We caught up with Kristen Le Clair who along with her husband Jeff bought a GetintheLoop franchise for the Cowichan Valley just before the pandemic arrived in North America. This is their story.
Kristen is a mom, teacher, and entrepreneur. As a mom she noticed the lack of maternity and baby goods in the Cowichan Valley, so she opened a boutique store which she ran for 5 years in Duncan, British Columbia. Kristen has also been an ‘Etsy Creator’, tried her hand at direct sales, and has had success with an online book crate subscription called VIBook Crate.
It was November 2019 when Kristen and Jeff were visiting Jeff’s family who owns the GetintheLoop franchise in Red Deer, Alberta. When she heard about GetintheLoop, Kristen thought “man, if I had that available to me when I was running the maternity store, that would have been a game-changer”. Given Kristen is a self-described spontaneous business starter, she says it was ironic “that it was actually my husband Jeff though who suggested we buy the franchise“.
The couple started their Loop University training during spring break, and on the first day of training, the news scroll was announcing how the Government was closing everything. As Kristen recalls, “we had to cancel all our appointments. Our market development leader and trainer Daniel (Andrews) offered us the option to take a pause, but we decided to just go for it. We hit the ground running”.
Kristen shares why they decided to jump in when uncertainty was at its highest point, “I thought at the very least it would give me a chance to learn, but it all started to happen very quickly with one or two new business partners joining us every day”.
Kristen attributes their organic growth to how many people in the business community started talking about GetintheLoop as a marketing and communications solution.
She describes GetintheLoop to businesses as a tool that helps “Connect local business to local consumers”. She adds, “I think that really sums it up very simply. It’s about reaching the people who are actually here who want to support local businesses. You scroll through your Facebook and it’s post, after post, people saying shop local, keep your money in the valley. I hope we’ve had a shift where more people shop locally”.
When asked if she thought starting a new business during a pandemic was a good idea she acknowledged, “I think it depends on the business. I think with a business like this, it’s worked out to be great timing. I hate to say that because obviously everything’s not great in the world but I think it’s catapulted us further than we would have been in a normal business environment. Jeff and I almost lucked out with our timing. Which sounds opposite of what people would think, you know you’d think, ‘what are you crazy’, this is the worst time to start. But I think it really worked out”.
Kristen has observed that “this (pandemic) has forced everybody to do the things they had intended to do eventually when it comes to tech and marketing. I’ve found people are more open to talking to me about it, and are looking for answers that were out of their comfort zone and out of the box for them.”
She adds, “What’s great about GetintheLoop is, it’s perfectly designed for what’s happening right now, and for the future, but it has 7 years of experience behind it.”
Now with 40 business partners and a growing membership base, the Le Clair's are glad they moved forward. Kristen says, “We’re glad to be a part of it. I think one of the selling features was knowing the support we were going to get. You know when your expectation is here, and you guys are so above it. It’s insane. That was one of the top 2 reasons that we decided to do this...was knowing the support we’d get.”
If you're interested in learning more about bringing GetintheLoop to your community, reach out today.
