Greenwood’s Erin Smith built her business from scratch, but she’s far from finished

The recommendation from regarding applicants for the 2010 Ernest G. Mishler Community Service Award required a staple once listing the qualifications of Erin Smith finally came to a close.  Longwinded answers made it so four pages were needed to adequately respond to six questions pertaining to Smith.  It could have been more.  Who knows?  Maybe Jill Bode of Designed Write Public Relations, the person responsible for signing Smith’s praises in eye-grabbing blue type, was looking out for the trees.

More accurately, she was looking out for Smith, owner of The Stitch Smith in Greenwood the past nine years and one of the true movers and shakers when it comes to business being conducted between the boundaries of Johnson County.

And as anyone who knows Smith will bear out, the wheels never stop turning.  When it comes to The Stitch Smith, a custom embroiderer and screen-print apparel company used by businesses looking to add muscle to their image, Smith never ceases to have ideas bouncing around inside her head.

Smith wasted no time entrenching herself in all things Johnson County after her husband’s job transfer brought the family to Greenwood from Murfreesboro, TN, in April 2001.

“I started The Stitch Smith because my family got relocated here.  I interviewed for other jobs and I realized that with two small children I didn’t want to be away from home,” she says.  “I researched for about six months looking for a business I could run from home.”

Over the nine years that have passed, Smith’s business savvy and confidence gradually increased, table-setters for the bold new avenues The Stitch Smith now travels.

“I would call myself a progressive entrepreneur.  I began adding pieces to my company, and in 2009 I met my business partner, Susan McCarty, who runs Franklin Printing.” says Smith.  “She was in need of a sales person and I was in need of revenue.  We put our heads together and co-branded and co-marketed our companies and both of us had our best years ever.”

Therefore, if one scours the Internet in search of information regarding The Stitch Smith, they’ll locate it beneath the title of Spotlight Strategies (spotlight-strategies.com) along with contact information for Franklin Printing.  The two companies will have officially merged by the end of 2010 to become Spotlight Strategies.

“What we’re best at is helping our customers with a marketing problem or opportunity.  From a community standpoint, I love people and am genuinely interested in what they’re doing.  The Stitch Smith is still a pretty important part of the business.  Definitely a core part.  However, when the market changes, your business adjusts,” says Smith.  “In the next five years we want to be one of the top five players in central Indiana when it comes to the services we provide.”

Among them, she says, are business printing, image apparel, promotional items, signage and corporate gifts.

This, like the majority of business ventures, is a roll of the dice for both women.  Yet since accomplishment breeds assurance, the person who came to Johnson County nine years ago not knowing a single soul, enters this exciting phase of her work career with no apprehensiveness whatsoever.

“I’ve had a lot of people who have been very tentative because so many business relationships have failed,” says Smith.  “But I will say I’m a risk-taker and once I set my sights on something, rarely do I veer from that path.  I’m just very determined to succeed.  Life is short.  You make positive of what you can today and that propels you forward.”

Bode, for one, marvels at the way Smith has so tightly embraced Johnson County, especially considering the latter had never so much as set foot here prior to 2001.

“Erin moved to this community and just loved living here from the start.” says Bode.  “She is just a very driven person who doesn’t care for failure.  And she has such talent for bringing out the best in people.”