Finding a Home In The Trees with Tamara Harding of Mara Made Designs

November 17, 2021

Finding a Home In The Trees with Tamara Harding of Mara Made Designs

This episode is brought to you by Jobber – getjobber.com/ethan

“My mantra is I just want the freedom to be me. And the freedom to be me means that I get to express what I do and how I do it on my terms.”

Tamara Harding

Welcome to Building a Furniture Brand with Ethan Abramson, the show that talks about the business behind the furniture business. In this episode, Ethan sits down with Tamara Harding, owner of Jamaica-based furniture company Mara Made Designs.

Tamara definitely leads with her heart when it comes to her company, but that’s not to say that she leaves the business part behind. On the contrary, with her background in advertising, she recognizes more than most the importance of having a solid business plan in place as you grow.

So she has balanced both art and business as she’s grown her company, from humble beginnings to being the market leader of live edge furniture in Jamaica, employing a full team of craftsmen in her two locations and selling her custom pieces as quickly as they can be made.

Follow along as they talk about how she started her business with fireworks, how she’s continued to grow and maintain her lead in the market, why she thinks following your passion is a better plan than following the money, and much more.

Questioning her Purpose on Earth

“My woodworking journey started really in my 30s. So this would have been in the early 2000s. And when I say that, it’s not that I started doing any sort of actual hands-on work, but it’s when I started questioning my purpose here on Earth.

So I’m 47 now, and I started my early 30s knowing and feeling an urge to do something that would leave a legacy, knowing that I was here for a higher purpose, but just not knowing what that was. I had kids very young, so in my 30s, I was really on the grind, working nine to five in corporate, raising my kids.

Later on, my kids both left to go away to school, and I started questioning, you know, why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? And I promised myself that I was not going to turn 40 and not have that answer.”

Tamara Harding

When Tamara was halfway through her 39th year, she owned an advertising agency, had major clients, and was ostensibly doing very well. However, she still felt that she didn’t have the answer she needed, and she felt miserable and unfulfilled. She wrote to all her clients, gave them notice, and shut her business down.

Afterward, she took about four months of doing nothing to delve into reading, journaling, and soul searching before deciding during Christmas of that year that she would make Christmas decorations to sell.

Initially, Tamara went to Miami to buy, modify, and resell decorations from major stores. After failing to sell them, she regrouped through Pinterest and Google and noticed there were a lot of decorations made from wood. At the time, she had a giant dead tree in her backyard, so Tamara cut all the limbs off, redid her decorations, and everything sold very well.

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

“In January, I used all the proceeds from those Christmas decorations, went to the local supplier here, and bought my first Stihl saw, the 170, the little tiny one, a circular saw, and a jigsaw. Now, I knew nothing about anything, so I took the chainsaw home, went on to YouTube, learned how to start it, and a friend of mine who’s in construction donated a tree to me that he had cleared to build a tennis court.

I just taught myself how to carve, using that small saw and his donated piece of wood. You know, I took the whole month, and I just taught myself how to carve. I still didn’t know where I was going in regards to a business or anything like that.

Now, because I come from a marketing background, I had this advertising agency. I built my whole brand before I even knew what my brand was about. I had my logo, name, entire business plan, marketing strategy, PR strategy, and social media strategy. However, I didn’t know what the hell I was making or selling. So I kind of put the cart before the horse on that one. But what it ended up doing was it gave me direction on where to go.”

Tamara Harding

As Tamara progressed her business, she would invite her friends from the design world over and pick their brains for information. She discovered that dining tables, shelving, side tables, and organic furniture were very difficult to get in Jamaica. One company imports that style of furniture from Indonesia and Bali, but Jamaicans like to buy locally whenever possible.

Since there was nobody at the time involved in live-edge furniture, Tamara saw an opportunity to create a niche for herself. Every single piece she creates to this day, she taught herself to make.

Leveling up with a Launch Event

“How are people going to know about me? How are they going to take me seriously? So I decided that the best solution was to have a launch event. I went about creating a 100-piece collection, and I had a launch event over a three-day period. Because I was in marketing and advertising, I had lists of people from all different walks of life, business entities, commercial, banking, politicians.

So I just went about inviting everybody that I could possibly invite to my launch event, and I divided it up into three categories. Thursday was politicians, people higher up in business, in banking, that type of thing, Friday was the influencers, the younger crowds, but you know, still well to do, own their own business or do very well for themselves. Then the Saturday crowd was an older generation, an older crowd, focused mainly on the 50s and 60s, a lot of housewives, but that have a very strong command for the art world.

For the launch event, I contacted a local newspaper, had them come and do a massive spread about my business, and had them time its release. So I sent out all the invitations, and everybody got them on Friday, and then I had this huge spread in the newspaper on Sunday. So when they got the invitation, they were like, “What is this?” They pick up the newspaper on Sunday, and it tied right back into what the invitation and so that piqued everybody’s interest.”

Tamara Harding

Tamara’s launch event worked exceptionally well. She had strong attendance, and she asked Samsung if they would sponsor the event, which created a ton of footage of the entire event. She made this hanging desk at the event entrance with three Samsung tablets for signing in and then a five-minute video of what they were about to see on a massive Samsung TV.

This emotionally connected Tamara’s audience to her work immediately, and then they came around the back to see her massive sculptures as an introduction before being led to her housewares and other smaller items. After her launch, Tamara’s phone was ringing off the hook with requests for pieces at villas, hotels, as well as smaller home pieces, and that was only the start of her incredible journey.

Facebook: Mara Made Designs