133 – The Power of the Pivot with Ryann Gaspara of GasparaFlora

Gift biz unwrapped episode 130th.

I've already had to pivot to follow more of what my

clients were telling me that they wanted and also really what

my heart wanted.

Hi, this is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to gifted biz unwrapped,

and now it's time to light it up.

Hi there it's Sue and thank you for joining me on

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I have the pleasure of introducing you to Ryan..

Ryan is the founder and designer Laura gifts,

a company that specializes in corporate gifting,

but this wasn't always that way.

focusing on hotel,

welcome gifts for weddings.

Since that time they've morphed into corporate gifting.

Ryan's passion lies in branding,

designing and creating unique experiences for our clients and their recipients.

She uses her intuition and personal style to design thoughtful gifts,

utilizing artisans and small batch company,

Ryan enjoys making every day,

a special occasion and has never met a glass of bubbly.

She didn't like,

and Ryan,

that makes me like you even more to the show.

Oh, thank you so much for having me Sue.

I am thrilled that we were able to get this together

today, and I like to start off right straight from the

beginning in a little bit of a different way.

And that is by having you share with us a little

bit more about yourself through what would be your ideal motivational

candle. So if you were to tell us what color and

a quote,

what would your candle look like?

I would have to say that my candle would be a

sagey green because I really find comfort in nature.

And I love that.

Look, I'm just a really natural organic look.

And also my quote would be from Steve jobs because I

like to think really big and I love the formality of

corporate, but also the artsy and creative side too.

So my would be have the courage to follow your heart

and intuition.

They somehow know what you truly want to become Love it.

And I think sometimes we look inside and we have this

passion or the heart and the intuition for something,

but it doesn't seem like maybe we should do it because

it doesn't fit with what culture says to do in terms

of your corporate life or money-making or something like that.

Yes. And so that's what then led you,

I'm thinking to your business,

you're a brand new company.

This is wonderful.

Just a little over a year old,

I guess we'd say.

Right? Yeah.

And I've already had to pivot to follow more of what

my clients were telling me that they wanted or the clients

that I was attracting and also really what my heart wanted.

I started down the road,

like you said,

as hotel welcomes for weddings and I'm in San Diego.

So there are lots of destination weddings here,

but I wasn't really finding clients that I felt connected to,

or even event planners for weddings that I felt super connected

to. And so I actually would go in and try and

pitch myself to hotels around the area to become a vendor

for them or a preferred vendor.

And they would ask me,

Oh, that's great.

That's great.

This is beautiful.

Can you do gifts for us?

So it really presented itself to me that corporate was the

way to go for my business When you first started.

So the wedding focus.

Okay. How much had you set up the company before you

started going into trying to get feedback from people just to

see if the product was going to work or start selling?

Did you have everything already established at that point?

Oh yeah.

So I actually started my company in August of the year,

before April when we launched and we had done a whole,

I had scouted all kinds of local vendors,

really set everything up,

had a website.

And I did the holiday in between,

and that was all corporate people that hired me.

And then when I launched my businesses,

when I really started outreaching to clients and it was by

December that I had made the decision to do a full

switch over from hotel welcomes to corporate clients.

Even though you had established everything you saw pretty quickly,

that that was going to be the direction that was going

to be the end for you.

Yeah. I mean,

I couldn't deny it.

It was literally one wedding client and everything else that year

I did was corporate.

It was incredible how much more corporate gifting I did and

how much more of a pull that was for me even

emotionally or following my intuition.

I just really liked branding and all of the formality of

that rather than the flow and the prettiness of weddings Well

in the conversation,

I think is totally different to when you're working with corporate.

Cause you're working with different people at different levels than not

to say that there's anything wrong,

but the event planner,

it's just a whole different vibe of what your business would

be about.

Exactly. Yes.

Okay. So take us through,

and I think this is really good for our listeners to

see that you start with one idea,

you test the market and then you see if you're getting

any traction.

You're see if people are receptive to your message and your

product and what you have.

And it's okay if you take feedback and feel like you

have to pivot and in your case,

really a total change in what you're doing.

Yeah. I like consistency.

I like contracts.

I like knowing that my clients are going to stick around

beyond just one event,

which weddings are obviously one event.

You could become a vendor for a particular wedding event planner

and do multiple weddings for them a year.

But it's not as guaranteed as locking yourself into a sales

situation with a corporation.

Right. One final question for you on the pivot you had

platform set up already because you mentioned that you were planning

and preparing and it had everything ready to go.

So it sounds like you already had local artisans,

like you were saying,

or smaller companies you had product already identified.

Were you able to continue using that and then also your

website or talk through a little bit about what the mechanics

were behind having to switch up.

So as far as product goes,

we were working on a custom basis for hotel welcomes.

We had a minimum,

so I wasn't holding a bunch of product.

The most that I spent was on marketing materials as far

as business cards and stationary and things of that nature.

And we're a box business.

So I had boxes that I would put product in that

were kind of standard,

but I didn't hold a bunch of merchandise.

So that was good.

But I will say that I spent quite a few thousand

dollars on a custom website for the hotel welcomes and eventually

had to have a meeting with myself that it was okay

to let that go and go to a simpler platform.

We use Squarespace now and I'm able to actually do all

of that myself,

which my other platform,

I had to have a developer do things for me.

So that was really the hard swallow of what I had

to let go of.

I had this beautiful website that costs me a lot of

money and I had to go something completely simple so that

I was able to do it myself.

Yeah. I think there's a couple of things in there.

Number one,

you did spend all that money or it had to be

heart-wrenching Oh my gosh,

I just made this huge investment and now I'm not even

going to use it,

but along the way too,

you saw that there were limitations with that because of you're

not controlling your website.

Like you can now every single thing you want to change,

you have to make a phone call and you know how

your contract is,

have them make the adjustment,

then you get charged for it.

So way easier.

I think the way you're doing it now,

right? Yeah.

I started to feel like a bit of a money pit

because I couldn't do anything,

but I will say that all of that poking around and

Googling and learning how this particular platform worked,

made it so easy for me to the Squarespace.

I felt completely comfortable.

I popped it out in two weeks.

Maybe it was super fast because I knew exactly what I

wanted. I already had beautiful photos from my other work.

And it was really interesting because I went back and I

got to put down all of the times that I had

pressed or custom gifting.

And it was really nice to revisit all of that stuff

and remind myself that I had come a long way.

So all around it was heart-wrenching but it turned out for

the best.

For sure.

I'll tell you why.

When you were talking about your Sage green candle,

your website looks beautiful.

It's so clean.

It's crisp.

It's got some of the Sage green going on in there.

You did a great job with it.

It looks fabulous and give busy listeners.

Of course you'll know that all the links are going to

be there.

So you can go ahead and see Ryan's website later after

you've heard the whole story and all,

but is there any advice you'd give since you've just mentioned

how the learning that you had and all of that,

and being able to put it together,

pretty simply someone who's just listening now who is starting a

website and didn't have the experience of working with someone else

and having someone else do it first,

but as jumping in cold to start their website,

any comments for them?

I would say the open,

I would kind of relate it to your wedding,

where you plan all of this stuff and you have to

be really open and flexible with how the actual day's going

to turn out.

Because with website stuff,

I had a vision in my head and I wanted to

be a certain way.

And yes,

I'm very close to what it is now with the closest

that I've ever been more so than the custom website,

but with,

just with anything that big and that much emotional and time

and money invested,

you have to still be a little bit okay with it

not being perfect or turning out exactly how you admissioned in

your head,

because it's probably not going to be If you're just waiting

for it to be perfect,

you're never going to turn it live.

You know,

that will always be one more thing you want to do

to fix it or that kind of thing.

Exactly. Let's focus on what Gaspar floral is now.

What was your strategy and planning in terms of the development

of the product?

Now I know it's all custom,

but how did you work through that in your mind?

So the hotel welcomes kind of platform for me helped out

a lot because I just went and sourced all of the

wonderful artisans that were in California because I wanted to originally

stay all California.

And so I'm a foodie at heart.

I love farmer's markets and that feels so I just went

out and found products that I truly believed in.

And I'm not ordering them unless I have a custom order,

but I have this memory bank of,

I know this will go with this.

I know this will go with this.

And I'm easily able to contact them and ask them for,

can I get a hundred of this or whatever it is.

So really it's just me having this crazy memory for things

and knowing what will go with what that's,

how it's panned out as far as custom gifting goes.

And that's how your style.

And, and when you talk about intuition and the style and

just your mind's eye of what it's going to look like,

that's really your talent.

Yeah. That's the part I can't really explain.

I don't know when it'll come to me either.

I usually find out from a client when their due date

is. So that kind of gives me some idea of when

I need to really nail my brain down,

but it will be sometimes in the shower,

the middle of the night that I aha.

And it works itself out as far as that goes,

but it's just been a lot of research.

My friends call me Google Ryan,

because I just love information.

And so I can refer back to it pretty easily in

my mind and know my products very well.

And my vendors actually really well,

who's quick at turning around because they are small or who

takes a little bit more time who I can trust to

get it to me in just a few days if I

need it.

So that's how I worked.

So do you,

You get samples to show them the customer,

how it's going to turn out to do these corporations,

distrust your style and let you do what you want.

I've had a couple that actually have started to just trust

my style,

but generally I send out a design sheet.

If I have products on hand,

that could be a snapshot of like a flat lay and

overlooking view of what I've selected for them to give them

an idea of what it'll be like,

or that could be a design sheet,

as far as I'm pulling images and putting them into a

PDF for them.

So they can kind of see how everything goes together.

Yeah, This is interesting.

And we kind of jumped into the middle of this.

So I want to take it from the beginning to understand

a little bit about your structure and how you work with

a client.

So you find someone who's interested in the gifts.

How do you talk with them to understand what their expectation

is like?

What's that conversation,

the very first meeting you have with them?

My very first question is what is your budget?

Because to me,

I can show you premium roses or I can show you

carnations. That's how I related to them.

I want to know as far as gifting,

what is your budget per person?

How many units are you trying to send out?

When do you need it done?

All of those really meaty details.

And then we just sort of have a conversation.

Often I'll look at their website or I try to meet

in their space if possible,

because I like to,

and it all goes back to my intuition.

I like to pull feelings from spaces and branding.

So I don't necessarily need to put the logo on everything,

but I want it to feel like that company,

like the essence of that company.

So it's just a really open conversation with them.

It's not super formal.

So you talk about,

are you going to want edible products or are you gonna

want pampering products or like,

do you have something special that you're wanting to include?

Like a,

or I don't know what it might be.

So you have all those conversations right?

In the beginning.

Yes. I want to know as much information as possible in

the beginning,

especially found with corporations.

I don't want to have to keep going back to them.

They don't have a lot of time for that stuff.

So the most information that I can gather from the beginning,

the better That's really good because you're sensitive to their timing,

but it's also yours.

Cause you don't want to have to be going back and

forth and back and forth.

Yeah. And I don't want to take the time to design

and then have them say,

Oh, we didn't want food.

Okay. Wow.

Oh yeah.

Right. Okay.

All right.

So you have your first meeting,

you go back with the ideas,

then you develop what the vision is and you put together

the PDF and send that to them or bring it back.

However you would do that,

right? Correct.

What happens then?

Usually with a corporation or with corporate gifting it's does it

fit the budget?

Does it fit their vision?

It'll probably work.

And so it just usually depends on if it's hit those

points and then based on a contract and they book with

me and my send them an invoice and then I do

all the wrapping.

Sometimes I'll do handwritten notes for them,

drop shipping or delivering straight to their office.

All of those details then happen.

Perfect. And are you doing that all from your own location?

Just you,

do you have other people helping you as well?

People that come in and out to help?

I don't have an employee right now,

but we're gearing up for we've actually already started booking holiday

people. And so I feel that this year we'll probably need

a regular employee.

So we'll see how it goes.

I'm open Staff.

Like that is absolutely the way to go at your phase

because you don't want to hire someone who you don't have

the hours for,

but it sounds like you might have a couple of people

that you can call upon to bring in.

And if they've come in for past jobs,

they're already experienced in terms of your style or the way

you'd want to work together.

Yes, exactly.

Plus if you see the,

for some reason they're not working out,

if it's kind of job by job basis,

then it's really easy.

Just not to select them for the next ones,

if it's not working.

Yes, exactly.

How much of your business is contracted?

All of it.

A hundred percent.

Yeah. I have a collection that is like a handful of

things that are kind of one-offs that we keep stock of

it's for gifts.

It's nothing major,

but it gives people a great idea of our style.

And then I have had some people ordered those,

but honestly it's mostly contract jobs.

So we need 200 of these sent out by this time

or it's an ongoing basis.

Got it.

And to your point that you'd made earlier,

you don't need to carry then inventory,

which is such a nice thing in terms of your cash

flow, do you don't have to have it on site?

What kind of turnaround,

if someone needed something pretty quickly,

how quickly can you turn things around?

I would say it just depends on what it is.

Like I said,

some of my vendors,

they still work.

Full-time jobs.

They're a little bit slower and smaller.

So I keep that in the back of my mind when

I book a client,

but about two weeks,

I would say at least,

but with corporate people are contacting for six,

eight weeks ahead of time.

It's great.

They know what's coming up.

They know what they need to do.

And so it works out nicely for me.

Right? Because in corporate they're much more in a planning mode

versus I need this for something that's tomorrow.

Exactly. Got it.

Okay. The other thing I really like is how much you're

utilizing artisans,

which implies handmade and more local.

And you've just referenced that they're smaller quantities.

They may be doing things on the side,

which gift biz listeners,

some of that could be you.

So look at opportunities,

not necessarily Ryan,

but in terms of other things in your area over and

above to selling directly to the customer,

other places where you may be able to work with someone,

with your products,

talk with us a little bit about why you went that

direction, right?

Yeah. It's where I identify.

I like that style.

Like I said before,

I like the farmer's market feel.

I like things to feel handmade and fresh.

So I really steered clear of major brands.

I get a lot of business in San Diego.

They really appreciate the fact that it's all local.

Yeah. And I'm thinking people can't copy you as easily either

because you're not using things that people are going to just

see in their local stores.

Yeah. It works out nicely.

I've also with my business.

I don't know if you can tell,

but I am heavily branded and I don't mean that my

logo stuck everywhere.

If you look at my guests,

they are all the same.

You can tell that it's my gift.

You can tell them my photos are all similar in color

or texture or mood.

And so I find that clients come to me and they

know what to expect.

So I have way less resistance on it being a local

product. So there's not as much in the box.

I think that being really true with who I am in

presenting that they don't question because those are some products can

cost a lot more than mainstream brands.

Sure. What would you do if someone came in,

wanted something dramatically,

not your style,

like they said to you,

Ryan, I'm going to do a fifties feel.

It sounds to me even like you're cringing even over the

mic right now.

It just depends on,

I have found,

especially with the pivot that I need to be really true

to myself and my brand.

And I have turned away clients that I feel like aren't

in line with what I want to do.

And I'm not saying that to be snooty or I have

so much business.

I can do that.

It's just that my brand is important too.

And I want to attract the clients that I really want.

Now, if it's a fifties theme that they're open to my

I'm sure that I could do something.

It just wouldn't be so overtly 57 Chevies and jukeboxes.

Right. That does not seem like your thing at all.

Okay. So in your mind,

as you think back to all the gifts that you've done,

is there one that was like a favorite of yours that

you could describe to us?

I did a gift for one of my favorite and actually

one of my best clients,

which is a local boutique resort here in San Diego called

the Rancho Valencia.

It's very luxury,

very high-end.

And they were having VIP come stay with them.

And we did this gift that I wanted.

One of my own,

their colors are like that really beautiful,

Tiffany teal and then a darker blue and an orange.

I ordered these breakfast at Tiffany's sleep masks,

the ones with the little eyes on them.

I don't know if you remember from the movie.

Yeah. So we did that and then a hand dyed lavender

stash with their logo on it.

T nighttime tea.

It just was so pretty.

I really loved that one and I was really glad that

they were happy with it.

Talk about personal and customization and all that.

Yeah. That's really what my specialty or what I enjoy the

most is figuring out what is the mood that you're trying

to create more so than what points are you trying to

hit as far as products or things of that nature?

Yeah. Yeah.

Something that occurs to me as we're talking here,

which I think is really important is making some of these

very custom,

one of a kind gifts.

If that was all you did,

makes it very difficult to grow a business because every single

gift needs so much thought resourcing,

design the back and forth type things.

So to do that,

and then also to do 200 corporate gifts for a business

that they're going to be giving out to customer,

you'd like,

however they're using it,

that kind of balance allows you.

I'm thinking,

this is a question for you,

Ryan, but I'm thinking to be able to do some of

those really individual gifts like you're doing,

but also bring in the revenue where you design a very

custom gift,

but there's a volume to that gift.

Yes. That is exactly what it is.

Obviously, even with the hotel welcomes,

I was always interested in volume or monetizing from the very

beginning. I knew that I couldn't just sell one over and

over and over again.

Yeah. It's just how my brain works.

I'm not really interested in being a sales woman.

I like to share my business with people and let it

be a little bit more organic.

I mean,

I do cold emails to my corporations and then get clients

that way.

But you're right.

That's how we make the money.

I'm going to do 200 of this very beautifully curated hand

wrapped handwritten note type gift.

Let's talk now about something that was challenging to you.

And again,

this is so interesting because you are so new,

but you're really doing well.

Look within,

let's even call it two years from your initial planning to

going out and really focusing wedding to making a pivot.

Now having built two websites to now having corporate clients contracting

all of that.

It sounds so great.

Has there been a challenge along the way?

I mean,

what's not a challenge.

I feel like the whole thing has been a challenge from

the moment that I decided to step out and do it

and actually make something of it or I guess realize my

dream. So to speak and move forward to today,

getting on the phone with you,

everything about it is challenging,

but it feels really good at the same time.

So I would say like the hardest emotionally was pivoting because

you do think this is what I wanted to do.

It's almost that,

what are people going to think?

No one really noticed to be honest with you,

I just sorta switched it over and started targeting different people.

So I would say that was the hardest part And you're

right, exactly what you just said because your product was in

a way similar,

not totally,

but in a way similar,

you just changed the audience that you were going to be

a protein.

Exactly. What types of things are you finding work for you

in terms of attracting sales?

And I'm thinking for you specifically,

because a lot of things start with an initial face-to-face meeting.

How are you finding people and getting an appointment?

I actually do a lot of cold emailing or cold calling,

sending out marketing materials.

I have an advantage because as you've mentioned,

I have a very specific field to mind gifting and it

does feel very thoughtful and the fact that they can get

multiples out of that and that have that same feeling is

really interesting and attractive to them.

So if I can get someone to answer me,

at least once,

usually I can get a meeting with them.

I always felt the same way.

If I can just get someone on the phone or see

them in person that pretty much sets the stage and get

to, Yeah,

I will say also though that we just made it sound

a lot easier than it actually is sometimes or emailing or

calling those people five times before they pay attention to you

as somebody working in any sort of company,

do you have time to answer all the emails?

So there is a lot of perseverance that goes with that

and just mustering it up and making sure that you keep

going for it And don't give up after the first call

is what You're saying.

Yeah, exactly.

Because it doesn't always happen after the first or the second

or the fourth.

I've had also people come to me six months later after

not answering me and say,

I've been meaning to reach out to you here I am.

Yeah, exactly.

So I'm quite sure because I've seen the style of your

website and the products that you produce,

that all of your materials are top-notch in terms of quality

of photography,

paper, all of that,

because it needs to be on line with the product that

you're going to be producing.

Exactly. Yes.

And so then do you have some type of a structured

system where you've targeted the business is you would like or

think would do business with you and have a routine set

up where you send out a certain amount a week,

you call up a certain amount of people in terms of

followup a week.

Yeah. Yes.

I have my little sales funnel that I do.

And I look for businesses that I'm interested in,

that I want to do business with that I think would

be a good match for me that I would be interested

in designing for them.

Because when you reach out to those people,

you're already passionate about what they're doing and you're more likely

to let that shine to them.

And it's just that energy that's coming through and they get

excited about you because you're excited about them.

And I think that works the best.

What role does social media play for you?

My biggest social media platform is Instagram.

I will say I'm pretty bad about all that stuff.

Like I said,

my ideal client doesn't live on Instagram.

Maybe they are on it,

but they are not looking for me per se.

They might stumble across me,

but I'm not trying to sell to individuals.

So I've had kind of a little trying to figure myself

out on social media.

But I would say that having a presence there,

like even if someone received a brochure of yours or mailing,

whatever, it looks like lots of times they'll check you out

first before they're going to place a call.

Like how legit is this business really?

And part of that is going on social media and seeing

what type of presence there is.

So you have to have some type of presence.

Yeah. And I would say my advice is to be as

professional as possible on that.

I have a separate personal account.

Now that doesn't mean that all my business account,

I don't talk about what's going on with me every once

in a while,

or sometimes on stories,

Instagram stories,

I'll do a little mini review of one of my artisans

or a place that I'm at,

but I'm still,

I'm not talking about political views.

I'm not taking pictures of my cat,

things like that.

I'm so with you on that,

I've pretty much taken the stance that even if it's a

personal page,

because so many clients also want to connect with you,

like on a personal Facebook page or a personal Instagram account.

So they want to see you on personal and your business

account. And I kind of have the stands that I put

out things that only,

I wouldn't care who saw anybody can see my stuff and

I'm fine with it.

No matter what platform at time,

one is more personal.

One is more business,

but still it's all of a level that I'm fine.

If anyone sees it,

That's exactly how I operate also.

And I think it's important.

Like my profile picture,

even on my personal account is of me.

It's a business photo.

So although it's my personal account,

like you said,

I don't talk about politics.

Am I talking about my cat or my family on that

one? But it's all very business type.

I'm not going to just rant or rave or talk about

things like that because you're right.

You don't know who's looking at you.

And although my account is private,

I found even that my Facebook friends that are personal,

they have jobs,

they work at companies.

They recommended me.

So if I'm being all crazy on my personal account,

why would they recommend me to their company?

I'm really glad you brought that up.

That was a really good point.

Gift is listeners.

Ryan's talking about a couple of things that are less traditional.

I would say now they used to be very traditional.

Now they're less traditional in the way we do business and

it's working for her.

Some of it is cold calling.

So many people say cold calling is dead.

You know,

I'm a proponent of networking and warm leads and all of

that, but it's working.

So something to consider for your businesses,

if it's an approach that you're in a position where you

want to try something new.

So I thought that was really interesting.

The other thing is social media.

So many of us now rely on social media as the

do all end all because we're going to do Facebook ads

or we're putting our products out there.

Ryan's a great example that that isn't necessarily what you have

to do.

And certainly don't put all your eggs in that basket.

So you are under contracts,

which is awesome because then that guarantees for the most part

in a legal sense that you'll get the full extent of

the contract,

whatever the volume is,

et cetera.

What do you do to make sure that a customer is

going to resign?

What types of customer service or interaction do you have to

make sure they really stay happy?

And they want to continue with you.

If I've had clients that have booked a few jobs with

me, or maybe even just one and they don't have an

ongoing contract,

I think this is a better example.

I just check in with them every once in a while.

And I say,

just as you would in any networking situation,

Hey, this made me think of you or,

Hey, I saw all your company in the news,

whatever it is.

I'm not saying every day,

but sometimes even that reminder is them going,

Oh shoot,

I need to order from you.

I totally forgot.

So it's not calling and saying,

Hey, we're done with this.

What else do you think you'll need in the future?

It's just keeping in touch on a friendly basis.

Exactly. And that's what I do with my vendors too.

That's how I know how quickly they work or how stressed

out they get about something or if they do it all.

And some of them are just very business like,

and I would never know if they were stressed out about

a project.

So I just try to keep an open dialogue with everyone

as much as possible.

Wonderful. Let's talk a little bit now back of shop,

how things work just particularly for listeners who are just setting

up or they're feeling like they're all over the place.

Sometimes there are tools and things that people use that can

really be helpful to everybody.

Is there some type of resource or tool you're using,

that's helping you stay productive.

And maybe even with the followup that you're doing in terms

of both your sales approach and your customer continuity plans,

I keep a lot of spreadsheets.

Although I've thought about getting a CRM,

a client relationship management software so that it will remind me

to follow up.

But I would say honestly,

the best tool that I ever purchased for myself ever was

I use shipstation.com,

which is a shipping program.

And they work through FedEx ups and stamps.com.

So you're able to keep track of what you're shipping.

You can put it all in from home.

I just have a little scale.

You put in the measurements you put in the address.

And then I purchased a dynamo label printer.

After last Christmas almost killed me with printing out labels and

trying to take them on.

And it has made my life so much easier.

So the printer connects up to your computer and ship station

is a program that's on the computer,

correct? Correct.

Yes. So you enter in the information,

you press print and then instead of it printing out of

a paper printer,

it prints onto a paper you can peel off and stick

on. It's so much more professional too.

Yeah, for me doing corporate gifting,

I requests from my clients an Excel spreadsheet and I can

upload that into ShipStation and it populates.

So instead of having to hand type 50 addresses and names

and whatever,

I can do it all from an Excel and then batch

the measurements and what type of shipping I want to do

all at the same time.

So it just prints out all at the it's so fast.

Oh my gosh.

It takes so much time off of all of that stuff.

Yeah. It's efficiency for you.

Plus it covers you in terms of entering in the wrong

address because whatever they've put on the spreadsheet and shared with

you then,

but still an issue if it goes to the wrong place,

even if it was their address,

but still it takes off the possibility that you're going to

make a mistake on your end.

Yes, exactly.

And we all know what it's like trying to type in

addresses late at night.

And you've had a long day,

it's the best tool I've ever purchased for myself.

What do you do in terms of staying current within the

industry or learning new techniques or new things that can help

enhance your business?

I actually have a couple of friends that are gifters also,

so we share tips with each other we're across the country.

So that helps a little bit.

But to be honest with you,

I try and stay away from what other gifters are doing,

because it's like that competition evil thing that happens to you

where you start looking at other people's work and then that

voice in your head starts telling you that you could never

be that good or you're not measuring up or they have

more, or they have more of this or more of that.

So there's a famous quote and are not sure who it's

by, but it has something to do with,

there's a reason why race horses have blinders it's so they

can't see their competition.

Yeah. So we all want to be like,

I'm looking for inspiration,

but you can only do it so much.

And then it starts to get in your head and actually

tear you down instead of build you up.

You know what I totally agree with you.

I do a lot of trade shows and very rarely is

a competitor anymore at a show that I'm at.

But it used to be,

I didn't even want to walk by or know what they

were doing because it would totally take me off my game

because I'd feel intimidated or whatever it was.

And same even now,

I don't really go and look that often because I'm focused

on my customers because I'm pretty much feeling like first off,

everyone has a kind of a different makeup of a customer

base. So you really want to be looking at them anyway,

to understand what you should do in the future.

But I would much prefer making sure that I'm fulfilling their

needs then going in and adding other things just because a

competitor does.

Yeah, I totally agree with that.

I don't want to take someone else's idea or I don't

want my company to feel like someone else's.

So I look more at corporate industry type articles and things

like that to see what they're wanting,

instead of all the pretty stuff on Pinterest and Instagram,

it's just terrible.

It's good.

But it's terrible.

This is a good point that you just said,

Ryan, is that you are looking at what you think your

customers would be looking at and getting more in tune with

what their trending is versus a competitor's Trend date.

Exactly. You know,

this is a pet peeve of mine too.

And it happens to me unfortunately frequently is that a competitor

comes over,

looks at my website and starts copying things that I'm doing.

Have you had that happen to you yet?

Yeah. How do you handle it?

This isn't even for the podcast.

I just want to know from you and me,

what do you do?

It's annoying,

but it's also,

there's only one me and there's only one that person.

And I have to keep reminding myself that my ideal client

is not who their ideal client is and we're all different.

And I do a lot of secret stuff that I don't

share. And so I don't share all my clients.

I don't share all this stuff that I'm doing on social

media for the fact that that's what I want to do.

That's the way I want to conduct myself.

So I'm not necessarily an open book so they can take

my tagline.

They can take my sort of what my visuals look like,

but it's not me.

And that's what I have to keep reminding myself,

Because they're not going to be able to get the vision

that you have for the products or the way you even

talk on a phone call or in a meeting or your

style or your overall vibe.

That's not something that they can just go ahead and take.

And if they try to,

it's going to look artificial and fake because it's yours.

It's not theirs.

Exactly. Yeah.

Gift as listeners.

Another thing that you can do in this realm,

which is something else that I do,

Ryan's talking about how she doesn't have everything out there for

everybody to see private Facebook groups are also a good place.

If you have communities that would be a good place.

Cause that's behind the scenes.

Only people who have access that you control get in and

power of community is always good.

So that's another way to approach it.

Something again,

not part of the public eye,

but that builds more and brands with your vibe.

Something that's just not out there.

All right,

let's move on.

And as we're closing up now,

any advice for someone and again,

your so in the beginning and you can relate still to

those feelings of just starting out and all that scariness and

excitement, all bubbled at the same time,

what would you say to somebody who's thinking of going home

tonight and saying to their husband by golly,

I'm going to keep my full-time job,

but I am going to start a business around whatever it

is. What would you say to that person?

I would say do it because you only have one life.

And I will also say the conversation with my husband was

interesting because in the very beginning he said,

well, you can't craft for a living.

And it kind of broke my heart a little bit.

And I spent a couple of years trying to figure out

what exactly that would look like,

what my creative endeavor would be like.

And I came back really strong to him and said,

like I said,

a few years later after really letting it marinate in my

head, what I truly wanted to do,

and he's an accountant.

So he wanted to know what does this mean for us?

And so when I came back with my idea,

I actually heard him say a few months later at a

cocktail party with friends,

I started to worry more about what would happen if I

didn't support her in this then if I did.

Oh yeah.

Because he felt like it was so strong inside of me

that he was doing a disservice by not letting me get

it out and not live in the what if.

And so it was great to go from you.

Can't crash for a living to,

I fully support you.

And he still fully supports me.

So I would say,

just do it,

Just do it.

And I guess in a situation like yours,

if your spouse or partner isn't necessarily supportive,

probably providing more of the image and what you're looking at

doing like more of the vision,

I guess I'd say so that they understand what you're trying

to do and where you're going is helpful.

The more information you can give them,

so they understand the better,

But you have to know that figuring out that information or

being able to articulate it takes time and that's okay.

But it was good for me that I had to figure

out how to articulate it because it gave me a really

strong vision on where I wanted to go.

I kind of felt like it was pitching to an investor

who would have laughed at me also that few years ago

when I wanted to start something,

I didn't really know what it was.

And so it was better in the long run because it

gave me a clear vision on what I wanted for the

future. Good point.

So Ryan,

let's conclude here by me asking you to dare to dream.

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

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

So this may be your dream or your goal,

but it has to be an unreachable Heights that you would

wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What's inside your box.

It would definitely be having a national brand,

not just a local brand,

but local to regions throughout the us and get to be

able to collaborate and work on projects that really fuel my

fire. Sounds fabulous.

And you have started on that path already.

Yeah. Thank you so much.

It takes a place to start,

right? Exactly.

How Can our listeners best get in touch with you So

you can follow me on Instagram guests,

Barra flora.

I'm also on Facebook under the same handle.

I do have a LinkedIn account,

Ryan gas,

FARA, and you can always email me at hello at gas,

Barra, flora.com.

Perfect. And you guys go check out the website that Ryan

created herself just a few short months ago,

actually within the last year or so.

And see what I mean in terms of the consistency.

And you'll see it right away.

There's a nice,

clean, crisp vibe that comes through totally professional and upscale.

So I'd love for you guys to go check that out.

If you're out walking the dog at the gym,

not near a computer,

remember there was a show notes page.

I'll have all the links to all the different ways that

you can see guest Barra floral.

So you'll be able to check that out later.

Thank you so much,

Ryan. I mean,

I love that we've caught you right in the beginning of

this journey.

I mean,

you're established,

you're grounded,

you're moving forward,

but it's still at the beginning.

So I'm really excited to see how this progress is and

how this grows.

And my wish for you is that candle that we talked

about way in the beginning continues and always burns bright.

Well, thank you so much for having me Sue,

it's been a pleasure and I'm excited to see where this

goes. Us too.

We're all rooting for you All the best today's show is

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