Adam Daigle
The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Sherry Latour is mentoring several budding entrepreneurs at a local business accelerator which is fast becoming a resource to many new small business owners.
Baton Rouge
Sherry Latour counsels people to find endeavors that will feed their souls.
She is owner of Tops Appliances and Cabinetry, but her side hustle is so much more. Her business on Johnston Street houses several other business and is now a business accelerator and resource to many small business owners, many of them fledgling. Latour talked about her mentoring of those budding entrepreneurs and other topics in a conversation with Jan Swift of the Discover Lafayette podcast recently.
Latour credits her own coaches, Wendy Hornung and Jeff Resweber, for helping her find her voice and confidence to follow her own passions. But she also gets plenty of feedback from the entrepreneurs she mentors.
“The one thing that surprised me the most came from a thirty-something-year-old man,” she said. “Most of his mentors have been men. So he got a very different perspective from me. The men that mentored me are now in their 70s or 80s, so there is 50 years difference between these two groups of men. The live-work balance is a high priority, they are very involved as fathers, and they are motivated to build their companies for a better quality of life.
“So it gives me confidence that as a woman, I do have some wisdom to impart that will benefit them.”
When Latour bought Tops, housed in a building that had 64,000 square feet downstairs and 18,000 in the mezzanine, she looked for other businesses that might want to utilize the space.
Today, it houses Architectural Windows & Doors and Brian S. Guidry Builders, April Guillory Designs, The Unconventional Dietician, Daphne Olivier, who holds cooking classes in TOPS’ live showroom. Cajun Crate and Cousins Smokehouse is also housed in TOPS, as are Charlie and the Peanut Butter Factory, Acadian Slice! and Ginger Sprout Plant Co.
It also houses The Culvivation Kitchen, a state-approved facility for emerging food entrepreneurs.
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