14 Sep GIFTING 101 … 17 years later.
Call it what you will – corporate gifts, gift baskets, client gifts, etc. We have become experts in this arena after 17 years at it. Celebrating our business anniversary this week has created some reflection on what we didn’t know when we started versus what we know now.
In our first year, we went DOOR-TO-DOOR to businesses that we thought might like our offering. Lesson #1 – We found that most receptionists weren’t about to let us past the front door. And if we did get to talk to the person in charge, they were generally annoyed that we didn’t call first. Those were some frustrating and difficult days.
Lesson #2 – We thought companies started purchasing holiday gifts in November and December. We had no idea how far BEHIND THE 8 BALL we were. People almost laughed at us as we asked, “Have you started thinking about holiday gifts yet?”… on November 15th. Corporations typically think ahead and we didn’t do enough research beforehand to know that.
Lesson #3 – We knew what we knew but we didn’t know what we didn’t know. That list of things we didn’t know was vast…like really extensive…as in embarrassingly long. But the season came and went and we had a lot of non-holiday time to figure out how to DO IT BETTER and stay in business.
Fast forward a couple years and we were busy, but still doing everything ourselves. We had moved our business out of our house, and into some free office space provided by a family member. No employees yet; just good friends who would help out when it got extra busy. We did all our own deliveries. I sold my car and bought a mini van that could double as my personal vehicle. We were doing about 80% of our annual business during the holiday season.
Those times seem so distant now. I remember the stress and fear that came with our first lease of warehouse space. Then came the first employee and the payroll we supposedly had to pay. :) With each step, we had to combat many fears and WE ARE SO GLAD WE DID. I’d like to say things just run smoothly now and it’s easy-peasy 17 years later, but that’s not quite the truth. We do a lot of things right, but we are still trying to stay ahead of a fast moving train.
Lesson #98 – Fail quickly. As we make mistakes, we figure out what went wrong and we immediately change course. Without such a mantra, we couldn’t try all the things we do. We have had to learn to be humble as concepts might flop or ideas don’t thrive. Learning to fail quickly is actually a good lesson for life.
Lesson #99 – Show gratitude. No matter how busy we have become, we are keenly aware of the importance of our clients knowing we owe it all to them. There is no place for arrogance in business. Think about your last Southwest Airlines flight and how they surely said something along the lines of, “We know you have a lot of options when it comes to flying, so thank you for choosing Southwest.” We feel exactly the same way when it comes to corporate gifting.
Lesson #100 – Evolve or die. We are really good at letting the market show us what we should be doing next. We promised ourselves from the beginning that we would pay attention and never be so stubborn as to think we knew more than the marketplace. Our business today is quite different than what we set out to do, and it is so much better than we could have imagined.
We love what we do and we plan to grow old doing it. GIFT HOUNDS | est. 2000