The Art of Business and the Business of Art with Kelly O'Neill
In this season 3 episode of Back of the Napkin, Kelly O’Neill, owner of Fusion of Iron and Earth, shares how she started her award-winning small business from little more than clay, scrap metal, sheer determination, and a passion to honor her father's legacy. Read more
Dusty Weis:
Greetings, innovators and welcome to Back of the Napkin, where we explore big journeys in the world of small business with the personalities who make it happen. Welcome back to another one of these bonus segments that we like to call Friday Fails. I'm Dusty Weis.
Karen Stoychoff:
And I'm Karen Stoychoff. Dusty, you're a current small business owner and I've owned three small businesses in between holding a variety of corporate positions. You've done the corporate thing too. Have you found a difference between failing as a small business owner and as a member of a corporate team?
Dusty:
Oh, man. I was actually just talking about this with some friends last weekend, Karen, and at least in my experience, it's a lot like walking a tight rope. In the corporate world, you're walking the tight rope with a net, but as a small business owner, you're on your own. Nobody's going to catch you if you fall. If there is a way to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid making those mistakes yourself, that's a win-win from where I'm sitting.
Karen:
Exactly, which is why it's so important to hear from our small business owner guests. Their experiences with failing help other people along the way. I thought Kelly O'Neill, artist and owner of Fusion of Iron and Earth in Michigan, had an interesting take on obstacles and fails.
Dusty:
That she did, but before we get to Kelly's Friday Fails, let's take a moment to get reacquainted with Kelly in a little thing that we like to call the Fast Five. These are five quick questions to learn more about our small business owner guests.
Karen:
Love it. It's like a lightning round. Ready? Let's go. Kelly, what was the first car you ever owned?
Kelly O'Neill:
The first car I ever owned was a 1963 Chevrolet Impala.
Dusty:
Well, that's appropriate given your background. What is your favorite, and you're going to have to elaborate on this because I don't know know what it is, Detroit coney?
Kelly:
Oh, American.
Dusty:
What is the coney?
Kelly:
American is my favorite.
Karen:
It's a very specific style of, I guess around your parts, they would call it a chili dog, but the Detroit coney topping is unique only to Detroit. You can’t find it anywhere else.
Dusty:
I'm going to have to get across the lake sometime and try that out.
Kelly:
Yes.
Karen:
Amazing.
Kelly:
I like mine with onions and mustard.
Dusty:
What about your first job?
Kelly O'Neill:
My very first job, I was a waitress at a restaurant called Buggy Works. I actually worked there all through high school and college. It was a great job.
Dusty:
Wait staff, a very, very challenging career. I'll tell you that. What would you say is the secret to building a professional network?
Kelly:
Curiosity, listening more than talking and good follow up.
Karen:
Good. What's your favorite piece of public art?
Kelly:
The Spirit of Detroit by Frederick Marshall. It's downtown off of Jefferson. It's a beautiful bronze.
Dusty:
Well, Kelly O'Neill, artist and owner of Fusion of Iron and Earth in Michigan, when last we talked, you had mentioned the instrumental role that your dad played in your artistic journey. What did he teach you about failure?
Kelly:
Well, I'll tell you, he encouraged it. I should also say that I was an athlete and not a very good one in the sense that we lost a lot. I guess that was my first failure, volleyball, tennis track, master of none. I lost a lot of meets and I lost a lot of matches, but my dad, as Karen mentioned in the opening about how he was a candle maker and a photographer and so forth, as I was able to watch his journey as he learned new crafts and the failures that he had. What I always appreciated about my dad was sometimes the failures provided the best surprise and the most joy. A failure would lead to maybe a new series of art that he would do.
Kelly:
I'll give you a good example. He had a bubble and one of his pots that he put in the kiln and it blew up. Then all of a sudden, he got the idea that, well, what if I started to blow up my pots before I put them in the kiln? he started doing greenware and when it was still kind of wet, he would drop firecrackers in them. Then they would blow out. He just thought, well, that's cool. He had a whole series of these pots that had these holes blown out of them. Sometimes failure can create a new idea.
Karen:
Well, speaking of young artists, you're currently working with the Mint Artists Guild, the Detroit nonprofit that provides artistic youth education and earning opportunities and all sorts of creative fields. What do you teach them about risk-taking and failure?
Kelly:
Mostly what I do is I share my own failures. We also have other artists that come in as guest speakers and talk about their journey. Every single artist will talk about their failures. I think that's important because being prepared for failure allows you to accept it and to learn from it. Like I mentioned earlier, it's a point of view. A failure is an opportunity to learn something to apply to the next time you try something new. That is what we teach them. We teach them through example, by sharing our own failures and having other people share their failures too. Especially when you have an artist come in that is extremely successful and they talk about their journey and the young kids, their eyes get real big. They're just shocked to hear that wow, his journey feels like my journey right now. I think that gives them the confidence to keep going.
Karen:
Kelly, what advice would you offer to other small business owners about knowing your worth?
Kelly:
That's a really important thing to figure out early. I'll give you an example of a situation where I failed to know my worth. It was a commission job that I had. The difference between doing commission work and doing work for yourself, or doing a piece of art that then you put up for sale is commission work, you have an actual person or a client. Having the confidence to know that you need to charge them more than you would your other art because of the energy and the time that you're putting into it, and the talent that you're bringing is really important. I had an example of when I did a stair railing for someone. I was very excited about doing it. I was using all recycled metal. It was being inserted into wood and they were a friend of the family, so I gave them the friends and family discount and I completely under priced the job.
Kelly:
I worked it out when it was all done and I think I made $2 an hour on it. It was a combination of not knowing what a custom handrail should be charged, not knowing what my design and aesthetic brings to it and adding that to the value. Honestly, making a stair rail from my very first time, the learning curve was the real problem. I had to dry fit it four or five times before I could get it to fit, and that's just bad engineering on my part. Being clear about the fact that as an artist and as an individual business owner, that you are bringing something unique to that customer that has a value and not just a commodity value, but intrinsic value and knowing what that intrinsic value is worth and making sure you charge for it.
Karen:
Kelly, on the topic of knowing your worth, what advice would you give to female small business owners to avoid some of the lessons that you've learned. While we embrace fail, it's always nice to help somebody avoid fail, knowing that they probably have plenty of their own to capture over time. What advice would you offer about knowing your worth
Kelly:
As it relates to being a female, I would say going back to starting in the automotive business in the 80s as a 24-year-old female calling on automobile dealerships that are basically staffed with all men, you become very skinned, and you have to build a callous and be very aware of your environment. I was lucky to have really good role models growing up, as well as having parents that built confidence in me. I didn't let my gender slow me down, but I can tell you, I did fall into the typical female heuristic of if I work hard, someone will notice. My advice would be to female business owners is you need to toot your own horn. You are your PR spokesperson. Know your value, know your worth and make sure that everyone has an opportunity to hear it from you. Don't wait for someone else to find your worth and talk about you. You have to be your own spokesperson.
Dusty:
Well, Kelly, it seems only fair that given that you share these failures with the aspiring artists at the Mint Artists Guild, can you tell us about a time that you yourself experienced a pretty epic fail and what you learned from it?
Kelly:
I can give you one really recently that happened last fall. I mentioned to you that I always say yes. The city of Farmington approach to me because they love my work. They said, "We would like you to make a trailhead sign." The state of Michigan has just added a bike trail that runs 70 miles from, I think, Flint all the way to the border of Ohio. They have all these trailheads that you come in to the bike trail. There's one in Farmington and they wanted a trailhead sign that said The Hills. I was so excited because I was going to have, not only a piece of public art, but a permanent piece of art that would be mine, that would be purchased by the city. That was pretty awesome.
Kelly:
I said yes and I started designing and of course, staying true to my aesthetic, I was going to make the entire sign out of used bike parts. I'm putting the call out to everyone and I'm finding used bikes. I had 10 different used bikes and I'm hand drawing my design. Then I submit my design to the city and they love it. They're so excited to have it and we're ready to go. They introduced me to the company that is making the posts that the sign is going to be... Stone posts, pillars that the sign was going to sit on. The person I'm dealing with, he says, "Can I see your sealed engineering designs? I need to know the wind shear results." I'm like, "What? Okay, what is sealed engineering design?" I spent about a week researching that to see if there was a way I could deliver on it.
Kelly:
Now, keep in mind, had already quoted a price to the city.
Dusty:
Oh, no.
Kelly:
That price was based on me doing all of the work. It was at that point that I realized there was no way I was going to be able to build my design the way I wanted to, so that was my first epic fail. Of course, I couldn't just give up. What I did is I went out and I contacted another artist that I knew had the abilities to take my design and create sealed engineering wind shear tested work. I asked if he'd be willing to do the work and then I connected that artist with the city of Farmington, so they would still meet their timeline, but I felt so bad in disappointing them. I really did because I already had built a relationship with them. I've done other work with them and I didn't want them to feel as if I let them down, but I did in a sense, but at least I was able to recover by finding another artist to finish the job.
Dusty:
Well, it's certainly not the first time in history, I would imagine, that a creative artist with grand ideas ran up against a wheel of a local municipal government. I can say that with some experience myself having worked in local municipal government, but you kept at it, you approached it from a different angle and you found a way to make it work. That is an important lesson to take away. Kelly O'Neill, artist and owner of Fusion of Iron and Earth. Thanks for joining us on this edition of Friday Fails.
Dusty:
Well, there's nothing like as a small business owner saying yes to everything and then finding out that you've said yes to something that's a little bit over your head, but it sounds like Kelly powered through, got the job done and was able to learn a lesson in the process.
Karen:
I certainly learned something from Kelly today, and I appreciated her honesty and the breadth of experience that she shared with us. That's going to do it for this episode of Back of the Napkin. Make sure you're subscribed in your favorite podcast app, and we'd appreciate it if you dropped us a review and a five-star rating.
Dusty:
Back of the Napkin is brought to you by SurePayroll, where small business is their business. From easy online payroll to 401k support and award-winning customer service, SurePayroll has been serving the payroll and business needs of small businesses for more than 20 years.
Karen:
Thanks to the head of SurePayroll Jenna Shklyar and our production partners, Podcamp Media.
Dusty:
Where we provide branded podcast production services for businesses. Our editor and producer is Larry Kilgore III. Thanks for tuning into Back of the Napkin. I'm Dusty Weis.
Karen:
And I'm Karen Stoychoff.
