Inside Samantha James Beauty + Boutique

In this episode, Brandon sits down with Samantha James Beauty + Boutique in Omro, WI, to talk about their unique blend of boutique shopping, beauty services, self-care, and community.

Located in downtown Omro, Samantha James Beauty + Boutique offers a fun and welcoming space where customers can shop for clothing and accessories, book beauty services, explore trends, and leave feeling more confident. From lashes, brows, nails, permanent jewelry, hair tinsel, microblading, tiny tattoos, and boutique fashion, the business brings a fresh and creative energy to Main Street.

Whether you are already a customer, curious about their services, or just want to learn more about one of Omro’s downtown businesses, this episode is a great look inside Samantha James Beauty + Boutique.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It was always something my parents instilled in me. They were like, if you want this, like you're gonna have to work for it because nobody else is gonna do that for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, I'm Brandon Miller. The city of Amrill has beautiful parks, active organizations, and thriving businesses. In partnership with Future Amril, the AMRO Area Community Center, and product sponsorship by Miller Auto. We'd like to welcome you inside AMRO. We're at Samantha James Boutique in Amro. Talking with Samantha. Thanks for having us, Samantha.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Thank you for letting me come on. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Absolutely. So tell me about Samantha and Samantha James Boutique and all the interesting things.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

So it's kind of a long story. I'm super young, as I was telling you. I'm only 20 years old. When I was seven years old, I started going to craft shows with my grandma. She sells recycled sweater mittens. We would thrift and find them and we'd go to these craft shows together. I would sit with her, work the cash register, do all the things, and I got bored of sitting there. So I was like, I want to make something. I want to make some money. I want to sell stuff. I want to be my own little boss. So my mom took me to Hobby Lobby. She let me pick out all the materials to start making little necklaces. I made a few. We called it Sassy Sammy's Jewelry, and it was a hit. I ended up becoming like the featured kid vendor at Oktoberfest, and it was like a regular for craft showgoers. They recognized me, they know me, and to this day, some of them still follow me, which is really awesome to kind of just see them stick with me. After that, I got a little bit older. You know, when you're a teenager, you're kind of embarrassed, you don't want to do stuff like that anymore. I went to Winnekunty High School. I had a terrible high school experience. I'm gonna be very honest. My junior year of high school, I would sit down at a table and every single girl would stand up and walk away.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Oh goodness.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

I decided that I wasn't doing any learning, sitting there and worrying about all these things in the back of my head. Begged my mom to let me do online school. She agreed. Thank you, mom. I then started renting a booth in Oshkosh to do eyelash extensions and all the beauty services. After that, this beautiful, I was like 18 by the way, during that. This beautiful building. It wasn't so beautiful when I got it. It was the Amro Gun Shop. If you'd been in here before, it was we did a lot of work. Went up in an auction. My family was a big help in winning the auction. We had our cap at like, you know, this is a risky thing if it's not gonna go for this cheap, but if it does, we'll help you out. Like, this is how much I can afford to give to my parents to help purchase it, essentially. And it was it was a low number, like the odds of it happening to me weren't that big. And to my parents are like, we don't have to worry about it, it's not gonna go for that cheap. I remember we were sitting in Berlin and it was down to like the last 30 minutes, and we were winning. There was like five minutes left. Someone outbid us, of course. Then it adds another 30 minutes, and they're like, Okay, this is like our last bid, no, no more. Like, it's low, and we're sorry, it's probably not gonna go for that. Prime real estate, right on Main Street. Boom, we got it. It was insane. I was so happy. We flipped this building in less than two weeks because I was like, grand opening, July 1st. We just got this building, we just got to close on it. All new floors, new paint, this beautiful wall behind us. We did all the things in two weeks, held the grand opening, and I think we had like 300 people through the doors that day.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Amazing. Wow, that's always very exciting when you're doing an auction environment. I am you know it's very stressful but exciting at the same time. So when I I I I can only imagine jumping up and down everything after you won the auction. So good for you.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, obviously, incredibly thankful that my parents were able to help me do that, but I also learned a lot when I was doing the online school and was renting that space in Oshgosh, obviously saving up enough to give my parents that slice of what I could afford to give them, and that ultimately set the price for us to work together on it.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

That's awesome. That's awesome. So that was three years. You've been in business, June will be three years.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yep, that was in 2024.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Okay, wonderful. So three years. What did the what did the first year look like?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

It was honestly insane. I think it's because I'm insane. People they think I'm crazy. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about my other store as well for a minute here. I opened this store in July. I was dating this boy from Berlin, and well, I still am. We're engaged, but he's like, let's go to downtown Ripon, let's do some shopping. I went there, I was like, Oh my gosh, this place is gorgeous. This place is bumping. There's people through the door, we're having events, probably 300 people. I mean, this is like 4th of July time. This is prime amra. We're talking about summertime. We have all the moms and daughters from the pool coming in. Like, it is great. It's a dream. All the clothing, all the beauty services, we're doing it all. And I call my mom and dad. I'm like, you have to go to downtown Ripon and tell me that I can't rent this store because I'm gonna rent this store. I'm gonna open up another one. I've only been open for two months, but I don't care what you say. I'm opening up another one. They're like, You're biting off more than you can chew, like, you should not do that. It's a terrible idea. I was like, whatever. Hung up because I don't want to listen to their advice. They go there, great environment, and they're like, Yeah, you can do it. So I called the lady, I was like, owner at your store, and two months later I opened another one because it's like it's like your first child or dog, it's so good, it like makes you want to do another one, and then all that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah. So what uh ended up happening with uh the rippon store?

SPEAKER_00 6:02

So obviously, as I said, I own this building, so the overhead is not cute for me. Um, I love the Ripon store, as you know, I was telling you earlier, I live in Ripon, and I would love to go back there at some point. I still love the people I rent from. Um, just not the right time. As you also know, I own an online clothing brand as well, so kind of just condensing down to the home. There were some physical issues with the building that needed to be fixed before it was good and ready to run a happy business in. So just focusing, bringing it down to one back to Amro to focus on that clothing liner.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Absolutely. How long was Ripon open?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

A year and a half, I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Um I asked because in business, a lot of times you have to venture out and try things. You have to expand over. Perfect example, us, we opened a shop in Dina. We ran that for two years. We replaced a place hoping to buy it and would have bought it, but things didn't work out. Um people that own the property wanted more than what it actually appears for, and we couldn't just justify uh pulling the trigger on it. So you know, anytime you're doing something in business, just because you stop doing that, that's a that's not a failure, that's a learning experience. That's you know, it it's that is uh necessary part of growing your business. So I commend you for for opening it, trying it, and um yeah, you'll probably be back.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Absolutely right, and especially at my age, like I still with all the social media, there's still judgment, there's still girls my age that might look at that and be like, oh well, she closed it, she failed. And I remember calling my mom when I knew I knew I had to be done there, and I was like, I just don't want people to think I'm a failure. Like, as a businesswoman, I know that was the right decision, but as a human, obviously, like I want to have both, I want to do it all, but ultimately it was the best decision, and I'm happy I did it.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

I give so much love to Amro now, so yeah, yeah, and that's I mean, it it's important and it shows your business savvyness that you were able to make that decision and not let not let it pull you, you know, the whole business down. Everything is an education and business, and what some people would consider a failure makes business stronger. So yeah, no failure there. Online clothing brand.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Let's talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yes, so most everything you're gonna see in the store here is different brands that I like to purchase. So I wholesale the clothes that you're seeing in the store. I try to stick to different woman-owned brands or small local brands that don't have a lot of business, they come from all over the world. For example, I have a brand in the store called Happy Camper that is going to be a girl in Las Vegas that owns it, and she gives 50% of the proceeds back to mental health nonprofits. That's what I like to have in store. I, however, have a personal clothing brand that I draw, manufacture all that stuff, and we sell that globally. Um, we sell that all over the world. We do what's called PR. Um, we send out these packages to influencers. We do, I don't know if you know any of the shows that my generation would watch, like any of the Love Island, all the TikTok stars, our PR list with their addresses. We work with their managers. We have on that a combined of over 11 million followers in celebrities that we send to. So it's pretty cool. And then I'm also that one is Samantha James, the collections. That's the hoodies, the hat, the stickers, stuff like that. And then I'm also launching an active line called SJ Active.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Nice. And how long have you been doing the online personal brands, if you will?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Uh, I want to say about a year now. That was kind of something that just came to me randomly. Like, I love all this stuff, but I have a very, very strong business mindset, and I love Omro, but there's only so far that I can scale Omro, and I want to be big. That's a global brand. I want to sell that to everyone. I want to fly to Florida on vacation and I want to go to the mall and I want to see somebody wearing that. This is only scalable so far.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Sure. So yeah, absolutely. So I saw a post a couple, I think it was yesterday actually. Your your Whatnot post.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yes! I knew you were gonna ask me about this. Okay, have you ever heard of whatnot?

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I personally haven't. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Okay. So for anyone listening that doesn't know what Whatnot is, let me break it down. If you have ever been on TikTok or Facebook and there's someone doing a live stream, like you might do, hey, I'm going live to show you the road construction. You're live. People can join that live, they're commenting, they're talking to you. It's the same thing right here. So it's an app. Everybody goes live on it. You can schedule shows, you can like schedule your live streams. I'll probably go live for like two hours. What I will do, I'll hold up a sweatshirt or a shirt or something, and I'll say, okay, size large. There's seven seconds on the clock. Sudden death is what I like to run. So I don't add time when it comes to these auctions. Well, me in auctions, I guess I do a lot of them. Um, I'll be like, size large, running now, seven seconds. We'll start at one dollar. And these people go crazy. You swipe at the bottom to bid, and it's all these people in the live stream, just a bidding war. And then boom, we go. And I'll go to like 100, 200 items a show, and it's just like rapid fire. So I hold it up, we'll just go all different items, and it's insane. The community on there has been awesome. I have another 140 packages I have to pack tonight and two more shows today.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

It's gotta be exciting.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

So fun. The adrenaline.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Oh, I bet. I bet. And then the work after packaging everything up, but uh yeah, I can imagine where that would be super exciting when they're alive. And you're getting feedback from the people, they're commenting, buying.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, whatnot is so addicting. I you it's for everyone. You have to get it. I just got my dad hooked on it. He gets like sneakers, my fiance gets like DeWalt leaf blowers. I got him like a six-pack of Milwaukee batteries for like 60 bucks. So it's for everyone. You have to download it.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah, we'll have to check it out. So let's talk about some of the services that you provide. You do lashes, you do tattoo pop-ups, all kinds of different things. So let's start with your pop-up kind of uh events that you have, which I think are pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

So I am the like the licensed tattoo artist at Samantha James. It's me. Um, the way it works is we have a flash sheet, is what it's called. Um, there can be anywhere from 20 to 40 different designs on there. You'll come in, we'll give you the consent form. It's first come, first serve because it's a zoo, like people love it. They fill out the consent form, they'll pick their design, we'll stencil it on, and they get in line. And it's it's so exciting. I love it. It's so fun.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

What I've seen, you've done these primarily like on Saturdays or on the weekends. Yeah. How many tattoos do you typically do?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Easily over a hundred. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Wow. They're fun. What other kind of pop-ups do you have?

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, so we do, I travel too for those kind of things. We do permanent jewelry as well. I'll go to like different local businesses. Um, another kind of pop-up that we like to do here that isn't so much like one service per se, is we like to do different nonprofit pop-ups here. Last Saturday, we just did one for the Omroe American Legion. Um, so we gave 20% of all the proceeds that day. So any nonprofits I love to work with, they can reach out and we dedicate an entire day to them. We'll put flyers in the bag, whether it's the Oshkosh Humane Society, the community center. Um, if I donate designer purses to the Christine and Center for their purse bingo, like I love giving back. So any nonprofits out there, that's awesome. If you want a 20% day, let me know.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

That's awesome. You did some classes at the community center also.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah, yeah, that really doesn't have anything to do with my Samantha James brand. I kind of just do that out of the kindness of my heart. I'm an avid Pilates lover. I go to Pilates every morning. I'm also a dance instructor to little girls. So I teach jazz or size and cherry yoga over at the community center, and I just do that for fun. That's absolutely out of the kindness of my heart, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Give them giving back to the community for sure. Let's talk about your services and your staff. You have staff on site uh daily. So who are they? What do they do?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Okay, so we have two girls who rent here. Um, Presley is going to be our nail girl. She is amazing. She does acrylics, gel X, Builder Gel, all the nails. She shares a room with me. I do lashes, tattoos, microblading, which is a tattoo eyebrow that can be performed on people with alopecia or currently undergoing chemotherapy as well. So that's pretty cool. Um, and then we have my full-time employee, Sapphire. She's my main girl. She does everything, but she is also a licensed spray tan artist and a lash artist as well, but she keeps this place running. And then our last renter is going to be Amber. She is a licensed esthetician and she does lashes, waxing, facials, all the good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

So come in, have a nice spa day, get your eyelashes done, your all your things that I know nothing about.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah, that's okay. We have clients who actually book us all back to back. So maybe at 10 a.m. they'll get their lashes done with me. 10:30, they'll hop over, get their nails done, and then end up getting a spray tan before they leave. So it's almost like the ultimate spa day. We also have like for any girls in high school, we have prom packages that we do where you can get everything for $150, which is that's that's very, very, that's very, very cheap. Um, these things are expensive for girls. We also do like bridal packages, all sorts of things. It's just the ultimate spa plus you get to shop.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

So yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Talk about permanent jewelry for some of those that might not understand what that is.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

So permanent jewelry is there's a huge selection of chains that you can pick from. We have gold, silver, and you can ultimately do anything with them. You can get a necklace, a bracelet, inklet, rings, any of those things. You come pick out any chain you want. It's custom fitted to your size. We trim it, put it on, perfectly fitted to you, and then I have a little TIG welder and I weld it on.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

You're a welder too.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

I am, I'm a welder too.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

That's great, that's great. So, what other kind of products and services have we maybe not talked about?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

We do everything, like literally everything. I feel like we're always trying to expand and add. We always have accessories, we're always circulating new inventory through the store. I feel like I can keep up with the trends pretty good. Like we talk about, I'm super young, so I'm always keeping up with the stuff. People come in the store and be like, Oh, this is cute, I've never heard of this. Like, right now, Lulu Mac is like the big huge brand, and obviously we're in the Midwest, and all the trends always hit down south first. So Florida, Arizona, Bama, that's where they originate essentially. So I can kind of smell it out. You keep an eye on the market, and then I get them, and like these sweatshirts that just say Lulumac, it's just a mock neck, just a crew neck. And there's people all over the world ordering from here because you can't get them anywhere. But people walk in and they just think it's a sweatshirt. But we're always keeping up with the trends here, too.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Sure. What other brands um have you had? Like like Posh Mama, I think I saw or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah, so I'm gonna actually tell I forgot about that. That's a good point. Um, so the Posh Mama I'm gonna get into in a second. Sure. But we also have all sweatshirts. We do have a 12-needle embroidery machine here, so we custom embroider things, we get the files, make them. We have a heat press as well. So a lot of the sweatshirts are made in-house. Um, simply southern. A lot of we just have all the brands, all the things. But the Posh Mama pop-up is an event that my mom does every year. Oh wow, and it's it's huge. It's actually going on this Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So this will probably already happen, but it's like a 14-person rummage sale.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

And it's like all my college friends put all their clothes out. We fill the entire parking lot, and it's it's huge. It's it's massive. We do it at the same time as the citywide, and then we just give the people their cut after.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Oh, how cool is that! Yeah, so the services that you do are those primarily walk-ins? Do you do walk-ins or is it all by appointment? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Permanent jewelry is our only walk-in service that's gonna be available 24-7 as long as we are open because those all have a lifetime warranty. So if anything ever happens to the bracelet, inklet, necklace, tarnishes, breaks, you can always bring it in. You get it once and it's with you for life. You can bring it back in always free for the other services. Those you will have to make an appointment. Um, all our links are in our Facebook and everything, and you can book them all back to back so you can have the ultimate spa day.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, awesome. So, is most of your appointments set online? Are they calling in? Is there a place online that they can set up?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, most of them are going to be online. The format we use is Gloss Genius. So if you go, if you look up Samantha James, it'll be right on the top. Google search. We got a lot of reviews. Thank you guys. So it'll be there and you can book us all. We're all on the same platform for that.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

So I noticed on uh Facebook uh a couple days, actually it was over the weekend, uh you were talking about uh, you know, Main Street and OMRO and how you went down to Tanner's cap and looked at uh I think it was uh some good stuff you stopped and so forth. I think it's really important that and Omro does a really good job of that, of of kind of cross-promoting the businesses, talking about you know, businesses supporting businesses basically. Let's talk about your social media presence. You're always liking, following, sharing, and so forth. What drives you to do that, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Well, I think first of all, my age.

unknown 20:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

I'm very involved in everything. Sapphire does a really, really good job. I was telling you about her earlier. My main girl, she does a really, really good job getting involved, or even if I miss something, she'll be like, Oh, did you see? Like, I remember one of the first videos you had put out in the car doing your road construction of Did you see this video? It was really good. He did this and this, and I shared it on your page. Don't worry about it. Like, so there's always eyes all over watching to make sure because maybe I missed it, but that I have a good following too. So making sure that these girls are checking it out too, because I got a lot of things going on, so we're always sharing um what we think is good and always promoting them. I'm on the board for future AMRO as well, so I'm also gonna really try and utilize my age and tech savviness with that to get them super involved too. And I always appreciate that they share my stuff. And I mean, a lot of the other people here, we always are sharing each other, so it's the least I can do to share theirs and get back to.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, yeah. AMRO does a very, very good job. You know, we're talking with Drew at Solvino's and he's talking about Moore's Den. And you know, it really when a community comes together, businesses come together like that, i it creates a destination. It makes people want to come to OMRO and experience it with them. So yeah, I think it's very important. How long have you been? Or or when did you join the board of future? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Well, it's a funny story actually. I got a call early March and they do their voting, or I was just like, Hey, do you want to be on the board? And I was like, Sure, why not? I own a business show. Well, we had our vote and you were a write-in. Okay. I don't I don't I didn't like really know anyone personally on the board that like would have done that, so I thought that was really cool. I feel like they want my help, so of course I'm gonna do it. Somebody wants my help, I'll be there.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm excited. Yeah, a lot of nonprofit events that you you do and supporting nonprofits, and um that's really important supporting the community for sure. Um, what are your kind of future plans? What a year, what are your thoughts? Where do you want to go from here?

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Well, we talked a little bit about my clothing brand. I guess my big lifetime dream would be to have, like I told you, Samantha James everywhere. I want to see it everywhere. I would like to move somewhere warm. I think that would be fun, but don't worry, the store will always, always be here. But no, the main term goal is to scale and have a fully functional, globally running brand. I already sell in all 50 states, but I need everybody in those 50 states wearing Samantha James.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

It's a great goal. Great goal. I I'm struck. 20 years old, I was an entrepreneur very young, also. I mean, I think if you're an entrepreneur, you're an entrepreneur. So tell me a little bit about your business background. Because at 20 years old, you have a good grasp on business. Tell me how how you how you got there.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Absolutely, that's a good question. So I think I have really good role models to begin with. My mom's a big dog at Kimberly Clark, we'll say that. Um, and then my dad just started his business four years ago. So he started a year before I did. He owns a hydraulic company up in Appleton. So kind of watching my mom lead him through things, I mean, seeing operations at Kimberly Clark and being in a corporate company, it taught her a lot. And I'm an only child as well. So I've always just been more mature than the other than my peers, because at like seven years old, I was going to the town board meeting with my parents. I wasn't at home with my siblings, so it was just a little bit different. I remember going to the babysitter one day and I was like, it's commingle day, and I was like, six, and she was like, What? So, like, just little little things like that always made me mature a lot faster. But watching my mom lead my dad through his entrepreneurial journey kind of pushed me. I've always been a little bossy, to be honest with you. And I I've had jobs, I've had a job since I was 13, I think. It was always something my parents instilled in me. They were like, if you want this, like you're gonna have to work for it because nobody else is gonna do that for you. So watching them being able to like build that business up, it was just and I always have someone to turn to. Like, I'm very lucky that I have parents that that have gone through it. They've got the LLC, they got the EIN, like, and I honestly I use I've helped three of my friends start small businesses now with that knowledge as well. Because I mean, you can Google it, but if you know someone, it's like pass it on.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah, it's not it's not hard to do if you know how to do it, but if you don't know how to do it, it's it's confusing. It is absolutely I think it's interesting, you know, the fact most entrepreneurs start while they're in school, they're looking some hustle, some you know, doing something to to generate money. And I think you know, the fact that you know, if you want to do it, you have to do it yourself says a lot also. Yeah. You you built this, you built it from the ground up, and that's something to be proud of.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Totally. Yeah, like I said earlier, I went online my senior year of high school, but I actually was a national trap shooter.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Really?

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, I shot trap, which you would never, never believe. I'm like the best woman in the nation. You would never believe it. It's like not coming from me, but it's me and my dad's thing for sure. Yeah, um, and then I was also um a world twaton twirler, and so there's a lot of college scholarships in that as well. And I had scholarships and had gotten into Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi, Arizona, and had scholarships to go to all those schools, but this was right in front of me and I couldn't turn it down.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

And and nothing wrong with that, you know, you don't have to go to college to be successful, you know. Um some people need to, but if you're an entrepreneur, you know, it my son is my business partner and he was his in his third year of mechanical engineering when we started the business. And we always said, you know, if he wants to at any point, he could go back, but honestly, he probably won't.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Absolutely right. I think entrepreneurship is something that you can learn if you really invest yourself into it, but I truly believe you're either born with it or you're not. And if you're not, you can you can invest yourself in it and become I think the um honest to God, the biggest thing is just believing in yourself. Like if I were to sell a piece of clothing that said Samantha James, but I didn't think it was cool or I didn't think it was cute, that would show. Yeah. So honestly, you just have to believe you are the best, and other people will too. You have to be confident, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

I mean it it it takes being able to take risk, calculating the risk, you know, just like the rippon, you know, uh location. You took that risk, you calculated it, you made right business decisions, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

I feel like I'm a very risky entrepreneur. I feel like that my risk taking sometimes can be a little bit too much. Like, I think one of my blessing and a curse of a trait is that I don't fear failure. Like, failure is never in my mind. Like, I'm not like, oh, what if I fail? I'm like, I'm gonna do this, and it's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Make it work.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Like, and people say here, like, oh, but I don't I don't know if I want to do it because like what if I fail?

SPEAKER_01 28:09

What if? Then don't do it. We don't we don't do whatever just uh make it uh make it happen. Absolutely. You know, it it's but knowing when it's time to exit also, as you know, most good entrepreneurs are gonna go into that risk and they're gonna have an exit strategy in the back of their mind. You know, obviously it's always push through, let's make it work, but at the same time you balance that with you know knowing if something isn't going the way that it needs to, either pivoting or exiting. And you know, that's a big part of doing business also. So tell me about your your Samantha Jeans. Uh i do you have a or your SJ, I guess it SJ athletics, is that what it is? Um what kind of apparel is it?

SPEAKER_00 28:58

So it is more like a yoga wear, leggings, sports bras, sweatshirts, more active wear, something you would wear to the gym, but it's also gonna be geared towards the girl. It is women's, sorry. Yeah, it is women's. It's geared for the girl who goes to yoga, the gym at 7 a.m., but could also wear it um to her Zoom call in the car at noon and her dinner date at 6. Okay. Like you want to be able to wear it all day. So it's a comfy material, custom blend on the fabric, cutest patterns ever. It's it's great. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Yeah, that's awesome. And do you make those in-house or I do not make them in-house?

SPEAKER_00 29:39

I work, I design them all, make up all the cuts, patterns, everything, and then I send it to my manufacturers overseas.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Okay, wonderful. What kind of events do you have coming up this summer?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

So, as we talked about, we will be here for three years in June. On the 26th and 27th of June, we have a big third-year anniversary party. It's gonna be so fun. I'm so excited. I'll probably be doing tattoos. We'll have flash spray tans with some people out in the parking lot. It's gonna be a big event that is on Facebook events so people can show that they're interested. And then coming up, you'll just have to look at my Facebook events because we have so many in June also coming up. We have a hot girl summer night. So that we're gonna be offering Botox, lip flips, flash spray tans, all the good stuff. First, 15 people get a free tote.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Oh, nice. Yeah, there really isn't anything that you don't do.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

No, I don't do the Botox. Okay, we're good friends though.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Right, right. So let's talk about hours a little bit. We've had all this conversation. We haven't talked about when you're open.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

We're open every single day.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Every day.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Every day, Monday through Friday. It's gonna be your normal 10 to 4 operating hours, Saturday, 10 to 3, and Sunday, 10 to 2. And we do appointments here every single day.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Wow. Yep. Can't get enough.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Nope. I'm here every day.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Any other website, social media, how how can people follow you?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Yeah, on Instagram, we're Sammy JamesBB. If you guys wanted to check out that new activewear line, it's gonna be active by SJ on Instagram. Our Facebook is standard Samantha James Boutique. You can book beauty services by searching Samantha James Boutique backslash gloss genius or something like that. It'll pop up, I promise. And then our clothing line and then a few other boutique items in the store. Our online store is Samantha James the Collection.com.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

A lot of things going on.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate you uh letting us come in and talk to you and learn about the business. Um, great conversation and uh wish you much success and we'll have to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Yes, thank you so so much for having me. This was so fun. I'm a chatter box, so this was so fun for me. Thank you. Yay, Amro.