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Shoes The Bills Can Wait For”
by: Alain Joinville
alain718@hotmail.com
Sheila Mitchell-Green woke up one morning last fall and decided she wanted to open a shoe store. She did not have any prior experience operating a shoe store, nor did she have the capital necessary to open a store. What she did have was a passion for shoes, friends who believed in her abilities, and superior project management skills from her experience working in the corporate world. She took the good with the bad and she started the boutique shoe store “Soles, A Shoe Experience”!
She told her husband, Derek, about her plans and, initially, they both laughed, because they did not have the money needed to open a shoe store. Rather then take out a loan to fund the business, Sheila contacted a few friends. “I called four of my closest friends and they literally just sent the checks, so we’re all self-funded, we have no debt, we own all our shoes, and we all still work our day jobs.” The next step was actually building the store and finding the right location. Luckily for Mrs. Green, her husband was, the President of the East Mt. Airy Neighbors Association at the time and pretty familiar with the neighborhood. Therefore he had some insight as to where, empty store fronts would be and he happened to know a few local contractors.
The store looks and feels very comfortable. “I wanted the store to look like a boutique, like a home. The color of the store was chosen because, I wanted a color [with which] that every woman could identify. Being a Delta I surely wasn’t going to make it pink [laughs]. So I kept looking through magazines to get Ideas and I consistently saw Tiffany ads. Every woman knows that color and reacts positively to Tiffany’s [signature blue].”
The private shopping experience is Soles’ secret weapon. “We give any customer the opportunity to host a group event at the store.” The parties usually occur after business hours on a Saturday or a Sunday. Wine and Hors d’oeuvres are served at every gathering, but the theme of each event varies. “We have had books clubs; we have had people who are just having a meeting; we had a woman celebrate her 40th birthday.” In addition, the private parties are a great opportunity for friends to catch up with one another. “It has been so good for so many women-there are people who have not seen their friends in a while. We have made great relationships, and great friends from this, because people really enjoy [the events].We usually give the host the party $50.00 toward their personal purchase.”
Customer service is a priority for Mrs. Green. “We have high level customer service people come here and sit for hours [and] get this feeling that we are friends, People do not feel like they are in a store when they come here.” One reason customer service is excellent at the store is because of the quality of the sales staff. The sales staff is comprised predominately of fashion students. “I contacted fashion colleges in the Philadelphia area…because one thing we wanted to do, in addition to opening something in the community [is] to embrace entrepreneurship, and give it back, Our goal was to get students who were interested in opening their own business, possibly seeing business from a different perspective, other than I just work in a shoe store, I take them to national trade shows, I let them participate in the buyer process, so they are very much getting more than.
THIS GOES WITH THAT!
“Women were constantly asking ‘Do you have bags, shoes, jewelry and belts?’ We didn’t want to have that as something we had to include in our inventory, so it was a perfect transition for her to come over here and do this.” The person Mrs. Green is referring to is her sister, Barbara Russell, who opened a boutique accessories store right next door to Soles. The store, which opened in early July provides the latest styles in handbags, jewelry and other fashionable accessories.
Mrs. Sheila Green’s words of advice to would be entrepreneurs. “You gotta have faith in order to succeed as an entrepreneur I am not afraid to step out on faith-if God said it, I believe it. That’s just who I am, so if I try and it fails, that just wasn’t for me. I will pray about it, If it feels good in my heart…let’s go!”
www.soles-shoes.com.
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