My Painted Tree Journey

Ten days ago, Painted Tree abruptly closed their doors.

Corporate had a call with store managers about 10:00 letting them know that they were ceasing operations. Store managers had to get off that call, usher out customers who were in the middle of shopping and lay off their entire staff. My heart breaks for the store managers. 

Vendors - they called us shop owners - got an email about 11:30 that morning informing us they were ceasing all operations and we had ten days to get completely out of every store we were in.

I was in two stores - Round Rock and Kingwood, TX. I was profitable my first month in both stores, and I was having so much fun. I was even considering letting go of my website and ceasing online sales.

Then they pulled the rug out from under us.

It’s been a rough 10 days. Painted Tree closes to everyone at 6:00 p.m. today, and I’m struggling with that as I write this.

I am obviously keeping my website up and am starting to work on making it a priority instead of an after thought. I have two more retail opportunities lined up and a solid lead on a third one. JoyShine will not stop shining!

But, folks, if you run a company, take a lesson from how Painted Tree corporate handled this. Bad stuff happens sometimes. Businesses fail. But if Painted Tree had lead with compassion, thousands of small business owners would be feeling a lot differently right now.

To everyone who has offered opportunities to misplaced Painted Tree shop owners, thank you for your compassion. Truly.