Meet Nate Ouellette

We recently connected with Nate Ouellette and have shared our conversation below.

Nate, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I’ve been a worker my entire life, so it is a habit that was built into me at a young age. From the time I could ride a bike, I had a paper route. Which meant getting up at 5 am everyday, 7 days a week. Hours before any of my peers. No matter the conditions, I had to deliver the papers. Rain, snow, ice, German shepherds chasing me–I dealt with all of that starting around ten years old.

I’d say I took that into my teen and early career years. I always had multiple jobs. I’d rather be earning money if there are hours available to earn. And, you get the best nights sleep after a hard day of work.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I own a full service print shop, where we also do packing and shipping. The print side of the business is what I find most exciting and what we really focus on at the store. We get to work with a lot of other small business owners that are in various stages of their careers. We help the startup/new business owner with their brand–logo, business cards, merch (custom hats, shirts, etc).

For more established businesses, we help them with printed materials that help them operate their businesses (printing blueprints for contractors, or stationary for wedding planners, menus for restaurant owners), or with marketing materials to help them grow their businesses (direct mail postcards, marketing flyers).

We also help any of these businesses outfit their offices or locations with signage, graphics and custom products.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Patience, curiosity, and trust.

Patience – you got to take your time and find the right opportunity. In my case, there were A LOT of speed bumps and detours, and many, many frustrations, but I knew the right opportunity when it came along. I wish when I was going over those speed bumps, I knew the right opportunity WOULD come along. There was certainly a lot of uncertainty and doubt. But ultimately, it helped me make sure I found the exact opportunity I needed.

Curiosity – I’m generally a curious person, and enjoy talking to other people about what they do for a living and in their personal lives. This leads to a lot of leads! When you get someone talking, you are learning about what they do, and you are also learning about opportunities where you can provide a service to them. It may not happen initially, but over the course of time, the more you get to learn, the more opportunities tend to present themselves.

Trust – people have to know they can trust you. If you can help someone out with something, do it. If you can’t, let them know. This will help grow your network. Small business owners deal with other small business owners all day, so if they can trust you, they will promote you in their network.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

Time. I don’t have enough time to work on items that are bigger picture, bigger project type items. I’m spending too much time on the day-to-day tasks, but I need to hand some of that responsiblity to my staff. There’s a certain level of service we want to provide, and it is certainly helpful when I’m there to make sure that level is provided. Plus, I can do more sales effectively than my staff, but doing that results in less time for the bigger projects I need to work on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.charlestonmailandmore.com
• Instagram: chsmailandmore

Image Credits

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