Clay Coyote Gallery & Pottery and Compass Occasions

We got to know these two businesses through a Startup Reinvention program in the fall of 2020. At that time, they were experiencing a second wave of COVID shutdowns with uncertainty swirling everywhere. In true entrepreneurial fashion, both businesses had bravely made significant changes to their businesses in the midst of the pandemic. Clay Coyote had relocated and opened their new gallery in downtown Hutchinson, while Compass Occasions had remodeled and opened a new event space just a few blocks away. Listen to our conversation to hear how these dedicated business owners managed through those challenges and came out the other side with more resilience and clarity. 

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Transcript

Morgan B. (00:00):
We were playing a game and we didn't know the rules.

Valerie M. (00:07):
And we were just so busy and so stressed out all the time and we thought that was how you become successful.

Morgan B. (00:14):
I still think that the pandemic in its own way gave us opportunities that we might not have ever seen.

Kayla A. (00:21):
People are just willing to help and I think that's something that we've learned.

Morgan B. (00:25):
Take time to just go cheer yourself on a little bit. It's really important.

Betsy B. (00:42):
Welcome to episode four of Lost and Found. It's going to be an exciting conversation today. I have two businesses from Hutchinson, Minnesota. The first is Clay Coyote which is owned by Morgan Baum who is a strong and amazing entrepreneur. Her business is a second generation business. It's been around for about 27 years and right during the pandemic, she moved her business from a location outside of the community on a farm into town and remodeled the space in the downtown area of Hutchinson and she does pottery. She has a pottery business and does functional pottery that people use for all kinds of cooking and so she'd been very successful and her story getting through COVID was very inspiring considering all the challenges she was facing with the changes she was making in her business. She's been featured recently on several news organizations as an SBA featured business during small business week.

Betsy B. (01:45):
So we'll provide those links in the description of the podcast so you can go follow Morgan and hear more of her story. We also have Compass Occasions, Valerie and Kayla are business partners that own and operate Compass Occasions and they have a great story, a story. They actually opened an event space in Hutchinson in the downtown area during COVID and were able to bravely do that, navigate the challenges of COVID and come out the other side really with a business that has so much potential and so much opportunity now to serve the event industry in their community.

Betsy B. (02:24):
They have a beautiful space that's very unique and they are too talented, inspiring entrepreneurs who have a lot to share. So I can't wait for you to hear this conversation and let's get to it. Welcome to episode four of The Lost and Found Podcast. I'm really excited today to have two businesses that went through one of our programs last fall. They are both from Hutchinson, Minnesota and I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves. We have Morgan from Clay Coyote and Kayla and Valerie from Compass Occasions but Morgan could you give us a little introduction to you and your business.

Morgan B. (03:07):
Yeah, thanks Betsy for having us. I'm the second generation owner of the Clay Coyote in Hutchinson. We're a pottery studio and a small retail art gallery. We also do a very large business of online retail so we're open 24/7 and we ship pots all over the world. We specialize in pottery you can cook with so that's kind of our unique proposition for people. It's very different than many of the other pots out there so we're constantly engaging customers not just about their pottery but how they can put it into action and cook with it.

Betsy B. (03:42):
It's a great story. And for listeners I've heard that story a few times now because Morgan's on a great ride with some great PR about the story of her coming through COVID and her small business story is kind of out there on some news program and you were featured by the SBA during small business week, is that what it was called?

Morgan B. (04:04):
Yeah, National Small Business Week, it was just last week.

Betsy B. (04:10):
It was fun to see all that and we'll dig into that a little bit more but really proud of the way you're representing for small business everywhere really. So thank you. So Valerie and Kayla, you two are business partners and you own Compass Occasions, can you introduce yourselves a little bit and give us an overview of your business?

Kayla A. (04:29):
Sure. Well yes also thank you for having us. We're excited to be here. My name is Kayla and I am half of Compass Occasions which is a coordination company and design and style company that Valerie and I started. We're in our sixth year right now. We decided to start our company after a 12 day road trip together as we were just brainstorming what we wanted to do when we grew up. This was how we kind of were joking about it and the next thing we knew, we had a company about I'd say six months later and we've gone through some expansions that I'll let Valerie touch on with her introduction but we plan weddings, we plan corporate events and we help with nonprofit fundraisers are our three main areas that we like to focus on.

Betsy B. (05:21):
Awesome.

Valerie M. (05:22):
Yeah. I'm Valerie Mackenthun and like she said, our company has grown a lot over the last six years. Our initial goal five year goal was to open our own venue as Hutchinson doesn't really have a smaller more intimate space for gathering we're lucky to be able to partner with some very large, beautiful venues in the area but we just saw a need for a space like ours which is called Art's Place. We opened last September and then closed and opened and closed and opened but now we have been open at full capacity since June and so navigating through all of that also while going through the workshop was just an interesting experience, I think for our business owners but really for us because I feel like we're finally starting to kind of stretch our legs a little bit and really see what this expansion means to our business and a lot of that has changed since we all last spoke. So we're kind of excited to be here today and share a little bit of that progress us and reconnect with all of you. So thanks for having us.

Betsy B. (06:21):
Yeah. I can't wait to hear the details and maybe we could just give people listening a little bit of understanding of the process we went through last fall. That time and space in our lives was a very chaotic and confusing and hard time to be in especially as a business owner. So maybe Valerie and Kayla, could you give us a little bit of window into what it felt like to be an event company in the middle of a pandemic and how did it feel when you finally kind of understood what was happening and maybe the implications at least in the near future for your business?

Kayla A. (07:03):
Yeah, I think when you look at March, 2020 when the original first kind of lockdown was happening, I think we just went into survival mode and mostly for our events that were coming up too and trying to give them some reassurance when we really didn't know what to expect and then I honestly feel like for a few months even after that, it was just really focusing on the events that we had booked and providing them the services that we could as they were postponing or having to cancel and as they were going through making some really tough choices is for their weddings or their nonprofit fundraising events just being that supportive ear for them as they're navigating something too and it took us a little bit to finally honestly be like, what does this mean for us and for our business, once we kind of could maybe figure out their next steps. Which lucky for us, we were kind of rolling into then this program that really helped I guess narrow that focus for us and helped guide us along the way. I can let you add to that maybe.

Valerie M. (08:14):
Yeah. I think you said it really well. We spent so much time worrying about the outcomes and negotiating with vendors and I mean, I feel like everybody said unprecedented on a daily basis and put it into every email and that was all we did, luckily we had these amazing relationships with other small businesses in the area or venues or caterers who we're like, what are we going to do? What are you going to do? I don't know. What does your contract say? We're like, well ours is really, really scary and it's mean but that's not what we're going to follow.

Valerie M. (08:42):
And so like she said all of a sudden then we're looking and we're like well, we had never gone more than two weeks without someone booking an event and all of a sudden it had been six months and our savings were gone. I mean, it got really scary there for a little while and then it was to the point where are we going to keep going? We can't book any more events and by the way we're opening a venue next year so is that still happening? So all those plans that we had been planning for years just. So we kind of started all over again and that's kind of when we were going through this program.

Betsy B. (09:13):
Yeah. So that an emotional roller coaster for anyone let alone a business owner and how was it to be business partners? Did you support each other through that? Was it a sort of back and forth? I know sometimes it's, you're the strong one today and then you pass the baton to the other one. Did any of that happen? What was it like to be partners in that scenario?

Valerie M. (09:35):
Yeah, 100% because I mean you're looking at a business but then we also have our families. And so COVID hit, my kids didn't have daycare anymore. We couldn't work because I was home and we were all locked down and Kayla would, my husband would get home from work and we'd be on the phone and then throw that in with us getting sick at different points or having to quarantine, it's like, I'll see you in two weeks. So I feel like it was always stressful but we've always communicated really well in just telling her like, "Okay I'm really overwhelmed right now. I don't even know what to do. I don't mean to take this out on you but I'm just very stressed," and then between us and then honestly through the support of our countless people which I know is one of our talking points for today but then her and I wouldn't know what to do, we're like, "Well, call Bernie, call Smith."

Valerie M. (10:25):
We had this list and we would just literally email them all the same email and they'd all come back with collectively and answer for us and then we could make a decision with just all that extra support and feel confident in making that decision and then not feel confident in it and feel like we're totally doing the wrong thing and then be confident again and then second guess so.

Betsy B. (10:44):
Yeah. I feel like at that time we were all lost and that it seemed like every small decision you needed perspective from so many different people because it was so unclear what was actually going on out in the world and speaking of that Morgan you are always a source of some clarity through that period of time because you're always aware on a lot of levels what's going on and a great sharer of that information. What was your perspective on the situation Kayla and Valerie were in owning an an event space at this part of the pandemic process? It was a scary time and then very uncertain time but I know you were kind of speaking into that situation for them quite a few times.

Morgan B. (11:30):
I think I remember texting Valerie a bunch and just getting on the phone whenever we would learn about another possible resource that we could tap into and not all resources fit everybody but we got together on the PPP I believe and then the city and the county also had different funding opportunities and they just kept coming and you didn't know who qualified for what and when and so we would share the resources and I remember we also even got on a Zoom call with the small business advisor to our local state representative so that we could tell him and his team how to go be good advocates for us in Washington as they were negotiating the the Federal CARES package and I think there was four or five of us small businesses and we just got on a lobby call and started telling them what a rural small business needs.

Morgan B. (12:37):
And for me it was a moment of happiness because it meant we had a voice in Washington listening to us and taking our rural community needs to a bigger audience. There were also a lot of unknowns. I mean, we were playing a game and we didn't know the rules, everything was constantly shifting on us like the PPP came out and we all applied for it but we didn't know if it was going to be forgiven as a grant while we were spending it and so there had to be a lot of comradery in that because it was kind of like holding hands and jumping off a bridge and hoping that we weren't all signing up for years of debt. We had to have a little bit of trust that we were going to do our very best and spend the money wisely and responsibly and we would ultimately get it forgiven.

Morgan B. (13:38):
But honestly I don't think we knew we were going to get it forgiven until after all the money was gone and so that is a gigantic leap of faith that we all had to take together and for some businesses I talked to a bunch of them, they weren't willing to take a jump like that but I don't know if we would be here today. I don't know how you feel, but we wouldn't be here at all if we hadn't been able to tap into every single possible resource that was available.

Valerie M. (14:08):
Yeah.

Kayla A. (14:08):
Agreed.

Betsy B. (14:09):
What you're describing collaboratively is such, I think a neat aspect act of being a small business in a smaller community, I feel like there's that feeling of helping each other probably more so than in a larger community. It seems like COVID taught us all that you're either going to advocate for yourself and go get what you need and seek out help or you're probably just going to be a victim of circumstances and it seems like that was part of too what Morgan brought to it. She was out there beating the bushes finding what the opportunities were and then sharing them which was really neat. So Morgan you as we all were in a tough spot and I've listened to some of your stories which we'll talk about later about on the news and some of your PR and you were at a pretty vulnerable time when COVID hit and that you had just transitioned to a new location, which is an important detail but I think knowing what we know you also in that transition were a little bit shifting a business model that had been around for a really long time and it was a lot of pressure and it'd be neat to just hear your perspective on that because some of those things can get pretty emotional in a small business, that's a family business and so that was a combination of things happening to you at the same time.

Morgan B. (15:31):
Yeah. In 2019 we realized that the location where the Clay Coyote had been founded which was the farm I grew up on here in town that it was pulling us down. I mean, we had 80 acres, it was gorgeous. I mean, just the most gorgeous view that I can remember in life and overlooking a beautiful lake and we had nine buildings and our family house and our little business, our little pottery shop couldn't pay for all of that. It was just too much and it different when we were growing up and it was our home too but I didn't live on the farm and so we had to make a really tough decision to sell it and and all that was long before the pandemic, we officially put the farm up for sale in September of 2019 and had to drive past that for sale sign for six months.

Morgan B. (16:37):
And cry in your car every time you turned into the driveway. So it was rough and we were able to thankfully the great migration was happening in the middle of the pandemic. Families are wanting to get out of a city and move to more open spaces and a family from the twin cities offered to buy the farm in May, so in the hot heat of the pandemic, while we were still closed down, we sold the farm and moved to town and bought the building I'm sitting in now which is used to be a tire factory, tire company and we remodeled the whole thing. We bought it on July 8th and we moved in on August 8th and reopened a month later and I've spent a lot of time thinking about that.

Morgan B. (17:35):
My mom was here. My dad came in from Portland, Oregon. He's a contractor to help us do all the work and I mean we just put the pedal to the metal for 30 days and completely remodeled this building and moved everything from the farm where it had been for almost 25 years to town and I don't know if we could have done that in a non-pandemic world. I don't know if everybody would've been able to stop their lives and my dad and my mom worked together on something like that. They've been divorced for 30 years and my husband took off of work and I remember we could park vehicles in front of the building and block off the road because there was nobody on the road and it was this wild convergence of events that allowed us to make something like that happen in less than a month.

Morgan B. (18:32):
I still think that the pandemic in its own way gave us opportunities that we might not have ever seen. So the move was hard but it actually turned out to be the greatest thing for our business. We had three potters on the farm, we now have six. We have people walking by and driving up every single day that had never met us before. We completely restructured all of our debt and we're able to reinvest in other parts of our business and so now we're really growing. We're thriving after a point where I thought we weren't even going to make it.

Betsy B. (19:14):
Wow. And that's just a lot to happen in a short amount of time and I am continuing to hear stories of sort of the good things that came out of COVID. Sounds like that was a pretty profound one. Probably not one you could even recognize until quite a bit later how that timing allowed you to do that.

Morgan B. (19:31):
The phrase hindsight is 2020 it really is very apropos. I mean, we are all looking back at 2020 with a lot of clarity and still confusion but I love that phrase. Hindsight is 2020, who knew.

Betsy B. (19:50):
Yeah. And so for listeners, we've got two businesses here that opened a new location in the middle of the pandemic. Valerie and Kayla, you basically opened your new location was it right at the beginning of the pandemic or during?

Valerie M. (20:03):
September.

Kayla A. (20:05):
Yeah. September, 2020 we officially were in, so just like Morgan said, we were able to move in during the pandemic, had lots of help and then every time we got shut down, we just tackled a new project and got our inventory organized and gave us a little extra time that maybe we wouldn't have had.

Valerie M. (20:29):
A lot of our basement is gorgeous. So our basement was really scary and really dark and it's so pretty that it's now a museum that was featured as a fundraiser for Historic Hutchinson, where we brought members of the community into area business basements and it's even cleaner now but we spent all that time, we'd just go down there and stress clean, I think. [crosstalk 00:20:50] We're going to clean this thing that has not been dusted in literally over 100 years because this building is over 100 years old but something we would've never had the time to do or I don't know the urgency or priority because it was not important.

Betsy B. (21:04):
Yeah, I feel like so many small business owners were sort of small heroes in their communities by being able to manage all of those challenges at one time and come through it and come out the other side with still a strong business that's contributing to their community in such positive ways. One thing I wanted to ask both of you because I see sort of a common theme in our experience together and then after the fact, one thing we talk about in our sessions is really how to tell our own story and I think what I'm seeing from Morgan is you're really good at telling your own story and it's inspiring because I think as business owners, we're only ones that can really do that in the way that inspires people and kind of gives them that really insightful look into our business and have you always been good at telling your story Morgan or have you honed that skill over time?

Morgan B. (22:02):
Well thanks for saying I'm good at it. I actually don't always think I am. You are your own biggest critic, right? I would say that in my former life, when I worked for Consumer Reports and as an investigative journalist I had to spend time helping other people tell their stories and I even ran the share your story program for Consumer Reports for almost 10 years and it helped me see what makes a compelling story, I think in those moments so that past experience does fall into my role as a small business owner. The other thing too is I tell everybody here it's really easy to when a TV crew or journalist comes in and wants to ask you about your business, it's not a pop quiz. I mean, it's your life. It's the easy stuff to talk about the work you do every day.

Morgan B. (22:59):
And if you're happy and passionate about what you do, I think it just comes through. Nobody's going to ask you a question you don't know the answer too when you're tell your own story because it's inherently yours but it helps me calm down the rest of my team when they're going to have a TV crew in front of them for an hour or two with a camera in their face and they're not used to that. I just say, don't be nervous, just do what you do every day and you'll shine and I think that's kind of the heart of telling your story is just if you're passionate, it comes through. So that's how I feel about it and I'll tell it to anybody who'll listen.

Betsy B. (23:45):
Yeah. And an element of that story is helping people see what's different about you and so that messaging around we make art you can cook with, and we put friends in your cupboards, that concept, I know you had that kind of that messaging before you came into the workshop but it seems like you leverage that so well and you use that so well, is that something that is evolved over time or have you kind of always known that that's who you are?

Morgan B. (24:15):
The business has evolved over it's almost 30 year existence but those key elements, the friends in your cupboard and the art you can cook really we've put them at the forefront over the last few years and we don't do anything alone. I mean, we have a marketing team in New York that we work with and all the Coyotes are extremely creative and so that comes through as well. When we did the bootcamp, I would say it gave me some time to sit back and really think about how I wanted to put certain messaging at the forefront of our business and it also allowed me the space just to go back and revise some things that we do around here and make sure that we're telling our story through our every touch that we have with the customer.

Morgan B. (25:13):
We sign all of our messages the same. When I send out an email, I write, thanks Morgan and the Coyotes. If Eric who's our gallery manager, if he writes an email, it'll say Eric and the Coyotes. We make sure that there's a theme running through all of our touch points with customers and the friends in your cupboard is kind of that bigger theme around the way you can use our artwork to cook. So it all comes together pretty easily once we make sure everybody hits it all the time and we've learned over the years, you have to say something like 50 times before someone can hear it. So we do. We have Coyotes everywhere. We're trying to leave that lasting mark with people.

Betsy B. (26:06):
Yeah. And some of that language that you create for yourself in the beginning feels a little uncomfortable or awkward to say but the more you do it, the better you get and the more it just sort of flows. So speaking of that I think one thing Kayla and Valerie seemed to come together around was some of that messaging for your company, which was relatively new sort of dynamic with the space and everything and I remember hearing Valerie on a podcast sometime during our time together and I remember hearing you share a little bit of your story kind of in a way that was a little newer and based on some of the things we had talked about and you had come to over the course of the weeks together, can you share now what that sounds like when you guys talk about your business?

Valerie M. (26:55):
Yeah. I feel like it's just continuing to evolve. I don't know. It's when we started we had Compass Occasions and then we have this venue called Art's Place and they were such separate entities that we didn't know how to marry them together and the people just within our community didn't realize we're the same people and the same company in general. So I think we spent a lot of time going through all of that, trying to figure out how we're going to communicate that and what it really meant and what Compass Occasion was and I think even now we have had.

Valerie M. (27:28):
I'm thinking of the last couple events we had in the space and the last few events that we've had just offsite with the weddings and it's just turned into this experience that when we throw an event, we're having these people come up to us and they are crying and they are emotional and they have told us, we had to split up last weekend for two different weddings and I was standing there and I'm listening to everybody go through and their thanking their parents for giving birth to them and their continued support and going through and everything.

Valerie M. (27:58):
And they're like, "And lastly we want to thank Compass Occasions." And it was like, whoa we got the ground and everybody started clapping. And I was like, Kayla I wish you had been there for that. It was beautiful. So we get all done with that and same thing at her wedding she's getting ready to leave and they're like, you're leaving, you're leaving us and I think it's become more than a marketing message for us. We're such a big part of these events that they have become part of our lives and they are the milestones and the moments that bring us together.

Valerie M. (28:28):
And so I think like I said, it's just continuing to evolve and it's just become so much stronger now with this space as we always imagined it would and with our business, and it just seems so cohesive now, they don't seem like these two separate entities to us anymore. How we communicate that with the rest of the world. We're still working on that because I think we just had somebody the other day, I think, it was you. You're in Art's Place, that's you? You don't put any pictures of yourself up. We're like, well no because we take the pictures of the space. So we're still working on it. I feel like it's going to be a work in progress for us for a little while but-

Betsy B. (29:05):
Yeah. I know at one point you were talking about how you were really a storyteller and the way things come together in your work is that you end up telling stories a variety of different ways but you use your space, you use your decor, you use your relationships and all of that and that was a really neat way I think to think about the work you do.

Valerie M. (29:26):
Absolutely. And you look at just the different stories that have been told in this space. I think you're look in in a venue typically, and maybe they do a lot of weddings so that's kind of what they do and it's done the same way because that's how it works there. Our space is so adaptable that every event we do is completely different. We just had one here last night for the community foundation and they raised $1,000,000 and that was the story of last night. It was honoring these people that have, they've received $1,000,000 in Hutchinson. It's 150-something grants since 2004 that have gone back to different organizations and that's what they came here to tell that story.

Valerie M. (30:03):
And it's just, you could tell everybody heard that story last night and they all came together and they celebrated that achievement and it was I don't even know what today is. It was a Tuesday night and they were here for an hour but if you could feel the energy in the room of everyone just being really proud of that accomplishment and it worked in the space and everyone just kept saying, this is just the perfect spot for this as they're looking around, it was fun. Kayla and I had a blast.

Betsy B. (30:31):
You have to feel so proud in those moments, it's sort of like it's working. Everything you've worked so hard to create is working. So I wonder if both of you companies can share a little bit of, coming out of COVID, how has your industry or business changed or evolved and maybe Kayla and Valerie you can share in the events industry, which I used to be somewhat in, what's different now than pre-COVID in terms of how your customers are working with you or planning events and thinking about events?

Valerie M. (31:08):
One trend that we're seeing is smaller more intimate events. So whether that'd be for weddings and instead of having maybe this 500 person wedding because that's just, again, what you always do, you invite your third cousin because you were invited to their wedding. I think COVID is allowing some of our clients to be able to think outside the box a little bit and actually gear their event to what they truly want it to be which we're seeing is smaller, they want it to be intimate. They want to celebrate these really big milestones with their most important people that helped them get there and so yeah, I think we're just seeing a lot come and go events are becoming more popular. So while maybe that guest list is still 300 people, it's going to be over a four hour period of time that they're just going to invite people to come so it can be spaced out but also it gives them the time then to talk to people more instead of being that short four hour period and having to hit everybody really quickly.

Valerie M. (32:17):
So yeah we're seeing sizes as being really different. Which one popped into my head too with the intimate events. I remember during the workshop we had to do this, you guys might remember Morgan and Betsy exactly what it was. We had to brainstorm an idea that would work for the other business and then we had to go way outside of the box. So Mike from the theater went outside of the box and decided we needed some robots and I remember we got done with that. We we're like, "What? We gave you a fantastic idea and we're going to get robots." And so we'd always talk about the robots and it was just funny and I know he was doing it to be funny too and you can have this robot it'll come to your event and it would represent a person that couldn't be there and the more we talked about it, we realized just recently we actually do have robots now.

Valerie M. (33:02):
So we have a contactless entry so that we don't have to come into contact with our customers as if they happen to have COVID we have to shut down for two weeks is technically how it would work. So they enter a code into the keypad and they can help themselves into the building and then they can lock it up when they're done, same goes for our thermostat. So we just realized the other day that the building is now kind of a giant robot and that has evolved out of there because we never would have done any of those things and honestly, it's made our lives easier. We also adapted our website, which is going to be coming out.

Valerie M. (33:33):
We're doing the final meeting for that. One of the things during the workshop, everyone's like, there's not much on your website. We had a drone guy come in that took us a couple of months to get that just right, to do the tour and what because he did his perception of what it would look like to take a tour, we're like, "That's not how we really give a tour," but just it's been interesting the things that have come out of that one because we had the time and two because we're not doing everything in person anymore. So yeah we have robots and now we're going to have a really great webpage and we're pretty excited.

Betsy B. (34:04):
Excellent I can't wait to see that. Yeah. We brainstorm in our sessions mostly just to push that envelope and try the crazy stuff on for size just to see where it takes us. So I'm glad to hear that there was a little bit in there that stuck around. I think about going into COVID and I had an event space at the time too or a coworking space and I had to make the hard decision to shut down but you guys stayed the chorus and I really admire that and I'm so happy to see that the trends coming out of COVID are really all in your favor in terms of how people are doing events now and the changes people are making and how they think differently and how incredible that you guys are positioned now to have an event space that has a more intimate space, more personalized space to fit that trend. It feels serendipitous a little bit, right?

Valerie M. (35:00):
Yes.

Betsy B. (35:02):
Well, so Morgan thinking about when you went into COVID and maybe what things look like in your industry now coming out the other side, you already had a very strong online business and I remember you talking about how your Hutchinson community is so important to your success but almost as much in supporting you as being a customer, a big part of your customer base, they're an important part but you have a very strong sort of national and maybe even global customer base. So how has that changed or evolved since COVID.

Morgan B. (35:36):
The customer base expanded since COVID especially the people who used to drive out from the twin cities all the time for a day trip have become really robust online shoppers. We're in the middle of doing an analysis of our customers to see, it's almost fascinating. We'll get an online order on the first of the month and we'll ship out their pot, they'll have a week or two to use it and then we'll get their next order. So we're watching anecdotally this return customer experience happening and we're checking in with people, we're also sending out recipes to keep people engaged and in their personalized emails, we'll just say we know you just bought the tagine, here's a recipe we think you might like, to keep people engaged and that reminds them to put their pot into action and we always tell them, we want to see a photo if you have time and then we use those photos to help tell the story of how customers are using the pots at home.

Morgan B. (36:40):
The online has only grown. I mean, we've surpassed our online goals threefold this year already. So we're really happy about engaging customers through whatever means we can. We also, like I said before with the new shop off of Main Street we're meeting all sorts of new people in town that never made the trip out to the farm. I mean, it was only five miles but sometimes it felt like you were being transported to another world and that was a good thing but also it was a bad thing because people had to seek you out and here they can just happenstance upon you.

Morgan B. (37:21):
One of our best customers on his last year is someone from town who his mom said, I need you to go get a gift for a party we're going to this weekend and he's like, I'm not driving out there and then she's like, "No, it's right on Main Street." And he came and then he's come back 10 times since because it's so easy to get to and he was like, "I never would have driven out there but you're so simple and right across the street on Main Street," and those shifts in customers' perspective have really made a difference for us. I've had a couple moments where a lot of people come and say we miss the farm and I'm like, yeah me too, welcome to the club and I did snap about, I don't know three weeks ago somebody came in and was just hammering me on how much they miss the farm.

Morgan B. (38:11):
And I was like you can just get in your car and drive out there if you miss it that much, you don't have to stay here and keep talking to me and bringing me down. I think you need the drive. So sometimes it's hard to always hold it together because they miss it in their own way and we miss it in a completely different way too but when he asked the question about what changed, what came to my mind immediately is our relationship with all the other artists that we carry in the gallery. Out of farm we used to have at any given moment 150 artists represented and from fiber to metal and glass and jewelry, we had 25 jewelers at all times.

Morgan B. (39:03):
And here in our smaller space, retail space, we can't do that but we were running into a problem which has many of the artists that we work with who we wholesale their work retired in the pandemic. They used that as the moment to, either they had hit their retirement goals and so they could make the change or some of the artists went and got other jobs and I was on the phone yesterday with one of the potters we've carried forever and he can't get us any pots because he is a bus driver now and he gets benefits and he gets a steady paycheck and so he can only make pots on the side and he laid off all of his staff in the pandemic and he's unable to bring anybody back because they went and got other jobs as well.

Morgan B. (39:57):
And so we're struggling to find artists work to carry in the gallery. A lot of the new artists that would normally be coming onto the scene are using the web to reach their customers so they don't have to work with a gallery like us and everybody has their own path and that's working for many of those artists but for galleries, it means that we have to work way harder to find new artists to put in the gallery and we've always had a goal of doing wholesale which is where we buy the artwork up front and then we double the price and sell it at the retail space but a lot of artists that are new don't know how to properly price and do profit margins to use a wholesale model and so they just turn us down.

Morgan B. (40:52):
It's been every day, in fact this afternoon I have a three hour meeting on how to fill the gallery with other people's work besides our own and it's just one story after another when I talk to other artists who had to make hard decisions in the pandemic and that's resulted in a major shift in our gallery.

Betsy B. (41:12):
Are there any positives coming out of that at all? Do you see or is it sort of a little bit of a sad note of change?

Morgan B. (41:20):
Well, it's a sad note of change. It's kind of a sideways positive which is we had a wholesale line where we would work with galleries across the country. We've only had a handful but we're able to call galleries and say, "Hey, we know you can't get pots, you want some of ours?" Because like I said, we doubled our pottery staff up to six and so were able to support the demand for wholesaling and because we never laid anybody off when we used those SBA funds and the PPP, everybody went home in March and we still hit every single paycheck. I mean, we didn't pay me but we paid everybody else on the staff even though they weren't able to come to work.

Morgan B. (42:14):
And we were able to retain all of our potters. Nobody had to go get another job. So when we could reopen everybody was able to come back and then we could get more and now I'm having people call me and asking for jobs on the Clay Coyote team. I've got two or three potters who would like to join our team if we have the space for them. So there is a positive there. We can continue to expand.

Betsy B. (42:44):
Well, we have no doubt about that Morgan. It seems like the sky's the limit. Valerie and Kayla and you guys are all in Art's Place which is a significant community but a smaller town compared to a Metro and you know Morgan, you guys are friends and you have history together. What's your perspective on the Clay Coyote and the changes they've made and what you've seen with Morgan's story?

Valerie M. (43:10):
It's just been great to see the evolution of it all and just little things we saw Morgan's getting a mural outside and they have a really nice prominent spot coming into town and people are going to see that place and see that location and really we're not that far away from each other. So you have to look up Clay Coyote and look up Art's Place on a map but there's definitely opportunities for us to work together within this community and just bring more people here and people come here to go to Clay Coyote. I mean, people come here for a lot of our small businesses. So we're just lucky to have such a community of great business owners like the Clay Coyote and good neighbors.

Morgan B. (43:45):
Yeah. It's not just a family business with the employees, it's a family business with the customers too, the people who come in. So you guys are definitely in the family.

Kayla A. (44:01):
We'll never not be Valerie in the gallery going through my head. So yeah, it's great.

Betsy B. (44:08):
Well, thank you for sharing that Kayla and Valerie. Maybe Morgan you could give us some perspective on how having an event space especially in the Downtown now that you're a Downtown business, how has that added to the community of Hutchinson and how do you see that evolving now that COVID is kind of tapering off and they can really find themselves and get out there?

Morgan B. (44:33):
Valerie and Kayla mentioned that they started this six years ago after they went on a road trip and I remember when Valerie came in and told us that this was going to happen and we just wished you guys so much success at the time and it's been really fun to watch the six years to see it all change and the business grow. The addition of Art's Place is just wonderful. We've held a couple events there ourselves. I've only held a few events there. I've gone to a few events there. I think it's just this gem right in the heart of Downtown and as our Downtown continues to evolve and grow, I have noticed that our community leaders and, and decision-makers have seen that art and small businesses that are especially female rockstar small businesses are bringing a lot of people to Hutchinson and helping to tell not just our business story but our community story.

Morgan B. (45:48):
And I've noticed that there's more of an appetite to talk about how to create an arts district in our area and to really empower and add a lot of resources and value to events and especially community based events and creative events and creative opportunities and I think the people who decide things are realizing that we bring a lot of tourism dollars to the community and Hutchinson's known as Minnesota's manufacturing city and I'm always like, but we're also this amazing art Mecca 50 minutes West of the Twin Cities and you can come out here and hold a luncheon or a shower or a wedding or a birthday party and you can go shopping and you can get culture and you could pop across the parking lot from arts to the Hutchinson Center for the Arts. I mean, it's just this, I don't know, it's infectious. It's really cool and you guys by opening art you did that. It just keeps getting better.

Betsy B. (47:10):
So what I'm hearing happening with you guys is what I love so so very much about small business and small communities is the way you guys step up and help each other and collaborate and really have this whole spirit of support. I mean, it's so sincere and authentic and I see it over and over and it's just the neatest thing. So I appreciate that about you guys. So we always end our podcast with really advice that you guys might have for listeners. So assuming we've got listeners who are also small business owners or maybe they're thinking of starting a small business and you guys have a lot of wisdom and a lot of experience and wondering if you have some tidbits to share of what would you recommend or advise people to be thinking about or doing if they're growing their small business or starting a business, what are some lessons learned?

Kayla A. (48:04):
Yeah, one thing that we've learned is to ask for help, there are so many resources out there that every time you ask somebody that is a small business owner or is the Southwest Initiative Foundation, the amount that we have leaned on them, we we're able to find this program because of them. I just think you can always ask and if somebody comes to us with a question we don't know, we at least can be like but you could call Morgan. She might be able to help you. You should context the Southwest Initiative Foundation or the SBDC. There might just be resources and people are just willing to help. I think that's something that we've learned. So that's what I think.

Morgan B. (48:59):
I've worked for a lot of large businesses and big non-profits and the ships are so big. It was hard to turn sometimes and we would come up with something that would be edgy at the time and then we would workshop it for six months and then by the time we would launch it, it wouldn't be edgy anymore and so at a small business, you're a small boat and you can change and so if something isn't working, you can course correct quickly and I think that's really freeing as a small business owner, is to know that you could try something out a Monday, fail on a Tuesday and try something new on a Wednesday and a lot of other people don't have that. It's a luxury for us that we have the ability to get creative and try new things.

Morgan B. (49:50):
And then the other thing I will tell everybody is just celebrate the wins. Anytime you get one, even if it's a little win you have to take a moment to cheer your staff and cheer yourself and just take a minute to be happy that you did something really cool because everyday we will always have something else on our to-do list and it's kind of like a cartoon of a to-do list, just never ending and if you don't stop and just say, "Wow, that was a really amazing moment in time." You'll get burned out with all of the things that you have to do. So make sure you find moments to celebrate yourself and even if it's just ice cream from the little froyo place although they don't open until next year or ordering everybody sushi for lunch. We're doing that tomorrow after our really amazing Small Business Week successes but take time to just go cheer yourself on a little bit. It's really important.

Valerie M. (51:01):
That's a good one.

Kayla A. (51:03):
That's a good one.

Valerie M. (51:05):
We try to do that. I feel like, I think a lot of the time as a small business owner when you get to that point where you're really overwhelmed and it just feels like everything is just piling on top of you really taking that moment to not just reflect that on your business but on your personal life because for me, when that happens, I typically do not have a good work-life balance and really one of the biggest things that I've learned from COVID is how to balance that out and Kayla and I used to work full-time jobs, we'd work after work, we'd have to take off of one job to work the other job and we were just so busy and so stressed out all the time and we thought that was how you become successful.

Valerie M. (51:42):
And now we realize that getting to take a step back it's even her and I, we realized we're never spending any quality time together. We work together. So we're just like, good enough but we'd never go do anything fun like Morgan was saying, it doesn't have to be this five day vacation but maybe we just go out and have a glass of wine and talk as friends too and having that balance with your family and just your other friends and just maybe every once in a while re-evaluating and just looking at maybe this is working and maybe it's not but sometimes within the business just being able to, I think one of the things I learned, use no as a complete sentence and just be confident in that and just own it a little bit. Now I have no problem and I don't know why it was so hard for me to say no before but it's just, I don't even need to explain myself anymore.

Valerie M. (52:24):
Just always look at both sides of it make sure it's balancing out for you because once it does balance out it just all works so much better and I can work so much harder and so much more efficient and then I can just kind of shut it off at the end of the day, most of the time you try to do that but that's become really an important focus of my life now.

Betsy B. (52:43):
That's great advice we should print out and put on our bathroom mirror too because you sort of need to hear it often. It's not something you learn once. What's coming up for Compass Occasions in the next six months we should be watching for?

Valerie M. (52:58):
We're doing our own events. So we were talking about that. That's what I'm really excited about. It's all these ideas that we've had for years now and we couldn't afford to rent a venue space to be able to do them so they're not really what you would look at as something and they were never a priority because they're not going to be huge moneymakers our goal is to bring people into this space in a new environment and have experiences for them which they're going to enjoy but also partnering with people within the community to create the experiences. We have a whole bunch of different ideas. They haven't all come. The one we did mention with [inaudible 00:53:29] for sure will be happening in the fall but we're just really excited about that.

Valerie M. (53:33):
And I was to say and then our website we're just really excited. Doing the drone video was a couple months worth of work and we've met with our website design a few times now and hopefully we'll get that finalized today and so our hope is to get that out there and get Art's Place out there, marinate the companies together a little bit more and get more businesses here. Our next goal is to not have to travel outside of the community anymore. So we've traveled to other states to do events and we would love just to really focus our services more locally so keep our favorite venues that are really close to home on our list of traveling. So we're hoping that the new website will get us to our next goal.

Betsy B. (54:25):
Wow. That's exciting and please let us know when it's live so that we can share it or post it on our Startup Scene social-

Kayla A. (54:33):
And if you wanted a pottery wheel over and do a ghost night at Art's Place-

Morgan B. (54:40):
That would be awesome. I like that.

Betsy B. (54:44):
Morgan, anything we should be watching for with Clay Coyote in the next six months that we don't know about?

Morgan B. (54:49):
Well as you guys know during the pandemic we have launched the Pizza Stone which customers have been asking about for years and we just couldn't make the time to do the research and development so we launched that last year and it was a major hit and so we thought, well we might as well take another customer request and see if we can bubble that one up and it's been underway for about six months now. We are going to be launching a new fish tray for grilling fish on the grill and in the oven and it's out of our flame where which is the first final one came out of the kiln yesterday and we had six or seven iterations of it and I've had three at home testing them out.

Morgan B. (55:39):
So we finally have the prototype we've decided on and those will be coming out over the fall so look for those and then as you guys know, I've been working out a cookbook for about two years. It's pandemic year so it feels like about two decades and the first draft is in and the next step is to get a photographer to do all of the cookbook photography which is on par with the drone photographer. It takes months. You think it's easy. When you see the final product because it's this beautiful piece but you don't realize all the work that goes into the behind the scenes. So the cookbook is coming out soon. We used to have on a date but we're now we're just going to go with the word soon. Soon is relative so it's coming. We're pretty excited about those things.

Betsy B. (56:39):
Kind of making my mouth water just talking about it. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Well, that's a lot to look forward to so please keep us in the loop when some of those major things hit so we can talk about them and share them with everyone else. So you guys thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. I think in 2020, when I met you and we got to spend time together I think we all felt a little lost and it was an honor to go through that time period with you guys and work through some of that together and you guys are amazing entrepreneurs and continue to inspire with all your energy and your passion for the work you do so thank you for being a part of our community and thanks for being on the podcast and I hope to see you all soon. If we can get in touch and sit and visit in person again soon.

Morgan B. (57:28):
That'd be great.

Valerie M. (57:29):
Thank you.

Betsy B. (57:29):
All right.

Kayla A. (57:31):
Thank you very much.

Morgan B. (57:31):
Thank you.

Betsy B. (57:32):
Thanks guys. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Lost and Found. If you want to learn more about our Startup programs, go to startupscene.cc. Watch for more episodes and hear more stories from entrepreneurs and small business owners across the Midwest who were lost and then found something that changed everything. Thanks.