Embellishments & Designs, Burlington

Lisa Waste was familiar with real estate, she has been a realtor for several years. Lisa was not familiar with the screen printing and embroidery business but found an opportunity when Embellishments and Designs, a business that was well established in the Burlington community, was for sale. Lisa reached out to the Southeastern SBDC for help in writing a business and putting financial projections together for her bank. The bank approved her loan, and Lisa became the owner of a screen printing/embroidery business. Lisa continued to utilize the Southeastern SBDC services, taking a QuickBooks class to learn the software and working with the Center Director to put an accounting system in place. Lisa has doubled the sales of Embellishments & Designs and has taken the business from a one-person operation to a staff of five.

Two years after purchasing the business, Lisa was told by her landlord that the building had been sold to the City of Burlington. She was forced to move her business. She decided this was an opportunity to rebrand her business, realign operations, and expand her retail offerings. She reached out to the SBDC to update her business plan and financial projections, and received a bank loan to purchase and renovate a new building in West Burlington, Iowa.

Lisa, a mother of three, continually gives back to the community. She donates T-shirts and a portion of T-shirt sales back to personal, school, and community fundraisers. She leads a campaign called #iwaved for the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, donating back all of the proceeds for T-shirt sales. As a breast cancer survivor, she is a support coach for other women facing that challenge. She is an advocate of the #ShopLocal campaign and fosters business-to-business relationships whenever possible.

For more information, visit Embellishments & Designs at www.embellishmentsanddesigns.com.

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