Earlier this month, the Women’s Leadership LIVE Team had the opportunity to personally visit good friend, Jo Packham at her studio. We shared the experience with a Facebook Live with 5.7K views. Jo is one of the most charismatic • genuine • caring • truly authentic women you will ever meet. We asked her to share a bit more about Urban Studio.
We know you will love Jo as much as we do! Hugs Debbie & Stacey
By Jo Packham • Follow your dream … isn’t that exactly what you hear most female small business entrepreneurs say? When we ask those we feature in the magazine, Where Women Create BUSINESS, to list 10 Hard Working Take-aways in their feature article to help those wanna-be or current entrepreneurs to work smarter and not just harder, it is ALWAYS the #1 take-away on their list … “Follow your dream”.
And I always have to write and remind them that FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS will not help anyone to work smarter and not just harder … for the very simple reason: “entrepreneurs work harder than any company employee can even begin to imagine!”
Is the first business that most entrepreneurs start from a “dream”? Something that they have thought about, obsessed over, planned each detail of for longer than they can remember?
What I think I know about most entrepreneurs is that the vast majority of us seem to be serial entrepreneurs. Does that mean that we have more dreams than we can possibly bring to reality? Or do we begin our entrepreneurial life making one dream come true and the rest of our small business ventures are more of a good idea that is a result of or grew from following our dreams?
That is what the URBAN STUDIO is for me … a good idea. I didn’t dream about having a fabulous event-type center that I could rent out for parties, meetings, cooking classes, and maker events. I can’t even really remember when the idea came to me at all. It may have been simply a result of living in a small apartment that has no room to invite guests for dinner or a party … and I love a party. My first solution was to build a new house and my daughter asked me, in her most diplomatic way, to please not do that. If I built a new house I would need Brett (her husband) to help me and he is too busy with work and his family and his passion for hunting and I would be upset with him and he would be upset with Sara and it would not be a good experience for anyone.
So, I have owned this building on Historic 25th Street in Ogden, Utah for 13 years. I rent the first floor to Art Box, a retail shop with the most unusual and artful merchandise. It even has a hands-on art studio space. I use the second floor as a kind of photography studio, office, and “place” to house all of my treasures but the 2nd floor has never been income producing … so one day I just announced to anyone who would listen that, “I was going to gut and remodel the 2nd floor of my historic building to rent and make money … but mostly to have parties!”
It is the perfect solution to so many things:
- There is a really nice place to have a party and celebrate special occasions and holidays with family and friends.
- It will be the perfect place for my grandchildren to gather with their friends.
- It is a place that I can share so that my children can invite their friends or business associates and have events of their own.
- It helps promote me and my magazines … it is kind of proof positive that I do good work.
- It creates a good income by renting the space out to other businesses for meetings, photographers for photo shoots, party givers, celebrators, and more.
So maybe, just maybe, as small business female entrepreneurs we turn good ideas into successful realities rather than simply following our dreams!
Jo Packham’s BIO:
I am the creator/Editor-in- Chief of 3 best selling Stampington magazines: WHERE
WOMEN CREATE, WHERE WOMEN COOK, and WHERE WOMEN CREATE
BUSINESS and have been a leading innovator in the handmade publishing market for
more than 35 years.
My publishing company, Chapelle Ltd., has packaged more than 1,000 titles for most
major publishers in the industry.
My life has been a journey that seems as if it were taken straight from the pages of a
storybook. I look forward to the promises of tomorrow and am proud to say that every
single day I am blessed to be able to do what I love, that I am surrounded by family and
friends whom I adore and respect, and that I am trusted enough to represent those
whose passion is to create with their hands…whether it be food, art, or business
