Weaving a Success Story Out of a Lost Art
Nannette Kingslan was an insurance company supervisor and part-time artist who decided to go into business with a longtime friend three years ago. Her partner, Babajan, is an expert on pre-World War I-style Persian rug weaving and has taught the craft all over the world, most recently in South Pasadena. The pair decided to combine art sales and weaving classes and relocate to a Highland Park storefront with a new name. But they discovered that even with a highly defined market niche, trying to rebuild business without enough capital was not easy. Kingslan talked to freelance writer Karen E. Klein about “guerrilla marketing” and sticking it out through lean times.
When we got started here, we didn’t take out a loan. With weaving, we have a very limited clientele and revenues are unpredictable, so we didn’t want to risk not being able to make payments on a loan. Baba had enough weaving supplies in stock to get us started and we figured we would build up our business from scratch.
We changed the name of the studio and found a new location. I put some money into making the place look good from the outside because it was shabby, and since it is an art studio we wanted it to look eye-catching and different than the other places in this area. It really turned out pleasant-looking, and we get consistent feedback that we’ve created a comfortable, colorful atmosphere that is unusual and fun.
The problem was, we ran out of money. With all the changes, it was as if we had started over from scratch. And since we didn’t have enough money to advertise the proper way, there were times that we sat the months out with very low enrollment in our classes. When you’re in the arts, you’re already appealing to people’s disposable income; you’re a nonessential, so you have to look really hard to find your clientele.
Baba’s prior weaving school had been called Mission West Weavers. It was a boring name and neither of us liked it. We both used to do cartoons of our pets and one day we discovered we’d each drawn our pets wearing fezzes--the red, cone-shaped Moroccan caps with the tassels. When we thought about a new name, we just came up with Pets With Fez because it was fun and meaningful for us and it epitomized the idea of the business and the wackiness of it. People have called us up and laughed about it and said it caught their eyes. But it also can be confusing because people have come into the store wondering if we clip dog’s nails or board pets.
Baba had a huge client base he’d established over the years, but with moving and changing the name, a lot of them could not find us when we reopened. And we hadn’t set aside enough money to really do the kind of marketing and advertising that we needed to, though we initially used his old mailing lists and sent out as many fliers as we could to the people that we thought would follow him for classes.
When you move to a new place, though, not everyone wants to travel there to take classes, especially in the evenings, after work. The hard-core weavers finally found us, but they had to look and look. In some cases, it took them three years to find us, because with our limited resources we did very little advertising. We did take the free, one-line ad in the Yellow Pages and did things like taking our fliers to the libraries, the weaving guilds and local colleges. We also exchanged fliers with artsy shops that sell beads and other things that might be used by weavers. We recommend them and they reciprocate and do the same for us.
And, of course, we mention to our students that we’d be happy if they would tell their friends about us, and we open our school to field trips for little children and their parents, hoping to get adults to see what we’re doing and spread the word. We wrote to all the television stations and got a little bit of publicity that way. And the Arroyo Arts Collective found us and took us under their wing, putting us on their arts tour and giving us an ad in their magazine for free.
What kept the business going was word-of-mouth from loyal clients, Baba’s reputation, and the fact that we’re the last of our kind, teaching authentic weaving with natural yarns. We lost customers, but the ones who were persistent have started resurfacing. They found us by hunting for weaving classes, and since we’re unique, it worked. Everything we tried got a small response, and eventually it all started to snowball. Our location, in an area that values art and houses a lot of other artists, has helped also.
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If your business can provide a lesson to other entrepreneurs, contact Karen E. Klein at the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016 or at kklein6349@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number.
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At a Glance
* Company: Pets With Fez Weaving Studio
* Owner: Nannette Kingslan
* Nature of business: Weaving classes and equipment sales
* Location: 5123 1/2 York Blvd., Los Angeles 90042
* Founded: 1997
* Employees: 1
* Annual revenue: $18,000
