There is a proverb from 14th-century England that says, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow,” a reminder that starting small and persevering can lead to great things. That is a good way to characterize the growth of Becky Gromala’s business, The Silver Squirrel Engravings and Gifts.
A Sterling Reputation
New business opportunities continue to sprout for Silver Squirrel Engravings and Gifts.
By: Myrna Traylor
(Originally printed in the November/December 2023 issue of Insights.)
There is a proverb from 14th-century England that says, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow,” a reminder that starting small and persevering can lead to great things. That is a good way to characterize the growth of Becky Gromala’s business, The Silver Squirrel Engravings and Gifts.
Gromala came into the awards and engraving business in a somewhat untraditional way. She owned a scrapbooking store in 2010, which gave her a good foundation in creative crafting and retail. When the economy underwent a major slowdown, Gromala had to close that store. She went back to being a stay-at-home mom for a while, but as she says, “I still needed a hobby because I wasn’t very good at not doing anything.”
She started making wedding and party invitations, and when she looked at some of the equipment that she still had from the scrapbook store, she hit upon the idea of doing sandblasting.
“I got a sandblaster for Christmas from Harbor Freight Tools, and because of the connections I still had from the scrapbook store”—plus her blooming invitation business—“people asked if I could engrave gifts for them.”
The requests kept coming. “That got a little bit out of control, and I realized I needed to start a business again,” Gromala says. She hunted for a more professional sandblaster and found one through Craigslist from a business that was shuttering.
She purchased the sandblasting cabinet—an older-model resistant sandblaster with a 100-pound pressure pot—moved it to her house and bought all the business' crystal and glass inventory, as well. “Two months after that, they contacted me to say, ‘Hey, we found another box of glass. Why don’t you come pick it up on your lunch hour?’”
Gromala also learned that the business was for sale, and they told her their asking price. “It took a 20-minute drive to decide that if I didn’t do it, I would regret it forever. And that turned into my buying the business.”
Old Store, New Brand
The business that Gromala bought in 2015 is based in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, a suburb of Appleton that's just southwest of Green Bay. When she purchased it, the business was known as Initial Impressions, and it had been in the same location since 2008. Gromala had been operating her home-based invitation-and-gift business under the name Craft Specialties LLC but wanted something more charming for her new venture.
“I just knew I didn’t want it to be like ‘Becky’s Engraving and Gifts’—that’s egotistical and boring,” she says.
Luckily, inspiration wasn’t far away. “I was nicknamed ‘Squirrel’ in college, and everybody has given me squirrel knickknacks over the years,” she explains. “My husband at the time picked up one of my statues that he thought was ugly, took it out in the driveway and spray-painted it. He said, ‘What do you think of that?’ I’m like, ‘That’s it. It’s Silver Squirrel Engraving and Gifts. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?’”
A wedding award from The Silver Squirrel Engravings and Gifts
Gromala was able to hit the ground running. She has been able to retain the clientele of the previous owners, as well as add her invitation-and-gift customers into the mix. She operates as a one-person shop for the most part, although her children and her partner, Markus Dantine, help with large projects and make sure that the shipping department stays on track.
While most of her business is local, Gromala is looking to grow her customer base and keep a steady production flow, including making a recent change by having her store be appointment-only. “We have had a retail storefront for six years.” Now, she says, “We will occasionally open for pop-ups, or if there’s an event going on in town, I’ll open up just to be a part of the local retail community.”
Gramola operates as a one-person shop for the most part, although her children and her partner, Markus Dantine help with large projects.
COVID changed the nature of every business, Gromala says. “When we made the change to appointment only, I was afraid that the community wouldn’t accept that; that they would want a retail place where they could come and shop like at Things Remembered. But I found I was getting the Etsy shoppers and the people who wanted things the next day but didn’t want to pay the rush fee. To eliminate that, I decided to go by appointment only, and I use the bookings app through my Outlook calendar, which is such an amazingly powerful tool. Customers can book appointments and even come shop in my store if they’d like. It has made me so much more efficient with my time, and I have found that I’m busier than when I had retail hours.”
All’s Faire
Even though Gromala values her dependable regulars, she has found a new customer base that she enjoys working with. “I am launching into the wholesale market. Retailers are easy to work with, and that’s why we’re trying to create the ‘easy button’ for them. We are in the process of setting up with Faire, a wholesale website, so that we can start pitching to more retailers in some of the larger areas and take the business nationwide instead of locally based as it is right now. That’s where most of my retailers are.”
To sweeten her pitch with retailers, Gromala mails out sample boxes to different boutiques and retailers and follows up with an explanatory welcome email. She uses this sample-and-email combo to help retailers get a better handle on what The Silver Squirrel can offer them, “Otherwise, it can be overwhelming, and you can get lost on Faire just like you can on Etsy. But once they have product in their hands, they’re like, ‘Oh, this would be great. Let’s go see what else they have.’ They’ll click on the link in the email, go right to our store and see everything that we have available.”
Gromala explains that entities with a retail license can visit her section of the Faire website and place orders for whatever they like. “We create it and ship it off to them. I really enjoy working with Faire because they have an app that works with Shopify, which is what I use for my retail business. It imports the description, photos, barcodes and SKUs right from Shopify, so I didn’t have to create a listing for every new product that I was bringing into the store.”
The majority of the retailers buying from The Silver Squirrel are coffee houses and boutiques, Gromala reports, and they are getting a steady stream of mugs, coffee scoops, magnets, coasters, cutting boards and seasonal ornaments. “They get the inventory, and all they have to do is verify that the quality is good, put price tags out on it and put it on their floor.” To make the items even more attractive to eventual gift-givers, Gromala has “invested in new packaging to make sure that we have a good shelf presentation.”
Loyal Fans
While growth in wholesale sales will be welcome, Gromala still depends on her loyal customer base, estimating that 70% of her base is repeat customers.
A good portion of her work is corporate awards, and she is also a resource for personalized gifts. “I’m open for the people in the community who want to come in and purchase a gift,” she says. “We have a lot of things that are just ready to walk out the door. I call those my ‘ready-to-go’ gifts. I also get a lot of people who bring things in that they want to have personalized. So we do rotary engraving or mechanical engraving, UV printing, laser engraving, sandblasting and sublimation.”
And even though customers enjoy seeing items in person, many are using Silver Squirrel’s website to get a preview. “There are a lot of items that I don’t have on the website. It’s just too hard for me to get everything that I have on it,” Gromala says. “My local customers know that I have more in store than I have on the website, and to be honest, it’s hard to navigate my website. I’m aware of that, and I’m in the process of working on making sure that customers can navigate it a little more easily, so it’s not so overwhelming.”
With all of these acorns sprouting, The Silver Squirrel will inhabit a happy grove of mighty oaks before long.