267 – Dealing with the Wildfires in Your Business with Anne Pazier of Santa Barbara Gift Baskets

Gift biz unwrapped episode 267 we're no stranger to the impact

that something like this can have on a business and how

very quickly you have to switch gears.

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 gift 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 And if you're new here,

welcome to the show.

I'm so happy to have all of you joining me here

today. This is the third episode in our four part series

highlighting business owners who have faced these new times and gotten

creative and become stronger for it.

I'm so inspired by the ownership and control of your destiny

that so many of you are exhibiting and the solutions that

are being devised are genius.

It's also exciting to know that some of these new concepts

are working so well that there'll be incorporated into your planning

long term.

My goal for these four episodes is to spark ideas for

you. If you're just starting out in your business,

there are ways to attract customers or creative services to offer

that you may not have considered yet.

And if you're an established business,

these examples may trigger another idea.

Do you use now or in the future?

Speaking of established businesses,

I've heard from a number of you that are asking how

to join maker's MBA.

Now, this program was originally created to take a brand new

business dreamer from concept to profitable business in a proven step

by step manner.

But I'm listening to you because the truth is even when

you have a business up and running,

things can get messy and important elements like websites and email

marketing can be forgotten or never set up in the first

place because you're busy.

And interestingly,

we have many people who have gone through maker's MBA and

were already in business but wanted you to join for just

this reason.

So I've created a new option for you,

my established business listeners who've had your business up and running

for two years or more.

If that's you and you want to know more,

please head over to gift biz unwrapped.com

forward slash makers MBA there you'll see a link for established

businesses and you can go from there.

Let's get into what's up today.

I can't wait for you to this interview.

I'm talking with Ann pacier who lives in California with her

children and a firefighter husband,

no matter where you live,

I'm certain that you've heard all about the fires in that

area. My son even sent me a photo last season of

the fires shutting down the highways.

There's a reason behind the scenes spreading like wildfire.

All of that is to say and is no stranger to

serious disruption in our normal business flow.

I want you to listen closely as we talk,

not just the details of the programs she's going to share

with us,

but how her brain starts to think as she plans her

responses to these crisises because within her strategic thinking is where

the magic of her creative thoughts and actions form.

Today it is my pleasure to reintroduce you to Ann pacier

and is the owner of Santa Barbara gift baskets located in

guest where Santa Barbara,

and in her team curate and produce gifts featuring locally sourced

gourmet foods,

spa products,

and handmade goods.

Her retail establishment also serves as a wine bar and craft

beer tasting room and began her business 15 years ago after

stepping down from a corporate sales position to start her family.

She used that experience to immediately begin focusing her gifting services

on corporate clientele today.

Her portfolio also includes a great deal of hospitality and event

business along with a large following of loyal individual clients outside

of her business and is active in her community and serves

on several boards including her local chamber cottage hospital.

And the Santa Barbara chapter of the national association of women

business owners,

also known as Nabo.

Of course Ann and her husband Todd,

a firefighter are proudly raising their two children.

Aiden who I understand just turned 16 and Katie who is

10 and welcome back to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.

Thanks so much for having me back and I have become

such a fan of yours cause I feel like the first

time we recorded this it was among the first dozen or

so that you had done and now I'm a loyal avid

listener and subscriber.

Oh you're so sweet for saying that and yes,

I wanted to blow your mind with how long ago that

was. You were episode number eight care to think about what

year that was.

It was five years ago,

wasn't it?

Or no,

four years ago.

2015 Oh my gosh.

Our shop was brand new to us at that point.

I remember it was brand new and so gift biz listeners

you can go back and I would actually love for you

to do so here and whole story of how she started

the business because that's not what we're going to focus on

now. You can already listen to that episode of how she

started the business,

how it was growing and evolving and yeah,

you had just moved into this location and now look at

where you've gone from here.

I know and this funky location that I was so doubtful

at first cause it's completely nontraditional off the kind of beaten

path, old welding garage and now as we talk I can

share with you a little bit later in some of the

things we've used,

this funky aspect of our space to really benefit us in

these crazy times.

Seriously, for sure.

That is absolutely true.

And I also just have to say just for fun as

we're getting started here,

do you remember what happened during our first recording?

I do.

I do because I think because it is this sort of

tin roof and it was a functioning store that was open

to the public.

I had to go out to my car,

I think to do the interview and then everything heated up

to the point where my phone just died and we completed

the rest of it inside after it cooled down in my

wine room and I think I sat on a couple of

cases of wine staring at all of our chocolate and wine

stash while we did the rest of it.

I love that story.

That is so hysterical to me.

That's how we did it,

but it all worked out.

You take the situation at hand and you make it work,

You roll with it and how you reach people can be

different and nontraditional and again,

that is in alignment with what I think we're going to

talk a little bit about today.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you are going to be,

I believe the third in my series here about how people

are coping with a whole pandemic and what's been going on

and how people have shifted.

I've decided I was going to do this at the last

minute because at first I was like,

not everyone's going to be wanting to focus on this.

Like there's so much emotion around it that I wanted a

safer place not to talk about it,

but as things evolved and as we've gone on,

there's no choice.

Like you have to be looking at it and I actually

think it's a really good lesson of how we need to

be able to flex our businesses in different ways and be

creative, et cetera,

so that we can make it through unknowns that are going

to occur.

Absolutely. Hopefully they won't all be as dramatic as what we're

doing. Right.

Oh, right.

I could use with the not so much drama for a

little bit.

Yeah. Let's just have this be the only one that that

happens, but when I heard,

because of course we chat periodically and when I heard what

you did and how you've worked through this,

I definitely knew that you were one of the people that

I wanted to have come on to share your story.

So that's what completely a hundred percent I want to focus

on today is just how you worked through all of this.

I'll have some questions along the way and hopefully will also

spark some ideas for other people so that they could use

something similar for their business as they go forward.

So, but let's start with everything looked like it was changing

and business as you had normally done it is now going

to have to take a pivot.

So take us there and what were you thinking back then

and walk us through that.

Well, I want to start by just saying that lots of

parts of the country have experienced various regional crises and Santa

Barbara is definitely one of them.

I think you're aware that in the last couple of years

we had this fire that started really far away from us

in another town and at the time I would have never

imagined that it would have the impact that it did.

But over a month's time,

I mean it's really funny how this kind of mirrors a

lot of what's going on with us.

Over a month's time.

The fire got closer,

conditions got worse,

they started closing the freeways down.

Our little town that relies so heavily on hospitality was really

kind of cut off from the major artery to the rest

of California.

And then we had the just horrific deadly mudflow incident in

Montecito. So we're no stranger to the impact that something like

this can have on a business and how very quickly you

have to switch gears.

And I remember when all of that was going on that

the businesses that were downtown,

especially the retail businesses that only had a storefront really suffered,

the ones that did survive that period of time survived because

they very quickly ramped up and started having an online presence.

And I think that's probably serving them now once again because

all of the doors are shut again from any of those

businesses. So it sounds like there were quite a few brick

and mortar shops that were caught not ready for this obviously

because they didn't have an online presence.

And so there was that kind of like as you're talking

in your chambers and other networking meetings,

was that really recognized as this is a necessity for people

to have to work through A hundred percent yeah.

And I'm sure that your listeners who,

and most of them will not,

most of them,

some of them have a brick and mortar business.

That whole business model has changed.

And I didn't know enough to talk about it when you

and I spoke the first time cause that was my sort

of first experience of having retail.

I had always been online and I had always relied on

corporate clients and so forth.

So I learned over the last few years how to have

a retail storefront.

And that was new to me.

But the fact that I can go back to my original

model, which was really online sales has been helpful.

Amazon just the face of downtowns are downtown in Santa Barbara.

We have a homelessness crisis down there.

We have high rents.

There's a lot of things happening in our downtown that are

changing the way that retail operates in general.

So this just sort of sped everything up I think quite

a bit.

Sure. So anyone who's listening who is in a physical location,

this would be then a heads up,

kind of like a little poke to say if you don't

have an online presence right now,

it makes sense to start developing one and by online presence.

And what are you encompassing in that?

We just have a very robust website that has all of

our products.

It has,

I go in regularly and look at metrics and look at

things to tell me what are people searching for,

what new products do we need to add?

Which ones should we take down because they're not getting as

much interest.

Again, we're unique and I should just remind people who don't

know that we really heavily focus on items that are sourced

locally here in Santa Barbara or other parts of California.

So our business is unique in that sense that people look

for us for just gifts in general.

But certainly if they're looking for a regional gift,

we would come up pretty quickly for them.

Got it.

Okay. So your website keywords and all of that optimize for

search and all of that is also local.

Where does a Facebook page fit into this?

And the reason I say that is,

you know a lot of people think online presence and they

say, okay,

well I've got a Facebook page so I'm good.

So the Facebook page is key for,

again, this is kind of just like everything that's going on

right now,

right? You have to have so many different channels that people

can reach you because you have some people that Instagram resonates

with them.

Or maybe Facebook is the way that they do shopping and

everything else.

And then others stumble even with an online order.

And that's why having the retail option or at least a

phone that they can call and do it over the phone

with is important as well.

We actually use our Facebook page,

we use the shop now option on Facebook a lot.

Are you familiar with that?

Share that with us.

And I'm just going to use this as an example because

literally as we get off the phone and I'm behind in

it, but I'm launching Amy nominate an extraordinary mom for mother's

day, and we're going to give away five mother's day gift

baskets to different winners.

So I have linked on my Facebook page under the shop

now category,

I've uploaded links to the four different mother's day products that

are on my website,

and I put the description there and it links right to

my page.

It's got photos that they can see.

I posted it as posts within my page,

but the nice thing is that also when I go over

to Instagram,

which is truly my more main platform,

I actually do a lot more selling and storytelling and connecting

with my clientele through Instagram.

But because those two are,

does Facebook own Instagram or is it the other way around?

Yeah, Facebook owns Instagram.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I've like,

I've gone into Canva and I've designed all my graphics to

be prepared to put these stories out,

the Instagram posts,

and there's a link that you can put to the products

if you've already put them up over on your Facebook page.

So it's such a helpful tool to get people to my

website pretty easily through that channel.

I don't know if I've made that clear enough.

That's perfect.

You've got your website though as the base and then Facebook

and then by the connection Instagram,

when they're looking at those posts and they're interested in what

they click through to is the link to your website to

those products.

Yes. And you know,

you do so many programs with Sue B Zimmerman,

and I've learned so much by listening into both of you.

And I just remember learning how critical those stories are and

how linking people,

and also how you don't own your Instagram or your Facebook

at any point that's just rented space that those organizations can

take away from you if they had any reason to.

But getting them to your website and getting them to become

a user where you're capturing their email address is just so,

so critical.

And that was just one of the valuable tools I've picked

up from you and some of the podcasts you've had with

her. Wonderful.

Yes, absolutely.

And I could not have said it any better,

so that was perfect.

I learned,

I Learned.

Well that's why you're so successful.

Like you are like you listen to what people have to

say. You take it,

you analyze it and then you implement the things that make

sense for you.

I've seen it this whole time.

Thank you.

And you're not feeling like you have to figure it out

yourself all the time,

which is really smart.

Well in the introduction you were kind enough to share.

I do sit on the board of my chamber,

my cottage hospital here in town,

our big hospital organization and then Nabo and it's hard to

juggle from a time standpoint under normal circumstances being part of

all these organizations.

But those are where I truly make my connections and where

I kind of am able to keep my finger on the

pulse of what's going on.

So I know we're getting to it,

but I was going to share with you one of the

very first things I did when it became clear that businesses

were going to start sending their workforce home.

This was before in California.

We had any kind of mandate to do so.

I noticed that my top three corporate clients were shutting down

their offices and moving everybody to virtual home offices.

So very quickly we took designs that we kind of already

had product that we already had and put together what we

labeled a virtual workforce gifting suite is what I called it.

And I had a whole tab on my website.

And if you have your ducks in a row,

you can pretty quickly pull things together once you recognize the

behavior change in your bigger clients.

So that was one of the things we did based on

that. But you're right,

always watching and being open to what people are doing next

and what their behavior is is key.

Yeah. And I want to underline the fact that you talk

about your local networking and the groups that you're part of

keep you really in tune with what's going on.

And I think that's critical.

It's not anything that I think we often talk about as

an added value to networking.

But here it clearly served you well.

So with,

what did you call these again?

The virtual,

We called them,

I struggled with it cause this is the,

we're all inventing language now.

That just wasn't what we used to say before.

Right? So I think I called it virtual workforce gifting.

So we have a happy hour box that has a craft

beer from a local brewery.

We have a little champagne version of it.

And then we have a virtual break room box.

And the whole idea behind that is your staff no longer

has that great benefit of going into the break room and

sharing snacks together.

But you can be on a zoom meeting and send the

box ahead to everybody and then they all can be sort

of experiencing the same water cooler environment if you will,

that they had watercooler is so old fashioned because now they

have like kombucha on draft and seriously crazy work break rooms.

It's true.

It's true.

How did you get the word out about the virtual workforce?

Gifting. So you created the product,

you decided,

okay, I see there's a change.

There is a need on behalf of these businesses because you

want to still keep that team,

that feeling of team together.

Now they're going to be working virtually where they never may

have before.

Yes. So you identified that you figured out and I really

like and that you used product you already had,

so you didn't go adding to your cost because we have

no idea at that point what was going to be happening.

And then how did you communicate out about the product?

So I did my typical social media releases of information and

so forth,

but I also,

this time I really took the time to personally call on

the phone,

which I know we talked to the other day,

has that crazy people would actually call and speak with each

other, but I called them and said,

Hey, I understand that you guys are,

I even sent a couple samples to some of the people

that were my contacts and advance and just said,

Hey, this box is arriving.

I want to explain what it's all about.

If this is something that is going to fit a need

for you and your team,

or if you have communication that you'd like to send to

us or drop off at our door,

we can incorporate a meeting agenda or whatever collateral might be

important, or maybe everybody needs to get hand sanitizer or some

element of something that's left at the office that we can

ship to them,

that type of thing.

So phone calls to them directly and then I promoted it

on my personal pages.

Like there is so much value with your own personal page.

I am always shocked by people who don't under their about

us on their personal page link that to their business.

Like everybody needs to know that you own such and such

business and how to get there and how to become a

fan of it cause they all want to support you.

So out of my personal page,

I just promoted it to my friend saying,

Hey, who all has had to be moved to a home

office? Raise your hand or let me know if you have,

I have a great opportunity for you to share with your

management. Were you with your team?

And I had more takers that way than anywhere else.

That's interesting.

And I really liked that because Facebook sees that you're advertising

you can have a problem,

right? Cause you're not supposed to advertise on your personal page.

But the way you did it was more just a post

communication with your friends.

So the wording and then did you have a picture of

it? Oh I had a picture of it and I had

a link to it.

Okay. I have to be careful because Facebook does not like

that. I sell alcohol at all,

so like I can only show the break room option in

my shop now on Facebook,

but I can certainly talk about it and I can do

a link over to my website to that category on the

page. Is this on your personal page or on your business

pages? The sensitivity to alcohol on any image?

No, it's just if you're doing like a shop now or

an advertisement,

they screen it All right.

Yeah, they've gotten very picky.

Even for had approvals.

I've gotten a couple of things rejected and it's like why?

But then when my ad team calls up and explains it,

then they're like,

okay, approved.

Right. They're watching and I think that's fine.

Look, you know,

we've got all this issue going on with the virus.

We've got an election year.

We're now in the middle of,

apart from just the whole security things that could go on.

Right. It is what it is.

It's okay and we can work around it for sure.

All right,

so I love this.

I'm calling this category kind of revising and re implementing your

product to fit the times is really what you did.

And I've learned over time that you can the same product

and if you just change the name and make something in

the title,

speak to certain people.

If you're not misrepresenting what it is,

it's, it is what it is.

But if you call it the welcome to your new home

gift and it's the same design that is the stay at

home break room or you know,

whatever it is,

you can just call it something different.

So that's great for SEO purposes,

but it also is great.

Just from a descriptive standpoint.

I don't know if you've ever done a podcast on how

to write really good descriptions,

but I could use that a tuneup on descriptions cause I

know it is so important when I shop online I get

drawn in by whatever story or element of how they describe

products to me.

Okay. I'm making a note because that is really good.

No, you're right.

It is good.

So, and I think the other thing just with descriptions and

what you're talking about in terms of renaming is we need

to show our potential customers all different types of uses for

our product.

Like we think it's so obvious,

but not necessarily like you're saying virtual gift rooms get well

birthday, like whatever it is,

it's hard for people to make that extension sometimes of what

your product could be used for.

It is obvious to us and I'm always surprised when people

say, well that's so creative because I feel like it should

be obvious.

Right. Here's another example,

I'm sorry I'm probably jumping ahead.

But hospitality is huge for us.

So when I look at where we've been impacted most by

the current situation,

it's definitely this time of year especially is when we have

big conferences and big sales meetings and things here in Santa

Barbara where people are buying out a resort.

They have a hundred or 500 people coming and we are

providing the welcome amenity.

And so we've had two events that were 500 people each,

which were really big orders for us that have been canceled.

And so when I started to see the writing on the

wall with that,

when they were not answering me back,

when I could tell that they were like,

well, we haven't made a decision.

I knew that they weren't deciding on my gift.

They were deciding are we going to go to Santa Barbara

or not?

And so right away I jumped in and I said,

Hey, and I didn't want to say,

I didn't want to suggest that they not come.

So I worded it very carefully,

but I said,

as you continue the planning process,

be aware that we can absolutely do a box to care

package version of the welcome amenity and get it out to

your guests to convey whatever messaging you might want to have,

whether it's to get excited about the upcoming event,

change something in the schedule of it,

what have you,

and people were like,

that's so great.

We didn't even think about that.

And that's really how I'm teaching people to use gifting as

a strategy for what they're doing.

And they will have a budget for marketing and strategizing around

something that's way bigger than just the gift budget that they've

put as a line item.

Right. Because you're not positioning it as a gift.

You're positioning it as part of the plan overall.

Yes. For a business purpose,

a result.

The thing I'm really recognizing and all these things that you're

talking about,

Anne, is how proactive you are.

You're just not waiting,

you're rearranging and then going out and showing it to everybody

and then you're getting the orders in,

in kind.

Yes. And also learned that if you can make somebody look

good, you're going to get their business.

So by sending a sample to my contacts with those companies

that had changed to a workforce at home solution,

they had it tangibly in front of them.

They were able to get on the next meeting that they

had a strategy meeting with their team and lift up the

box and show it to them and it made them look

like they were thinking way ahead.

So people want to do business with people that they know,

like and trust,

but also that are going to make them look good and

that they know they can rely on for great ideas.

Right? And you made them look good and it was so

easy for them.

You gave them the idea,

you gave them the product and you're ready to go.

So let's talk now about what you did about Easter.

I think this is brilliant.

Okay, hold tight you guys,

I know you just heard me ask about an Easter program

and I know it's past Easter at this point,

but what she put in place can be used not just

for the Easter holidays but for events in the future.

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

we'll do it right after a quick break for our sponsor.

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Yeah, this was so interesting and I want to just preface

by saying,

if I sound like I'm really confident about all this,

I am not all the time.

I just like anybody else.

On any given hour of the day,

I can feel completely like what do I do next?

And then on top of it,

like I got this,

we can handle it and it's just a roller coaster.

Right? I know that you have shared that because I've been

in on some of your lives,

which have been so critical.

These like little meetups that you're doing are so great right

now. Oh,

thank you.

Well let me give a little shout out about them then

real quick.

So what we're doing,

anybody who doesn't know over in my group give to biz

breeze Monday,

Wednesdays, Fridays,

11:00 AM central.

I'm jumping on and we're talking a little bit of business.

There's a lot of interaction.

So I'm taking the Facebook comments and we're talking things through.

You can ask a question if you have any questions,

so please feel free.

I'd love for any of you to jump in.

You just have to join the Facebook group first gift to

biz breeze and then we welcome you Into these lives.

Okay. Carry on,

Anne. Thank you.

No, I love that.

And I have found some really great new products by some

of the makers in your group too.

So it's a good collaboration all around love hearing that.

So you know,

we closed our doors on March 12th and right away I

needed to make sure that my staff was safe.

They felt comfortable in the environment they were in and I

did have to let most of them go and have brought

them back at various degrees of needs and so forth.

But their safety,

that was my number one priority.

We closed the doors and the whole front of the shop

just sat there with the displays out and it was so

depressing to just only be in the backroom in the production

area. And slowly we started realizing this is going to go

on for awhile.

And I looked at all this Easter inventory that I had

purchased. Easter is my favorite time of year and we do

big, like we do our wine and design classes.

Those are some of those things that have had to fall

by the wayside,

kind of where people come and gather and we teach them

how to make baskets and drink wine and socialize.

It's just really fun.

So we had all that planned,

all this inventory and I'm like,

nobody's coming.

Nobody can come.

What do we do?

So we have this welding garage with a funky driveway and

then garage doors and the side of the driveway.

And one morning I pulled up and I looked and I

thought, this is like a shop right here.

Like curbside pickup is great,

but if you're in a position to actually have a popup

that you can just close the door on each night and

then lift it up and people never have to get out

of their car and they can just point to what they

want. That is the ultimate in contactless.

Because then it was like,

if people could imagine,

it's like your big garage door is if it just lifted

open and you had a two car garage there.

Yes. It's exactly like that.

Yeah. So there's bays like there's different bays,

so it was covered for sure.

I mean it's essentially a garage sale,

right? So it's like a glorified garage sale and we've just

made it spectacular and not rinky-dink.

But also I was realizing like if you were to go

to CVS to a pharmacy and get Easter bunnies to put

in your kids' Easter basket,

that to me just seemed so yucky and uncertain.

People have been touching stuff.

It's just out in this environment that's not controlled.

However, our stuff had yet to even be touched by anybody

because it was brand new inventory.

So that was the selling point for us.

She sometimes I have learned that to compete with the big

box guys,

you just have to look to what your strengths are and

what you have to offer that they can't and then you

totally highlight that.

So not having to get out of the car,

being able to support local businesses.

People really,

really at this time are wanting to continue to support their

local businesses.

So we're like a one stop shop for that.

You're supporting us,

but you're supporting dozens of other small makers here in this

town. So we created this fun drive up and the way

to promote that was I went online because I had already

done a event page for the wine and design class weeks

before I went in and I said,

Hey, everybody was going to come to this wine and design

class. I'm going to jump on and do a virtual wine

and design class.

So here's the day we're going to do it.

And this is the other thing.

I didn't make it real salesy.

Like of course you can come and pull up and buy

stuff from us here,

but I'm not encouraging you all to leave your homes,

order online,

order at the pull-up or just make this Easter something special.

And so I taught them how to make a basket out

of things they might have laying around the house.

And I think that this is a time when it's almost

like we're politicians that are running for office.

You don't see politicians hopefully in the middle of a crisis

campaigning. No,

they're like rolling their sleeves up.

They're showing you what they're like in a crisis and they're

gaining your trust that way.

And then later they're going to ask you for your vote.

And in retail the vote is in dollars in purchases.

So I knew that this was just an opportunity to gain

their trust,

give them some education and some value and then hopefully at

some point they'll come back and purchase later.

So. Okay,

so you did the wine in design online but very low

key in terms of sales focus.

Yes, more just about really the teaching and encouraging them to

work with what they have and not stress out that this

has to be the same kind of Easter that they always

have. I mean,

that's my message to everybody.

Even my children that I'm homeschooling,

like we're going to rise to the occasion.

We're going to work hard at this,

but we're not going to let,

this is not the biggest priority.

Our health and our sanity and our sense of peace is

the priority right now.

So we'll,

we'll adjust around it.

And we had an excellent Easter.

We might've had the best Easter that we've ever had.

It's so interesting because people's options were limited.

They did not want to go out.

They also weren't doing Easter brunch with their family like they

normally would.

So we were doing big family Easter baskets with things like

soup and cupcakes sets and things that were becoming activities and

cooking things that they could do at home.

So the type of gifting has really shifted as well.

Did you add any inventory to create more of the baking

type things that they could actually make at home or were

you really going off of all the inventory you had?

I was really going off of all the inventory I had

because even now I just don't know what's coming next like

it's been,

thankfully I do work with a lot of local small makers.

So if you're listening and you're a local,

small maker of something,

this is where you have the advantage over other people is

that you can distribute to the people in your area quickly,

easily, and on small amounts on a regular basis so that

it's constantly the best,

freshest inventory of whatever it is.

Perfect. That's a good point.

Yeah, so for instance,

this cupcake mix,

Alison Reed,

who's fabulous,

she'd be great on your show.

She won food networks,

cupcake Wars,

and she has a whole line of boozy baking mixes.

So it's like orange Chardonnay,

pink champagne.

She's even has a line of beer one.

So it's like chocolate stout.

We carry her items and I didn't realize that you cannot

get flour.

I don't know.

I mean it's different probably where everybody is,

but I cannot find flower in the grocery store anyway.

Flour and yeast.

I, yeah,

everyone's baking bread.

Yeah, it's gotta be so these cupcake mixes,

which were not,

I mean they didn't,

they have been popular,

but they really have become popular because it's now it's become

an activity as well as a gift item.

Plus it's great for birthdays because you send them a birthday

gift and they've got the wine and the cupcake mix and

the candles and everything they need all in one place.

I mean,

we're having to make these celebrations be something special at home

and you're providing an easy way for them to do it,

which I think is fabulous.

Yeah. I want to go back to your actual setup of

your drive through.

So yes,

walk through how that actually works.

Sure. And you know,

I can actually send you some pictures too.

If in your show notes you put photos in,

I can send a picture to you of what it looks

like. Okay.

That'd be great.

But I essentially just started taking the display from the front

elements of the display and putting it in the back and

I had to make the pricing really visible from where they

were from the car so they could see it.

From a display standpoint,

it's very much the same kind of thing we would do

if we were going to do a popup shop,

like we did a Christmas market.

It was very similar to that.

So were people driving up rolling down their window and say

I want one of these,

one of these,

two of these?

Yes. And then what happened from there?

So your social distanced already.

Yup. Then they'd pop their trunk and we would come out

and put it in the back of the car for them.

We had contactless credit card payment as well.

But the other thing that's did Sue was that we weren't

missing out on the upsell opportunities because a lot of people

did order online ahead of time,

but then when they came to pick it up,

they saw what we had and they said,

Oh, I want to get that from my mom.

Or can you add to those soup kits?

I love those,

or whatever it is,

and that's the advantage that a brick and mortar has that

is being missed in all of this.

If you don't have something where they can point and see

what they want.

Excellent ad.

So we'll you seen that a lot of these people were

new first time customers for you?

Well, to be honest with Easter,

it was a lot of my friends and people that I

knew just because it was being promoted.

My friends were talking about,

Hey, you've got to go check out my friend Ann's place.

So friends and friends of friends,

referrals for Easter.

It definitely looked like that.

Now since Easter,

I'm noticing that we're getting a ton of new people that

are just discovering us that would have chosen some other form

of gifting before they didn't know about us and now they're

ordering a few times in the last few weeks I've seen

those same people starting to reorder.

Interesting. And so,

and you've also made a comment to me that you think

you're going to continue this?

We are.

And you know,

I do regular research every day.

I try to spend at least an hour in the morning

just reading articles and listening to,

we're part of,

we belong to the specialty food association.

Like I get a lot of information across a lot of

different platforms.

I think it's,

I find it very helpful.

And so I'm hearing this term,

I don't know if you've heard of it.

That's floating around called click to brick.

And so this whole idea of curbside pickup I really do

think is here to stay.

I think we're going to see retail with much smaller footprints.

Collaboration, like we're doing the drive through,

well, we're doing it on a daily basis now,

but now it's really feeding towards mother's day and I have

some makers who do handbags or jewelry that I don't normally

carry in my store,

but I know they need an outlet and they need a

platform to sell from.

And so we're doing some consignment things with them in our

shop as well so that we have their products.

So I think collaboration,

smaller footprints,

when people do start going back into stores,

a place like ours where they can sit and have a

glass of wine and shop and do have some form of

entertainment is going to be more attractive than a great big

mall. I don't know what's going to happen to our mall

that we know how we've always known it.

I think that's definitely changing.

I agree with you.

I think that first of all,

support of small business is going to only get better.

Yeah, we've had it and I think it's gotten better and

it's recognized in the special holidays,

but this is just a reemphasis on that and I think

we're going to see a lot of it.

So people who are in the audience that I serve,

including you are going to benefit because people will want to

be local.

But I still think just as you were talking about with

the bunnies from Costco or Walgreens or wherever,

we still have to point those things out because it's not

just going to be the obvious fact and word spreads.

I absolutely think For sure,

and before this happened I was recognizing that experiential shopping is

truly the way to compete against somebody like an Amazon,

right? Because this idea of meeting your girlfriends for a glass

of wine around our gathering table that we have in the

front of our shop and then being able to like look

through and buy different retail things.

That's huge.

Doing the tasting events during the design classes that we do.

And I wanted to share with you really quick if I

can, something I did this weekend and I was totally thinking

of your makers when this happened because I have a really

good friend who's a chef,

a personal chef,

and she's written a series of cookbooks.

She has a line of herbs and jams and things,

but chefs in general are being hit so hard during this

time. And I wanted to find a way to support her.

I wanted an excuse to support her beyond just buying her

products for our shop.

So, and my dad,

who lives in Orlando,

he's not seeing any of his grandkids.

He's not able to do any of that.

So he started,

I can tell,

I can just see that he's starting to get a little

isolated feeling.

So I came up with this idea to hire my friend

to do a private cooking class with my dad and I.

So I had him tune into one of her weekly Instagram

daily Instagram cooking segments.

And I said,

what do you think of her knees?

She's delightful.

And I said,

great, because she's going to show up in your kitchen next

week and I'm getting Instacart and I'm ordering you all the

ingredients so you don't even have to leave your house.

And he had that to look forward to all week.

And then we got on on Sunday,

my daughter was with me and he was with my stepmom

and then Pascal,

the chef,

and we had the most fun preparing at the same time

in the kitchen with all the things that happen in the

kitchen, this meal.

And then afterwards she got off and he stayed on with

us and we sat together and ate the meal that we

had all just made.

And it felt like such a great connection.

And I thought,

I wonder if any of your makers that do leather work

or painting or something that they could do that would be

able to teach what they do in a setting like that

and get some income from the experience of it and maybe

even whatever kit that was sent out in advance.

But that whole experiential thing is just going to become so

important. I think as we move forward with this.

I love that you shared that and I totally agree.

I think people are starting to see different ways of either

putting kids together or offering some type of online training and

a lot of it jumps over even to educational because mom

has to do something with the kids,

not just during homeschooling but free time.

Like what do you do?

You can't go outside down to the local ballpark anymore.

So everyone's had to get creative.

I think this is great.

I love all of this idea actually a lot.

Good. And I don't know,

you just are able to come up with ideas like crazy.

Like you,

before we got on,

you were telling me what you did for Aiden for his

16th birthday.

Oh yeah.

Well I think my mind works in very strange and different

ways and sometimes it's overwhelming the number of ideas that come

at my head and I have to remember that not everybody

absorbs them the same way.

Like my husband,

if he has an idea,

he researches it and it is going to become a reality

for him.

And he gets really focused in it.

I on the other hand,

allow my brain to just have millions of ideas coming at

it. And I announced them out loud and we talk about

them. And if they don't happen,

they don't happen or if a version of them does.

And that stresses him out cause he's like,

uh, take the idea,

make it happen.

And I'm like,

well, let's just start big and bring it down to what

is a reality that can happen and happen soon.

Cause some ideas are just so grandiose.

Have you ever had an idea where you think it's so

good, so good.

And then the next day it's like,

what was I thinking?

It's true.

Like even when I throw a party,

I might have two or three games or activities at the

ready to do,

but if the party's flowing and whatever,

I let go of it and just go,

we don't need to do that.

It has to make sense.

It has to fit in and make sense.

So, yeah.

So yesterday for him,

for his birthday,

everybody's doing these drive by caravans of cars.

And I thought,

man, I wish so much that I could invite all of

them in to have a piece of this red velvet cake

that I got from a local Baker.

And as I was thinking that,

I realized,

well they make these little bun teenies that are smaller.

It's a smaller version of the big cake we're having.

If I order enough of those,

I can package them with my gloves and my mask on.

And then I made little care packages.

So as they drove by with their cars,

I was able to hand each car,

contact Leslie a box with cupcakes for them to enjoy the

same cake when they got home.

So, and then we did the water balloons.

I forgot that part.

I gave them each water balloons to throw at him,

which was kind of fun.

And you can do that in Santa Barbara.

Yeah. You couldn't do that in all the areas of our

country right now.

Like mine.

Well not this month.

Yeah. Snowballs.

Maybe. There you go.

Well, you know,

I'd be all over for that too.

That would work for me.

Are there any ideas that you tried during this time that

didn't really go as you had wanted?

Well, I'll tell you back to those virtual workforce gift boxes,

I was a little disappointed that that didn't take off right

away. Now we are really seeing a big influx of people

ordering those things.

So that's an example of,

I had it locked and loaded.

It was ready,

I promoted it.

I reached out and told people directly about it,

but they just weren't ready.

Can you imagine?

I mean I am not in their shoes,

but if I had a whole team of people that I

had to somehow figure out did they all have enough wifi

at home,

what do they need from,

you know,

like there's so much planning that was on the fly happening

around that and then just financially like what does our budget

look like now we have to shift and move.

So they weren't ready for it in the beginning.

I was ready for them.

They weren't ready for me.

And at the time I kind of felt like,

Oh, I guess this isn't really a big thing.

This isn't going to work.

But now it is.

So sometimes I think your idea is just might not be

the right time,

but if you just are patient and wait it might come

to fruition.

That's a really good point.

Cause everyone was like,

we didn't even have a handle on what it all meant

to us.

Like if you just walk outside,

you know,

are you going to get it?

Like nobody knew yet at that time.

So the other thing that occurs to me is that with

you, any,

especially I guess you,

cause you were mentioned in the beginning,

in your area you've had other issues,

mudslides, the fires,

all of that,

heaven forbid,

whatever comes in the future.

You've kind of started to set a precedent that this is

something that you do,

you create then specialty things for whether it's employees to do

a virtual meeting or maybe for the firefighters for if they

are going to have to stay somewhere.

Like, I don't know all the services that you could provide

them, but you're starting to position yourself also as a source

for those types of things.

Right. I unfortunately think that the pandemic we're in right now,

I kind of equate it to like fire season here in

California over the last few years.

We've had to get used that this is our reality.

At any given moment,

a wildfire could break out somewhere and it might be small,

it might be big.

We just have to be prepared for it and it is

our new normal and I,

I'm so tired actually on that terminology it just feels like

almost aggressive.

Well you've been dealing with this for years,

like a revised normal every year off.

Yes, and I think those are the times we're living in.

This is not going to go away.

It'll ebb and flow.

This will recede.

We'll have some semblance of going back to,

it's free to move about the cabin kind of activity,

but then we'll have to put the seatbelt sign back on

again. I think we have to start positioning our businesses to

know that this isn't the last time it's going to happen,

but we can prepare for the next time.

It won't be as much of a shock,

I guess I'd say or a learning curve.

Right. Cause people will are like,

they'll know that this already exists the next time they have

to send their workforce home.

Right. So that's something for us to think through.

I mean we're still in the middle it right now.

So anything that you can do and has now given us

a number of different ideas.

So if you haven't incorporated some of these or they feel

like they're a good fit,

it's still a great time to do this.

But I think when I equate this to a bird cage,

when the door opens and we get to fly free again

for a little while,

it's still smart to go back and think,

okay, what should I put in place now for the future

and have that plan.

So there's not so much anxiety.

You just flip the switch on your action plan.

It's become so obvious that we all are living through this

in a very,

very different way and our experience and our anxiety level,

people that have someone with auto immune disorders at home are

having a very different experience than someone who is not even

concerned. They have younger,

whatever it is,

it's all very different.

So creating a business model that serves different clients with different

desires of how to reach you and purchase from you,

I think is what to pay attention to.

Absolutely. Tell me what you're feeling for the future apart from

not just this and now everything that we've talked about because

honestly the ideas that you have,

the things that you've put in place that you've already proven

can work are priceless and it's such a gift for you

to share those with us.

Thank you.

Apart from all of this,

what do you seen for your business as you move forward?

We were in a position of growth.

Finally like that is the irony here is that we had

just taken over another unit in our building to make a

researching and investing in some equipment to start doing more custom

work because so many of our corporate clients come to us

and provide logoed mugs and things like that.

I mean your ribbon print machine clearly has been something that

has just transformed our business.

And so that whole idea of offering custom things on the

fly, especially in one or two off or 10 off or

without having to have these huge minimums.

We were in a position to do that and then this

hit and so we were kind of extra exposed cause now

our rent was higher,

we had added more employees.

We were just about to grow.

So I hope that we can get just back to there

where we can start looking at growth again.

It's clear that delivery and shipping is a big method of

how people will receive our stuff so that we're focused on

that. We need to tighten up how we become a little

bit more seamless with how we're packaging and getting things out

the door quickly.

Well, I'm optimistic for you because you have the client base

in line already,

right? So it's just adding additional services.

So you're really looking at how can we provide more for

existing clients we already have and through that you'll be getting

new clients.

Wow. Absolutely.

And to just be ready for it.

I think you and I had a conversation at one point

about how I've always believed that even if you don't have

an international trip plan,

you should have your passport updated and ready.

If you're not out looking for a job,

you should still have your resume updated and ready to hand

somebody if the right person comes along and asks for it.

And so even if it feels weird right now to dream

about where your business can go and think about ways to

grow it,

still do the research on the equipment that you want to

invest in or whatever the strategy is because when the time

comes you want to have that ready to go.

That's another thing with the whole PPP and all that like

having your taxes done and your books in order and all

that stuff will allow you to be one of the first

in line to apply for something like that cause you're ready.

Right? Cause somebody who hasn't kept their books up to date

had to go back and do all of that before they

could even apply.

Well and this has been absolutely fabulous.

Thank you so much.

I have total faith in the future that you're going to

have. So I want everyone to go over and look at,

they should go to your website and your Facebook page.

I think to see both or Instagram better yet.

Instagram And Instagram for sure.

I put a lot of behind the scenes stuff and fun

daily stuff up in my stories.

You are great with stories.

Thank you.

And so thank you for the community that you've created because

the one big thing I've learned is we're all grappling with

various degrees of loneliness.

We are home and very close with the people that were

in quarantine or in sheltering,

in place with.

But that doesn't mean that we don't feel lonely for a

sense of a larger community.

And you have created that and it's invaluable.

And for anybody listening that isn't tapped into that,

there's many different ways I know to connect with you,

whether it's all the way up to a mastermind group,

right? Or just the daily check-ins that you're doing over on

Facebook. Well thank you.

I appreciate you so much for saying that.

Wonderful. Well have a great day.

And again,

thanks for your time.

Thank you.

So take care.

Be safe and healthy.

So many good ideas here.

You may have to bookmark this one and come back and

listen again.

Having multiple channels to get your message out,

shift the message and the purpose of your product to fit

the times and catch your customer at the right time when

they're ready to buy.

All of these things come from knowing your customer well and

Ann's been a perfect example of this for us and now

next week,

Oh, I'm so excited for this one.

We are going to be talking with a retail boutique owner

who shut her doors weeks ago.

Her life has changed,

but she's selling and I mean selling a lot every single

day, attracting new customers,

making money,

and having a lot of fun with it at the same

time. I don't want you to miss it.

Remember first thing Monday morning,

subscribe and then you'll have it ready and waiting for you

and until then be safe and be well.

Bye for now.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift is breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

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 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,

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If not,

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

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