Greetings Today magazine just featured us in their latest issue. Here's what they wrote:
Back in 2000, Greetings Today magazine featured a newcomer to the industry in the shape of Jo Corner and her handmade glass enamel cards. Three premises moves later, Blue Eyed Sun’s recent expansion into significantly larger offices and warehousing shows how they’re still growing strongly. Moving into the cloud is this year’s ambition for Blue Eyed Sun MD Jeremy Corner as he’s determined to keep the publishers one step ahead as they look to the future.
The Blue Eyed Sun team have just moved physically, taking up residence in their lovely new factory at 56 Victoria Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, just up the road from their old industrial units in Hove. And now Jeremy is aiming to move everything digitally too: “My goal is to get digital on most of our paperwork and do the full shift over to the cloud. Paperwork takes up space and most of it I only ever look at when I’m trying to clear out the office!
“In preparation for the move, we’ve done a lot of clearing, sorting and so on. It’s my least favourite job in the whole world. I get side-tracked with the detail of it and then despondent that I can’t get through it all fast enough. “Despite the distractions I got most of it done when we were moving and I’ve photographed or scanned the paperwork I want to keep and recycled the rest.
“I kept discovering interesting old bits of paperwork. Like our very first order, our original brochure and a load of rejection letters from top retailers that now stock us. The letters were a good reminder that persistence is one of the things that has really kept us growing all these years.”
The Blue Eyed Sun story started back in 1999 when Jo Kirby, as she was then, specialised in glass enamel greetings cards that she hand-fired on to small pieces of hand-sanded copper in her childhood hobby kiln at 900°C. The glass pieces were then mounted on to GF Smith boards which Jo sold through her own small shop in York where they were one of her best-sellers.
When she moved to Brighton, Jo decided to make the cards her new business and sold them into leading retailers such as Paperchase, Harrods and Fenwick as well as design-led independent gift and card shops and galleries. “It was a different time back then,” Jo said, “handmade was really taking off and those with something different to offer really started to do well.”
Despite making a small profit on her first year’s sales of £10,000, Jo considered giving it all up to become a web designer as the internet was growing rapidly and she wasn’t making enough to live off. She added: “It was difficult to generate enough sales. When I could get in front of retailers, most wanted to buy the cards. I just couldn’t see enough customers on my own and I had no sales agents. “I decided to focus on getting sales agents at Home & Gift in 2001. I was approached by 15 at the show, went with six – and overnight the business blossomed.”
Soon after, Blue Eyed Sun were shortlisted for a Henries Award in the Best Art Cards category, agents’ sales were booming and the business started to grow rapidly. Another year later and their hand-painted Suncatcher cards won a Gift Of The Year award for Best Cards For Design-Led Shops and, with Jo’s partner Jeremy now on board, they moved the company into their first rented premises.
Having also got married, the couple soon found they were taking business home with them. “Balance was a big challenge for us,” Jo added, “as the business grew rapidly, doubling in size each year for several years, we found ourselves being all consumed with it. “Even with taking on staff to help and finding bigger premises it was very difficult for us as life partners to prevent it taking over our lives.”
In 2004 things came to a head when a family friend asked Jo how the business was going and she and Jeremy both realised they weren’t happy with things. Luckily the friend was an experienced business coach and managed to help them work through a personal development exercise that helped them find the work-life balance they were after.
Jeremy said: “Understanding why you are in business, what you want from it and what your goals are has been so important for us. This is something we have to assess regularly to make sure we are still on track and that the business is suiting our needs.”
Now with 15 in-house staff and a host of home-based craftworkers, agents across the UK and distributors in more than 15 countries worldwide, BES were recently shortlisted for a Queen’s Award For Enterprise for their export success, have been nominated 11 times in the Henries Awards and been finalists in several small business awards.
“We’ve been very lucky to have had such success in this wonderful industry,” added Jeremy, “my real passion is helping others. Our blog, social media and speaking at events have all been a big part of this for me.” Since 2004 he has been a keynote speaker at the annual Ladder Club seminars for new publishers organised by fellow publisher and retailer Lynn Tait in Leigh-on-Sea.
Jeremy is also an active member and current treasurer of the Greeting Card Association council and has also served for several years on the Giftware Association’s national committee where he starts his two-year term as vice-chairman in June before moving on to replace Greetings Today magazine columnist Henri Davis in the top job. Blue Eyed Sun's blog helps retailers and other publishers to improve their businesses and understanding of social media. He also regularly talks at industry events on subjects like export, trends, digital marketing and personal development.
While licensing with other companies for gift products and card ideas that don’t fit the BES look, an important part of the company’s success has been their strong focus on handmade and hand-finished greetings cards. Jo added: “If there’s one word I like to think of to sum up Blue Eyed Sun’s work it’s ‘crafted.’ I love crafts like enamelling, painting, sewing, knitting and crochet. “As our product range develops this theme will remain at the core of what we do. I’m excited about the potential we have going forward.”
Having bought their 4,000 sq ft Hove premises in 2006, one of their biggest challenges recently has been finding space to expand. They decided to take the plunge with the acquisition of the new building that’s more than four times the size at 17,000 sq ft instead of outsourcing to a third party warehousing company.
“Our new premises feel a long way from our tiny bedsit in Brighton where I started our business all those years ago,” Jo said. “It’s a wonderful new environment for our team and is well lit with a good amount of space to grow – plus it has sections that we can rent out in the short term and then expand into when we’re ready. “There are so many new product ideas that we’ve wanted to pursue and just not had the space. It’s exciting now that we’ve finally got it.”
As Jeremy summed up: “Despite the ups and downs of our journey I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s amazing to create products that are shared at such important occasions in people’s lives. “It’s also a privilege to work with our wonderful team of staff, many of whom have been with us for years and have helped the company to grow. It feels incredible to have a business that now contributes to paying several mortgages rather than just our own."
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Blue Eyed Sun MD, Jeremy Corner, was recently invited for a 
