180 – Your Inside Peek at FB “Live from the Hive” with Shawn Parola of All The Buzz

Gift biz unwrapped episode 180 doesn't have to be perfect.

Just keep going.

Just keep going a little bit at a time.

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is give to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

At the end of this podcast I want to share with

you where my focus has been these last few months.

I've been working on something really hard for you.

It's the rebranding and updating of my master membership program called

maker's MBA.

Stay tuned to the end for details on that.

They also want to make sure that you're familiar with my

free Facebook group called gift biz breeze.

This is a place where we all gather and our community

to support each other.

I've got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing,

to show pictures of your product,

to show you what you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people and just for fun because

we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody in

the community is making.

My favorite post every single week without doubt.

Wait, what aren't you part of the group already?

If not,

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

group gift biz breeze.

Now I want to tell you about my guests today.

I've known Sean for many years now.

I am so,

so impressed with the growth of her company,

her ability to jump in and try new things that might

be a little anxiety provoking initially,

but she knows can help grow her business today on the

show, she offers us up to really,

really valuable points of ways that you can attract more customers,

develop yourself and grow your business.

These are some actions that you may never have considered before.

Even though the concept is familiar,

she talks about two specific things she does with networking that

is different from traditional networking as we would think of it,

so that's a teaser.

I'm not going to tell you.

I'm going to let Sean the pro talk about that and

then she also gets into Facebook live and what she's doing

for her business on that platform.

Unbelievably impressed what she's doing,

how she's getting it done,

very creative and you guys,

it's moving the needle for her.

I can't wait for you to hear all of it and

let's get right to it.

Here comes Shawn.

Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Shawn Perala.

Sean is the owner of all the buzz,

a gift basket and corporate gift company located in San Jose,

California. Sean's business has grown over the past 14 years from

part time and home-based to very full time in a private

production facility.

All the buzz focuses on custom business gifts with an emphasis

on California products and personalized products created right in her workshop.

Sean is an expert in her field.

She has served as an instructor at a national conference.

Has been featured in several publications and won many design awards,

most recently,

first place in corporate design at the national gift basket convention.

Sean, welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Thank you Sue.

I'm so happy to be here.

I am thrilled to have you here and I'm going to

start out with something that's going to be super easy for

you because I'm having you make your own customized motivational candle.

So if you were to create a candle that really speaks

to who you are,

Sean, what color would it be and what would be a

quote that you'd put on your special candle?

All right,

well my motivational candle would definitely be yellow because I think

that's light and bright and sunny and positive.

It would definitely be a beeswax candle cause we're all about

bees here at all.

The buzz and we're also all about the natural and organic

that these wax is and it reminds me of our company

mass debt and all of our B things we have around

here. As far as a motivational quote,

I think my favorite one right now is striving for progress,

not perfection.

Oh my gosh,

I've totally agree with you,

but tell me what that means for you.

For me,

that means in the past I sometimes have gotten kind of

caught up in I get stagnant.

I just don't do anything because I can't do it just

perfect. I'm a little bit of a perfectionist and so if

I can't do it I stop and I don't make any

progress. So now I'm just kind of lately trying to focus

on that every morning and tell myself just do a little

bit towards,

it doesn't have to be perfect,

just keep going.

Just keep going a little bit at a time.

I so agree with you there and I think a lot

of people who are thinking of starting a business think it

has to be perfection right out of the gate.

Right. Or else they haven't been successful and their business is

never going to go anywhere and your quote speaks to this

totally that you got to get something out to even see

if it's working and to make tweaks.

So eventually it will work.

Absolutely. I think we're all worried about what other people are

going to think and you know,

they're gonna think what they're going to think.

But we have to make progress for ourselves.

And for me,

that's a big thing I have to do thing.

Whether, you know,

everybody thinks it's perfect or they make fun of me or

whatever they're going to do,

I still gotta make progress over here.

Absolutely. And I'll tell you,

anyone who's making fun of anybody probably isn't doing anything themselves.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's the truth Because it's so easy to critique

versus really actually doing the work and putting yourself out there.

Right, exactly.

All right,

so take us back 14 years ago,

how did you get the idea of all the buzz?

Well, it probably started long before that.

My son is going to be 23 next month.

It very much started with him when I had him.

I became a kind of a crazy mom.

I wanted to have all of these before Pinterest,

even these crazy birthday parties with themes and absolutely taken to

an extreme degree and decorations and party favors and all of

those kinds of things.

And then shortly after that and while that was going on,

my sister and I started a small event planning company.

We were kind of just getting started and I always ended

up doing things like the out of town gifts and centerpieces

and things like that and she did all the planning and

keeping things on track and she decided to take a lot

different routes.

She went to do it completely different kind of business and

I started having friends still continue to ask me to do,

please do that for them between the birthday parties and favors

and decorations and centerpieces and all the things they had seen

too. Please continue doing that and do it for this party

and that party and this event and the big one was

when they offered to pay me to do it.

That was the big difference.

And I started thinking,

could I really do this and be paid for what I

love to do and make it a business even part time.

So that's how I started.

It's a crazy transition when you have the realization like,

Oh, people will actually even pay me money for doing this,

which is something I just enjoy doing.

Exactly. It seems like a dream that that would happen.

Yeah, for sure.

So I'm guessing you took that first paid job,

but you don't have a business yet.

Right? So you got the realization that people will pay you

for your skills and what you have the talent for.

How did that transition actually into a business?

Well, I think it just progressed.

I got more and more requests and probably one of the

big stepping stones was my sister in law was working for

a big automotive plant here nearby to where we are.

And she asked me to do administrative professional gifts for their

company. And the big difference was it was a large number

of administrative professionals.

I believe it was something like 50 gifts.

And so that was a huge jump in number and scale

to anything I had done before.

And so when she did that,

it really tested us.

At that point I didn't have help.

I had to call him my husband,

my son,

my parents,

everybody to help me get that done.

And that really made me,

and it was a lot more money that I earned for

that job and it was a lot more work and it

made me start thinking about really taking it to a higher

level than what we had done before then what I had

done before.

Wonderful. Okay.

And so talk about all the buzz and how you establish

the name and really put the formality around the business.

Because you're saying that that 50 piece project is like,

okay, now we really need to start doing something more professional

for the business like registering or whatever you did,

but how did you define what the company name was going

to be in all of that?

Take us through that.

All the buzz is a great name.

It's done very,

very well for us.

The name.

I wish that I had a better story around the name.

It just happened.

My husband and I went back and forth,

back and forth on all these names,

you know,

and came up with all and it was just one of

the many,

many names that he and I had come up with.

And we wanted it to be a name that included more

than gift baskets just in case we wanted to expand into

something different or the business morphed into something different.

It could encompass all of that.

So right now we call ourselves all the buzz gifts cause

we do it a lot more than gift baskets.

But that's how that came about.

My husband was a major,

major contributor.

We got married about 15 years ago and he really pushed

me on us.

He said,

you're doing this so you gotta go for it.

Looks like something we could do well with.

So I went and registered,

got all of that together,

registered name,

fictitious name,

business license,

set up a business checking account.

And when we started and it was very slow.

I have to admit it was very slow for a number

of years,

but I went it complete weeks sometimes without an order.

We didn't have constant orders.

It was here and there.

I had a part time job and I was raising my

son, so that was okay.

So that's how we got started and then it has just

grown and grown from there.

We did seek a dip with the recession of course,

and thank goodness,

you know,

I had my husband who had a steady full time job

and we made it through that and then we just started

rebuilding and I feel stronger for making it through that and

I feel better about the future that we could take on

whatever comes our way because of that tough time.

But we've just grown and grown from there.

Like I said,

it's very,

you said it's very much full time.

It takes a lot of time and effort,

but we do some great business now.

Okay, so I have like 7,000

questions for you after all of that.

It's so interesting to me,

Sean, that you had a similar situation that I did when

I started my coincidentally gift basket business back so long ago.

And that was someone else had to suggest to me to

start a business.

I didn't naturally think,

and that was kind of crazy because I was consulting all

these other businesses before,

but when I stayed home and then decided to enter the

workforce again,

it was also my husband who said,

well, don't you start something For yourself?

Like the idea never ever even occurred to me to do

that. Times are different now because the whole idea of starting

businesses and being an entrepreneur and all of that is kind

of the go watch for this Sean buzzword these days.

Right. But how important do you feel your husband's support was

for you as you were getting started back then?

Well, it was critical.

He believed in me before I believed in myself and he

really wasn't the only one.

I also have,

my parents were very,

very strong supporters now.

They didn't get me started.

They saw that,

you know,

I had a young son and that's where they focused on

where they thought I should keep my focus.

But once I got started they jumped into and I think

it's so important.

I can't imagine doing it without a support group and that's

whoever it is to you.

I always think,

but it doesn't have to be a husband cause I have

many single friends and it does have to be there.

I think to really succeed cause you need somebody when times

get tough to tell you you can do this.

You got the his,

I'm going to come help you.

Perfect. Yeah.

Yeah. It can be anybody now.

It's sometimes my son or girlfriends or this and that too,

as well as my husband.

But you're right,

it was important in that beginning stage because I thought it

was such a huge undertaking.

I think I doubted myself whether I really could do that.

I needed a shove.

I really did.

Yeah. You needed someone then to be saying,

yes, you've got this.

Or, you know,

on those tough times when you just come home and you're

like, why am I even doing this?

You know,

maybe I should shut down.

It's never going to work.

Right. And ongoing.

I mean that for the last 14 years,

I need that periodically even to this day.

So yeah,

very good point.

Really good point.

Yeah. So you've got a lot of family support,

you've got friends support.

Are there other places that you're going for support?

There are.

I have,

and I know there's a large group on there online,

there's a Facebook group for gift basket professionals and I'm sure

there are for a lot of industries,

but we seem to have a really strong supportive group and

it goes from just sourcing a product to encouraging each other

to, gosh,

you name it,

personal things even.

But it's really,

really helpful for that and I appreciate it so much.

That's probably my biggest one.

And I also do have,

I should mention to them too is my,

I have a little mastermind group that I go to and

a small networking group that kind of serve as the same

way encouraging and supportive kind of roles.

Wonderful. Well obviously I knew about the gift basket group because

I've been part of that as well,

but I wasn't trying to feed that question.

I was trying to make the point that there's a lot

of different places you can get support and so give biz

listeners, I'm kind of talking to you right now is let's

say you have a partner who's possibly doubting what you're doing

because they're afraid you're going to quit your job or something

and they need the income,

but let's say you have in your life that is less

than supportive,

whether it's a spouse,

partner, friends,

parents, whatever.

There are lots of places where you can get support online

within your industry and then local,

like you're talking about Sean with networking and masterminding.

So I want to get into some of that now too,

but I just want to make the point that as Sean

brought up,

having some type of support either physically so that if you

have large orders,

which Sean was what you were doing,

but also emotionally just to keep you going.

And I'd love your comment on this Sean,

but you're not weak if you need to reach out for

help from time to time.

Not at all.

I think it's a actually a sign of strength to know

when you need help and to ask for it And then

be able to be there when someone else needs the same.

Absolutely. Okay.

So networking,

you know I'm a huge advocate of networking.

Yes. What types of groups are you in?

Let's go down that route a little bit.

Tell us what you're doing now and how you got started.

Networking. Right.

I started with,

I think I found it in a local newspaper.

It was a little group that was starting up and they

were meeting and it was various industries and various professionals.

And I started with that group and it was kind of

nice cause I started with them.

So we took it from the ground up.

There weren't a lot of expectations on me cause I had

been going to networking groups before that and it was a

nice start.

But I also quickly jumped into,

they introduced me to a large women's group that was very,

very beneficial to my business.

It had a lunch and a dinner each month and there

were very largely attended 50 to a hundred people.

And so I started growing in and kind of stretching my

comfort zone.

And then I have also done the chamber of commerce in

a couple of cities.

I belong to the San Jose chamber of commerce for several

years, which was a very large city chamber with a lot

of big companies as well as small companies.

And then I also joined the Santa Clara chamber when we

became a super bowl vendors cause the super bowl was going

to be held in Santa Clara.

And that was a smaller city group,

which had additional benefits because I was more appeared to the

people that were attending there.

So that was kind of a different experience and they both

have their strengths and weaknesses for me.

Or I had strengths and weaknesses around attending those events,

but they were both good in their own ways.

So was Santa Clara a strategic move because you wanted that

Superbowl business?

Yes it was.

I figured it was a Superbowl was being held there.

I also felt that I should be supporting the city.

I had become a Superbowl vendor.

It was a big deal.

We had a brand new stadium,

if you know our 40 Niners have a still a fairly

new stadium.

It was strategic because I also saw that at Santa Clara

was growing up.

If you have the new stadium,

we have all kinds of new shopping,

new businesses going in around there.

And I thought it was an opportunity to start when the

chamber was small,

the base was small and to grow with them.

So that was my strategic planning on that.

Perfect. Okay,

so I love this fact that you've been strategic in the

different types of groups that you're joining and I also think

it's important that you analyze groups,

right? So you might try a group and you see that

the personality of the group,

it just maybe not a fit,

so you want to try something else.

I don't think that networking overall is a win or lose.

You've got to perfect the system.

Like anything you do with your business.

Absolutely. For me,

right now I'm kind of going through a transition that I

left a group and I'm looking for a new group,

but I really take advantage of their free visit times and

also to even people also reach out when you first visit

to do some one-on-ones and to take advantage of all the

networking opportunities you can within there.

They usually have,

you can visit twice before you pay or something like that.

And I always do that to the max.

I've never joined after when I'm meeting because I kind of

want to feel it out before I make a commitment because

once you're committed,

at least for me it's very hard to leave.

I don't know why I have so much trouble leaving,

but I really do.

So I'm trying to be more careful about joining now.

And what are you looking for specifically before you join?

How do you analyze a group?

I have a few things I'm looking for how connected the

people will seem to each other.

I'm looking for past business weather and I mean past as

if do they pass business to each other and they usually

have a section in a meeting where they talk about that.

And that's really important to me.

If it sounds like there's a lot going on there and

referrals, that's really important to me.

I'm also looking for people that are really active on social

media cause that's a very important thing to me right now.

And the group I just left to the people were not

really active on there and that's another way we're putting in

the time and the effort to be at these meetings weekly.

It's another way to split each other as online and I

want that for that commitment.

So that's a biggie for me.

Oh, so how are you supporting each other online?

What do you mean by that?

Well, we have,

and another group I'm in that's active and has a social

media focus.

We follow each other all on whatever platform each other is

on. We follow on there,

so if it's Facebook,

Twitter, Instagram,

we follow each other.

We also in that group,

we have one on ones.

We each support another person each month and then somebody supports

you. So that means doing a few things that they need

for their business.

And in fact,

I have a meeting today with the chiropractor in my group,

so I'm going to go over to the chiropractor's office.

They're going to tell me what they do.

I'm going to look around,

I probably need to take some pictures.

I'm going to really try and immerse myself in the experience

so that I might be able to refer that person appropriately

or if I can use that service I'll know it and

I can also show pictures and things like that online and

kind of expose their business to the rest of my network.

That's perfect because your audience is similar to theirs cause you're

local. Right?

Right. So I love that idea and I haven't heard it

done in that way necessarily before.

So you're going over and you're going to get a little

bit of a deeper look into what his business is all

about. Additionally,

you're building a relationship,

right? Cause you're learning a different angle of him even just

as a person.

Exactly. And then you're using that to create some type of

a story for social media,

whether it's just pictures,

who knows?

Maybe you'll do Facebook live because that's the topic we're going

to get into next,

John, but I love that idea.

Is this type of a situation reciprocal?

In other words,

he'll now come into your place and see what you're all

about. Is it that structured?

Yes. At some point.

I mean we are literally assigned another group member each month.

So at some point he will come around to mind.

But right now this month I have someone else from the

group that is coming to support me at some point.

That is such a good idea.

Is this part of the chamber or a different group?

It's a different group.

It's just a small local networking group,

but it has a social media base and so each member

is vetted before they are allowed to join actually.

So we want people to join.

We encourage that,

but we also have to approve them.

And a big part of that is there that they are

social media active,

so they have to be on their ends,

have at least a basic understanding of social media and desire

to do social media for their business.

And they have to keep up with things that way or

they're not allowed to stay.

So it's a big focus for this group.

Right. And that way everybody who's joined provide similar value because

you know that if you're going,

they will be posting,

they're knowledgeable,

they're not asking you how to do a Facebook post or

something like that,

so that makes it then more worth your time as well.

Absolutely. So we're all getting and giving something every month in

addition to past business and things.

We have that social media love as we call it in

that group that's happening.

Oh, I'm going to give some thought to that.

That is really interesting.

Gift biz listeners.

Think about this because I'm just wondering how you might be

able to tweak that in your community.

Two things stand out for me.

Number one,

the focus on social media,

so you're taking a live event and then enhancing it with

the whole social media aspect and I mean live event by

not only the group meetings but those individual one on one

meetings and then the structure to it where Sean,

you have a schedule,

right? And is it monthly?

Did you say you meet with someone every once a month?

Right, Right.

We have a group meeting once a month and then we

do our supportive of the other member at some point before

the next meeting.

Perfect. So it's not too much time.

It's not like a weekly meeting where it's really going to

take you off your game of you can easily fit it

in still.

Right. That's really interesting.

Do you have other groups like this?

Is this a California thing?

I don't think so.

I don't know.

It is the only group I have that's so social media

focused like that.

So there is that and we didn't mention also is that

group. Another expectation and requirement of that group is that not

only do we have that one person we support,

but there's an expectation that we support each other's posts and

sharing of their events and what they're up to.

They're doing online.

There's an expectation that we share those things with our network

or that we comment and we have a social media expert

in the group and he has told us how the best

way to get engagement to increase our fans and things like

that. He kind of coaches us on that.

And then we do that for all the other members in

the group,

the entire rest of the group.

So when you see somebody says something about,

I'm having an event on Friday,

we all share it.

That's expectation requirement.

I'm happy to do it.

All of those things.

Yeah, I love that because the fact is on social media,

if you post doesn't mean anyone's going to see it.

Right? Right.

But when it gets interaction and engagement,

either through commenting and not just yes,

no, or Hey,

or you like any of that,

but some type of a meaningful sentence and then sharing,

then those posts go out to more people.

So you've kind of built in with this networking group,

an automatic base of people.

So no matter what you post for these important events,

now I'm sure it's not every single post you do,

but the significant events that you already know,

at least it's going to be broadened somewhat.

Right. Oh,

that's great.

That's beautiful.

I love that.

Yeah, it works very well because I think too,

it's important to remember is when you go to a networking

group, it shouldn't be just that you're expecting business from that

however many people are sitting in the room.

But it should be those people plus their entire networks,

right? The people that they introduce you to,

and this just increases that so,

so much.

Absolutely. So gift biz listeners,

you see what I mean?

Two very creative and unique ideas and a twist on networking.

I do hope you consider these tactical actions and possibly integrate

them into your networking strategy.

After a word from our sponsor,

we're going to hear what all the buzz is about on

Facebook live.

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Okay, so I had mentioned before that I wanted to swing

into Facebook live with you and give his listeners,

Sean Perla knows what she's doing.

I want you all to go look at all the buzz.

So much.

So Sean that I put you on the spot while I'm

putting it on the spot right here,

but I put you on the spot a few weeks ago

at the national gift basket convention cause you were demonstration of

best practices in my presentation,

right? Yes,

I was honored.

Well-deserved. I think I had several slides showing what you're doing.

So that's why I'm suggesting for all of you to go

and look and see what she's doing.

And you're doing it from your Facebook page,

right Sean?

Right, my Facebook business page.

Oh the buzz,

right. All the boys.

Okay. And we'll obviously have that in the show notes,

but let's start with going live.

Just overall going live.

Tell us your experience from the first hearing that you could

now do this to when you did your first lives to

what it's evolved into today.

Okay. Well it kind of reminds me,

I have a few friends that tell me,

well I'm not going to do Facebook live because I don't

like to do that like you do and I want to

make. So they really,

really clear from the beginning and still to this day I

started this way and it's still true is that I don't

love doing it.

I'm very much an introvert.

I'm a quiet reserved person.

I know you know that Sue,

I don't like to be on camera,

none of that.

But someone told me that you really need to do this

because video is so important to your business.

In fact,

they were saying something like it gets 10 times the engagement

of a static post.

So I decided I do what's good for my business and

that's good for my business.

So I'm going to jump in.

And I started and it was really ref my,

I mean the first one you can probably go back cause

I decided I was also leading them because it doesn't have

to be perfect.

It has to be progress.

Perfect example of that.

Yeah. And I jumped in with bad lighting,

bad sound,

just not knowing exactly what I was going to say,

but I did it.

And you know,

right away it got so much engagement and so many people

saying, Oh,

you know,

we're so happy to see you and they seem to enjoy

it, which encouraged me and other people say in those,

especially in that networking group,

we're really excited that I had started doing that.

And so that very much encouraged me.

And so I started doing more and more and then people

started saying,

Hey, you need another light and I'll tell you what to

get and you need this and you need that.

And so gradually I got those things together and the quality

has improved.

It is still not perfect by any stretch of the imagination,

But it shouldn't be.

I mean,

that's the joy of,

you know,

this is not a professionally produced video,

right? You want it to be just in the moment.

Well, I think that is so much of what I have

learned to love about Facebook live is that there isn't an

expectation of perfection from anyone.

So you can see on that Facebook page I have a

couple of professional videos and then I have my lives.

And what I do notice and what other people have told

me is that they see my personality so much more in

the lives.

And I think it's because of that not needing to be

perfect and just being able to go off the cuff and

being able to laugh and being able to make jokes and

be silly.

And actually people really like that.

They get to see a little more who you are kind

of endears them to you,

you know?

And it's so much fun and you see that engagement on

there. People are talking to me and you can talk back

to them and it just has become really fun even though

I don't ever love to do it and I always get

a twinge of nervousness but I have come to enjoy it

a lot more and it helps my business so I'm going

to do it.

So you are seeing a correlation to your business.

You're doing Facebook live,

new customers,

more sales.

What are you seeing there?

I'm seeing that we are getting new and different followers and

that I'm hopeful about that.

Sometimes it is hard to link it exactly to a customer,

but I have had some of my new customers say that

they went in and checked out cause I send them there

now to Facebook and to Instagram both.

I send them there because I know that I'm showing so

much on there of what we can do and also that

they get to know me a little bit more and people

want to work with people they know.

And somehow I think through those lies they are to be

like they know me.

And so there's that.

So I am hearing that it is a little bit hard

to get a direct correlation to this sale came from this

live post that is difficult for me.

I don't know if there's a way to tell that,

but I can see there's quite a few views.

And then I do you hear from people that they went

and looked and they saw,

they'll say sometimes they referenced something they saw in the video.

So there you go.

Yeah, yeah.

Exposure For sure.

Yeah. Or just attracting new people.

And I totally agree with you that the live gets to

your personality.

If you just try and be yourself,

and we've talked about this before,

not just you and I,

Sean, but you know we talked about when I'm presenting live

is you can't try to be somebody else.

So if you guys go and see what Sean's doing,

don't try to copy exactly what Sean is doing because there's

only one Sean,

right? You need to take your own personality.

And if you're deciding to do live,

and if you're around me too much,

I'm going to convince you to do live,

but you want to just be yourself.

And it's the easiest and the hardest thing to do at

the same time because you're putting yourself out there and you're

being vulnerable.

And Sean,

I've got to say,

you do not look anxious at all on camera.

You just look like yourself.

So now you've shared that little secret that underneath you are.

No one would know that really.

And that's the thing I guess,

you know,

that's what people say,

but you can't help it get a little twinge of,

now I'm trying to have more content driven information so that's

a little more,

it takes a little more effort and I worry about getting

the right message across a little bit,

but I also always tell myself just to have fun with

it. People like that,

just go for it.

Just do it.

Absolutely. So share with everybody what types of things you're putting

up. Then that has evolved too and people,

if you start doing it,

I'm sure like I did,

they will give ideas on what they want to see.

We always go live from the hive,

so we bring in our brand at the beginning and that

was a total mistake.

I said it in one of my first videos and then

immediately thought,

well that's always going to be there.

It's beautiful.

I love that.

And then we do,

now that I've started doing these,

I think of things like something will happen or box will

come in and I'll think,

Oh this is live material.

So we do unboxings if we have exciting new things,

we do unboxings.

We do vendors,

spotlights, we do new programs.

Sometimes I just have a gift tip that I share.

Sometimes it's just kind of a word to the wise or

something. I think of kind of the same as a tip

and I'm trying to think just random things sometimes.

Oh, if I met at an event that can happen.

You've done events from your place,

like your holiday event from last year was one.

Yep. That was a winery partner that we did,

so that was off site,

but we have done them a lot from the workshop.

We did one with my assistant.

She was making a bow I think,

and so we did want that.

I mean it really can be anything.

Yeah, so I would really love for you guys to go

and see what she's done because again,

it's a perfect example.

The other thing that happened,

Sean, is you position yourself then as highly credible within the

business and an expert because you're also showing tips maybe to

some other gift basket owners but also to businesses and to

show the level of complexity.

One of the struggles with gift basket businesses is it can

look like it's a little,

Oh, a little fun business on the side,

right? Right.

The way you position it and the detail that goes into

making the gifts and all the structure behind your business,

which you're seeing when it's from the workshop and why to

gift overall,

especially when we're talking about corporate really positions you as an

expert and a leader in the field,

which you can't really do that through a stage video because

it looks too rote.

It's just like too perfect.

Right, and something I found in that is you can show

part of the process and a lot of people worry about

they're showing somebody how to do it,

they'll just do it on their own.

But that has not been my experience at all.

In fact,

I did a whole,

a live presentation,

a little off topic,

but a live presentation at one of my networking groups years

ago on how to make a gift basket,

and when I looked up there were all kinds of jaws

dropped. They had no idea that it took that much and

that much went into it and I gained new customers from

that because they thought they could never do that after they

watched it.

It's not true that you're going to teach somebody to do

it and they're going to do it themselves,

and if you're really worried about that,

just take a portion of it,

show a bow or whatever and that they're going to decide

from that,

that they don't know how to do that.

They don't want to put that effort in.

They're not going to do it.

Absolutely. I completely agree with you.

Or they see that it's way too much work,

nor do they always have all of the elements that they

need to put it together.

Right. That's when people say,

Oh, you have all those things,

and I said,

yeah, that's why I can do it.

I have all this experience and skill and the materials.

That's a lot for someone just you know,

an insurance broker or whatever to put together to do that.

They're not going to do that.

They're going to call you.

That's been my experience.

Well they might try first but then they're going to call

you for sure.

Right. That's true.

If they try,

Let's touch quickly on the recession and how you got through

that because the recession was obviously a lot of us dealt

with that.

It's come up a lot in all different types of industries

on the show.

You could have your own personal recession in your business too.

For some reason things are more difficult or more challenging.

A competitor comes in and you end up having to split

some of your business until you regrow.

There could be lots of reasons why business could dip for

a certain period of time.

So share with us what your experience was like during that

time, how you stayed open and what's come since then,

Right. Yeah.

I think it can come at any time and we've had,

you know,

still a slow month or two here and there and I

think the thing is that I just try when that things

seem slower and especially during that recession time to streamline things,

try and cut costs a little bit and see what things

we could do on our own.

Sometimes for us that's an opportunity to learn something that we

had someone else doing.

We've done that with our accounting and our newsletter.

Things are a little quieter.

We take on some of that and do that and we

save the cost of doing it and I've learned so much.

And then the other things are maybe low for new partners

to be creative in that we've gained winery and a florist

that we work with that can increase business for a time

or over a long time like we have now.

And also I would say staying open to opportunities.

Really take the time to research because you have the time.

If you're not so busy research,

what else you could do if there's a way to diversify

or a market that you haven't tapped or to even ask

friends and family if they know people that you should be

introduced to in a nice way,

of course,

but you can work on all those things when it's slower

and find new opportunities that will increase your business for the

future. The important word that you're saying there is new too.

Not just continue doing what you were doing if it's not

working, but to your point,

looking for new partnerships,

looking for what's now resonating with the group,

possibly during a recession.

I remember this to be my case is that a lot

of my corporate clients didn't want to send expensive gifts because

it looked like they were being insensitive to the situation that

everyone was facing,

Right? So we had to reposition what offerings were going to

be because the market just wasn't receptive to some of the

things that we had for that time.

So just being open to new things,

Right. In that case,

not worrying about,

Oh, they're bringing their gifts a lot.

Maybe we shouldn't do that.

Do the smaller gift and then hopefully they will grow again

and you will have,

you know,

you will be doing the bigger Gates again and maybe you

increase your volume instead of your cost per gift.

Exactly. Doing what they're interested in and kind of walking alongside

them with what their needs are.

Not pushing them into something that you want them to be

doing. Right.

Okay. So tell us,

take us behind the scenes again.

Now I know you use your phone a lot cause we

do Facebook live,

we've already established all of the app.

What are their types of applications or resources do you use

that help you get through and grow your business?

Okay, well for this one I'm a little embarrassed cause I'm

very low tech so I don't use a lot.

I use a paper calendar.

It's so embarrassing.

Sean, you have no idea how many people say the same

thing. Absolutely.

Just is what I'm comfortable with and I have a whole

system with,

I mean it's real embarrassing,

white out a yellow highlighter and the check Mark.

That's the whole system there.

And I always move things.

Somebody says,

well, I'm not interested now call me in a month.

I move them on the paper calendar over to the next

month and I also send myself a lot of emails when

I out and somebody tells me something to follow up with

them. I send myself an email to follow up with them

and then it's there in my inbox when I go back.

So very,

very low tech.

I don't use a lot of apps now.

This week I was at a Facebook event and I have

a bunch of new video and photo apps that I put

into my phone.

We'll see.

I do use one,

it's not for productivity,

but for my photos I use Snapseed and it's a really

good editing program and you can add text and put your

photos into the right format for the different social media sites

and things like that.

So I use that a lot.

But for productivity,

it's that paper calendar and my thumb.

That's it.

And you know what?

The whole point is the result that you're trying to get

to. I mean there's apps,

there's paper,

which like I said,

a lot of people I think cause we're all creators here.

We like doing things still with our hands and it doesn't

always have to be the high tech thing,

but it's what are you trying to achieve?

It's not the fact that you're using a certain technique,

it's what does that get you to,

what's the point?

Right, Right and staying organized.

As long as it organizes me then I'm okay with it.

I do,

I missed one but it's paper two is my to do

list. I have an ongoing to do list and I have

one in my calendar book too.

That's by the day.

So I can move things there and make a list and

move in that at the end of the day if I

haven't completed,

I move it down and things like that or move it

to the next week,

wherever it goes.

So that is another big one either to do list and

the calendar list.

So you walk in every morning already knowing the top things

you're going to do for the day.

Right. I usually look the night before before I go to

bed. That could give you nightmare Sean.

It could,

but I should say before I leave the office on the

afternoon, I take a look and make sure everything's done for

that day or is manageable for the next day.

Then before I go to bed I look again and that

kind of multi-pronged,

like I need to know what I'm marrying and what I'm

doing and timewise,

how that's going to go.

So that's part of why that's the last thing.

And then first thing in the morning when I get to

the office that is,

I look at it again and we start organizing.

How would the staff that I have in me,

how we're going to complete that day.

Got it.

And the other thing I liked about your system is if

something doesn't get done,

cause let's face it,

things come up.

Our days never actually aligned with exactly how we plan it

all the time.

But then it sounds like if something doesn't get done,

you make sure to refit it in in the future so

it doesn't get lost.

It might not be done,

but it's not lost.

Right. And that's the thing.

It has to get done.

If it was on the to do list,

it was important,

so it has to get done so it has to move.

If it didn't get done.

There you go.

I agree.

So what would you say to people who are listening who,

and I'm going to target this into Facebook live because I

believe we have a lot of people who make soaps or

they make cake pops,

like there's so much available behind the scenes where they're set

up, they have such opportunity for Facebook live.

Usually. My question is what would you say to the new

entrepreneur? But I'm not with you.

I'm going to say,

what would you say to somebody who is kind of on

the edge?

We've convinced them that Facebook live could be good for their

business, but they're saying that is just too scary.

I know Sean said that she gets anxious,

but she still does it.

I don't know if I can,

what would you say to that person?

I think I would say to start simple,

start with a ten second video that just says,

and people will be so endeared by this says,

you know,

I'm going to start doing Facebook live and here's my big

test. What do you think?

Start there.

I think that's a good place to start.

Do that because it should be you,

I think to start it out and then after that you

can do,

you could video a customer picking up and how excited they

are. We just actually did that on Instagram last week,

but we had a customer that had purchased a basket for

herself and we showed her really excited about when she got

there. So you could video a customer picking up or somebody

that creates one of the components of your fits soap.

I'm not sure what goes into soap,

but I'm sure there's several components,

maybe the essential oils or something like that.

And then you're promoting someone else too,

so that's awesome.

You're giving visibility to somebody else too.

Yes, exactly.

And maybe,

hopefully they'll even do that with you later down the road.

It's just additional perk.

So you could take videos of other people or even,

I used to take photos,

but it could certainly be a video of my delivery driver

getting in with the box,

things like that.

People love all of that.

It loves seeing the whole process.

There's something about seeing that behind the scenes that is just

so much fun and where you see where your product really

came from and all that it took or what went into

it. That's all really good stuff.

I would say to stay simple and also to use the

other people like I've made on my assistant.

Also, there's another idea for you.

You have someone that helps you,

you can get them on video.

I her,

it's part of her job description so you can try that,

but there's so many other people you can video as well

And you saw engagement and interaction right away so that would

be interesting for people to test.

You're not going to get a lot of engagement if you

do like a ten second video,

if you do a little bit longer just to see what

this is all about and to see that people are going

to watch it because that movement when you're going down a

Facebook feed will stop people,

especially if they already know you and then they'll share it

and all that stuff that Sean was talking about.

And you can also do days to organize yourself.

We're about to break into this a little more,

but we had word to the wise Wednesday for awhile.

We started a real estate program about a month and a

half ago and we're also going to start with a real

estate day each week where we're going to go live with

a tip or something for that.

So you can organize it that way too.

And then you'll start thinking about your content if you do

that. So you have a certain day that you're doing a

certain thing of vendor spotlight on every other Monday or something

like that.

So that's another thing you could do or you know,

a box is coming.

Cummings, you schedule an unboxing and something maybe a little more

advanced than the beginning as you can also do a little

video to say you're going to do a video.

So you could go on there and say,

I just want you to know this is coming up.

I have a really exciting box coming in and we're going

to do an unboxing at three o'clock on Tuesday.

So an intro,

That's a great idea.

Yeah, for sure.

And I'm shocked at how many people will put that on

the calendar and be there because my engagement is always a

lot higher if I have announced that I'm going to go

live. So that's an interesting just for down the road because

we're keeping it simple for right now.

But it's interesting.

And the other thing is not to worry about if no

one's on there,

because most of the people watching in a replay anyway.

So don't worry if nobody goes on there.

Right. Another thing you can do is ask people if they

have questions for you.

So then you'll see the little question pop up there and

you can answer questions if you have people on there in

the beginning,

you can also ask your friends and family to tune in

and kind of increase your engagement and help you with those

things. So if you want to start with that,

it might be a really good way to do it.

And then you have kind of built in content that way

when people ask you questions,

You could even seed questions.

Yeah. You're like,

they used to do that in the olden days when there

was TV and a live audience.

Right. They would see people in the audience just so that

there were so many asking questions.

At least there'd be someone there.

Right? Absolutely.

So Sean,

you said you weren't a pro.

I think you were pretty much a pro at Facebook live.

I'm just putting it out there for you.

Just Trying to progress.

That's all.

Absolutely. I agree with you there.

I had no clue that we were going to get into

these two big topics.

I mean the two topics that I really think we drove

home today,

obviously Facebook live,

which we were just talking about,

but also this new twist on networking and doing the deeper

dive in a person's facility and having that social media support

is a great idea.

So I thank you so much because these are things that

we really haven't touched on in the podcast and you've brought

them to light.

So I appreciate that so much.

And in return I would like to offer you a gift.

It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or goal of almost unreachable Heights

that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box?

Well, I think it would be,

I have a really strong desire to grow my business to

about double at this point and that with employees and revenue

and everything and that's so that I can create even a

greater life balance than I've started this year.

It's been great,

but to really get out there and be able to start

traveling and doing just the parts of my business that I

really, really want to.

And so that's my goal and that would be a great

gift. Thank you so much.

Okay, two X your business.

And how long are you giving yourself to do this?

It's your gift,

so you get to choose.

Well, I would ideally like to get it next week,

but I think probably two years.

Okay. All right.

That's a good goal.

Yeah, to double.

All right,

perfect. Wonderful.

So tell our listeners what the best way is to get

in touch with you if they want to see more of

what all the buzz is about.

Well you can definitely look us up on Facebook,

which is facebook.com/all

the buzz.

You can also check us out on Instagram,

similar topics and things,

but we're on there as all the bus gifts and if

you'd like to contact me,

I'm happy to take emails.

Shawn, S H,

a w n@allthebuzzgifts.com

Perfect. And give biz listeners,

you know there's going to be a show notes page,

so you'll have all of that information if you're out and

about and you can't capture that now and you want to

get it later again.

Sean, thank you.

This has been fabulous.

I so appreciate your agreeing to let me interview you and

such awesome information.

So thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you so much,

Sue. Total honor,

This episode is all wrapped up,

but your gift biz journey continues.

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