Tips & Talk 3 – The POWER of Small Gestures

The Power of Small Gestures - MessageSomething happened last week that reminded me of this very important and free way to attract and strengthen relationships. It’s free, it comes in all different shapes and sizes … and it’s a true gem.

Shoutout to my awesome VA, Michele who is the inspiration behind this episode.

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Transcript
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Hi there.

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I see that you made it over to the new tips

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and talk portion of the podcast.

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These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and

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things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.

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Today, let's have a conversation around the powerful impact you can

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have through small gestures.

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By the end of this episode,

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you're going to have our ideas.

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So things that you can implement into your business that will

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help you bring in more sales and attract more customers.

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This all got prompted by something that happened to me last

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week. And I'm going to tell you about that in a

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second. You know,

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the Maya Angelo quote that says,

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it's not what you say or what you do.

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It's how you make someone feel.

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That's the whole premise behind all of this,

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the power of small gestures and why they really matter is

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that they make people feel something.

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They make your customers feel.

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I feel like you see them,

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not just,

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you see people as a customer group,

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you see me as an individual,

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and that means something to us,

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and that makes us feel more connected,

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more supported,

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and more invested in your product and wanting to buy what

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you sell.

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So let me share with you what happened last week,

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I'm working with a virtual assistant in the Philippines to do

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the podcast,

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editing some of the social media posting,

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that type of thing.

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And she did something for me last week that was so

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unexpected. So out of the blue and truly affected my whole

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day, it was small,

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but so thoughtful and meaningful.

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And that's why it was significant and important.

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So what did she do?

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She's all the way in the Philippines.

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It's not like she sent me something in the physical mail,

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but she did send something to me in email.

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It was beautiful.

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She sent me a photo of a message that she wrote

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for me.

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So let me read this message.

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And if you want to see it,

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Oh, posted over on my Instagram page at gift biz on

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wrap to show you what she did,

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but she's practicing her calligraphy.

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So she wrote me a note,

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took a picture of that note and sent it to me

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via email.

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And the note said the world needs more people like you.

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Thank you for being you.

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I am beyond grateful to work and learn so much from

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you cheers to more podcasts.

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Love Michelle.

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I have to tell you when I opened that email,

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I thought it was just going to be regular communication that

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we do with each other back and forth.

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But it wasn't.

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That affected me so much,

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even though we've been working today,

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the other for like four years,

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it bonded us together.

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Even more.

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Sometimes I forget the impact that some of these small gestures

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can have until they get circled back and are done to

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me again.

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So that's what I want to do for you is circle

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back to you and reinforce the fact that these small gestures

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can mean the world to you and growing your business relationships.

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And I want to share with you a couple of things

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that I'm doing within both of my companies to also get

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these small gestures,

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because these can spark ideas for you,

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of things that you can do with your customers.

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Too many of you know,

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I have a company called the ribbon print company.

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You can find it on Instagram at ribbon print,

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and we sell custom ribbon printing machines there.

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One of the things I started doing last year and truth

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be told I've slacked off a little bit on this lately.

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So if you're a customer,

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you might start seeing this again.

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It's kind of kicked me to reinforce me to do this

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again. I use this app called BOM BOM,

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BOM, B B O M B.

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And what it does is it connects with my Gmail accounts.

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So I have a business suite Gmail account that we use

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for the ribbon print company.

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And what I do is I pick a certain number of

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people a week right now it's four.

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And people who either send in orders called in with questions,

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anything like that,

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what I do is I use this app BombBomb and it

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goes right from your email.

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You just click it and it's a video.

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It's not just audio it's video.

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So I can say to somebody,

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Hey Vicky,

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thank you so much for your business.

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I really appreciate it.

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Why did you to know that we got your order out

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right away?

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Appreciate you so much.

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If you have any questions,

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no, that we're always there for you.

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Goodbye. You know,

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and then what happens is it comes to them.

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It gets delivered to them in their email box,

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through a link,

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they open the link and then they see that message.

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I get so much positive feedback out of doing that.

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I can't even tell you.

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And there are other apps out there that you can do

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this with.

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I like BombBomb.

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Cause I like doing it right when I'm in front of

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my computer or it's more efficient for me.

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But another app that you can use for this is called<inaudible>

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B O N J O R O.

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And that one is just an app on your phone.

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So you can speak right into your phone,

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think of how nice this would be for brand new customers.

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You know,

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you've never had them before you recognize that this is an

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order from someone who you're not familiar with pop on and

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just say,

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Hey, you made my day by placing that order of that

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gorgeous pink crocheted hat that I just made.

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It's one of my favorites.

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Can't wait to send it to you.

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And then it goes,

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and then they receive the message,

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turn this around and think about how you would feel if

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you were receiving that from somebody and how special and meaningful

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it is and why is it special and meaningful because not

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many people do that.

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Right? And one of the things that you might say about

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this first example,

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I have a couple more examples to share with you here.

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But one of the things you might say to me about

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this first one is Sue.

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It's not scalable.

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Like there is no way as I grow bigger,

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I'm going to be able to call every single person who

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places an order or every day be able to do that.

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Think of this in a different way.

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Think of if you only were able to reach four people

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in one day,

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that's four people that you never would have reached if you

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weren't doing it at all.

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Yeah. Some of these things aren't going to ever be scalable,

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but that's okay.

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If you can continually on a very small step of basis,

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be deepening relationships with two or three customers a day,

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or even say a week that's more than you were doing

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before. Also with the ribbon print company when people place orders.

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So it's not when they're just buying the ribbon printer,

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but they might be regular customers.

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And they're buying supplies.

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We will include a printed ribbon with some type of motivational

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quote in with their order.

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Laurie is the one who does this.

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She loves being creative and does the printing and add some

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fun graphics of the ribbon and finds a fun quote,

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just like the one that I was saying earlier.

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And so then when people open their orders,

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they see a ribbon with a motivational quote,

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along with their packing slip,

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along with their product.

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Anything else that we needed to include in that particular order?

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We've gotten so many comments about how much people are liking

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these ribbons and guess what they're doing,

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they're sharing them forward too.

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So not only are the people who are receiving their orders,

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seeing the ribbon since it was like a motivational inspirational gift

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that we're giving them,

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they're sharing them forward.

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I think that is so cool.

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And especially when people are ordering multiple times,

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they're going to get the same quote because we change it

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out once a month,

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we have them sitting right on our shipping station,

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right near where all the orders go out.

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So we pick one up,

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put it in the order.

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So it's not like we're printing one every single time in

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orders placed,

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right. Story from total party is saying,

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love, getting those coats.

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And I see a couple of customers here.

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So you guys know that that's what we do.

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And like I said,

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we've gotten great feedback about that.

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And it's very fine.

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And we've just put it into our system.

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Any of you have ribbon printers,

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copy it,

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do the same thing if you want to.

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And there's other ways that you could put a spin on

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this two handwritten notes.

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Again, I get the fact that this isn't,

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but it's something that you can do short term or sometimes

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maybe for brand new customers,

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total party.

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I hang them on my bulletin board for inspiration.

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Yeah. And I think Anita keeps all of them and has

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a stack of them.

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I think she just keeps them and that cause she can

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reproduce them on her own ribbon printer too.

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Anyway. So that's another thing we do something else that I

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do within the podcast.

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So this is over on the gift biz side is anyone

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who's a guest on the show.

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International guests is a little bit harder because it gets very

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pricey in the shipping.

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But you know,

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in the beginning of the podcast where I ask about the

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motivational candle,

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I ask people if they were to tell us a little

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more about themselves by way of a motivational candle,

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what color would the panel be?

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And what would be a quote,

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the color because people who are listening are all creatives and

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you can learn things about people with favorite colors,

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right? Or the colors that they select.

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And then they explain why they chose that color.

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And then the inspirational quote always moves on to good conversation

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just to kick off the podcast.

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But then we take that quote and we put it on

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ribbon and attach it to a candle and send it to

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them as a thank you for being a guest on the

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show. So I'm thinking about other things that maybe you do,

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whatever you make and whatever you provide.

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Maybe there's a little something surprising that you can put in

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the box along with orders,

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Catherine of classic legacy was on recently and she got a

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candle and she says,

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I love mine.

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I have it on my shelf in my video studio area.

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That's wonderful.

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I love that,

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Catherine. So those are three things that I do within my

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business, the BombBomb email responses.

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So it's video and audio,

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very personable,

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takes two seconds to do the ribbon messages in orders that

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are inspirational.

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Also show people other things that they can do with their

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ribbon printer.

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So that's kind of fun.

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It's kind of a sideline benefit,

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the candles that we do for our podcast,

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guests with their quote.

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And you notice that with each of those,

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it's a little bit personalized.

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That's the point of these smaller gestures is that there's an

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element of personalization again,

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to the point where you are seeing the customer.

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It's not like you're just sending it out to the masses.

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Catherine saying,

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I send extra charms or medallions with each of my orders

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and also include a handwritten note.

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Perfect example,

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hopefully as you're listening,

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you can be thinking,

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okay, well maybe I haven't done anything like that in the

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past, but here are some ideas that I could easily Institute

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in a couple of other ideas for you.

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I was just thinking,

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I just now told you what we do.

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And now I'm thinking about what other types of things by

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extension you could do exactly what Katherine was just talking about,

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doing a handwritten note.

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I also remember I got this beautiful,

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beautiful charm from at Hazel charm shop.

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And when my mom passed away,

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Kathleen sent me a special gift.

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It's a heart.

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And then it says,

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mom, in the middle of it for another gift,

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I ordered a charm from her and included in.

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There was the smallest little heart made out of the same

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material that she makes these terms out of.

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It's a wire material.

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And it was just so special to have that included in

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with the gift.

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Absolutely beautiful,

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special, totally unexpected.

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And then what could I do with it?

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I could keep it for myself or I could pass that

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little heart on with the gift that I was giving or

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I could give that hard onto somebody else.

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Right. But still just by me talking about it tells you

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that I remember,

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and I was touched by that as well.

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And I can go on,

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there've been so many little gestures like this that I've received

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and I'm sure you have too,

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if you think back different things that surprised you,

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you weren't expecting,

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I guess that's kind of the same thing as being surprised

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just out of the blue,

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did it need to have happened?

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That's the thing,

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you, it,

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wasn't something that needed to have happened for you to still

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be happy with them.

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It's just that over the top thing,

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cherry on the top,

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right? That's what makes it so special.

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And again,

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I want to remind everybody that the whole reason you're doing

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this is of course to show gratitude and appreciation,

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but then also you're deepening your relationship and people are going

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to remember that and they're going to stick with you and

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they're going to watch when your new collections come out and

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they're going to want to come visit you when you're at

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a craft show,

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it's great for business all the way around.

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That's a wrap.

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They get to the point kind of girl.

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And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek

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sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream

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of yours,

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share your handmade products with us.

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