“Making It Work” is a series about small business owners striving to get through tough times.
At a time when most parking lots were empty, the gravel lot on the edge of Detroit’s suburbs was filled with cars—a disturbing sight in the fall of 2020. A stream of masked visitors looked around, wandering along a forest path toward lights deep in the forest, unsure of what to expect.
All the visitors knew was that the night promised an escape from their homes. They had come for Glenlore Trails and the promise of an unusual half-mile walk through a lit-up forest.
“We wanted it to be like walking through a movie,” says Scott Schoeneberger, who co-created Glenlore Trails with his wife Chanel. “We didn’t have a baseline of what ‘good’ looked like. We just went out and put some lights in the woods.
Visitors experienced more than a few lights that night: they were immersed in a world of interactive video walls, multi-colored waterfalls, video projections that illuminated the canopy, and more. The project was a hit. Tickets for the month-long run sold out within a week, and Mr. Schoeneberger added more dates. The couple quickly realized that this long-running idea could help their family’s primary company, Bluewater Technologies, which builds live experiences for corporate and convention clients, weather the Covid-19 pandemic and save some of their 225 keep employees on leave.
They certainly didn’t expect Glenlore Trails to make up 6 percent of the company’s revenue three years later, expecting it to be 25 percent within five years. “It was a whirlwind, and after four years it still feels that way,” said Ms. Schoeneberger, who manages operations for the events.
Bluewater, like many small businesses, struggled to survive during the pandemic. An August 2020 Visa survey found that 67 percent of small businesses said they were changing: Restaurants began selling homemade meal kits or opened general stores; gyms offered virtual classes; some vets tried drive-up consultations.
“I saw a lot of risk taking during the pandemic,” said Laura Huang, the director of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative at Northeastern University. “Huge risks are easy to do when you’re down to zero.”
Many companies are abandoning those pandemic pivots as customers demand a return to normalcy. But for some owners, such as Mr. Schoeneberger, the pandemic proved to be fertile ground for experimentation that continues to pay off. They make their pivot points permanent.
For that to happen, Dr. Huang, “a successful pivot should complement their business, not cannibalize it.”
When the pandemic hit, Mr. Schoeneberger that the company’s audiovisual equipment was sitting unused in storage and that Bluewater’s staff needed work. So he went to his mother, Suzanne Schoeneberger, the owner of the company, and the team with his idea. They all agreed, and in just a month Mr. Schoeneberger, 37, and his wife, 34, went from a frantic search for a piece of land to rent to welcoming the first guest to Glenlore Trails. To publicize it, they hired an influencer to promote the walk on TikTok.
“Due to the circumstances, everyone was willing to try it,” said Mr. Schoeneberger.
Now they’ve branched out and are working with conventions and corporate clients on similar experiences. They’ve also expanded the walk to a mile and released new themes each season. They bought equipment specifically for the project, are looking for a permanent location and have hired five full-time employees and 20 part-time employees for the company’s themed entertainment division.
“It has really become a research and development center for us,” said Mr. Schoeneberger.
Pivot points that lean toward expertise in a new way are most likely to succeed, said Dr. Huang. “Those small businesses that are holding up are the ones that are going back to those elements that are strong.”
For Kyle Beyer, that meant leaning on vaccines. Before the pandemic, his independent pharmacy in Shorewood, Wis., just north of Milwaukee, didn’t offer them; now the service accounts for 10 percent of sales and is indirectly responsible for doubling the company’s prescription business in three years.
“What Covid did for us was cram five years of marketing into one year,” said Mr. Beyer. “It brought people into our house who otherwise wouldn’t have had a reason to come in.”
Mr Beyer, 37, had been a pharmacist for over a decade when he decided to buy his own practice in 2019. After eight cold calls, a pharmacist in Shorewood agreed to meet. They closed the deal from what was then an 88-year-old company, North Shore Pharmacy, on March 1, 2020.
Less than two weeks later, everything changed. Mr. Beyer was no longer just a pharmacist going to work, but an entrepreneur walking into the unknown.
The pharmacy never closed because it was considered an essential business, but many of Mr. Beyer were at high risk for serious illness and were hesitant to leave their home. With fewer patrons inside, he began renovating the space, which hadn’t been updated since the 1980s.
When doses of Covid-19 vaccines finally became available, he signed up to receive them. Mr. Beyer didn’t think North Shore Pharmacy would be high on the list to get the early doses, but in early January 2021, the state’s health department called to tell him 100 doses would be delivered the next day.
What followed was 24 hours of chaos. He immediately reinvented a renovated display area as a waiting area for the vaccination service. “It was just by chance that we had this big, beautiful space where 10 people could talk and sit quietly,” said Mr. Beyer.
As word spread, people from neighboring towns began driving in for their photos. Mr. Beyer hired a full-time nurse to meet the increased demand. The intensity has decreased, but the nurse is still employed part-time, providing childhood immunizations, back-to-school immunizations and travel services.
“We realized that it’s our chance to be someone locally who can solve problems,” said Mr. Beyer.
In March 2022, he bought a second location in a neighboring community where he could add compounding – making specialty medicines – to his services.
Sometimes it’s not about what you do, but who you do it for. For LaQuanta Williams, that meant ending the domestic cleaning service to focus on commercial customers. It’s a change that makes them permanent.
“Covid steered my business in a direction I didn’t expect,” said Ms Williams. “I lost all my residential clients in one day. Literally the same day.”
Mrs. Williams started her company, White Glove Cleaning Solutions, as a student at the University of Akron in Ohio. She took an entrepreneurship course and her professor asked the students to start their own companies. A friend commented that she was always cleaning, and an idea was born.
Her project impressed her professor, who suggested she apply for a cleaning position at the university to gain experience before going into business. She got the job, but decided to put starting her own business on hold.
But in 2018, Ms Williams, now 45, was laid off from her job. She decided to take her severance pay and start the company. She rented an office and started handing out postcards. Her schedule began filling up with residential clients almost immediately.
They all disappeared in March 2020. It was scary at first, Ms Williams said. But she had been researching electrostatic sprayers that could quickly disinfect surfaces. She bought two and started calling shops and offices to offer her services.
Once again, her schedule was filling up quickly. A program to help minority suppliers put her in touch with several contractors, who hired her to clean up after construction. She’s had to hire five people to keep up with the demand, and she can’t imagine ever returning to housekeeping.
“Doing that allows me to be picky about clients,” she said.
