Original text

How Did Your Business Get Started?

Meet Kathleen Lewis of Sew Link and Southern Decor

At Asheville SCORE we are honored to work with a wide variety of clients in Western North Carolina. Our entrepreneurs are motivated and inspired. Many of them have had successful careers and companies in the past and they are looking for new ways to grow their businesses and organizations, and in some cases, the chance to move in a new professional direction.

Kathleen Lewis, owner of SewLink and Southern Decor, was one of these clients in search of counseling and support as her work and her business evolved with the marketplace. When interviewed here is what she shared with us:

What is your name?

Kathleen Lewis

What is your business name?

My businesses are called SewLink and also Southern Decor.

What do you do?

I provide and manage sewing contracts as SewLink and manufacture products and home décor under Southern Decor.

Where did you grow up?

I am an Asheville, North Carolina native. I have lived here all my life, over 50 years.

When did you start the business?

1991

How have SCORE services helped you?

When the sewing contracting jobs were leaving the country I needed to turn on a dime and figure out how to keep my ladies with work so they could keep paying their bills and live.

What was your greatest business success?

The way I feel today.

What one thing do you wish you had done differently with your business?

Turned my business into a multi-million dollar business so I could have paid more people living wages.

What one piece of advice would you give to new entrepreneurs?

Just keep getting up and going to work every day no matter what. Don’t give up before the miracle happens. That miracle is feeling the success of what you are doing and seeing it in others.

What do you like to do when you are not working?

I love to create with my fabrics, trims, and supplies.