Recipe for success: build your own businessby Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)
A year and a half ago, Atira Parker had an idea.
As she was pursuing a restaurant management degree, her bills still needed to be paid. “I started to think,” she says, “‘I should just market myself for what I have learned through work experience and start to make a living at it.’”
Parker enlisted friend and local Web design freelancer, Kate Erlewine, to launch a site featuring Parker's skills in catering, cake-making, and licensed massage therapy.
“I basically was trying to see what would pick up, see what I could meet a demand for and go with that,” says Parker.
After she sent a link to most everyone she knew, and posted business cards around town, the response was immediate for catering and cakes.
Today, she works about 45 hours per week, with two vocations stemming from her Website, www.atiraparker.com. She is a cake-maker: she takes word-of-mouth and website referrals for wedding and special-occasion cakes through her own business, Atira’s Cakes, and also bakes for the Village Bakery. She is a massage therapist: she gives in-home massages and recently joined forces as one of four massage therapists at WellWorks, Ohio University’s wellness center.
With economic unsteadiness and the nation’s workforce enduring budget cuts, layoffs and unemployment, a wide majority of Americans have been challenged to be creative in job pursuits. Recent stories in the New York Times and CNN.com highlighted the growing U.S. trend to generate employment from lifetime skills or hobbies. One featured man even started a business to build and sell jellyfish tanks.
Parker notes that Athens isn’t immune to this trend. “I think it is typical of people in Athens to have multiple things going,” she says. “If you can’t find a job, you just kind of make something for yourself.” Many of her friends and family pay the bills through similar situations. Her own home serves as double-duty residence and workplace: the kitchen - up to cleanly standards - is filled with acquired products from restaurant equippers to produce her cakes; the basement is outfitted for her husband’s side venture of designing and constructing furniture from used bike parts.
Parker’s days are far from typical: massage some mornings, a few hours at the bakery, then some evenings shopping for fresh cake supplies is offset by another entire day’s worth of cake-baking and delivery. “There are parts of my personality that really like (working like this), because I like to have flexibility to make my own schedule,” she says.
Weighing out the amount of time for cake prepping - such as cutting out parchment paper, cardboard rounds, and decorating - are all taken into account in cake pricing. Wedding season is approaching– sometimes two to three cakes will be on the agenda for the weekend.
Parker believes what she offers is comparable and reasonable. Entering her third wedding season as a cake-maker, she states, “I am confident in getting the price I ask for because I know I can deliver it.”
“I've done a lot to find my niche here in Athens,” she adds. “And I am proud of what I do. It has paid off, because community, word of mouth, and knowing people is what has made this possible for me.”
Though making cakes has more artistic license, Parker believes both massage and basics of baking and cooking are crafts she has mastered. “A craft is something that you learn and execute well. That is what I do – I learned it and I execute it well.”
Looking back, Parker says her current pursuits make sense to her.
Watching “Great Chefs of the World” as a kid, and reading cookbooks for entertainment, Parker recalls she always loved any aspect of cooking. After her family relocated to Athens when she was 15, she was employed at Purple Chopstix for many years and landed subsequent jobs within restaurants.
Obtaining a massage therapy license from Hocking College at age 18 was influenced by her mother’s example to care for people, accept everybody, and focus on good health. “People all have the same tension, always in the same places,” says Parker, “and I am there to help that. I really believe in what I am doing. It is definitely a beneficial service.” Parker specializes in Swedish massage, utilizing trigger point and deep tissue therapy when necessary.
For some, Athens may lack in employment options, but it remains home for Parker. “Sometimes I think,” says Parker, ‘Why don’t I just pick up and move to a bigger city and get a job?’ But I don’t - I own a house here, my family is here. I’m here right now.”
After leaving Athens to live briefly in both West Virginia and Hawaii, Parker realized she missed Athens. “I just kept thinking of Athens,” she says. “It made me realize I wanted to live here. I think it is a well-rounded town.” She appreciates Athens’ community and outdoor beauty – especially places to ride and race mountain bikes.
From her experience and success in building a business from scratch, her advice is this: “Do what you know you are good at, focus on your skills, know what you do well. And if it doesn’t fit exactly into a job that you are trying to get - find a niche or a market where there is something that you can do that can be sold, and go for it.”
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