Saved by a #Hashtag

There once was a little girl who dreamed of making a living by doing only the things she loves to do. For years she tried to decide on only one thing. Should she be an actress? A writer? Should she do something crafty and creative? The poor little girl could not find one single thing that made her happy. She DID find MANY things that made her happy, but she couldn’t possibly do ALL of the things that made her happy, could she?

What to do? What to do?

“Get a real job,” people told her, but the little girl saw just how unhappy those people with “real” jobs were and she did not wish that kind of life for herself. Over the years she tried to follow the path that others before her had followed and she was always left feeling sad and empty. One day, she decided that she had had enough. She was going to follow her bliss. So that same little girl decided to do ALL of the things that made her happy. She was an actress, a writer, AND she gleefully made beautiful little soaps with her own two hands. And she lived happily ever after.

This is how our story starts, but not how it ends. 

My name is Samantha Story-Camp and I am the Owner/Operator/Goddess of Soaps at Pip & Lola’s Everything Homemade. It all started innocently enough. I have always been a person who does ALL THE THINGS. I started acting at the age of 8 and writing not long thereafter. It never occured to me for a second that I might someday become a business owner. Business owners were super organized, sales-oriented and money-driven and I was none of those things. I was a person accustomed to working really, really hard for next to no money and I was very understanding of the importance of pooling resources.

I came into soap-making by way of my other two loves. In 2005, I was working as a Features writer for a Texas newspaper and I belonged to an online writers’ forum (remember those?).  One of the other writers in the forum had released a book on making soap at home and I purchased it to be supportive. I’ve always liked making things so trying my hand at soapmaking just sounded like fun. Plus, since I am always doing theatrical productions, I liked the idea of being able to gift fellow cast members with a practical handmade item. 

For the next few years, I made soap when I felt like it and found the process incredibly soothing. I would gift it to castmates after shows and to family and friends during the holidays. It was those castmates, however, that really pushed me into thinking about the soaps as a possible career (or at least a decent side hustle). I started getting multiple requests to make the soaps that I had given for particular shows. I would often tailor the soaps to the theme of the show (for example, when I did the musical Nunsense I created an unscented soap and named it None-Scents). Soon, I was recreating soaps for friends as often as I was making them for myself.

It took several years of arm-twisting for my friends and family to talk me into actually selling the soaps. By then I had been making them for 5 years but I feared I didn’t know enough about business to try my hand at being a business owner. I did not come from a family of entrepreneurs and my degree was in Theatre. What did I possibly know about running a business??  

I have always been fortunate enough to have a community of friends from different backgrounds and professions. When I decided to make the leap into starting the business late in 2010, I heavily relied on the advice of those friends to get over hurdles. You can’t Google how to do something when you don’t know that you don’t know it and have no idea what it might be called. Social media became my business mentor in a lot of ways. I would often pose questions to my Facebook “hivemind” when confronted with a new problem or issue. 

We opened our first online store in March of 2011 and I was stunned by how instantly supportive everyone was. We are nothing without our customers. It is a relationship that goes far beyond merely selling of soap. Our community rallied behind us in ways that I never expected. In the 8 years that have followed, our customer base has continued to be a source of love and inspiration and ideas. Frequently when we create new items, we will go to our customers for name ideas and marketing suggestions.

Over time, it became less and less of a side hustle and more and more our livelihood. We were/are frequently cash strapped, but it was a choice we made. We believed in the possibility. We opened our first brick and mortar shop in Tacoma Washington in 2012 and again our customers stepped up with help and labor and donated displays. When, in 2015, we moved our family and business across the country, our customers rallied behind us with packing help and supportive messages.

A Debacle with State Taxes

We opened a new storefront in a Pittsburgh, PA suburb and were doing the hard work of building a customer base in an area not used to the idea of a store dedicated to just soap. Moving the shop to a new state created a number of challenges, not the least of which were dealing with new state rules and regulations. Due to these changes, some mistakes were made (mostly because I didn’t know about them) and we found ourselves in a situation where we ended up owing the PA Dept. of Revenue almost $9,000 in taxes and penalties with no chance at making payments. For some small businesses, $9,000 may not seem like a lot but to us it was devastating news. They threatened to take away our business license. It looked like our entire world was crashing down around our ears. It came at a terrible time for us. We had recently moved into a larger storefront with better foot traffic but it was significantly more expensive and it was the Spring Sales Slump. We were tight on funds and low on sales. 

I won’t lie to you. I honestly thought this was the end for us. We were on track to double last year’s sales and it looked like it was about to be all over. I had been so careful not to grow too fast. I had read story after story about businesses that basically grew themselves out of existence and I did not want to make the same mistakes. I would spend hours staring at my products and numbers and would just cry. How did this happen? 

When I started repaying the debts, it got more and more complicated. Every day I would pay on an invoice only to find out days later that more interest had been added and I owed even more. It felt like I was circling the drain.

Once again, I went to my friends. “I might have to shut down.” The offers of love and support came pouring in: suggestions of things I had tried, things I hadn’t tried, things that seemed impossible. I was in tears almost daily. I felt like the world’s biggest failure. As much as I hated to see all of my work fall flat on its face, I hated the thought of letting the world’s best customers down even more.

“What would happen if every customer bought 5 soaps?” one of my best friends suggested. “Then we could totally get over this.” I said. “Why don’t you just tell them what happened?” she replied.

The thought of telling these wonderful people that I had monstrously boo-booed seemed overwhelming. Would they ever trust me again? I wasn’t sure, but I also wasn’t sure what other choice I had. #buy5tostayalive was born.

I put together a quick video explaining to my customers what had happened. I admitted to the mistake and very specifically stated that if each of them were to buy just 5 bars of soap that we could turn this thing around. 

The response was overwhelmingly positive. Within hours, we had online orders and customers coming into the store to purchase their five bars. Over the next 10 days, we had strangers coming into the shop announcing they were told they had to come in to buy 5 bars… most of the time they didn’t even know why. And we had so many online orders we had a hard time keeping up. We managed to raise the funds to cover the tax debts PLUS got a little caught up on bills and supply purchases. That Facebook video was shared 183 times and garnered over 8,000 views. We might not be fully out of the water yet but we can definitely see the horizon.

What it did more than save the day, however, was remind me that Pip & Lola’s has arguably the absolute best customers on the planet. Not too shabby for the Weird Little Soap Store That Could. 

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