Website URL: homesteadstencilco.com

Q. Give a brief description of your business. What product(s) or service(s) do you provide?
We offer Mylar Stencils for sign making at low cost.

Q. How did you come up with your business name? Does it have any special meaning?
We were involved in a car accident which left my arm with permanent nerve damage 2 months after My husband & I inherited his old family homestead which had been in the family since 1903 and was recorded in the Florida land bank after President Mckinley signs the legal papers homesteading the property Thus the name Homestead Stencil Company was born

Q. How long have you been in business, and how did you get involved in this business?
We have been self employed since 1992 doing country furniture & handpainted signs but Homestead Stencil was created in 2007 as a result of no longer being able to hand letter due to the accident.

Q. What was your most successful idea?
Going with low mark up, but high volume

Q. What are some of the pitfalls one faces when owning one's own business?
You work year round , with little to no vacation.... Plan ahead for .. you run the business don't let it run you!

Q. What is the best business advice you've received?
#1 Know your competition... Because your competition will know you....
#2 Givers always have enough... takers never do.... ( I give each customer a Free stencil with each purchase). In 2011 we gave over4800 stencils away

Q. What would you do differently if you were starting all over?
Took greater chances early own and went international

Q. What are your future plans or dreams for your business?
Double in size within then next 2 years and have our new shop completed

Q. Tell us an inspirational or humorous story about your business?
I pray daily for divine appointments. This year in the spring I had a customer not to far from us ( In Barnsville GA) who had her home totally destroyed by a tornado and she lost her entire stencil collection... they were blow totally away no where to be found. We gave her a credit on her account and she was able to help rebuild her business with that.

Q. What advice would you give to someone who wants to go into business?
Pray about it and take the risk, and use your God given talents, tithe on your income and it will be successful. Follow your dreams, God planted them there.
 

www.homesteadstencilco.com