man, things I don't enjoy doing. It's hard to pinpoint something I don't enjoy doing. It's more like, sometimes I'm like, I don't feel like doing this today. Sometimes I don't feel like updating my cashflow, but I know in order to place orders for more goodies in the store, I have to do it to make sure that, you know, the numbers are gonna line up and I can forward that order, you know, later down the line. You know, there are some days when I really don't feel like sending a newsletter, but then I remind myself, okay, know, sending this newsletter is going to keep us top of mind and our customers love our newsletter. That's actually our biggest communication channel with all of our customers is our newsletter. And it's the one that literally pays off the most out of any other thing that we do, any other marketing we do. And we send it once a week. So, oh, go ahead. Lyric Kinard (27:09.123) Let's... Let's stop and talk about newsletters for a minute because I mean social media fantastic wonderful and people are like yeah either they love it or it's like such a soul sucking drain to think I have to post on social media but it's different than having a newsletter what people who don't have one yet or aren't haven't experienced this in a business yet is that everything you post on social media goes away and it's random whether your people see it and you don't own it. You know could build an entire business extremely successful business on social media and overnight it can be taken away with a change of algorithm but your newsletter are the people who chose you. and invited you into your inbox. Newsletters are the highest converting for sales. So let's talk about people love your newsletter. Why? Why when we get, I can't tell you how annoyed I get when I buy one thing and then over the next five days get 50 emails, like literally, actually it's been two weeks, but 50 emails in two weeks from a company and I keep unsubscribed. Beth Bluestein (28:34.689) Yeah, yeah Lyric Kinard (28:38.929) You know, so why are they opening your newsletter instead of going, ugh, I don't have time to read this and unsubscribing. Beth Bluestein (28:48.161) I mean, that's a good question. And I do ask myself that sometimes. I'm like, why do people keep opening this? I mean, we have an open rate, I think, of 55%, which I think is pretty good. And it's not a gigantic newsletter, signups, but it's pretty good. We've been developing it for three and a half years. I don't know. I think people really enjoy what we do. They enjoy what we offer. Lyric Kinard (28:57.644) which is phenomenal. Beth Bluestein (29:17.441) As a small business owner in a small community, we're in a rural, Vermont is very rural. I think folks understand that it's their neighbor writing them, right? And they've met me in person, they've met my staff, they have been to our store and I think they like what we do, they trust what we do. They, yeah, I think. see us as I've already said this, they see us as a resource, so they're interested in hearing what we have to say. And yeah, I think that's why they don't unsubscribe. Lyric Kinard (29:53.114) What content do you have? Do you have a formula that you follow for each newsletter to make it easier to come up with stuff to put in there? Beth Bluestein (30:01.121) Oh yeah, at the beginning of this year, of my goals for the year was to make my life easier. And that's come to fruition in so many different ways. But one of the things was, you know, I write our newsletter and I send it once a week. So that the time to put that together really does add up. So before the beginning of the year, I really was just like every time it was like the day before I was like spending, I don't know, a couple of hours to put together the newsletter. And it just felt like, oh my gosh, there has to be some better way to do this. But people were loving it. So I was like, I'm not going to give this up. I'm not going to like go to once a month because if people are opening it and I'm seeing they're coming in or hearing, I read about that in your newsletter or I'm seeing in our POS that they came in because they opened a thing. Yes, point of sale. like in our register, right? And so I wasn't, I didn't want to give it up. So what I decided to do was really make, I don't want to say a formula because it's not formulaic. That makes it kind of sound stagnant, but Lyric Kinard (30:44.433) POS is point of sale for those of us who don't have brick and mortar. Lyric Kinard (31:00.299) A template, a blueprint. Yeah. Beth Bluestein (31:01.385) Yeah, template. A template's a better way to put it. I made a template for each week, a different template, each week in the month. And then I made a theme for each week, for every month. it's kind of funny. So the last email of the month talks about what's coming up the next month. So it's like the coming up next month. And I decided this is just going to be text based. I'll put it like an interesting looking picture with it, because we're all visual people. or visual culture, but I was like, okay, I'm going to simplify it and make that list of events that we're doing and things coming up. That's all going to be text. And that's an easy thing. I can just copy paste. can, you know, in a Google Doc, write out all the things and then copy paste it into our newsletter platform. And then another week is about community. So we'll maybe talk about our artist collective, our meetups we have coming up, our seminars that we have coming up, anything relating to like community stuff. Another one, another one is product based. So once a week we'll do a product based newsletter. So we'll talk about maybe what's new in the store or a theme. in the spring we did pastels was one of our themes. So we featured a bunch of different pastel products and talked about them. Again, trying to keep it simple. I really over complicated I think in previous years with throwing so many images in and. really trying to highlight every single thing, but it's like, okay, no, I know I'm an image-based person, but text is okay. I don't need to like pull in, spend time to pull an image and set up a, like photographing in our store. I don't need to do that every time. I can keep it a little simpler. And then, yeah, what's the other one? about our featured artists. So we now are doing a featured artist a month. So one of the weeks is talking about our featured artist. I think that hit four weeks. miscellaneous is another one. It's just miscellaneous, whatever we have going on. Lyric Kinard (32:55.494) Right. Lyric Kinard (32:59.708) And so what I'm hearing is each one of these provides something of value to the people who are reading it. So when you have a featured artist, it's not just one person showing off. It's that your readers can see this is a success that somebody had. They're part of my community. Maybe I can have that success too. They're seeing themselves in the story. When you talk about the community events, your artists collective online or in person, that's gathering together like minded people to help each other, to learn from each other, to do things together. When you have a product, you are making their lives easier and better and more creative by educating them about a product that maybe they use but haven't used that way or maybe they're just reminded, I need more of that because I use it in the thing I do. So each one of these newsletters speaks to what your customers want and need. I think too often we think we have to have like a big essay or something, you know, and text, yes, but. Also, when you were talking about your calendar event, I'm picturing, you know, a bullet point, a short description, dates. We all have to remember that shorter is easier to read. Bullet points are easier to read. And that's probably why you get so much. like our industry average is like 30 % or under for open rates for newsletters. So you've got a phenomenal newsletter. And you were saying, it's not that big, but you know, the number of people on your list doesn't matter. The engagement matters. You could have a hundred thousand people and if only 10 of them are paying customers, you're wasting everything. You can have a hundred people and if 80 of them are paying customers, that's way more valuable. Beth Bluestein (34:53.993) Absolutely. Beth Bluestein (35:08.545) Absolutely, yes, yes, I agree with all of that. And that even takes it back to the social media conversation. I've been noticing our social media engagement is way down. And we're putting out really good stuff. We recycle our content from our newsletter. Anything we're putting in our newsletter ends up in our Instagram, so we're not doing the same thing twice time's over. Yes. Lyric Kinard (35:34.342) Yeah, that's a thing we harp on all the time is make one piece of content and leverage it everywhere, leverage it over time, have it organized so you can pull it up again next year. Beth Bluestein (35:42.485) Yeah, roll it out in any way you can. Yeah, exactly. so whatever we're putting in the newsletter, which is really good stuff, also ends up on social media. And you'd think, people would be interested in reading it or seeing it or watching it. And yeah, it's fascinating to see. Maybe 10 % of our followers see what we're doing, maybe. Whereas the newsletter, if I have 55 % of our people opening it, like, Well, dang, that's way better. Yeah, it's really, it's fascinating. Yeah. Lyric Kinard (36:22.618) What gives you the impetus to keep going? Because being an entrepreneur can be exhausting and frustrating at times, and it can be scary. You're not in the cradle of somebody else paying your paycheck. You have to make it happen. Beth Bluestein (36:41.141) Yeah, I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say I wanted to quit every once in a while. I just wanted to close the door and be like, I'm done. Yes, I have definitely felt that way. Yeah, it's not an easy journey. It's definitely a roller coaster. But what I do feel is very proud of the work that I've done. I see improvement all the time. Some days, yeah, some days are really easy and some days I'm like, yeah, I got this, all these systems are in place, like I feel really good. And then it's like the next day, you know, the biggest distributor of art supplies goes out of business and it's like, okay, what am I gonna do now? Yeah, know, yeah, those moments can be really tough, but I mean, it's gonna sound kind of corny, but I lean into my, you know, Lyric Kinard (37:24.306) Here we are back at score one. Beth Bluestein (37:38.337) My artist my art inner artist, you know as artists we're problem solvers, right? If something isn't working in a composition We know it and we have to fix it right like it has to be and we try something different We paint over it. We throw in a new color, right? So as artists, we're always looking at how can I make this piece better? And I think that I take that into my business. I'm like, okay, well this doesn't feel good or this isn't working or this completely changed. How can I make this better for myself? yeah, I think I definitely, really like, I enjoy seeing a problem and overcoming it. And also I've been doing this for three and a half years. Like I can't just like give up, right? And anyway, that's more internally and personally. However, also, I'm talking with customers. nearly every day, right? And I hear the joy that they have when they come into the store. I mentioned earlier, we're in a very rural area, so there is not really anything like this around here. And so people are just so glad there's a place that they can come and, know, restock on a color of paint and then talk with me about what they're working on. And, you know, that is a very rewarding experience to be in the store there. And even last night, We had this meetup last night with our artist collective at a local vineyard. We had our meetup at a local vineyard. It was a sip and sketch. We do this in the summertime. We sit out on the porch. It's really nice. We discounts on glasses of wine. Everyone brings their sketchbooks and works. Well, I completely forgot that it was the first day of school yesterday. And so of course, anyone who has kids in the membership, didn't come. So it ended up being a much smaller meetup yesterday and at first I was like, man, this is kind of a bummer. But then I was sitting there with the two, was literally two artists showed up. I was sitting there with only two other artists and they, I just, I sitting there and yeah, as I said, at first I was like, man, it's really a bummer. No one else come. I was kind of kicking myself. Why didn't I look at the school calendar? And then I realized like, my gosh, it is just so lovely to connect with these people, hearing about what exhibit they're in coming up. Beth Bluestein (40:01.313) you know, they're showing me their sketches and saying, hey, think I might, I think I'm going to develop this into a real, like a real drawing or, my gosh, this was so delightful. I really needed this this week. Like, this has been a really tough week for me. And, you know, I felt the same way. was like, yeah, actually, you know, connect with even just these two people was just so, so lovely. So those are the kinds of things that, I don't know, keep me going. Lyric Kinard (40:29.629) I think that's what keeps us all going. mean, we are all artists, makers, crafters, quilters, just we do things, we create things. And it is a thing that we do on our own, right? then when we turn this into a business, I rarely, rarely hear people say, I only need to do it to make money, right? That's almost never the real reason people are doing this. They are connecting with people. They're serving people. They see the change it brings to other people, that moment of joy, that moment of creativity, that piece that they get. from saying, I did this. I did this with my hands. I made a thing. I brought something beautiful into the world. It's an act of service that we do as business people. We're so not Amazon. We are so not something impersonal. We are people serving our communities. Beth Bluestein (41:41.441) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I even had someone in our membership say to me, she was like, I met one of my best friends through the artist collective. She was new to the area. I had mentioned that I started the business right at the tail end of COVID. And so people weren't really seeing each other. And so having this group for people to come meet each other was huge. And then that she said she's made one of her best friends through the group. It's like so amazing. Like how cool is that? Lyric Kinard (42:15.251) It is, right? know, we like I offer the the master course in the Academy for Virtual Teaching and it's it's a lot of things. We have group coaching and everything. But at the end of each cohort, we form accountability groups. And I have people from four or five years ago that, you know, I have a lot of people that still show up at all the coaching sessions. But some, you know, I haven't seen for a long time. And then all of sudden they'll show up and they say, oh, yeah, we still meet. twice a month and support each other in this thing. We're best friends. We've been through all these ups and downs. And to be able to facilitate that and bring people together is really a lot of the heart of what we do. Beth Bluestein (42:47.818) Amazing. Beth Bluestein (42:59.499) Definitely, yeah. Totally agree. Lyric Kinard (43:01.755) Yeah. Well, Beth, your story is so inspiring and so interesting, especially hearing, you know, that the reality of it's, you know, it's not easy to do what we do. There are so many things we have to learn, so many problems we have to solve, so many things we have to slog through that it's just like, but it's worth it. It is so worth it. to see just, you make me want to get in the car and drive for hours and hours and hours and hours and just come pop in and see how lovely and vibrant the community that you've built in person and online is. So thank you for being here. It is so, I'm so grateful that you gave us this time. As we wrap up. Beth Bluestein (43:49.885) my gosh, you're so sweet. Lyric Kinard (44:00.611) Let me ask you one fun question, because we're all creatives here. What is the last thing you made? Beth Bluestein (44:08.789) boy, well, it's interesting you ask that. I, over the past two weeks, started journaling. I never thought I would say that. But I started journaling. so this morning, I actually made, the last thing I made was, before I hopped on this call, was an entry in my new journal where I talked about yesterday and the meetup and drew a little wine glass from the meetup. So yeah. Lyric Kinard (44:36.093) Yeah, that's fantastic. A place to process and to keep those memories. It's wonderful. Makes me think, maybe I should get out my journals. I used to, and I haven't for a long time. Beth Bluestein (44:42.667) Yeah. Beth Bluestein (44:47.977) Yeah, yeah, honestly, it's really, it's been quite a nice routine and it's made my day feel like significantly longer, which is kind of weird. That's the thing I've noticed so far. Lyric Kinard (44:59.859) Hmm, that is an interesting result from it. Well, friends, where can people find Beth Bluestein and the Sparrow Art Collective? Beth Bluestein (45:01.483) Yeah. Beth Bluestein (45:10.793) Yeah, so you can go to our website, sparrowartsupply.com. There is a tab up there to learn more about our collective. If you're curious or just want to see what we're doing. We also, as I mentioned, we have a newsletter which you can scroll to. Well, you'll get a pop-up on the website and then can also scroll to the bottom and throw your email in there again if you're curious about what we're doing. And then we also have a pretty... active Instagram account, regardless of how many people see it. So that's at Sparrow Art Supply on Instagram. Those are kind of our two big spots to check us out. Lyric Kinard (45:48.168) Thank you, friends. And if you're a shop owner or if you want to see, I love signing up for a newsletter for a few months just to see how other people do it. Go try it. And if you're in the Northeast United States anytime, it sounds like it's worth a side trip. Go visit Beth at Sparrow Art Supply. Thanks again, Beth. It's been lovely. Thank you for being here. Beth Bluestein (46:09.631) Yes, we'd love to have you.