As a journalist, part of the job is finding out what you need to find out. Seasoned journalist Eileen McNamara is oh so thankful about that since she recently made the transition to entrepreneurship.
“I had been trained to solve the problem,” McNamara says in our recent interview. “The way I see it, people do it. Ergo, I can do it. People say I’m so talented. My main talent is doggedness.”
What she is doggedly pursuing now is running the best boutique she can. McNamara owns a business called The Shop at 70 Main in a village center in East Hampton, Conn. A journalist since 1985, she left her job as managing editor of the Bristol Press in September.
“[The transition] hasn’t been as 360 as you might think,” McNamara says. “I’ve been dabbling in this for a long time.”
The “this” she is referring to is what she calls improvisational sewing. It’s been a creative outlet for a while. She’s even done craft shows along the way. After almost three years as part of AOL’s now-defunct Patch community journalism venture, McNamara was laid off. Not one to sit idle, a six-month stretch of unemployment before taking her last job gave her the time to devote to making garments.
“I got serious about it,” McNamara says. “I have several sewing machines. I’m not a linear person, so I don’t use patterns. If there’s something I’m not sure about, I watch YouTube videos. I Google what I need to learn.”
She was making dresses and accessories not just for herself and started packing them away. When others suggested she sell her wares online, she listened, but knew her items required a brick and mortar store. Still, when the opportunity came up to work at the Bristol Press about a year and a half ago, she felt compelled to say yes.
“I knew I was at the tail end of my career,” McNamara says. “It wasn’t a good experience. I wanted to be in charge of my own future.”
With waves of journalists caught in downsizing situations around the nation, many are finding themselves in positions of having to abandon the principles they learned early in their careers. Plus, there’s a feeling of dodging cutbacks amidst reduced benefits. McNamara sensed she would be forced out.
“It was time to do my own business,” she says.
A space became available in her town. An appealing space.
“This area of my New England town feels like something out of a movie,” McNamara says.
She enlisted her husband’s help and set about getting the store ready. A technician who can recreate pretty much anything she envisions, he built racks out of plumbing fixtures to bring to life the industrial look she wanted.
“We had the best time,” she says.
With the store up and running, McNamara is getting into a rhythm in her new life. She changes the mannequins in the window and on the sidewalk every other day. When weekdays are slow, she uses the time to sew and fill her racks. She manages the Facebook page.
“There’s a lot of excitement and ‘Isn’t this cool?’” McNamara says. “But sometimes that’s tempered by reality. There’s a level of stress. There’s no more steady paycheck. It’s a roll of the dice.”
She talks about how people are so used to going and going that sometimes they forget to look at the clouds. That’s the part of self-employment that can yield immense satisfaction, regardless of what else is happening.
“I can go for a walk with my dog,” McNamara says with a laugh.
Another enormous source of satisfaction is the actual curating of the store. It feeds her. A shopper who enjoys her share of clipping coupons and getting bargains, McNamara also enjoys exploring local places where she can find signature pieces. She lives riveted to being that destination for others.
“I try to create an atmosphere,” she says. “I want it to be an unusual, quirky, fun place where people think, ‘I want to buy something here.’”
She points to the fact that she learned a lot about curating at Patch. Again, some aspect of journalism informs this next step.
“Sometimes you forget how much of a sponge you were,” McNamara says.
This journalist-turned-entrepreneur has absorbed so much.
by Nancy Colasurdo
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