Fairface Podcast Episode 4: Story Time! Behind the Scenes of my Small Business
Listen now or on Apple/Itunes or other channels here
Fairface Podcast show notes
Story Time! Behind the Scenes of my Small Business
Today I share 3 awesome experiences I’ve had while running my small business: The $1,000 Miracle, French Yachts, & The Time I gave my Washcloths to Oprah and Gail.
Hello and welcome back. Thanks for being here.
I'm excited today, to share with you, some fun stories. These stories have come about as a result of running my small business and I thought it would be fun to share them with you.
But first I wanted to let you know something funny that happened last night.
Last night when my husband came home I heard the garage door shut and waited for him to come up and say hi, like he normally does...but he didn't come up so I thought maybe I didn't really hear the garage door and anyway, just finished up my work and about 20 minutes later when I came downstairs, he actually was home and I asked him why he hadn't come up to say hi and he said, Oh, because it sounded like you were talking to someone so I didn't want to interrupt you, and I was like, you did hear me talking to someone, I was talking to myself! Yes, I started a podcast and he was like, Oh. So, anyway, I thought it was pretty funny. Don't worry honey, I'm just talking to myself again. Nothing to worry about.
So anyway, today I wanted to share with you 3 cool experiences I've had in the last several years running my business. And I'll give you a spoiler: the first one I call The $1,000 Miracle, the second one, French Yachts in Monaco and the third one I call The Time I gave my Washcloths to Oprah and Gayle.
[The $1,000 Miracle]
Alright, so let's dive in to the one I like to call The $1,000 Miracle.
About 6 years ago, my husband and I were living in Redmond, which is a suburb of Seattle, and we were in an apartment downtown. And our apartment had been great. It had been quiet and it was a great place to live until new management came in. And what they did, was cut down a huge tree that was in the center area of the U-shaped building that we lived in. And I mean, this tree was massive. Have you ever seen evergreen trees in Washington State? I mean this one you could not have...well I guess you could have hugged it, but you definitely could not have touched your fingers to each other around it. It was massive.
So after they cut down this massive tree, that had been in the center courtyard, the noise started. So this tree, turns out, this massive tree, had been a major sound buffer for our entire complex and now that they cut it down, we could hear ALL the sounds. And what had been quiet and peaceful became really loud to live there. It's like it amplified all the noise and kind of bounced around the inside complex, the inside courtyard.
So in this area, there was also serious construction...like on every corner it seemed, there were new apartments going up, there was road construction going on, there were leaf blowers in shopping parking lots, and street sweepers running all hours of the night. And there was also nightly construction going on, on the 520 bridge, that heads over into Seattle. And that happened pretty much every night and I just happened to be really sensitive to all the sounds.
And some of them were like deep pulsing, low vibration sounds in the ground, that were, I'm guessing, coming from them digging the deep pilons into the lake for the new bridge and I literally could not sleep at night even with earplugs. It's like when I put earplugs in, it would kind of drown out all the white noise and just focus in on all these awful, pulsing low vibration sounds.
So as you can imagine, it became a real problem for us to be living there and some nights I only got a couple hours of sleep, and there were nights where I could not sleep at all.
So at this point I was pretty much desperate to find another place to live and, number one priority, it had to be quiet.
And you know that when you're sleep deprived and in a state of desperation, it's probably not the best time to be making big decisions but we knew we needed to find another place to live. And really, it bothered me so much more than my husband.
But in a desperate attempt to find another place to live, I found this condo that was still in Redmond, it seemed like it checked all the boxes. It was a major step up from where we were living. It was in a gated community, it had a pool and a garage and all the things that made it look really perfect.
So, I went to look at it and the guy was telling me that, you know, this is going to go fast, you need to make a decision, you need to put your money down so that you are able to get it before anyone else does.
Now, here's the thing, I do pray about decisions and I rely on those feelings and impressions to guide me and I felt like this was a good option for us. So when my husband came home I told him that I'd found the place and he said if I felt good about it we could go ahead and put the money down and go for it.
So we packed everything up and, I think it was actually over the 4th of July weekend... so my family that we have living here, they helped us move everything and then they were leaving for the weekend.
Night one in our new condo, in a nutshell, was...horrific. That construction noise that had haunted me every waking moment, was amplified in this condo, and I realized that it was even closer to the 520 bridge construction than our other apartment had been and I don't know why I hadn't put two and two together...
There was also a really odd smell, it was a million degrees in there with horrible air circulation, and we opened windows but the people that lived below us...cigarette smoke was coming up through the windows, and there was a weird, creepy guy that lived across the parking lot that the lady next door said to stay away from... and I kid you not, all night I kept feeling like I could see flashes like from a camera through one of our windows. So, yah, creepy. So needless to say, I tossed and turned all night, I barely slept, and in the morning I just had this horrible feeling wash over me and I started crying and said we can't stay here.
And it wasn't one of those, oh, I had a bad night, we'll figure this out, you know, it's going to get better. It was a deep feeling almost of, like a warning - that this is not the right place for you to be.
And I'm thinking, how could this have happened? Like, I prayed about this. I felt like this was right, and how in the heck are we going to get out of this? We signed a year lease. And after calling one of my sisters and seriously having her talk me off the ledge, I called the owner and told him we that we could not stay there. And that was a whole thing, but he ended up letting us out of our lease but he did keep $1,000 of our money, which he would not give back, which for us at the time, was a lot and we would definitely feel that.
So long story short, my family, you know, like I said, had gone out of town, so my husband and I, we were exhausted, we were sore from just moving out, but we packed up all of our stuff and took load, after load, after load, back to our old apartment, and luckily for us, it had not already been re-rented. In the process of us telling them we were leaving and actually leaving... anyway, I have never felt so relieved to be back in our loud apartment, but I instantly knew that we had made the right decision. But I still felt really bad about losing $1,000 and I didn't know how we were going to make that up.
Well, a few days after moving back in and getting the necessities unpacked, and really leaving most of the boxes as is, because, you know, we were still going to need to move and find another place, but I got an order, a washcloth order from a doctor in Texas. And she was going to throw a party for her friends and colleagues and wanted to give her guests a cool, refreshing washcloth dipped in lavender water. And can you guess how much her order was for? It was just under $1,000.
It makes me want to cry when I think about that because it was an incredible blessing and it made me feel like God was aware of me and He was saying you did the right thing, even though this doesn't make any sense, you did the right thing and everything is going to be ok.
Now that doctor didn't have any idea that her order came just when we needed it. And most of my orders at the time didn't equal anywhere near $1,000 so I see this, truly, as my $1,000 miracle because that's just what it was.
[French Yachts]
Ok, so woah! I didn't know I was going to get so emotional, but you can agree, that was a total miracle and I'm so grateful for it.
Now my next story. This one is about one of the coolest places I've ever shipped my washcloths. And, of course, I won't share the name of my customer, but what I can tell you is that a large number of washcloths went to a yacht in the beautiful waters of the French Riviera.
If you google Monaco? Oh, gorgeous! It is called a playground for tourists and a haven for the wealthy...because it's climate is amazing and the beauty of the area is stunning and evidently there is some tax advantage to being there. So, anyway, I guess the wealthy like to hang out there for lots of reasons.
At the time that I got this order, this is going to sound silly, I was watching the show Below Deck Mediterranean on Bravo. I don't know if you've ever watched it, it can be kind of crazy, but honestly, I was hooked. The regular season of Below Deck is a little too risque for me - my husband thinks I watch crazy shows when he's not home and the other day, well, maybe I do, that's the truth.
But the other day a preview for Below Deck came on and he's like, isn't that one of the crazy shows you watch? I don't know what crazy things you watch when I'm not here... and I was like, uh, that's true, but I do draw the line somewhere and Below Deck, the regular series, is a little much for me, but Below Deck Mediterranean hasn't been as bad, so, anyway, it was entertaining.
So, it's kind of just that weird...like, when you're in this mindset, I feel like I know the yachting lingo and I'm peeking into what yachting life is kind of like, hmm, kind of like, from watching this crazy show. So I thought it was really cool to receive an order that I'm shipping to a yacht in the French Riviera and I was sending it in care of the Chief Stew...and because I'd been watching Below Deck Mediterranean, and watching Hannah be the chief stew, I felt like I knew what a chief stew did and how cool it was that I got to ship to the chief stew, on a yacht, in the French Riviera.
So, this story now that I'm telling it, sounds really flat and ridiculous because it's not like it evolved into them inviting to me to their yacht, although I would have been happy to hand deliver them, but I just thought it was pretty cool to think that my washcloths were going to go on a yacht in the French Riviera. And, that's pretty much it. I know, maybe this wasn't a great story to tell, but I thought it was cool.
And I think I have an idea of who these washcloths went to, but I'm not going to say. I just think it was a cool story...and maybe it wasn't, but for me, it was.
[The Time I Gave my Washcloths to Oprah and Gayle]
For my final story, which if you are still here, thank you! After my last story, maybe you're like hmmm, no, I don't think I'm going to stay for this last one. Anyway, hope you do!
So this is when I gave my washcloths to Oprah and Gayle. Now, if you remember, it was, oh, lets see, maybe this was about 6 years ago too, when Oprah and Gayle and their whole team would travel around to different cities and do the Live Your Best Life, like...go to a big auditorium and have a big hoopla...I don't know what it was called because I didn't go.
So they were in Seattle for one of these Live Your Best Life events and, at the time, I was still working at an elementary school. So I was doing my washcloth business part-time, well, probably more than part-time, but, I did that when I was not working at the school. So I worked at the school, technically it was considered part-time...anyway, so I was doing both at the same time. And one of my co-workers was invited to go to the Live Your Best Life event and she had tickets to actually go to the tent where Oprah and Gayle were going to be.
So I thought, oh my gosh, I need to figure out a way that I can give my washcloths to Oprah and Gayle. Maybe they'll become their favorite things. I don't know. But I just felt like this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up and my co-worker was nice enough, you know she's like, of course I'm happy to take these for you, and so...
One thing that was really interesting though... it's different, when you're preparing your product to send out and, you have to take a step back and think, if my product is going to Oprah Winfrey, what should it look like, how should I package it, how can I make this look like it's something that is amazing and she's got to try it? And so what this opportunity did, was helped me to really take a look at the messaging that I was sending out, the way that I was packaging my products, and this was back in, 2014, so I would like to think that I have come a long way since then! But, this opportunity helped me to really see it from such a different perspective and I was really able to up my game. I was able to re-evaluate the packaging and the messaging that I was sending out and, I think, get it to a much better place.
And so, I package everything up and my co-worker leaves with it and I'm so excited, I mean I have dreams that, you know, I'm going to be on Oprah, let's get real. She's going to love my washcloths, she's going to talk about them, they're going to become her favorite thing, she's going to give them as Christmas gifts and, ok, so that's the dream. And the reality? Which is just, you know, how it is. Celebrities get a lot of stuff. They get so much stuff probably sent to them all the time, that they can't possibly look through everything, want everything, I don't know... So my co-worker said, that, I believe she took a picture with Gayle, so she and her daughter took a picture with Gayle, and she was able to give my washcloths to someone who was supposed to give them to Oprah and Gayle.
Now the thing is, I remember her saying, the swag bags, all the bags full of things people were bringing to them, that some of them probably never even got to Oprah and Gayle. Like they have so many staffers that they...my co-worker saw them getting some of the things that the people had brought for Oprah and Gayle, like I think there was this jewelry, like this necklace and she overheard someone saying, you can give that to so and so...anyway, the point of this is that I don't even know, really, if Oprah and Gayle ever even saw my washcloths...but seriously, if they did? They would have loved them! They're so soft! You can't deny that they're amazing...if you actually get to try them.
So I don't know if they ever actually laid eyes on them or if one of the staffers ended up getting them. But don't be discouraged, the moral of the story is not, oh you hope that your product will be noticed by a celebrity and then it's not. The point of this was, that it gave me just an exciting opportunity and I took that opportunity and it also really helped me re-evaluate the way that I was presenting my product. Because of course, I wanted it to look the best that it could to all my customers, you don't have to be a celebrity for me to care about the way my washcloths or my packaging come to you. I do keep my packaging rather simple, but that's so that I can put the majority of my money into the products - the fabrics that I use to make my washcloths. But the messaging is important, and I feel like it just really helped me to take a step back and see it from a different perspective so I think that opportunity was really also a blessing to me in my business.
Well, my friends, that's it for story time with Shannon! I hope these were even fun to listen to. Do you like me sharing this kind of stuff? This podcast is going to evolve. These are the first 4 episodes that I have created and I have some really fun plans in store for the podcast but for right now, these are just some things that I wanted to share. So, hopefully you've enjoyed this. I've had fun, it's as trip down memory lane for me and just reminds me of the fun and excitement of the things that I've gone through and the ups and downs, but the miracles that have come and the blessings that have come as a result of my business. Thanks again for being here and I will see you next time.
Do you like stories from behind the scenes of my business? I promise, I'll try to get better at story telling!
Connect with me on social media: @FairfaceWashcloths on Instagram and Facebook
AND
To shop our washcloths, visit our etsy shop or website.
Thanks again for your support!
No comments:
Post a Comment