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Creating Bouquet of Basil Herbals (BB Herbals) came naturally to Michelle Mansfield-Hom. While still in school, working towards herbalism certifications, she began creating custom tea blends for family and friends. When she saw the impact of her carefully crafted teas, she expanded into a fully functioning online apothecary.
BB Herbals is dedicated to providing small-batch, clinical herbalist-formulated medicine, with a special focus on the Deaf community. Critical information is often inaccessible to the Deaf community due to the lack of simple tools like subtitling or incidental learning. Offering clinical and flower essence sessions conducted directly in American Sign Language (ASL), Mansfield- Hom’s mission is to make alternative healthcare ASL- linguistically accessible.
We had the pleasure of speaking with Michelle Mansfield-Hom, Owner and Clinical Herbalist of Bouquet of Basil Herbals, about solopreneurship, her passion for helping others, and how PayPal Open supports her business.
For Mansfield-Hom, who was born Deaf, ASL was her first language. So, she’s especially attuned to the Deaf and signing community’s lack of access to health and wellness information. “Deaf community members immensely miss out on information that is on the internet, not limited to podcasts and videos with bad captioning,” laments Mansfield-Hom. When she founded BB Herbals, closing that information gap became her mission.
Mansfield-Hom’s deep commitment to educating others about the science of herbs and plant medicine is the foundation of BB Herbals. And as she says, “making alternative healthcare accessible in ASL and serving the Deaf/signing community is the most meaningful aspect of my work.”
So, in addition to her tea blends, tinctures, skincare, and other products, Mansfield-Hom conducts workshops and one-on- one consultations in ASL. Each client in these consultations, she says, “receives approximately two hours of my undivided attention–something often missing in the Western medical model.”
When she first started BB Herbals in 2021, says Mansfield- Hom, “PayPal was my primary payment method.” She set up her ecommerce site with PayPal Checkout because “PayPal is widely recognized as a trusted payment platform. Offering the assurance of PayPal Checkout is one of the ways she makes BB Herbals accessible.
Another way is by offering Venmo as a payment option for her clients. “Venmo has been at the heart of my business transactions for the past four years,” she declares. Mansfield- Hom connects Venmo payments directly to her business checking account, making bookkeeping and tracking seamless. And when attending events as a vendor, she offers a Venmo QR Code as a convenient contactless payment option.
Mansfield-Hom considers herself a solopreneur: “I run a one- woman business, handling everything from bookkeeping and scheduling to marketing, shipping, and production.” But that doesn’t mean she’s alone in her endeavors.
She regularly turns to the Deaf community and her fellow Deaf entrepreneurs in holistic health, wellness, and nature- oriented businesses. Both in seeking support, and to provide support. Mansfield-Hom has built cross-business collaborations and partnerships for BB Herbals.
These relationships, she says, “have been deeply fulfilling, creating an ecosystem where we uplift one another.” She feels a profound responsibility to support other Deaf women. As she expands BB Herbals, she plans to employ Deaf women and continue collaborating with Deaf women-owned businesses.
As challenges go, the financial side of starting a business felt like a big barrier for Mansfield-Hom to overcome from the start. “Growing up,” she says, “business management and accounting always felt like a ‘male-dominated realm,’ which made it feel even more intimidating.” Fortunately, PayPal Invoicing empowered her to handle these daunting tasks with ease.
Mansfield-Hom calls PayPal Invoicing an “essential tool” for BB Herbals because “its user-friendly interface streamlines the invoicing process and greatly supports my bookkeeping, helping me keep everything organized and efficient.”
In using PayPal Invoicing with her international consultation and workshop clients, she appreciates how seamless it is. On her merchant dashboard, there’s a guided, intuitive process to turn estimates into invoices, track payment status, and schedule payment reminders.
Her customers like that it’s easy to use to pay her quickly. In fact, 77% of PayPal invoices are paid within one day of sending.1 And for Mansfield-Hom, PayPal has exceeded her expectations by helping to manage the day-to-day tasks of running a business.
Though she considers BB Herbals to be in the early stages of development, Mansfield-Hom is always looking for ways to evolve her business. “Along the way, I’ve felt confident knowing that PayPal is available as a reliable tool to help me navigate my business journey.”
She added, “PayPal is not just a payment platform–it’s a wealth of resources and business management tools that make owning a business both approachable and achievable.”
In the end, it’s nature’s gifts that keep Mansfield-Hom moving. “I can’t forget the company I keep with plants,” Mansfield-Hom reflects. “Plants are just as much a part of this journey as I am.”
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