Business Spotlight | Brainstorm Boutique provides great ideas for businesses

Founder, owner and creative director Britni Bateman and her sister Kasie Lechelle put all of the components together for business owners who are looking to expand their promotion and marketing efforts outside of what they have ever imagined.

It’s a successful company that started when Bateman was helping an area women’s boutique navigate the challenge of remaining in business during the pandemic. Always an “idea person,” she started sharing suggestions and thoughts to build a customer base and followers.

It was a lifelong passion, and Bateman found she had discovered a niche, especially when it comes to what she calls “brainstorm intensives.”

“I had always wanted to have a business focused on the brainstorming aspect where I could work with a business and dive deep with all of these really cool ideas for their business,” she explained. “That might be something unrealistic for small business owners to implement, but with help, we can look at brand and marketing strategy and social media. Plus we also do brand development, design and social media marketing.”

Bateman explained her approach is somewhat unique.

“I like to sometimes call myself that creative brain that you hire to fire because I really want to empower small business owners with the tools and the knowledge to be able to do things themselves as much as possible,” she said. “I want people to feel self-sufficient by the time we are done working together.”

Other clients hire the company on a longer-term basis to build everything from brands to followings and even confidence.

“Kasie is a very talented social media manager but she also offers what we call confidence coaching. A lot of small business owners have imposter syndrome where they don’t feel confident interacting with people on the fly and after working with her, they become absolutely confident that they can trust themselves to handle situations appropriately,” Bateman explained.

Other Brainstorm Boutique services include website design and social media marketing, both of which benefit from the company’s ability to generate ideas.

“We’ve notices that often, businesses just need someone to help them get started and with the brainstorming background, we are there to inspire, encourage and support them,” Bateman said. “We really are there to cheer them on, not just as a business, but on a personal level.”

Bateman explained that as a small business owner herself, she is able to provide a personal level of service.

“We love that we are a smaller organization because it allows us to really focus on specific clients one at a time. We know what our capacity is and while we do have a waitlist, we want to make sure that whomever is working with us gets our full attention for everything,” she said.

Brainstorm Boutique has a number of client success stories. Bateman said a country line-dancing instructor has worked with the company to expand his reach.

“He wanted to be more elevated, so we ‘revamped’ his website and Kasie took on his social media. He had 1,200 followers on Instagram in April and now has 85,000 and probably nearly 700,000 on TikTok,” she said. “He now has people from all over the world who are coming to Nashville to learn from him.

“It’s one of those things where we can be at different levels – everything from a stop-gap and sort of temporary help for a businesses to be a true partner for others,” she added.