Marijana is as resourceful as she is creative! Her business, Studio 3 Interiors, started as a hobby where she painted furniture for her family. Over the last 6 years, she has very strategically grown her business. Marijana now specializes in beautiful custom painted furniture and cabinetry and has a 2400 square foot shop/workshop in Pierrefonds, Quebec.
Marijana has always been creative – she graduated with a degree in Interior Design in 1995. To help pay off her student loan, she took a job at a music company in Montreal. While she was with the company for 10 years, she was still able to use her creativity – this time in music. In time, as the company grew, she became their Director of Operations. Due to Napster and downloading, the music company eventually closed and Marijana was left wondering what to do next. Wanting to generate funds for a new project (yet unknown), she started a cleaning company to generate cash. Together with a couple of girlfriends, she grew that business and sold it after 3 – 4 years. Thanks to her well-executed plan, she earned the funds to start her current business: a business she truly loves!
Together with her husband, she is raising her three kids: Thomas, 12, Emily, 10 and Ben, 7. Marijana works very hard to run her business around her kids’ schedule, working within the limits of their school day. Her business has grown consistently since it opened because she put a plan in place and has been diligent in following her plan. In this post, Marijana opens up about her marketing strategy, the evolution of her business, the importance of involving family in her business, growing business skills and much more!
HOW A HOBBY EVOLVED INTO A BUSINESS
The first piece of furniture I painted was 15 years ago when we moved into our house. It was just for me and just for fun. Then, 12 years ago, I did a blue dresser for my son Thomas. By the time my third was born, I was kind of bored at home and I needed an outlet. I couldn’t leave at night o go take art classes because I had small kids. But, I needed some way to express myself as cleaning is not very creative. So I started painting some furniture for the kids.
And then I was like, “You know what, I’m just going to paint a couple pieces of furniture. I can sell them here or there.” Then I started getting requests and my husband said you can’t paint in the house anymore. It was getting ridiculous… everything was my studio – we had lost our living room and our dining room. So I had to rent a place. And the following year, I got a bigger place. And the following year, a bigger place. And now I’ve been in my current location for about a year and a half. I have about 2400 square feet… there are about 1000 sq ft of shop and 1000 sq ft of workshop, give or take.
How services have evolved
My services have evolved by trial and error. Sometimes, I’ll offer a service and I realize that I hate doing it. Then, either I’m never gonna do it again or I’m going to charge way more next time. In the beginning, I would not charge a lot just to get rid of the furniture. I didn’t have overhead so I would sell a dining room set for $300. I was really not calculating the effort I put into it.
I cannot compete and sell a dresser for $100 if I paid $80, after putting in 20 hours of work. So, I realized that painting and selling furniture is not where my money is going to be. Now 90% of my work is custom. So it’s been a lot of trial and error.
MARKETING
I have never advertised anywhere other than on my own Facebook page. So, for me, a lot of it is Facebook, word of mouth and referrals.
I don’t have a website anymore. It’s not where my clientele goes. Older people had asked me for a website but the people who are want to paint their furniture are not older people. The people who want to paint furniture are in their 40s and 50s. Older than that, people don’t want their furniture painted and so I was getting very few hits on my website.
Facebook works well for me. It’s my bread and butter. My best engagement really is in the afternoon. I schedule posts there at least two to three times a day. I post throughout the day so that I can stay in people’s newsfeed. At 8 am, I may post something about a sale or tips. But I save my best posts for around 4 pm – 4:30 pm as that’s usually when I get the most engagement.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORT AS AN ENTREPRENEUR
The other day, I posted on my Facebook page saying, you know, when you run your own small business as a mom, aside from the mom stuff, you’re an accountant, you’re the marketing department, you’re HR, you are everything. I’m the cleaning staff too – I’m here at the shop mopping my floors today because, tomorrow, I’m open to the public.
I always tell people, if you’re going to go into business for yourself, make sure your posse’s got your back. Because it’s hard to do this alone. I find it super important to have people surrounding you that are supportive of you. Because already there’s mom guilt, right? I’m not spending enough time with my kids, my laundry is piling up, they haven’t had a real dinner in three weeks – that’s always at the back of your mind.
Along with a supportive family, I’m lucky that I have an assistant who is very positive. Whenever I’m having a bad day, she’s like, “We do hard things! You can do this!”. So she pumps me up!
Facebook groups have been a super important place for me to get support. And, what I found in those groups, groups for painting tips or a chalk paint group or a fusion paint group, people are just dying to share what they know. So as soon as you post a question, like, “Guys, I just varnished this table and I keep getting little bits of lint in there. What do you suggest?” Within 10 minutes, you’ve got four or five answers. And that, to me, is super important.
I’m kind of solo here. It’s not like I can go find another furniture refinisher to ask questions. A lot of them do it from home. I don’t know many that are running a business doing it. Also, the furniture refinishers I have spoken to in person are all men. I found that they kind of pat me on the head. They don’t always take me seriously because I’m painting furniture, whereas they’re reviving furniture from the 1800s.
Facebook groups are not good when you are trying to figure out what to charge. Someone who lives in Westmount isn’t going to charge the same as someone living in Ile Perrot. Also, many people who paint furniture do it from home so they have no overhead.
LESSONS LEARNED
The importance of quick thinking as an entrepreneur
When you run a business, you need to be able to shift really quickly to the left or shift to the right.
One or two kitchens a month are what pay my rent and my heating. In the winter, I had a $2,000 hydro bill. So on top of rent, that’s a big chunk of change to pay in one month – that’s not including employees, equipment, insurance, cell phone, kids’ music classes. So you need to be able to say, “Okay, what am I going to do? What am I going to do to get some money fast?”
So I posted on Facebook, “Whoever I gave a quote to in the last six months for a kitchen, you now get 20% off. First person to contact me is scheduled for next week”. I got a call and booked a client for Monday. She got her kitchen and I got my money. You’ve got to roll with the punches.
I’m not just kind of flying by the seat of my pants, although sometimes I feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants. Sometimes it’s like, “What the hell am I doing?” I started off with an idea and this is completely different from what my idea was.
On developing entrepreneurial skills
I’d like to be better at time management. It’s hard in a creative business. It’s not like from 9 am – 10 am I’m going to do a conference call. And then from 10 am to 12 pm, I’m going to go to a meeting about the marketing files. It’s more kind of, damn, I thought stripping this table was going to take 45 minutes and I’m now six hours into it.
Or, if I tell someone their bedroom set is going to take two to three weeks. And then, the second week rolls along, and I haven’t even touched it yet because so many other things happen. It’s hard. And my assistant is always asking, “What do you want me to do today?” She asks me every day because I’m not able to wrap my mind around telling her, “Wednesday, do this. Thursday, do that. Friday, do that.” So it’s hard on both of us.
On outsourcing work
I’m looking to outsource bookkeeping. I’ve spoken with someone and I want to give her everything that I have in a box and have her figure out about a year and a half of receipts and letters and invoices.
It would help me immensely to give that job to someone and not have to deal with it. I just haven’t had the time to go and do it. That’s one thing I absolutely need to outsource in the very near future.
Sometimes, I wake up in the middle night saying, “Shoot, I forgot to invoice Barbara, she owes me money.” I forget because there’s just so much going on all the time.
I need somebody to tell me you’re doing it wrong, or it has to be done like this. Somebody that I can trust and say to, “Here are my receipts for the month.”
ON INVOLVING FAMILY
I make sure my kids are part of my successes. If I have a really good week, I tell them about it. When it’s a crappy week, I let them know too. When I start a kitchen, they know that there’s going to be at least two nights a week that I’m going to be just exhausted. Once I’m done installing a kitchen, they celebrate with me. They’re happy for me. I make them a part of my successes, my joys, and my happy dances.
And I try to get them involved. My son, Thomas, he’s taller than I am so he can definitely work with me. I bring him in. I have him sweep, I have him mop. And, I say, “Take pride in the place.” I also say, “You want a new bass? This is what mommy has to do. I need to work. Help me out. Make it look pretty.”
My daughter helps me with photography. She loves staging. She puts books and things on my dresser so I can take a picture. It’s super important to involve your family because if they don’t know what’s going on, they can’t be happy for you.
If you asked my kids, “What does your mom do?” They can tell you in detail what I do because they’re part of it. We celebrate together. Or, if I tell them I had a client that wasn’t very nice to me, they will feel bad for me. So involving them is key.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Don’t be afraid to start small
A lot of people sign a lease, get insurance, get a car and nobody even knows who they are. They don’t even a client yet.
I used to buy my paintbrushes at the dollar store. The paint that I bought, I would buy at Home Depot where they have “Oops Jars” that are $1. And I started with that because I didn’t have a budget. I was still cleaning houses and, you know, you don’t make a ton of money cleaning houses.
Eventually, once I sold my cleaning business, I made a plan of what I needed to buy. I needed a drill, a saw, a fan and a whole list of things that I needed. I bought them as I had the money to.
At the start, I didn’t have a shop so I rented an office in a building. It was 400 square feet with no windows! Don’t be afraid to start small because that’s how you save your pennies.
Have a plan
My last five-year plan was for 40 – 45 years old. I’m where I wanted to be by the time I was 45… which was to have a shop and an employee. I have my sweet little shop with a workshop in the back and employee at least two to three days a week. My next five-year plan is from 45 to 50, so now I’m moving on to Phase 2.
By the time I’m 50, I want my shop to be self-sufficient. I don’t want to do kitchens anymore. It’s a lot of work. It’s not good for my health. It’s hard on my back. I want the shop to be my little nest egg. This is going to be my little retirement thing. When I’m 50, I’m going to come in, I’m going to paint a few pieces, nothing crazy. Right now I don’t have the cash to buy inventory for the shop for the store. I have two lines of paint but I don’t have the cash flow to buy other things that I could sell, like pillows or candles. So I’m building cash flow by doing custom jobs. Eventually, I going to hire somebody to do those and I’ll just focus on the shop.
Do what you love
Cleaning houses was not joyous for me. I hated it. I hated every day of it. And when I sold it, I did the happiest happy dance you’ve ever seen. The bad days are not so bad when you’re doing something you really enjoy.
Do what you love because it’s going to keep you from your family and your kids and your household chores. Don’t go into a business just because you think you’re gonna make money. Do what you love and create a niche for yourself.
Thank you so much, Marijana! You can visit Studio 3 Interiors by appointment during the week and on Saturdays from 10am to 2pm.
Photos courtesy of Marijana Kuljis.