We recently connected with Lori Schoer and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Lori with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I was raised near New London, MN, growing up with my back yard adjacent to a State Park. I come from a family where hard work and dedication were very important and continue to be important. I started working at the age of 12 years old in my grandparents’ restaurant. I started out bussing tables on weekends; as I became older, I worked as a dishwasher and eventually a waitress. I worked for the restaurant through all of high school and college, but also held other jobs throughout that stage of life – working at a gas station, a hardware store, and even a homeless shelter. My parents helped out with some of my college expenses, but I was expected to study hard and always have an income while going to school.
My mom still continues to work long hours for her family business (the restaurant and convenience store that was started by her parents). The restaurant closed due to Covid, but the convenience store continues to operate. My mom also does bookwork for another small business in the area. Prior to working at the convenience store, my mom helped operate the family trucking business and gravel pit. She dispatched drivers where they needed to go, took care of financial records, and worked with her siblings to keep the business going. The trucking business was closed a few years prior to Covid due to lack of help and health issues within the family.
My dad owns and operates an excavation and trucking business in Spicer, MN. He works super long hours and also has employees that he keeps busy. He rarely takes any time off and seems to always have work to do. He is very passionate about his business and has always worked super long hours to provide for his family.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My business was born during the pandemic while I was a stay-at-home mom of two young boys. I had worked as a social worker in the county social services field for about ten years prior to having children. I became a stay-at-home mom due to my oldest being kind of a sickly baby. Prior to the pandemic, I tried to get out and about as much as we realistically could with my little boys to do things like going shopping, ECFE events, and basically anywhere we could socialize. When Covid struck and we were stuck home, it was really difficult to get the social interaction I was craving. I was also in the stage of motherhood where it consumes all of you and you start to feel like you have lost your individual self to motherhood. My husband, Joel, asked me in the spring of 2020 for some gift ideas I would like for Mother’s Day and I told him maybe a Cricut. I thought that maybe having a new hobby might help me find some “me” time and be fun. I started making some signs and some shirts for friends. Later that year, my husband seen an ad for a laser engraver online and started looking into them. Joel presented to me his idea that we should purchase a laser engraver because he felt I could expand my little hobby into a business. Joel and I went to Florida to learn a little more about laser engraving over a long weekend and a few weeks later the laser engraver was delivered to our door. The laser engraver we ordered is of commercial grade and requires a fair amount of space. We set up a little workspace in our garage and soon thereafter I was engraving can coozies and tumblers. I started attending some craft shows as a vendor and my business, Lori’s Little Side Gig, really took off. I was able to obtain a handful of business accounts for promotional merchandise and still provide to those first customers yet today. I quickly outgrew the little work area that my husband had set aside for me in his man cave of a garage. Within a short amount of time, my inventory and work space took over the garage. In the fall of 2023, we added an addition to the garage just for my small business. The addition is nearing completion and I am so ready to have an organized dedicated workspace (and my husband cannot wait to have his garage back – and for us to be able to park our vehicles in the garage again). The addition will provide a new home for the laser engraver, organized storage for my inventory, space for making signs or creating new products, and a place that customers can come to see available products.
Today I still am a vendor at several craft shows per year and have a fair number of followers on my Lori’s Little Side Gig Facebook page. This past fall I was able to sell engraved drinkware at a local apple orchard for the season. I hope to expand my retail locations locally in 2024.
I engrave mostly drinkware like kids water bottles, 20 oz tumblers, 40 oz tumblers (including the ever-popular Stanley “Dupes”), and standard and skinny can coozies. I also do make some decorative signs, Christmas ornaments, keychain charms, and engrave charcuterie boards. One of my new favorite things to engrave are the 40 oz tumblers – especially to engrave them with designs that wrap all the way around them. My customers tend to find me one of three ways – at a vendor show, through my Facebook page, or through word of mouth.
I love personalizing items for customers and helping their vision come to life. I have a lot of fun interacting with people at vendor shows and am so appreciative of my repeat customers.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I believe that my ability to connect, listen, and communicate with others has been a huge benefit to my small business’ success. I was a social worker for ten years and always had employment in the customer service/helping field. I truly enjoy visiting with people and love to hear their ideas as to what they would like for me to offer whether it be new products or different designs. I guess that “she talks too much sometimes” on the report card when I was a kid didn’t turn out to be such a bad thing. Ha!
Another quality that has been beneficial to my journey as a small business owner has been my desire to learn. I enjoy learning how to engrave different items on the laser and how to improve the quality of my engraving. I belong to several different laser groups on Facebook that I can reach out with questions to. I also enjoy looking up answers to my questions online through YouTube, Google, etc. I don’t just want someone to tell me how to do something – I want to learn and understand how to do it. I have spent countless hours on YouTube – especially when I was learning how to engrave the 40 Oz tumblers all the way around with a seamless design. One of the biggest parts of learning is failing along the way – I have had plenty of small failures but have learned from them all. Being raised with a “dust yourself off, learn from it, and try again” mentality has helped me immensely with the failures along the way throughout life.
One last quality that has helped me a lot in this journey is my work ethic and commitment to quality. I am not afraid to work hard to accomplish my goals I have for my business – whether it be working late hours to complete orders to meet a deadline, being a vendor at as many shows as I can squeak in during the year and also maintaining a steady social media presence. I am not afraid to get my hands dirty and to work for what I want.
Overall, a person early in their journey needs to have a clear mindset of what their goals are and to make sure they have the supports in place to make it happen. It really takes a village sometimes – especially when you have a family and you’re trying to make a small business successful. Small business owners need to do their best to set themselves apart from others – to make it worthwhile for folks to spend a few more dollars on a product or service from a small business when a large, big box store or retailer can provide it cheaper. Whether it be making sure you connect with your customers not only to get them interested in your product or service, but to keep them interested in it for the long run. Communication is key – and to make sure you listen just as much as you speak. Don’t be afraid to take criticism – it is only going to help you grow. Do set boundaries with your business so it does not become your entire life. You need a life away from work too.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
The most impactful thing my parents did for me was to expect me to always try my best and to work hard no matter what. My parents expected me to work from a young age at my grandparents’ restaurant. I was expected to study hard in school, work on weekends and then as I got older during the week some too, and to be responsible. I was expected to be a good role model for not only my younger sister, but also for my younger cousins. My parents made me work hard for what I wanted. They purchased my first car, but I was expected to pay for most of the gas and to contribute to insurance. If I wanted expensive clothing, I had to help pay for it. My parents raised myself and my sisters to be independent – to make sure that we could always stand on our own two feet – and to not be reliant on others for our success. During college, my parents helped with what they could, but I was still expected to maintain employment and cover expenses as much as I could. I was expected to study hard and to work hard. My parents still demonstrate to this day a strong desire to keep their small businesses successful and work hard for everything they have.
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