Q+A with Babs Ausherman
OWNER + PRESIDENT
What is your story? How did you get your start?
My story is like many other entrepreneurs in that I started in my kitchen and grew over time. In 1999, my husband and I moved to Mountain City so he could take an engineering position with a local manufacturing company. He grew up in Western North Carolina, so the mountains and people here were very familiar. I found an adjunct position teaching Business and Marketing courses at App State. I have an MBA from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. I also began knitting again after a 20 year break. I also began exploring other fiber related activities such as weaving and spinning yarn. Because I never do anything small, I soon amassed a lot of bare yarn without color. I started trying my hand at dyeing and started down a rabbit hole I have not yet come out of in the last 20 plus years.
Color is a language for me and I love it. I have learned to dye colors all across the color spectrum so that I can appeal to knitters and crocheters who have all different color preferences. Part of why knitting is so popular for many people is that it is a meditative process and can soothe you as the yarn flows through your fingers and the colors pass by your eyes.
I started dyeing full-time in 2005 and turned the pressure on when my husband became disabled in 2008. While 2008 and beyond were hard years economically, it was a time when many people retreated home and made things for gifts and for themselves. Hand-dyed yarn is a niche product and is more expensive than what you find in big box stores, but a single skein of yarn can provide hours of enjoyment. People often ask why should someone spend what they do on my yarn, and my response is do you have a hobby? If so, do you buy hand-tied flies, or have custom gunstocks, or pay greens fees for those great golf courses?
One of the keys to our success is creation of combinations of colors in sets that can be used for projects. Picking 2 colors is often easy, but picking 6 colors can be way more difficult. We also have a great website that shows our yarns and colors. This is really important since we have many different products. We do go to some shows through the year and sell in person, but the majority of our sales occur online through our website.
We have 17 employees who are paid well, have benefits, and many have been with us for years. For us, having low turnover has been incredibly important. It really takes 2 years for someone to be fully trained so that they understand the flow of our work which is project based and changes through the year. We wouldn’t be where we are without our staff.
What are your goals for the future?
Our goals for the future are to maintain employment for my staff and continue to provide beautiful colors to my customers in wonderful combinations.
How has BCS helped you?
BCS has allowed us to move all our accounting needs under one roof for simplicity in our accounting process. One of my philosophical beliefs is that it is important to keep things simple, and BCS lets us do that.
