One of the biggest challenges to being a small business owner is feeling alone and thinking you have to come up with all the solutions to problems on your own.
But thanks to the counsel of seasoned SCORE mentor Joe Musuraca, Southern Crafted Shutters owners Kristin Meyer and Adam Jankowski learned there were resources and expertise to help them navigate those challenges.
Meyer and Jankowski — the pair are not only business partners but husband and wife — bought the Fountain Inn-based Southern Crafted Doors from another couple and in 2019 launched Southern Crafted Shutters.
While the company initially made both doors and shutters, it now focuses exclusively on custom-made aluminum and composite shutters.
Meyer says she knew about SCORE and used several instructional videos and webinars through the SCORE website but realized she and her husband needed more expertise to help them manage their growing business. Enter Musuraca.
“These guys aren’t your average bears,” Musuraca says. “In two years they’ve quadrupled the business.”
He adds that Meyer and Jankowski are dream clients to work with because of their passion and commitment to continuous improvement. For their part, the couple say Musuraca’s deep business knowledge and perceptive, practical advice have helped them make the company profitable far faster than they could have managed on their own.
“We think of Joe as kind of our board of directors,” Meyer says. “He’s part of our business.”
With a laugh, she adds that her parents know all about their mentor even though they haven’t met him. When talking to them and discussing business ideas, she says they always have one question.
“Have you talked to Joe?”
She credits Musuraca’s questions and ideas with a number of improvements that have helped the business operate more efficiently, from opening up the shop’s layout to improve workflow to connecting them with the right person to help them obtain a Small Business Administration loan.
But probably more than any of the tangible advice he has given, Musuraca’s steady presence over the past year has given Meyer and Jankowski encouragement.
“Sometimes you have to borrow confidence,” Meyer says. “There’s a level of vulnerability you can have because people like Joe have been through those challenges and doubts.”
Jankowski says the mentor has helped him hone his engineer’s desire for continuous improvement by frequently challenging him to think of ways to solve even the smallest problems.
“We probably wouldn’t be profitable without his input,” he says.
Meyer adds that in addition to Musuraca’s invaluable guidance, her and her husband’s previous experience working for major corporations helped them understand some of the processes successful companies use to run efficiently.
“We’re doing big business processes on a small business budget,” she says.
With more than 150 products across seven shutter styles, Southern Crafted Shutters continues to grow. Meyer says that at the core of that growth is a team of five employees involved in every step of the process from design and manufacturing to installation.
“We believe in developing our team as the most important thing we can do to grow our company,” she says.
Whether that team remains at five or grows to 100, Meyer and Jankowski say their SCORE mentor will continue to guide them at every step along the way.
For more information about the business, visit southerncrafted.org.
SCORE is funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Learn more by phone at 864-271-3638, email at info@piedmontscore.org or online at https://piedmont.score.org.
