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Designs By Kim: Owner Talks Unique Services and Store History
Designs By Kim
Owner Talks Unique Services and Store History
Writer / Julie Yates Photography Provided
It all started with one machine and a dream. Nearly 20 years later, Kim Hettler’s business, Designs by Kim Embroidery and Gift Shop, can produce 40 to 50 logo-embossed shirts per day. Although she fills orders for small businesses, Hettler attributes the initial success of her Warsaw-based business to individual customers.
“When I started out, it was the people who bought one thing at a time that made this business,” she says. “They still come in today, and we stand around and chit-chat and ask about each other’s family. I have quite a lot of small items, or people can bring in their own. The majority want a name put on. At Christmas I’m swamped with things like towels or blankets. I can personalize one piece or 50. There’s no limit.”
For several years Hettler worked at Kimble Glass and R.R. Donnelley, and even tried selling real estate for a year before she began considering opening her current business. She started selling items at craft fairs, but didn’t like having to pack all of her merchandise up and haul it around. One day she was at Lowery Sewing and Vacuum Center in Warsaw in search of inspiration for a craft project, and saw an embroidery machine.
“I found the machine and started the shop,” Hettler says. “For four years I continued to work second shift at Donnelley’s because when you first start a business, people don’t exactly swamp your door. Even after the business was built up, it took another seven years for me to feel comfortable. Now I’m busy all the time. The first machine I bought had only one needle and could do only one color at a time. It was 10 years before I got another one. Now I have three machines and each has four needles.”
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Inside the shop there are many samples of embroidered towels and apparel such as shirts, jackets, sweatshirts and hats. Brightly colored skeins of thread in varying hues line one wall. Customers can order the items they want out of a catalog, and Hettler will typically get it the following day. She then uses either her embroidery machines or a heat transfer method to add a design or logo to each piece.
Hettler also has a variety of gift items in the shop. With her engraving machine she can personalize objects such as picture frames, cutting boards, key chains and coasters. Cubbies stuffed animals, which can be embroidered with a child’s name and date of birth, are currently popular with clients. Customers can also choose mouse pads, wine carriers, cups, bracelets and luxury soaps.
“I want to thank all my customers for their support,” Hettler says. “Most are small businesses that want their name on 20 or 30 shirts and hats, but I’ve also had orders for 150 pieces. I’m also grateful to area schools. Coach Ogle of Warsaw High School basketball has come in every year for at least 18 years, and Sacred Heart school is a long-time customer. I really like my customers and what I’m doing.”
Designs by Kim is located at 111 East Market Street in Warsaw. Call 574-268-9904 for more information.
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N & J Auto Sales is Still Rolling After More Than 70 Years in Business
Writer / Angela Cornell Photographer / Jubilee Edgell
N & J Auto Sales is a small car dealership - it carries about 35 or so cars at any given time. As owners, the Johnson family likes it that way, because it allows them to provide customers with quality service and exclusive used cars.
“We specialize in a six-month to maybe a two-year-old car,” Vice President Clay Johnson says. “We have cars older than that, but that’s what we specialize in - really nice, quality cars that have not been wrecked, beat up or banged up. They’re next to new. We like to say, ‘New car for a used price.’”
The business started in 1947 with Don Nussbaum and his partner Art Johnson.
“We came about because my grandfather liked cars and wanted to sell them,” Clay says.
Together, Nussbaum and Johnson started two N & J Auto Sales shops, one in Huntington managed by Nussbaum, and the other in Warsaw managed by Johnson. Although the Huntington branch closed relatively quickly, the Johnsons’ branch has a different story - largely due to the family’s focus on reputation.
“When we started out, we were a buy-here, pay-here car lot,” Clay says. “We sold cars on weekly payments. When my father started here around 1973, he decided he didn’t like buy-here, pay-here because he didn’t like the reputation that came with it. That’s when he turned around and decided to become a lightly
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used place, selling newer used cars with lower gas mileage and warranties on them.”
The resulting reputation that N & J garnered through the years is still vitally important to the Johnsons, who get most of their customers from word-of-mouth advertising. “We don’t sell junk,” Clay says. “I want to know where [the car] came from, who had it, and why they got rid of it. I want to put it through my process before I will turn around, put my name on it and sell it.”
Ultimately, the N & J reputation is based on something that is rare in the used car business - old-fashioned excellence.
“We’re an old-fashioned, old-school, lowoverhead operation,” Clay says. “We like to keep it personal. We know each and every one of our clients.”
This personal touch keeps clients coming back. It’s not only about the cars - it’s also about the relationships that the Johnsons have built with customers.
“We’re kind of a coffee shop,” Clay says. “Multiple people come through the doors - the retired guys, and people we haven’t seen who may be on vacation visiting their parents. They’ll come in and say, ‘Have you seen this person or that person that we grew up with?’ And soon it may be standing room only in our little front office here. It may get loud and it’s fun.”
Part of maintaining a small car lot is having few employees. Today, N & J Auto Sales is owned by Clay’s father Tim, and operated almost entirely by the father-son team.
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“He’s been here for 33 years,” Clay says of Boswell. “With all the new navigation, he figures out how everything works and so when people have problems, I will help them but Boz knows everything. A lot of the people who do a lot of business here will go straight to Boz. He knows every customer and he takes care of every one of them.”
Since N & J operates without a large service department, the company doesn’t offer much car maintenance in-house. However, N & J does have working relationships with several car maintenance shops in the area. “We’re a big relationship-built business,” Clay says. “We will funnel our customers to the best repair shop for the best price, and help them that way.”
N & J Auto Sales is located at 315 East Market Street in Warsaw. For additional details including inventory listings, financing information and more, visit nandjautosales. com or call 574-267-3659.
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