Meet Heather Ferrari, who started her vinyl shop, The Record Lounge, ten years ago in East Lansing. Last year, she moved the shop to Reo Town and ever since, she said, “we’ve just been doing amazing so, this is something I’ve wanted to do most of my life.”
Heather is one seriously awesome lady who gave some insight on what it’s like to be in a business that females aren’t usually in, let alone running!
“Normally, when you go into a record shop, you see a man. And there are times guys will come in and if I’m here with Dean or if I was here with Bill [employees], they will look at him and ask him the question instead of me, and they’ll have to say ‘Ya know, she’s the boss, you’ll have to ask her,’ so, it’s kind of cool in that way, there ya go. But it’s to show that women can do this and I’ve had a lot of younger girls saying ‘man, this is really cool, I’d love to do this someday,’ so to me, that’s amazing. That’s super cool.”
The Record Lounge hasn’t always been in Reo Town, though. Heather explored her business venture through eBay, but she quickly found a home in stores because she couldn’t talk to people about their records, music, or chat in general online: “I like interaction with people, that’s my thing, so I started with this other store kind of selling my records in it, almost like a pop up shop inside of the store and it got to be bigger than what they were doing, so I went off on my own and there was this little tiny 300 square foot space in East Lansing. It was super hard to find, but people kind of found out about us.” She and her store took off from there. Although her business owning journey has had its ups and downs, Heather’s perseverance and strong will provide the means for a thriving business.
Heather’s passion for music and love for records has brought her to where she is today:
“For one, this is my dream. Two, it’s to show women that they can do this. Hey, if you do have some musical knowledge or you know your stuff about music, you can run your own record shop. It’s not just a man’s game like it’s always been for hundreds of years now.”
Heather is such an inspiration and continues to portray that to other women. She is combining her passion and work ethic to show the people of Lansing how she is constantly “rocking,” like her inspiration Chrissy Heim from the Pretenders. She empowers women by, “Just showing them they can do this, that a woman can one, own their own business and two, run a music shop. And do it well! It’s been pretty awesome.”
On being a woman, this is what Heather had to say: “I just, I love being a woman, I love proving to other people every day that I can get through this world without the help of anybody here. Being a woman means being empowered, basically, that’s it.”
On being a woman, this is what Heather had to say: “I just, I love being a woman, I love proving to other people every day that I can get through this world without the help of anybody here. Being a woman means being empowered, basically, that’s it.”