One of the biggest challenges of becoming a small business owner is feeling lonely and thinking that you have to come up with solutions to all problems yourself.

But thanks to the advice of Joe Musuraca, an experienced SCORE mentor, Southern Crafted Shutters bosses Kristin Meyer and Adam Jankowski learned that they have the resources and expertise to help them meet these challenges.

Meyer and Jankowski—the couple are not only business partners, but also husband and wife—purchased Southern Crafted Doors at Fountain Inn from another couple and launched Southern Crafted Shutters in 2019.

Although the company initially produced doors and shutters, it now focuses on custom aluminum and composite shutters.

Meyer said that she knew about SCORE and used several instructional videos and webinars through the SCORE website, but realized that she and her husband needed more expertise to help them manage their growing business. Enter Musuraka.

"These guys are not ordinary bears," Musuraka said. "In two years, their business has quadrupled."

He added that Meyer and Jankowski are ideal customers because they are passionate and committed to continuous improvement. As far as they are concerned, the couple said that Musuraca's deep business knowledge and keen, practical advice helped them make the company profitable much faster than they could manage it themselves.

"We think Joe is like our board of directors," Meyer said. "He is part of our business."

She smiled and added that her parents knew nothing about their mentor, even if they had not seen him. When talking with them and discussing business ideas, she said that they always have a problem.

"Have you talked with Joe?"

She attributed Musuraca's problems and ideas to many improvements that helped companies operate more efficiently, from opening store layouts to improving work processes, to connecting them with the right people to help them get loans from the Small Business Administration.

But perhaps more important than any practical advice he has given is that Mussulaka’s stable presence over the past year has encouraged Meyer and Jankovsky.

"Sometimes you have to borrow faith," Meyer said. "You may have a certain degree of vulnerability because people like Joe have experienced these challenges and doubts."

Jankowski said that the mentor often challenged him to find solutions to even the smallest problems, thus helping him to hone his engineers' desire for continuous improvement.

"Without his input, we might not be profitable," he said.

Meyer added that in addition to Musuraca's valuable guidance, her and her husband's previous experience in large companies helped them understand some of the processes that successful companies use to operate efficiently.

"We are developing large business processes with small business budgets," she said.

Southern Crafted Shutters has more than 150 products in 7 shutter styles and continues to grow. Meyer said that the core of this growth is a team of five employees who are involved in every step of the process from design, manufacturing to installation.

"We believe that developing our team is the most important thing we can do to grow our company," she said.

Whether the team stays at 5 or grows to 100, Meyer and Jankowski said that their SCORE mentor will continue to guide them every step of the way.

For more information about this business, please visit southcrafted.org.

Part of SCORE's funding comes from a cooperation agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.  

Call 864-271-3638, send an email to info@piedmontscore.org or visit https://piedmont.score.org online for more information.

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