Tips & Talk 3 – The POWER of Small Gestures

Hi there.

I see that you made it over to the new tips

and talk portion of the podcast.

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

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

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

have through small gestures.

By the end of this episode,

you're going to have our ideas.

So things that you can implement into your business that will

help you bring in more sales and attract more customers.

This all got prompted by something that happened to me last

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

second. You know,

the Maya Angelo quote that says,

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

It's how you make someone feel.

That's the whole premise behind all of this,

the power of small gestures and why they really matter is

that they make people feel something.

They make your customers feel.

I feel like you see them,

not just,

you see people as a customer group,

you see me as an individual,

and that means something to us,

and that makes us feel more connected,

more supported,

and more invested in your product and wanting to buy what

you sell.

So let me share with you what happened last week,

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

the podcast,

editing some of the social media posting,

that type of thing.

And she did something for me last week that was so

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

day, it was small,

but so thoughtful and meaningful.

And that's why it was significant and important.

So what did she do?

She's all the way in the Philippines.

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

but she did send something to me in email.

It was beautiful.

She sent me a photo of a message that she wrote

for me.

So let me read this message.

And if you want to see it,

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

wrap to show you what she did,

but she's practicing her calligraphy.

So she wrote me a note,

took a picture of that note and sent it to me

via email.

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

Thank you for being you.

I am beyond grateful to work and learn so much from

you cheers to more podcasts.

Love Michelle.

I have to tell you when I opened that email,

I thought it was just going to be regular communication that

we do with each other back and forth.

But it wasn't.

That affected me so much,

even though we've been working today,

the other for like four years,

it bonded us together.

Even more.

Sometimes I forget the impact that some of these small gestures

can have until they get circled back and are done to

me again.

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

back to you and reinforce the fact that these small gestures

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

And I want to share with you a couple of things

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

these small gestures,

because these can spark ideas for you,

of things that you can do with your customers.

Too many of you know,

I have a company called the ribbon print company.

You can find it on Instagram at ribbon print,

and we sell custom ribbon printing machines there.

One of the things I started doing last year and truth

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

So if you're a customer,

you might start seeing this again.

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

again. I use this app called BOM BOM,

BOM, B B O M B.

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

So I have a business suite Gmail account that we use

for the ribbon print company.

And what I do is I pick a certain number of

people a week right now it's four.

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

anything like that,

what I do is I use this app BombBomb and it

goes right from your email.

You just click it and it's a video.

It's not just audio it's video.

So I can say to somebody,

Hey Vicky,

thank you so much for your business.

I really appreciate it.

Why did you to know that we got your order out

right away?

Appreciate you so much.

If you have any questions,

no, that we're always there for you.

Goodbye. You know,

and then what happens is it comes to them.

It gets delivered to them in their email box,

through a link,

they open the link and then they see that message.

I get so much positive feedback out of doing that.

I can't even tell you.

And there are other apps out there that you can do

this with.

I like BombBomb.

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

my computer or it's more efficient for me.

But another app that you can use for this is called

B O N J O R O.

And that one is just an app on your phone.

So you can speak right into your phone,

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

You know,

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

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

just say,

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

gorgeous pink crocheted hat that I just made.

It's one of my favorites.

Can't wait to send it to you.

And then it goes,

and then they receive the message,

turn this around and think about how you would feel if

you were receiving that from somebody and how special and meaningful

it is and why is it special and meaningful because not

many people do that.

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

this first example,

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

But one of the things you might say to me about

this first one is Sue.

It's not scalable.

Like there is no way as I grow bigger,

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

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

Think of this in a different way.

Think of if you only were able to reach four people

in one day,

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

weren't doing it at all.

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

but that's okay.

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

be deepening relationships with two or three customers a day,

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

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

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

but they might be regular customers.

And they're buying supplies.

We will include a printed ribbon with some type of motivational

quote in with their order.

Laurie is the one who does this.

She loves being creative and does the printing and add some

fun graphics of the ribbon and finds a fun quote,

just like the one that I was saying earlier.

And so then when people open their orders,

they see a ribbon with a motivational quote,

along with their packing slip,

along with their product.

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

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

these ribbons and guess what they're doing,

they're sharing them forward too.

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

seeing the ribbon since it was like a motivational inspirational gift

that we're giving them,

they're sharing them forward.

I think that is so cool.

And especially when people are ordering multiple times,

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

out once a month,

we have them sitting right on our shipping station,

right near where all the orders go out.

So we pick one up,

put it in the order.

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

orders placed,

right. Story from total party is saying,

love, getting those coats.

And I see a couple of customers here.

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

And like I said,

we've gotten great feedback about that.

And it's very fine.

And we've just put it into our system.

Any of you have ribbon printers,

copy it,

do the same thing if you want to.

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

this two handwritten notes.

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

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

maybe for brand new customers,

total party.

I hang them on my bulletin board for inspiration.

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

a stack of them.

I think she just keeps them and that cause she can

reproduce them on her own ribbon printer too.

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

do within the podcast.

So this is over on the gift biz side is anyone

who's a guest on the show.

International guests is a little bit harder because it gets very

pricey in the shipping.

But you know,

in the beginning of the podcast where I ask about the

motivational candle,

I ask people if they were to tell us a little

more about themselves by way of a motivational candle,

what color would the panel be?

And what would be a quote,

the color because people who are listening are all creatives and

you can learn things about people with favorite colors,

right? Or the colors that they select.

And then they explain why they chose that color.

And then the inspirational quote always moves on to good conversation

just to kick off the podcast.

But then we take that quote and we put it on

ribbon and attach it to a candle and send it to

them as a thank you for being a guest on the

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

whatever you make and whatever you provide.

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

the box along with orders,

Catherine of classic legacy was on recently and she got a

candle and she says,

I love mine.

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

That's wonderful.

I love that,

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

business, the BombBomb email responses.

So it's video and audio,

very personable,

takes two seconds to do the ribbon messages in orders that

are inspirational.

Also show people other things that they can do with their

ribbon printer.

So that's kind of fun.

It's kind of a sideline benefit,

the candles that we do for our podcast,

guests with their quote.

And you notice that with each of those,

it's a little bit personalized.

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

element of personalization again,

to the point where you are seeing the customer.

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

Catherine saying,

I send extra charms or medallions with each of my orders

and also include a handwritten note.

Perfect example,

hopefully as you're listening,

you can be thinking,

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

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

in a couple of other ideas for you.

I was just thinking,

I just now told you what we do.

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

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

doing a handwritten note.

I also remember I got this beautiful,

beautiful charm from at Hazel charm shop.

And when my mom passed away,

Kathleen sent me a special gift.

It's a heart.

And then it says,

mom, in the middle of it for another gift,

I ordered a charm from her and included in.

There was the smallest little heart made out of the same

material that she makes these terms out of.

It's a wire material.

And it was just so special to have that included in

with the gift.

Absolutely beautiful,

special, totally unexpected.

And then what could I do with it?

I could keep it for myself or I could pass that

little heart on with the gift that I was giving or

I could give that hard onto somebody else.

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

that I remember,

and I was touched by that as well.

And I can go on,

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

and I'm sure you have too,

if you think back different things that surprised you,

you weren't expecting,

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

just out of the blue,

did it need to have happened?

That's the thing,

you, it,

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

be happy with them.

It's just that over the top thing,

cherry on the top,

right? That's what makes it so special.

And again,

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

this is of course to show gratitude and appreciation,

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

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

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

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

a craft show,

it's great for business all the way around.

That's a wrap.

They get to the point kind of girl.

And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek

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

of yours,

share your handmade products with us.