000 – The Story Behind Gift Biz Unwrapped

Welcome! This is Sue Monhait, your host, and I want to welcome you to the first episode of Gift Biz Unwrapped. This will be a little different than future shows in that I want to lay a foundation as to what you can expect moving forward and why the podcast is here in the first place! The Purpose The purpose of Gift Biz Unwrapped is to provide insights and actionable strategies to grow your business. At the end of each episode, you will walk away with new ideas, or tools, or processes that you can apply to grow your business. My Back Story Let me tell you a little about myself. I come from 15 years working in the corporate environment in sales and marketing consultation. During that time I worked with several hundred smaller retailers as well as some of the big guys. I was in a lead position for the McDonald’s salad rollout way back when, as well as working with companies such as Pizza Hut, Osco/Savon Drug, Kohl’s and more. I’ll tell you a secret that I discovered during that time. The larger businesses have the same challenges that we face every day. Sure, they have more resources at hand … but they also have a lot of politics and procedures. This makes instituting changes a long and tedious process. What seems so obvious in terms of business improvements just doesn’t ever get implemented. Many times one department doesn’t even know what the other is doing. A small/medium business on the other hand, is nimble and quick. You can discover ways to enhance your business and take action immediately. This is a huge advantage for you and that’s where we come in. We’ll bring you these ideas and you can incorporate the ones that are right for your business. Back to my story. There came a time in my corporate life when I became a candidate to run one of our production facilities. That would have meant that I would be in charge of all departments such as finance, sales, hr, production, etc. It was exciting and I was totally motivated to make this change. Then all of a sudden, I stopped in my tracks. My children were going too fast and their childhood was passing to quickly … I was traveling all the time and it just hit me that I really didn’t want to miss out on all that. I wanted to be a “traditional” mom. If there even is such a thing these days. So I came home and had a heart-to-heart with my husband. He supported me and we created a plan. Two years later, I left a job I loved to stay home with the kids … a job I loved even more! About 4 years later, the bug was back. What can I say, I love business. David and Nichole were getting older and more independent and I decided I wanted to go back to work . It was my husband who said, “Why don’t you start something yourself?” I thought, ok … for years I’ve been helping other people start and grow their businesses – now I’ll see if I can take my own advice and do it myself. Today Fast forward, I’ve now started two successful businesses. My current business is The Ribbon Print Company. We provide custom ribbon printing systems so businesses can offer personalization of products right onsite in their shop or craftroom. I mention this because it is what lead me to creating this podcast. We do 8-10 trade shows a year at The Ribbon Print Company. I’m also a speaker/teacher at several of these shows. I love it because our booth is always busy and we get to interact with lots of customers and prospects. Inevitably I get into conversations about starting or growing a business. There are questions about set-up, marketing plans, social media strategies, product fulfilment – all sorts of things. These conversations energize me. It’s so funny because many times people who don’t buy a ribbon printer come back to the booth the next year to say “hi” and tell us how their business has progressed. Then we get into more growth conversations.