039 – Boston Marathon and DUI Campaigns: Gaining Visibility with Anita Housman

Gift biz on wrapped episode 39.

Hi, this is John Lee Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to the gift gifted biz unwrapped,

and now it's time to light it up.

Welcome to gift biz,

unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop

and grow your business.

And now here's your host Sue Monheit.

Hi there.

I'm Sue and welcome today,

Ms. Unwrapped podcast,

whether you own a brick and mortar store sell online or

are just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and to grow your

business. And today I am thrilled to have with us Anita

Treasured touch helps individuals and businesses create unique.

One of a kind items that help brand their business or

give unique presentation to a gift or a special event.

Anita specialty is using custom printed ribbon alone or incorporated into

their gifts.

This simple touch of ribbon instantly transforms even the plainest of

items into something which leaves a lasting impression of wow.

Anita lives just outside of Hershey,

Pennsylvania also known as chocolate town USA with her husband,

son, and daughter,

and two spoiled miniature doxins full disclosure here.

Anita is one of our star customers over at the ribbon

print company.

I specifically asked her to come on the podcast to share

her experiences with building the business and share her thoughts behind

the creativity she has in attracting And working with their customers.

So we are all in for a treat and now welcome

to the show,

Anita. Wow,

Thank you.

That's awesome.

Is there anything you would like to add to that intro

before we get started?

No. I think that to hit it all and I'm just

really happy to be here.

This is just,

I'm always glad Sue to join you on whatever platform you're

on. And,

but really,

I know you're passionate about your business and,

and I just really glad to be a part.

So thank you for having me.

Well, I know you have a lot to talk about,

and as our listeners know,

we like to align the conversation around the life of a

motivational candle.

The light shines on you while you share those stories and

experiences. Great.

So I am picturing you Anita,

in that brand new studio that you just moved into and

you are working on a job that consists of motivational candles,

and you got to select your favorite topic for the candles.

So what color are they and what is the quote on

those candles?

Actually, my candle would be the color of Azalea or fuchsia.

Most people know it is,

it is a rich,

vibrant color.

That to me is a color of cheerfulness,

happiness, and contentment.

And I would put on that candle,

my motivational quote,

that really has been driving me.

I got it from Marie Forleo and I believe she quoted

it from somebody else.

I think Chuck Swindell and it is life is 10% of

what happens to me and 90% of how I react to

it. And do you think about,

and refer to that quote as you go on about your

day? I absolutely do.

I really have been incorporating that quote into almost every single

thing I have been doing since I have heard.

It just really makes a complete difference in handling stress or

learning to appreciate even the wonderful times that you're spending with

family and friends.

And it's just really been awesome for me That you say

that Anita,

because so many people really like quotes and they all have

their favorites,

but the real value of these quotes is that when we're

needing something to make us stronger or give us a different

perception on something that we pull it up and use it

to help motivate our behaviors.

So now I need to,

if you will,

I want you to take us back in time to the

moment that you first started thinking about a company and forming

this company treasured touch.

Okay. Well,

my story is kind of almost twofold,

to be honest with you.

I really was not seeking to start a business.

My business kind of found me.

I was a young mom,

stay at home with a child less than a year old

and scrapbooking was beginning to start to become popular and I'll

date myself here.

But the internet really was only found in those of luxury

homes or businesses.

It really wasn't much of an influence,

but the digital world was starting to become more and more

part of everyday lives,

but certainly not what it's like today.

So people were starting to really jump on board to that

and like every other mom,

I wanted to document my children's stories through pictures,

but also I was realizing that the value of family stories

were being lost by people no longer writing out handwritten notes

and so forth or recipes or whatever.

So I began making sure that I collected that stuff for

my daughter.

And then I of course wanted to be a little bit

more creative and make it even more special for.

So I would seek out to put imprinting on to these

photo albums,

personalizing them,

and a friend of mine had had the machine.

And I was always going to her all the time and

asking her to please imprint this album for me.

And it turned around that I ended up learning how to

put these imprints on to photo albums and began doing it

for all of our customers.

Well, then folks really started seeing what I was doing.

So I acquired the machine and began printing ribbon.

And this method is called hot coil stamping.

Not many people know about it's kind of a lost art.

I believe I began printing ribbons and napkins and then putting

special touches on to things.

Well, then I was creating a party plan for my daughter

and I wanted something really special and unique.

And every time I went to go find something,

it really just wasn't me.

It wasn't what I was looking for.

Being a stay at home mom,

I was on a limited budget and I didn't have the

money to really spend lavishly nor did I want to get

locked into buying huge quantities of something that I really was

only going to use once and toss.

So I began creating things my own way,

using just ordinary items that I had available and resources that

I had available and started putting my extra touch on just

simple things that I already had.

And it really started to show my personality and just grow.

You Couldn't find what you wanted in the market.

So you just created it yourself,

mostly at that point for your own personal gifts and events.

Exactly. So how did it then at some point start turning

into the business of treasured touch?

Well, what ended up happening was people would see what I

was making and they would come to me and they'd say,

wow, where did you get that at?

I'd like to find,

you know,

I like to buy something similar to that.

And I said,

well, I made it.

And they're like,

wow, can you make this for me?

And I'm like,

oh sure,

I can do that.

So I would do it in between my daughter napping and

you know,

and put something together.

And then it started out with her.

She kissed her roses and it just kind of grew from

there again,

you know,

people started bringing me stuff until finally people are like,

okay, what can I do to create something that looks really

cool, make it special,

personalized for my anniversary party,

me or my milestone birthday party.

What can I do to make it special?

And I'd be like,

well, you could do this,

this and this.

And then just add this,

this and this.

And then it turned out that people were paying me to

do it.

You know,

cause at first I was like,

oh, I'll just do it for supplies.

But then it was taken up so much time.

And I was like,

you know,

I really can do this as a business.

You know,

I could really actually do something and make a difference.

The Realization came that this could actually be a money-making business

from there.

What were the steps that you started taking to actually develop

this into an official company?

Well, my first thing that I had to do was just

stop trying to create something and all these different areas.

Like I would be making florals,

I'd be making napkins,

I'd be making books.

And, you know,

I was just kind of making all kinds of unique,

different things,

but I really needed to sit down and focus on the

one thing that truly made a difference and not with the

printed ribbon.

It was a universal material that I could use.

I can personalize it in many different ways and I could

add it to so many different things.

And every single item that would leave the studio would leave

completely unique and customize exactly how they wanted it,

not how I wanted it.

So this was a great point of differentiation for you because

you were able to take a customer's logo or an event

or something like that.

Anything the customer really wanted added to a ribbon and then

make a gift super,

super special and very personalized to the event.

Since I know you Anita,

I'm a little bit privy to some of the accounts that

you're running,

I'd like you to tell the story.

If you would,

about the very first customer you had,

who turned into a paying customer and really pretty much catapulted

you into working with larger organizations?

when the Boston marathon bombing took place.

I had a gal who had come to me and said

that she was going to be running the Boston marathon in

one of the charitable organizations happened to be the Flutie foundation

and through a rigorous process.

She was selected to be part of the team that ran

that race.

They wanted some additional charitable presence to show that they were

Boston strong and she came to me and she said,

Hey, I just need a ribbon.

She said to tie on me when I run this race.

And I said to her,

oh, I can do something better than that.

She's like,

what do you mean?

Did I say,

how about we print each individual donor who is sponsoring you

to run this race?

We print their name onto the ribbon.

And we somehow attach that to you that you actually wear

that when you run.

It's really cool.

So we did that.

She got donors and sponsors and it was about the time

when you were doing the Olympic skater.

That was,

oh yeah.

Our hometown skater.

Jason Brown.

Yeah. With Jason Brown.

And so I had designed a ribbon for the Boston marathon,

for the floody foundation,

actually designed it to help promote and to get her,

to get some additional sponsorship that we were still Boston strong

and that we were going to continue promoting that.

So we printed four inch ribbon that people hung in their

windows and in their office cubicles.

And she of course,

was still getting the sponsors.

We were collecting those names and she says,

my gosh,

she says,

I'm going to have so many ribbons to hang off of

me. And we had to come up with a way to

creatively tie them on her goal was I think it was

like 5,000.

I think she raised way over $15,000

with not just the ribbons,

but to run the race,

but the ribbon certainly helped.

And we're just a real special touch for her to be

able to wear them on race day.

And she's a complete it,

it was really cool to watch her cross that finish line

and see those ribbons attached to her running pack.

And it was just really cool.

And if I remember correctly,

she ran with different colors of ribbon based on the level

of sponsorship.

So each ribbon was a color based on the level and

then also included the sponsor's name.

Yes, that is correct.

Depending on the dollar amount that they contributed was the color

that they picked And tell our listeners,

Anita, this super special thing that happened with those ribbons after

the race was over and the ribbons had run the race

and the Boston marathon.

Oh, that's right.

They were actually attached to her Fanny pack.

So there was quite a few of them.

And we took every one of them off of the Fanny

pack when they were done,

we cut them.

And then each individual ribbon was sent to the sponsor with

a thank you card and a bumper sticker that we had

created saying,

thank you for riding Linda's back for the Boston marathon.

We included a picture.

We were blessed to be able to have a picture of

Doug Flutie,

actually holding the ribbons.

He also participated in the race that day.

So it was really cool for the sponsors to actually get

a picture of the ribbon,

their ribbon being held by Doug Flutie.

And also she sent a picture,

I think,

of the race,

you know,

after she was done with the race,

which was really cool.

So gift biz listeners.

I want you to take note of what Anita actually did

here. She didn't just print up one ribbon.

She built it into a whole campaign in terms of having

the sponsor's names on the ribbon,

having it beyond the runner,

when the runner was running the Boston marathon,

taking pictures with Doug Flutie and then circling back and having

something go back to the sponsors in the mail,

this type of a full service turnkey campaign sets Anita apart

and makes her really unique within her business segment.

So think for yourself in your business,

what types of projects can you put together that encompass a

full campaign like Anita did,

this becomes particularly important when you're looking at capturing corporate business.

And of course,

corporate enterprise sales are the ones that really bring us in

a lot of revenue.

So think about this and brainstorm what you might be able

to do for your businesses along these similar lines.

It's also a great PR for you now,

Anita, because you can talk about this particular campaign and show

pictures and use it as an example as you move forward.

Yeah. So do you know,

so we also,

if you remember,

it was the time that I was able to attend the

national gift and stationery show.

We had that ribbon on display shortly thereafter,

and it was just a really great way to talk about

what you can do for others through simple ribbon.

Yeah. You Are such a pro at putting together these campaigns.

I'd love for you to share another one of these campaigns

with our listeners.

And I think,

you know which one I'm talking about.

Sure, sure,

absolutely. I know it's probably the DUI association of Pennsylvania.

Is that the one?

Yep. That's the,

okay. This is actually something that is very near and dear

to me.

I do not have anyone,

fortunately that has fallen victim to DUI,

but certainly have amongst my circle of friends known somebody who

has been impacted each year,

the Pennsylvania DUI association has a Memorial.

So Anita,

particularly for our international customers.

Can you explain first what the organization does Each year in

December, the Pennsylvania DUI association holds a Memorial service for the

families and friends that are left behind,

who have been affected by impaired driving accidents of some sort.

And the DUI association gives each family a brick in their

Memorial garden,

inscribed with their loved one's name.

And along with that,

they do a special remembrance ceremony in the garden with a

tree that each family can put their loved one's name onto

the tree for the month of December is up usually till

I think about mid January.

This is something that I really enjoy.

I don't want to say enjoy doing,

but it's something that I can personally give back to the

community. I was asked to provide some kind of an ornament,

a decorative ornament,

and I'm like,

well, I can put printed ribbon,

let's put the person's name on each individual ribbon and have

each family be able to tie that ribbon with their loved

one's name onto the tree.

And in addition,

what we did was we made a Garland that went around

the tree,

in existence.

We put that individual's name on that Garland.

So they would be represented and certainly never forgotten.

I know you do this just as a deeply heartfelt give

back to your community,

but think of what an impact it has on those families

just to be having their loved ones remembered.

Yeah. Yep.

And I'm hoping that I can reach out and do more

of that in the community.

I think it's just something that people just don't realize how

this impacts no poor decisions really impact,

but there's a lot of people out there that are hurting.

And again,

this is just something that we can do to remember these

people and know that they're not forgotten.

What impact,

if any,

has this had on your business?

We have,

you know,

certainly at every one of these events that we've done,

I have been onsite to print ribbons and they get to

watch me print last minute,

ribbons or print a Garland or something ban or whatever.

And through that,

that's a conversation starter and people really do appreciate,

they love being able to see their name on ribbon and

they come up and they say,

oh, well,

I could do something like this for my business.

Can you do that?

So from there,

I've done apartment associations,

we've done some events with that,

putting ribbon on balloon tales and helping them to make their

event more spectacular.

We've done.

Of course,

the standard party favors.

We've done promotional material and gift giving at Christmas time or

various small businesses,

which is my niche.

I really like to try and help small businesses really grow

because usually the ones that do not have the working capital

to invest in large amounts of marketing from there,

I always tell people and I,

by the way,

my, my business card is printed on printed ribbon.

So whenever I am out,

I say to people,

when they ask me what I do,

I let them know that I print custom printed ribbon and

I hand them my business card and there they get to

actually see,

feel, and actually look at the ribbon business card and say,

wow, that's really cool.

Nine times out of 10,

I follow up with them.

And you know,

they're back in,

we're doing business together.

Put those on ribbons for cars.

When people buy new cars,

like did an engagement,

somebody proposed to somebody with an engagement ring,

which was kind of cool.

So you carry around those printed ribbon business cards with you

everywhere and just have them ready when the opportunity presents itself.

Right. And being ready and willing to talk about my business

and always asking,

what can I do for you?

Because people don't realize how inexpensive they can brand themselves through

a printed ribbon.

You're that like,

wow, you could do that.

I'm like,

yeah, you can.

That's fabulous.

So Anita here,

I'm going to switch gears on you a little bit.

And I want to talk about some advice that you might

have to help people who are just starting out in their

business. Is there something you could share based on your knowledge

now that could help our listeners prevent having to encounter some

of the obstacles that you had to encounter and overcome?

And this is something that I'm finally starting to feel comfortable

that I'm emerging.

And that is that I was really just trying to do

it all.

I was very blessed with being,

you know,

everything that I was putting out was pleasing other people.

And they really,

really liked it because it was created by them and for

them. But,

you know,

it was really hard for me as a mom,

with my kids growing up to find that balance where I

turned it from a personal hobby to doing it as a

revenue source.

And now that my kids are getting older and you know,

I'm realizing that this is a really what I truly passionately

love doing.

And I want to be able to continue doing this and

helping others.

I wasn't really having the systems in place to carry out

day-to-day planning in order to make that dream come true over

the last probably year and a half.

I really have been focusing on fine tuning and eliminating those

struggles. One by one in,

I have broken down in like five different areas that I

really try and target every day.

That's interesting.

Can you go into a little more detail?

Well, one of the systems I've put in place was to

teach myself a little bit more about computers and technology,

and kind of bring myself up to speed with what is

out there that would help me become more productive.

And that meant graduating from a standard flip phone to a

smartphone, using some of the apps and finding resources that were

free since I couldn't really,

you know,

at the time I wasn't really able to afford or,

you know,

either the time or the money to go to expensive classes,

but to seek out the people that I knew were successful

and basically to ride their coattails and learn and be able

to pick out what was working for them,

really looking at how could I take something like that and

apply it to my business,

which is one of the reasons why I love these podcasts

is because everybody's story is unique.

And there's always something that I can pull from every single

story to weave into my own personal business plan.

It just keeps pushing me higher and higher.

I want to emphasize two things that Anita is talking about

here. One of the most important trait of an entrepreneur or

somebody who's starting their own business is the ability to be

resourceful. And you're listening here to Anita saying that there were

lots of things already available to her that all she needed

to do was access and decide how to apply to our

business. We are so lucky now with the internet,

everything is right at our fingertips gift.

Biz listeners consider that as you're starting out,

if you're in business and you're hitting upon a struggle,

the very first thing to do is Google.

Look and see who else might have information on this topic

that can help you out.

The second thing that Anita was talking about is the fact

that she looks at people who are already doing what she

wants to be doing,

and she models after them now understand that doesn't mean that

you are totally copying what someone else is doing.

You're copying their system or their process,

bringing it into your business,

adding your own personal touch and going from there.

So you may look for example,

at the structure of an email or the frequency of emails

or the style in which they communicate with people and then

relate it back to yourself.

You're not copying an email word for word or the supplies

also to YouTube videos,

webinars, whatever it might be.

I know Anita that you are a star at customer service,

but can you tell us what types of things you're doing

specifically so that you make sure that your customers feel like

not only they are one-on-one,

you're working specifically for them,

but also that you value their business.

I asked them what they want.

That is something that I,

there are people that come to me and they'll be like,

I'm not really sure what I want.

And I think the best thing to do is to sit

down and have a one-on-one heart-to-heart conversation with them to find

out what their expectations are,

what they envision and gave them and deliver exactly what they

want. But when you deliver over deliver with passion.

And what I mean by that is that like I just

delivered an order just about two hours ago,

and they only wanted 18 bows to put on jellies that

were being given away to somebody.

Well, I put in 25 and decorated a few with some

additional things to show them what else they could do with

those ribbons.

You give me the inspirational quotes.

Every time I order something from you.

And I have adopted that,

put those little quotes inside of the box,

as well as write a personal message,

because I want them to walk away knowing that they are

the most important person to me.

They're special too many times.

We go to places and you'll walk up to her and

you give them the money across the counter and people walk

away and you don't feel special.

It's almost robotic.

And I don't want that.

I think we've kind of moved away from that one-on-one personal

attention. So that's what I really try and give each.

And every person and client that I work with is that

one-on-one attention.

Another exit point here,

listen to how Anita is taking care of her customers and

really from an emotional angle,

making them feel so important.

You guys,

this doesn't cost you anything to do.

And so,

so many people aren't doing it,

it's free and it brings you referral business and makes customers

want to share the word because you treat them and make

them feel so valuable.

Right. And you know,

even when I purchased stuff kind of similar to my business

card, I have a printed ribbon that just says,

thank you for what you've done for me today.

If there's something I can ever do for you.

And I give that out,

just kind of like as a random act of kindness,

because you never know what kind of a day the person

behind the counter is having.

It's really nice that the gals that local,

McDonald's where I buy my ice coffee.

I have said to me,

we love when you come in,

because you always have a smile and you always have something

nice to say,

and that's what I want to be branded for.

Well, it's coming across loud and clear,

right? In this interview to Anita,

I want to roll over now into the reflection section.

This is a look at you and what's helped you to

be successful along the way.

What do you think is one natural trait that you have

that you've had virtually your whole life that has helped you

to succeed?

I think the natural trait that I have is the ability

to be able to look at something and be able to

know what it really takes to make something work.

And what I mean by that is that if somebody wants

to create same,

a centerpiece or something for their party or something,

and they show me a picture of something I can take

and be able to say,

okay, this works this way,

this works this way.

And together,

by combining it,

we can make it look completely different and unique,

and it will be your personality,

not what you see like everybody else has.

And what tool do you use that helps you to keep

productive during your Workday?

The tool that I use.

And it's probably a complaint to my husband as well,

is that I use my iPhone.

He's like,

you always have your nose in the iPhone,

but you know what?

It is actually my command center.

So to speak,

I use an app to do this.

Wait, what is that it's called to do is T O

D O I S T.

I've not heard of this one.

Tell us more.

It's it's a task manager,

just basically remind yourself or set dates up,

kind of,

you can sync it to your calendar and then they have

an app that goes along with it.

It's called do note that kind of it.

And if this,

then that,

those are three of my main apps that I use a

lot. If this,

then that are recipes that you can create to help you

become more productive.

And the do note is something that I'm going to create

a calendar note or something like that.

I will just hit the app and speak it,

using my Siri.

And it automatically adds it to my calendar without having to

do anything else.

Like it,

Gabs dates and times I use that because it syncs with

my Google calendar and I have been known to easily get

off track.

So those calendar reminders really help me to send reminders when

I need,

even to the point that it tells me when I have

to leave based on the amount of traffic that is in

my area at the time it become a gadget gal.

Well, it's certainly working for you.

Is there a book lately that you've read that you think

our listeners could find value in?

Honestly, Sue have not really been reading much lately.

I did from your first podcast,

get audible book that you did the very first,

actually the second podcast that you did with gift biz unwrapped.

I've been with you since the beginning.

And I read that,

but I honestly must say that I really see the value

in video and the trend in the next couple of years.

I think that video is going to play in marketing.

So I really kind of been learning things like Periscope and

Snapchat. And of course,

Instagram, that really seems to be consuming my time.

And like you,

I kind of sit at night.

I don't necessarily get a chance to listen to all the

scopes that I really want to,

but I'll flip through them as everybody else is watching TV.

I'm listening to Periscopes or,

you know,

checking Snapchat or something like that.

Well, gift biz listeners,

we were talking earlier in this podcast about being resourceful and

capturing information that can help you grow your business.

Anita's been focusing more on video,

but if you are still a book,

an audio person,

I want you to know that I have teamed up with

audible so that you can get a great audio book for

free. All you need to do is go to gift biz,

book.com and make a selection there.

That's gift biz,

book.com. And now Anita,

I want you to dare to dream.

Okay? I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.

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

This is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable Heights

that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside What's inside is a huge party.

I would love to have the ability to pull all the

people together who have been my greatest influencers in my life

and who have impacted me somewhere in another,

into a room where I can personally say thank you and

just really enjoy an evening with them and to say,

thank you for all that you do and that you give

back to each and every one of us.

That Sounds awesome.

Do I get to be at that party now?

What do you think That's going to be the invitation.

I'm going to print it under the image.

I'm going to print the invitation on ribbon.

It's going to be a rolled out red carpet event.

There'll be a rolled out red carpet room.

Well, let me just give you my RSVP right now.

I would be honored to be there.

How can our listeners get in touch with you?

Certainly they can find me on Facebook,

Instagram, and Twitter using the handle of treasured touch,

or they can visit me on my website at treasured touch.

That com perfect.

And as you guys know,

you can capture all of the detailed information over on the

show notes page at gift biz,

unwrapped.com and also Anita,

I believe you have a gift for our listeners today.

Absolutely. One of the things that I'd like to give to

each and every listener is a downloadable strategic plan template.

As I was developing my business,

I got this template from a guy by the name of

Cindy Novak who designed it.

I asked her permission if I could share it with you.

And she said,

absolutely, it's a place where you can actually physically spend time

and write down your current goals of what they are for

the year.

What you'd like your future goals to be three years,

five years in 10 years,

and then to really record step-by-step how to reach those goals

in manageable plans.

just seen a tremendous amount of growth in myself and in

my business to be able to fine tune what's working and

what's not working so that I can continue to give value

in every single thing that I do for people.

That Sounds like a great planning tool.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

And I appreciate all that you've shared.

You have had just some fabulous stories in terms of campaigns

and tools and all different types of things that we can

all use as we grow our business.

So I appreciate everything particularly the time that you spent with

us today,

Anita, and may your candle always burns Learn how to work

smarter while developing and growing your business.

Download our guide called 25 free tools to enhance your business

and life.

It's our gift to you and available@giftbizonrap.com

slash tools.

Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for the

next episode.

Today's show is sponsored by the ribbon print company,

looking for a new income source for your gift business.

Customization is more popular now than ever granted products of your

logo or print a happy birthday,

Jessica Gribbon to add to again,

right at checkout,

it's all done right in your shop or craft studio in

seconds. Check out the ribbon print company.com

for more information.

Would you like to be on the show or do you

know someone who can provide valuable insight from their experiences?

If so,

we'd love to hear from you.

All you need to do is submit a form for consideration.

You can the form@giftbizonwrapped.com

forward slash guest that's gift biz on rap.com