Search results for: 'ladder club'

Blue Eyed Sun has been trading for twenty years this year! It’s quite something to reach this business milestone, considering I am not a greeting card publisher. 

Whilst the company has been successful and has always been profitable, I am most proud of the fact that it enabled a lifestyle in which we could spend lots of time with family, friends and loved ones, contribute so much to our industry and I could pursue my passion for travel and adventure.

I recently shared our story with Therese Ørtenblad on her Let’s Talk Shop podcast and it got me thinking about how grateful I am for the time we’ve had in our industry and for everything we have accomplished. 

It’s a privilege to run a business that is so resilient and has greeting cards at the very heart of our prosperity. The company endured the 2008 recession and is surviving the current coronavirus situation remarkably well. Our cards have made our retailers millions in sales and customers continue to feedback how well they sell. 

This month I’d like to share what (apart from great selling products) has been most effective in building the endearing and enduring Blue Eyed Sun brand:

PR & Marketing

Having a good spread of PR & marketing approaches has avoided the vulnerability of having a single source for generating new business. Since starting, we have sent out hundreds of press releases and appeared in countess trade magazine articles. Every new product range has had a photo and press release sent out to editors that made it easy for them to cut and paste us into their publications. Once we grew big enough, we advertised regularly in the trade press to secure Blue Eyed Sun’s brand in the minds of our customers.

In addition to this, our quarterly direct mailings of new brochures allowed retailers to see our products regularly outside of trade shows. We have exhibited at over a hundred exhibitions, which have been a regular source of sales, enquiries and market research. Our stands at them have always been modest, affordable and profitable. It’s a marketing strategy that has served us well.  

In recent years our blog and social media content has driven a new generation of customers and retailers to us. We get a steady stream of qualified enquiries from our website each week. With a sizeable email list of great retailers and our useful monthly emails (that offer more than just adverts for products) we have high open and click through rates on our digital marketing. Every email we send results in sales, even when we are not ‘selling’.

Entering awards has been another great way of getting our products seen by quality buyers. Whilst we’ve lost out on trophies more times than we’ve won, we are proud to have won a Gift of the Year award, a Henries trophy and a Queen’s Award for International Trade. We’ve had great PR from every nomination along the way.

Over time our cards have wound up in so many shops and homes that new enquiries are often from retailers who have seen us elsewhere or received one of our cards and used our contact details on the back to add us to their list of suppliers.

Sales & Distribution

Whilst we have some large clients, a diversified customer base has helped Blue Eyed Sun remain resilient to market changes. Our loyal independent UK retailers have been key to our success and we love them for it. We’ve been able to maintain these relationships at trade shows, online and through our team of freelance sales agents. 

International distributors have given us access to other markets. This month alone we have shipped thousands of cards abroad. Offering our cards in other languages and bespoke production has added further valuable sales strings to our bow.

Our brochures make it easy for retailers who aren’t web savvy enough to order offline. For those that are, our B2B website has been incredible in bringing in sales and leads from smaller shops that agents might miss or territories we aren’t covered in, especially during this pandemic.

Further important relationships are with brokers like Hallmark, UKG, Woodmansterne and others. All are instrumental in helping us to supply larger key accounts. In fact, the supermarkets, our website and international trade kept sales going through Lockdown this year (without any marketing spend).

Mistakes

Although it was fun, in hindsight, setting up our wedding stationery business, Ivy Ellen, was a mistake (as was not closing it down years ago). It was a distraction and we would have been more profitable without it. Ditto for from my brief dalliance with being a trade show organiser with the Fresh area at Spring Fair in 2010. 

An industry friend of mine thinks the same of my involvement with the Ladder Club, the Greeting Card Association and the Giftware Association. These do take up time, but speaking at events and contributing on committees is about putting something back into an industry that has been very good to us. Same goes for the six marathons and other races I trained for and ran to raise funds for charities. It’s not all about making money.

Some things that you try, just don’t work. Occasionally I have overspent on marketing. I’ve also kept bad staff and poor sales agents longer than I should have. You live and learn (mostly).

Sometimes I’ve made a good decision, like our diversification into eco-friendly giftware which now make up half our sales. Our BambooCup business is a good example of how we were able to put an on trend product through the distribution systems we have built with Blue Eyed Sun and scale rapidly into a new sector of the market.

Systems

Years ago, I decided to work on the business rather than in it. The result was a series of systems, operations manuals and procedures that have kept managing the business easier than most. It’s made it simpler to hire and to adapt to new circumstances, good or bad. When the Lockdown happened I was able to get up to speed on my own pretty quickly and relatively easily. It’s also meant that running the company has had minimal impact on my time. To my mind, if I work half the week, my salary is effectively double what I’m paid.

Using industry leading software systems like Sage, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft, Shopify and Magento has also helped when hiring, training and outsourcing as they are commonly used and known. Online banking, digital credit control and cash flow forecasting keep our finances simple to manage. Keeping our drawings consistent and relatively low enabled us stay cash positive so we could seize opportunities like BambooCup and Bioloco as well as survive the pandemic.

Highlights

Thanks to Blue Eyed Sun, I have met many amazing people and been to interesting places like 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. We’ve been interviewed in magazines and newspapers, on TV, radio, podcasts and YouTube channels. I’ve been paid to speak at business events like Sage Summit in America. We’ve also had the privilege of being stocked in many of the world’s leading retailers including Harrods, Fortum & Mason and Selfridges. Recently we even created a bespoke BambooCup for Balmoral, so we’ve been fortunate enough to supply the Queen, meet her and win one of her prestigious awards. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe its all real.

I don’t know what the future holds. Blue Eyed Sun is certainly a decent enough brand with a strong enough base to expand from (despite market challenges) and our new products are selling really well. All of our card production team are now back working their usual hours this month and are busy. Fortunately, we remain profitable, we have great distribution and there’s a lot more potential to explore with our B2C sales and marketing in the run up to Christmas. After that, perhaps some day someone will make us an offer we can’t refuse.

For now, I’m simply feeling very grateful to everyone who has supported us over the last twenty years, customers, suppliers, agents, trade mags, our team, friends and family. Thank You All! 

The Secret to Successful Marketing

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Retailers

How to win at Cards

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Therese Ørtenblad on Let's Talk Shop, her fantastic podcast for small businesses who want to grow their wholesale sales with retailers.

Having worked for giftware company NPW, Therese has extensive experience selling to retailers and has some awesome guests on her podcast which is well worth listening to. She's also an expert that's available for consulting and has online courses for entrepreneurs looking to grow.

The time breezed by and we had covered a lot of ground as I shared how Blue Eyed Sun got started, many of the pitfalls and failures we've experienced along the road to success and how retail is changing in 2020.

I've listed some of the highlights below, if you are short on time. Click the play button on the image below.

02:55 How Blue Eyed Sun got started

05:25 Our first ever retailer

07:20 The secret value of trade shows

09:45 What made the business really take off

13:15 Taking on our first premises

13:55 Our first big multiple and how we almost lost them

17:45 How trade shows have changed

21:10 What really drives our business success

22:35 How diversification has doubled our sales

22:40 The Ladder Club for new card publishers

24:20 What can cripple your business

25:30 What we learned from our failures

26:30 The growth in eco friendly giftware

27:30 Founding greenmagpie.net to sell B2C

29:10 How we market to retailers and B2B businesses

32:00 Our successful blog for Retailers

33:00 The power of a good email list

34:15 How retailers can sell well online

36:00 The secret to social selling

39:45 The impact of Covid-19 on our business

46:30 The pitfall of brokerage and multiples

51:00 How we grew the business on two and a half days per week

56:40 The future of retail and supply chain logistics

57:50 How retail will be in Autumn 2020

62:00 Which retailers have been most affected by Covid-19

63:25 Which retailers will do well and what they should be stocking

65:00 Fun marketing tips for businesses

67:15 Diversity in the card and gift industry

73:00 How to make real change in the workplace

83:00 How the world’s consciousness is shifting

Hope you enjoy listening and thanks to Therese for having me on her show.

Listen to Jeremy on other podcasts below:

The Marketing Disenchanted Podcast

Sage Advice Podcast talking about Business and the Environment

Wow. It’s the end of the second decade of the new millennium and almost 20 years since Blue Eyed Sun launched. It’s also been 100 years since the GCA launched. It’s been a busy year full of new learnings and shifts in perspective. Here are some of them:

Success and Failure

Until recently, I used to get very attached to winning or losing. I believed that if you weren’t attached it meant that you weren’t really committed. It’s been a major shift for me to pull attachment and and commitment apart from one another and enjoy being committed without being attached.

For example, sometimes it’s simply enough to complete the Brighton marathon (as I did in April), rather than worry about my finish-time. For most marathon runners, completing the course is the triumph, the speed at which it is done is less relevant. 

Having said that, it was incredible to see Eliud Kipchoge become the first to run a marathon in less than two hours this year. To do this, he had to run 100m in 17.08 seconds 422 times in a row at a speed of 13.1 mph. Try and run a single 100m in 17 seconds and you’ll see just how remarkable this achievement really is.

Instead of being attached, I am now committed to things I’m doing that may move forward and may not. This year, some worked and some didn’t. Some just where what they were. I got that I got and I didn’t get what I didn’t get.

What Worked

Our financial year ended with Blue Eyed Sun sales up 30% thanks to our best-selling BambooCup and new eco-gifts. In the current climate this feels like an achievement in itself. The brand has been further boosted further by a recent independent study by Stiftung Warentest that showed BambooCup by chic.mic to be was the number one choice out of twelve popular bamboo cup brands. 

Our new card range, licensed from Jade Mosinski has been very well received and is selling through nicely. We are also pleased with the response to our Doodle Girl licensed cards. 

This year we expanded our sales agent force to thirteen agents on the road with only Wales left to cover. It’s a challenging time to find good agents and we are very grateful to have some of the best in the UK doing a great job for us.

I also took part in Plastic Free July for the first time and spoke about my experience at Autumn Fair. It was a fascinating challenge, which I shared with my followers on social media through a series of videos. Sustainability and taking care of the environment is becoming increasingly important for all of us.

What Didn’t Work

Despite being runner up for a Gift of the Year award with Origamo cards at Spring Fair, we did not progress with distributing the handmade Italian popup and quilling card brand as the business model did not work for us.

For different reasons, new interiors products W-Lamp and Canvas Gallery both failed to take with our customer base. I’m glad that we limited our exposure and didn't have large stock holdings on these products. We were able to test and move on from them without it damaging us in any major way.

For all of us in business, we have to try things and see what works and what doesn’t. Whilst we all want the outcomes to be good, it’s important to be assessing and adjusting regularly to sail through the current choppy climate.

The other thing that I’ve realised doesn’t work for me is…

Trying to Look Good

This year I learned that I used to do a lot of things to ‘look good.’ Trying to look good comes at a cost, as it’s difficult to say no. Which means one can over-commit and not have much free time to oneself.

Being so busy also means that I don’t always come up smelling of roses, because I inevitably let people down from time to time. For example, I filmed the speakers at the GCA Speed Dating with Dragons event earlier this year and it has taken me many months to edit and load the footage up to YouTube.

So, I’ve cut back. I recently stepped down as Treasurer of the GCA and, after 15 years of speaking at the Ladder Club, I chose not to attend this November. It was scheduled on my birthday and on a Thursday when I spend time with my son. As much as I love helping others, it felt good to do what I wanted and focus on what’s important to me, rather than how I think others might perceive me. 

After filming, editing and loading up twenty six videos for the GCA’s YouTube channel, I have decided not to do any more. The association now needs someone to help them with these, so if you know anyone who can film, edit and load onto YouTube then please drop Amanda Ferguson a line.

We’ve also had a couple of things come to an end this year at Blue Eyed Sun.

Endings

A decade after launching, we have now closed our wedding division, Ivy Ellen. During that time, we created 117,251 gorgeous wedding invitations for 2,019 weddings and won several awards whilst building a well loved and recognised brand in another lovely industry. It’s been a blast and now we want to focus on other things.

After 16 wonderful years our long standing colleague and friend, Lewis Early, is moving to new pastures. During his time with us he worked his way up our business from packing boxes in our warehouse at the tender age of 16 to becoming our invaluable General Manager. He has lived and breathed Blue Eyed Sun with us and we will all miss him greatly and wish him all the best.

New Beginnings

Rising Retail was launched this year and the date has been shifted to the 1st June 2020 to allow more retailers to get the most of this TED style networking event, with 14 incredible speakers, designed to share best practice and help businesses to thrive. It’s still being held at the Shard and promises to be an awesome day.

At Spring Fair we are all being moved into Hall 2. I’m excited about Blue Eyed Sun’s new stand and, after the success of our move at Autumn Fair, am looking forward to similarly strong results with this change. I will also be speaking about Sustainability in Retail on the Inspiring Retail stage at the NEC.

We’re looking forward to launching our new Bioloco brand of environmentally friendly products. We have some lovely new double walled water bottles that have tested really well. These will be a good compliment to our best-selling BambooCups, lunch boxes, children’s beakers and SlideCups. We are also expanding our greeting cards offering, particularly with our Jade Mosinski license, which will soon be over 100 beautiful designs. 

The Future

This year, the EU voted overwhelmingly in favour for a new law to dramatically reduce the 150,000 tonnes of plastic waste tossed into European waters each year. Single-use plastic cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers are to be banned by 2021. Oxo-degradable plastics and food containers and expanded polystyrene cups will be banned. There will also be a more stringent ‘polluter pays’ principle and 90% collection rates for plastic bottles are being targeted by 2029. The legislation stipulates that labelling on the negative environmental impact of littering of single-use plastic cups and other items should be mandatory. Despite Brexit, the UK will undoubtedly follow a similar line regardless of who wins the forthcoming election.

This is fantastic news for anyone operating in the environmentally conscious space and helping consumers to cut back on their consumer waste by encouraging the use of reusable bags, containers, cups and bottles.

It also means that the card industry’s drive to reduce plastic could not have come at a better time. Around 68% of all cards sold in the UK are expected to be naked by next month.  We believe more will follow as the customers of independent retailers begin to reward those that make plastic-free changes.

How to attend Rising Retail in 2020

What I learned at the Landmark Forum this year

What I learned doing the Plastic Free July Challenge this year

Jeremy Corner and Lewis Early collecting an award for Ivy Ellen, which is now closed.

Occasionally, after giving talks on stage, people have asked me if I’ve ever done the Landmark Forum. I had not. My dear friend, Lucy Heavens from Juicy Lucy, had previously recommended the seminar to me as had a couple of other friends.

I’d made a load of excuses to avoid taking the plunge: I didn’t need to do it because people were kind of already telling me I’d done it. I was above it all. I didn’t have the time. I didn’t want to open stuff up and disrupt my life. It seemed like it might be some kind of cult. They must want something from me. It could be a pyramid scheme. They take advantage of you in some way. I could be damaged by the experience. The list goes on.

What Is The Forum?

If you have any loss of power in a relationship or any aspect of your life or if you simply feel like things aren’t working then it can be transformational (and yet it won’t change you). It can open up new possibilities and it’s not new, different or better information. It’s an experience and it’s not the same for everybody who does it. 

Nobody who recommends the Landmark Forum is paid to recommend it, it’s not a cult nor is it a religion. There is no scam and it’s not a pyramid scheme. You don’t have to change anything about yourself. You don’t even have to stand up at and talk. In fact, you don’t ‘need’ to do it at all. It isn’t going to ‘tell you’ anything.

Put simply it’s a three and a half day seminar that is essentially an authentic ontological discussion about the nature of being. Of participants surveyed, 94% report that The Landmark Forum made a profound and lasting difference in their lives.

A Brief History

Landmark Worldwide that runs the Landmark Forum grew out of the Erhard Seminars Training (EST) developed by Werner Erhard in 1971. Rooted in the Human Potential Movement and the work of philosopher Heidegger, Erhard was also influenced by his studies on Zen Buddhism with Alan Watts. The original seminars were said to be physically and emotionally challenging and lasted 60 hours over two weekends. EST gave way to a gentler, shorter, more accessible course now known as The Forum.

The Forum

They say the Forum starts the moment you sign up for it. After I paid my £580, I decided I wanted to start offering business coaching services and, without saying anything to anyone, someone messaged me asking if I could consult for them. The magic had begun.

The seminars are held near Euston Station in London and our particular training was conducted by a fiery, passionate American woman named Kathy Bosco. I took a deep breath after hearing her accent, decided not to let my preconceptions dictate my experience and set myself the intention to have fun for the three days. 

Boy did I. I laughed, I cried, it was challenging, exhilarating and eye opening. There are a good number of distinctions that I learned doing it. Here are four of them:

1. Stories

We all have stories about everyone and everything in our lives. We do this because we are meaning making machines. ‘He or she did such and such to me and ruined my life’ is an example of a story. Stories are not the problem, living like they are the truth is the problem.

The distinction is that there are things that actually happened and then there are the stories that we make up about what happened. I realised that I had lots of stories about different people in my life and even about myself. These stories resulted in me pretending with people, when in fact I really felt a different way. The stories were inauthentic and had an impact on the way I behaved in those relationships. They meant that I missed out on seeing people as they really are. 

As an example, I had story about my mum being judgemental. This led to me not feeling good enough and always trying to please her and others in my life. In turn, this meant that I didn't always pay attention to how I personally felt as I was too focussed on others' happiness.

During the workshop you are set tasks to call people and write letters dealing with these stories. After calling my mum and others, it was quite profound how quickly I dropped stories I’d been carrying for years and then created new possibilities going forward. I had some of the most authentic conversations I’ve had in my life. The result is that my relationships with everyone have been radically transformed and exciting things have been happening ever since. 

2. Change

We spend a lot of our lives trying to change by doing more of the thing we want to change, less of it or something different to it. The trouble with this is when you say you are not going to be X, you are still X because you are living a ‘not X' life. The two are tied to one another. I’m not going to smoke anymore means I am still a smoker because I am living a non-smoking life.

In other words, your future is always being coloured by the sun glasses of your past. This means you never really escape it and you can end up trapped in your stories, even though you may be aware of them and the fact that they are unwanted. The more you try to change the harder it is to change. Most of us aren’t aware that we are wearing these sunglasses. We think that what we are seeing is reality rather than a perspective. The Forum gives you the opportunity to remove the glasses, to reset completely and open up a new possibility.

After my dad died in 2000, I decided that I didn't want to be a poor and struggling film maker, so I pushed hard to grow Blue Eyed Sun to become wealthy i.e. 'not-poor.' This has kept me in a paranoid state running the business ever since, because I live in constant fear of becoming poor. The glasses of my past cloud the way I see my future.

3. Rackets

The things that are unwanted in our lives that persist are distinguished as ‘rackets’ in the Forum. We all have them, but most of us don’t notice them for what they are. Mine are to do with being right or wrong, not being good enough and feeling judged by others. 

They clouded my conversations with people, as I unwittingly looked for these rackets all the time. In effect, I wasn’t really listening to anyone as I was always seeking out evidence to support my rackets. We often don’t listen to one another properly, we judge and assess what others say, and the voice in our heads dominates and prevents us from being truly present with each another.

4. Creating Reality

Many of us are living in a world of constant assessment rather than actual experience. In effect we are missing out on our lives, because they are governed by our reasons and considerations instead of what we really want.

Your word, and your relationship with your word, creates your reality. Declaration is the form of language that creates. It’s the foundation of your integrity. Who I am is my word. Both to myself and to others around me. By saying what you want and sticking to your word you create a powerful relationship with yourself and those around you.

The seminar shows you how to get authentic with yourself and with others. It reminds you to honour the promises and agreements that you make. To honour your word, not your reasons. To honour what you say, not what you think. The power of this integrity is incredible and as the weekend evolves you find yourself creating a new level of being in the world.

This part has been most interesting for me, because I used to say 'yes' to everything so that I didn't let anyone down and didn't miss out on anything. All part of my little 'people-pleasing' thing. As obvious as it may sound to you, I'm coming to realise that I can't do everything. I need to cut back on my promises and only to commit to what I personally want to be involved with and what I am able to realistically fit into my schedule that doesn't conflict with my higher priorities.

Life After

After doing the Landmark Forum I found myself taking full responsibility for my life and no longer blaming anyone else. I began to really listen to others, without adding anything and accepting that things are just they way they are and just the way they aren’t.

Within Blue Eyed Sun, my experience of our team has been transforming and I’ve had very real, authentic and powerful conversations with them that have created exciting new possibilities.

In The Forum I created a possibility for myself of ‘love and creative abundance.’ This has created a completely new space for everything I now do. So, I'm no longer looking forward through the glasses of 'not being poor.' Well, I say no longer, it still comes back from time to time, and now I'm more quick to spot what's happening for me and steer my attention to the possibility I have created for myself and any new ones I choose to create.

As line with my possibility of love and creative abundance, I’ve developed exciting new ranges of Spring designs with three different new artists that we’re launching at Home & Gift and Autumn Fair. I’ve designed two of my own small card ranges called Poet’s Corner and Gold Standard. My #PlasticFreeJuly project on social media became fun and carefree, as I no longer pandered to my rackets of not being good enough or getting it right or wrong. I’m also currently enrolling customers into my bigger vision of reducing single-use coffee cup waste from 2.5 billion cups a year to 1 billion over the next two years, instead of just focussing on my own interests of boosting BambooCup sales. Finally, I've started charging for my business coaching services. After 16 years of helping start-ups at the Ladder Club for free, I think I've earned it. I feel transformed. I’d recommend Landmark to anyone searching for new possibilities.

How to Do Things That You Don't Feel Like Doing

How to achieve your goals

Facing your fears

It’s been twenty years since industry friends Jakki Brown and the late Lynn Tait held the first Ladder Club seminar in Leigh on Sea to help new publishers avoid rookie errors that had previously led to the demise of so many start ups in our industry.

Starting any business is tough and there are always risks. The pair felt that much of the heartache and loss of financial investments that goes with business failure could be avoided with a little heart felt, loving guidance from those of us that have already been there and done it.

I’ve been privileged to have been a keynote speaker at the Ladder Club for three quarters of its existence, so I thought it would be nice to share ten key lessons I’ve learned at the event over the years.

1. The Ladder Club supports Successes

The Ladder Club has had some fantastic success stories with Alumni including the likes of Paper Salad, Wrendale Design, Red Back Cards and rising star Megan Claire as well as a host of exciting and innovative publishers that have brightened up the offering available to card buyers globally. Ask most up and coming talents in our industry how they’ve managed it and invariably they will share the importance of the Ladder Club or the Greeting card Association and the supportive ethos behind them.

2. The Ladder Club reduces Failures

The successes are still outweighed by those Ladder Club alumni that don’t make it. It’s easy to see how the statistics for 80% of UK businesses failing in the first five years still hold true. I myself am so grateful to be in business with Blue Eyed Sun after 18 years as it’s no easy feat to survive and thrive in a highly competitive market like ours. There are a host of reasons for companies not surviving or continuing, but without the Ladder Club this number would surely have been greater still.

3. We all Start Small

We all start small. Even the biggest companies in our industry came from humble beginnings. Woodmansterne started their card business with a tiny range of stained glass window images and have ballooned into a £14m business. The Art File launched on a 1mx1m stand at Spring Fair in 1998. Our first stand was a 2m x 2m at Top Drawer in May 2000.

All retailers start small too, I remember selling to a single Scribbler store on the Kings Road back in 2000 before John and Jenny expanded their empire (originally from a market stall) to 34 shops.

Getting started is key, what happens after that is down to focus, hard work and luck.

4. Acorns can grow into Oaks

Bill Gates famously said that “most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” Timothy Melgund shared with us at the Ladder Club this year that he thought that they’d take Paperchase to 25 stores and he’s astonished that they now have 257 outlets. After the many years I’ve been at trade shows it is remarkable to see the massive transformation of so many businesses. The sky really is the limit. I myself can’t quite believe how far Blue Eyed Sun has come and that we’ve been honoured by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

5. We all Make Mistakes

We’ve all made mistakes. Ged Mace from the Art File showed us an image of the collections he first launched, half of which were long rectangular designs that didn’t fit in most card displays. One of the best bits of advice people pick up at the seminars is on card sizing both in relation to both card rack space and stock envelope availability. We’ve all had typo errors. Despite checks in-house, with our production team and with our sales agents “ Happy Mohers Day” still slipped through our net one year. Watch out for poor font choices too. The most famous example of which was the ‘special aunt’ card with an incomplete ‘a’ that (at a glance) changed the meaning completely. The lesson: be prepared to make mistakes, lean from them and move on quickly.

6. There are still Opportunities

There is no formula for the perfect card, other than staying different and being fresh and original. Which is easier said than done. What works one year, may not work as well the next. The market is more diverse in it’s range of designs and looks than ever. More and more retailers want to be different from one another and are demanding original content from card publishers to help them achieve this. White label work is growing and sub brands are popping up left right and centre. That there is no formula is what is exciting for new publishers. At the same time, it’s also what is so challenging, with everyone (new and experienced) competing to stay relevant.

7. The Link Effect

The whole supply chain is important. You hear and see this time and time again at the Ladder Club. The seminar has had fantastic support from GF Smith, Enveco, Sherwood Press and the Imaging Centre over the years. All of it helpful advice rather than hard selling. Retailers acknowledge the value of great card suppliers with wonderful designs and good service. Many of the publishers who speak also recognise how vital good relationships with suppliers are to our success. We are only as strong as our weakest link.

8. We have to take care of our Resources

‘Single-use’ is the word of the year for 2018. The ‘Blue Planet effect’ that I spoke about at Autumn Fair is having a massive impact on how we shop at the moment. Generally speaking our industry has been very conscientious. FSC stock is the norm, as is recycling and the fundraising each year with Christmas card charity packs. Despite the fact that most cello-bags are made with quality recyclable polypropylene, recycling facilities fo not facilitate them being recycled easily. Cello-bags are undoubtedly in the firing line and there is still confusion about what alternatives are best and the viability of compostable options. As one delegate said at the seminar this year, “you can’t be a start up and accept single-use plastics on your cards.” Sometimes we learn from our delegates and for me this is a clear signal of things to come. Expect to see less spot UV, more compostable bags and more naked cards becoming the norm in the very near future.

9. The Internet has more to Offer

Whilst the internet represents a significant threat and opportunity for retailers, it still appears that the majority of the card buying public prefer to shop in store for cards. Most of the main publishers and retailers have not been able to significantly grow their sales online. Moonpig has trail-blazed personalised online card buying. Companies like Thortful are in hot pursuit with a focus more on selling cards online with some personalisation on the inside. Both still make up a small percentage of the overall market with strong ambitions to change this. Most of my young team seem to buy their cards online, but the jury is still out for small and personal purchases like cards swinging fully online.

10. Social Media is a Must

The real triumph for publishers making the most of the internet has been on social media. Companies like Dean Morris and Ohh Deer have generated massive social media followings and opened up significant B2C web-sales with up to one third of their trade being direct to the public. Growing your brand via social and then translating this into sales further down the line is a strong strategy. Our industry has yet to fully harness the potential of influencers, but there are some great Ladder Club stories of celebrities buying cards and prints from designer-makers on internet marketplaces like Etsy and Not on the High Street and then sharing photos of them online which in turn boost sales, PR and website hits.

The Future

The Ladder Club has had a wonderful influence on our industry over the years and continues to grow from strength to strength. We have had some incredible speakers give up their time and energy to put back into the industry that has treated them so well. Next year the seminar will evolve yet again and I am excited to see what new designers the future has to offer us. One thing is for sure, there is no shortage of new talent looking to grow our greeting card business.

Ten Great LC Success Stories

Ten LC Publishers on their Way Up

What is a SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique to help you achieve your business and personal goals. By considering your internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) it forces you to be specific about your objectives and to identify the key factors that will hinder or support your success.

I think it’s a great tool for thinking things through, making decisions and most importantly taking action. There are no guarantees with any road we close to walk down, but using the SWOT analysis can help us to tread more carefully and keep our eyes wide open as we go.

Let’s take a look at each of the elements and how retailers and publishers might use them. I’ll also talk about how we used the tool to decide whether or not to take on distributing BambooCup.

Your Objective

It’s important to get clear on what your goal is so that you use the SWOT analysis to examine the way forward with that objective. You might alter your objective at the end and redo the analysis, but it needs a focus to work. Most businesses, whether retailers or publishers, will probably be looking at how they can grow their sales. To decide on distributing BambooCup or not, we started by looking at our strengths.

Strengths

What do you currently do well in relation to the objective that you have in mind?

A retailer might list their prime location as a strength or even the fact that they own their own premises. The power of their customer relationships and the knowledge that they have of their customers are also strengths as is their business experience and a well trained team.

For a Publisher their strengths might an innovative design team or that they are financially stable and profitable. They could have a recognisable brand or a strong and active database.

With BambooCup I knew that we were strong on marketing, PR and Social Media. Blue Eyed Sun is a familiar name with many retailers. We have a great operational team and our own warehouse space to accommodate the project. Personally I also have a passion for taking care of the environment - It’s one of the main reasons I don’t eat meat for example (not a weakness btw ;).

Weaknesses

Where do you need to improve in order to reach your goal and is this possible?

A retailer may list ‘buying power’ as a weakness. It simply might not be possible to compete with supermarkets on price for example. Poor window displays on the other hand is a weakness that they can do something about. Other weaknesses might be include inadequate staff training, poor up-selling and bad stock control of best sellers.

A publisher might need to improve their business structure and be more demanding of suppliers and retailers. Their designs might not be strong enough or they might simply not have enough customers.

With BambooCup, we were not familiar with selling gifts. We didn’t know what we didn’t know about the category. The profit margins are smaller than cards and the business model is slightly different. The new products could put a strain on our cash flow. We weren’t known for gift products.

Opportunities

Where could this take us and how could it improve things?

A retailer might consider the internet and social media as new opportunities for growing sales. Collaborating with other retailers on their streets to create events could be another.

A publisher may identify they can grow their sales through new sectors and new export markets.

With taking on the UK and Ireland distribution of BambooCup, Blue Eyed Sun could expand into new retailers we didn’t already stock. We could increase order values with our current retailers. It would also allow us to diversify. We could even expand into B2C using our social media skills if we chose to.

Threats

What are the potential obstacles and dangers ahead?

A retailer might identify external threats that include business rates, poor parking on their high street or even competitors across the street from them.

A publisher could see the decline of the high street, SOR (Sale or Return), increased bad debts, improved competition and a lack of younger generations entering the industry as threats.

With BambooCup more experienced competitors, currency fluctuations, stock availability and supply chain issues were some examples of the threats we considered.

It’s important to be specific about the threats as it helps to figure out what can be done about them. Some things, like the weather, for example, cannot be controlled but they can be kept an eye on and can affect what strategies are best to use.

Strategies

Once you’ve completed your SWOT Analysis you can start to consider different ways to achieve your goal.

Strength-Opportunity

Which strengths can be used to maximise the opportunities you have identified?

A retailer could use their well trained team to improve customer experience in store to increase repeat business and average order values. Our publisher might use their innovative design team to expand into the white label market or export territories with the languages. We recognised that we could use our PR and marketing strengths to expand quickly into a fast growing product category with BambooCup.

Strengths-Threats

How can you use your strengths to minimise the threats identified?

Retailers with a well trained team will have a better chance of resisting the threat of competitors. Financially stable publishers will weather bad debts. With BambooCup we used our marketing and trade PR strengths to position ourselves against our more experienced competitors.

Weakness-Threats

How can you minimise your weaknesses to avoid the threats you’ve listed?

A retailer with weak window displays and sales staff can invest in training to boost sales to take on external threats. A publisher with weaker product might need to expand their design team. With BambooCup we trained ourselves up in product and category knowledge to fully understand and compete with our competitors.

Weaknesses-Opportunities

What can you do to minimise your weaknesses using the opportunities presented?

A retailer training their team to offer better customer experience might use this as an opportunity to integrate the improvements with their social media. Taking the improved customer engagement online increases their reach and can boost sales.

A publisher improving their weak business structure will allow them to successfully pursue new business opportunities abroad by taking on new team members who can facilitate this, for example.

Despite not having sold giftware to retailers before, as Chairman and long standing member of the Giftware Association we have the network and resources to figure out things as we go. We also have a lot of retailer friends that we can call for advice and feedback.

A Useful Tool

The SWOT Analysis is a really useful tool that can help you decide whether an objective is achievable or not. If not, it can offer up new goals worth considering. You can use it for your business life and for your personal goals. You can even use it to analyse your competition.

As a retailer it could help you to focus on where you want to take your business rather than the difficulties you might be facing. As a publisher it might help you to reassess the direction you are taking and open up new possibilities.

After much deliberation it helped us to make the decision on distributing BambooCup and strengthen our weaknesses, explore new opportunities and plan for external threats.

If it’s new to you, give it a go and let me know how you get on with it.

How to Make Better Decisions

How to Do Things When you Don't Feel Like It

Learn more about the Ladder Club

Blue Eyed Sun MD, Jeremy Corner, has been elected as the new Chairman of the Giftware Association (a.k.a. The GA). This follows two years of serving as Vice Chair to outgoing Chairman, Henri Davis, who will take over as Deputy Chair from Michael Pape from Ravensden. Gert Schyberg of Sebnini has taken over as the new Vice Chair.

The GA is a trade organisation founded in 1947 with a rich history of contribution to the heart of the industry. Most famously it birthed Spring Fair and Autumn Fair as well as creating the ever popular Gift of the Year Awards. It boasts around 700 supplier and retailer members and is positioned at the heart of the Giftware Industry. It is a lifeline of support to it's members for its enormous range of resources, lobbying of government and offers a selection of discounts from key industry suppliers, small business services and trade shows.

"I am honoured to have been elected as the new chairman of the GA. I'm excited to be working with Henri and Gert (pictured with Jeremy above), our experienced team of dedicated volunteers on the National Committee, our knowledgable BATF board, our talented Chief Executive, Sarah Ward, and our hard working in-house GA Team." - said Jeremy.

"Our challenge is to continue to drive active member engagement and grow membership numbers. Improving our website, our blog, enhancing our social media activity and updating our CRM system will all help. As will increasing the number of members paying by direct debit or standing order to reduce wasted time chasing outstanding payments. If you are a member, you can assist us by automating your payments to enable the team to spend more time helping you and other members. You can also help by keeping us informed of the issues that matter most to you and what you need in your business right now. We are here for you, please do engage with us."

Jeremy took on the new role at the GA Member's Day, held this year at the Mockingbird Cinema in Birmingham. The day included a talk on retail by retail expert Michael Wheedon and three informative panels discussing topics ranging from GDPR and legal compliance to awards and future proofing your business.

Jeremy is also currently the Treasurer of the Greeting Card Association and an active mentor to small businesses in the card and gift industries through initiatives like The Ladder Club. Blue Eyed Sun has been a member of the GA since 2003 and Jeremy has sat on the National Committee since 2011.

What is the point of Trade Organisations?

What I learned from the Dutch Greeting Card Association

Join the GA

It’s easy to think that we are alone in this world; trapped inside a bag of skin and doing our best to survive. The truth is far more beautiful than that, for we are all profoundly connected with each other and with our environment.

Self Made Myth

We love the idea of the self made man or woman. The idea of the leader or visionary that saw the future and led us all to it. Such people are lauded as heroes in magazines, films and books despite it not being the whole truth.

In his commencement speech at the University of Houston, Arnold Schwarzenegger believes that the idea of the self made man is a myth. None of us can get anywhere on our own. Every person who put him up on their sofa in the early days when he had nothing, everyone who helped him with his training or English or who gave him a break at a different points all contributed to his finding success later in life.

There’s a wonderful image from the movie The Straight Story by David Lynch which really sums this up. The central character, Alvin, recounts how, as a game, he used to give his kids a stick and tell them to break it, which they did easily. He’d then ask them to tie a bundle of sticks together and try and break them. They couldn’t. “That bundle… that’s family” he’d say. To illustrate my point, that’s the power of the group.

As soon as you understand that you got where you are with a lot of help from your groups, you realise that it’s time to help others. Time to work together to build something greater than all of us.

Group Power

I got this a long time ago, which is why I agreed to help the late Lynn Tait with The Ladder Club seminars back in 2004 and have been speaking there for free every year since.

I’ve also been an active member of both the Greeting Card Association (GCA) where I am currently Treasurer and the Giftware Association (The GA) where I will become Chairman this year (I give away 10% of my time each year to helping various groups).

We need groups like these to help our industries thrive, to help those who need to grow and to help those who are less fortunate (through benevolent funds and the like). More importantly, these groups need us. Yet, so often, many of us are pushed for time or strapped for cash and we hold back on getting involved, because we are looking out for our own interests.

Speaking from experience, what’s most interesting is that the more you give, the more you receive. It’s like love, the more you love the more love appears around you in the world. Like the brightest star, loving beings light up the darkness around them. Groups which are full of generosity and giving are like the brightest of galaxies, like a milky way lighting up the sky at night.

It’s the same with teaching: the more we teach, the more we learn (The Roman philosopher, Seneca, observed this almost 2,400 years ago). Every year, after returning from the Ladder Club seminars I say to my team, “OK. These are the words of advice I’ve given others, are we still practising this ourselves? If not, why not?” Every year we improve a little from doing this.

The Protége Effect

Researchers have found that students that tutor others work harder to understand the material, recall it more accurately and apply it more effectively. Scientists have called this the protége effect. Student teachers score higher in tests than those studying for their own sake.

Similar studies have concluded that first-born children are brighter than their later born siblings due to time spent showing them the ropes. Cascading mentoring programs, where students teach others all the way down the education system, can help everyone in groups get smarter as they progress.

These days we are always learning, but are we always teaching too? What are our contributions? Where do we sew what we have reaped?

Online Groups

Social media can feel like busy marketplaces full of noise and shouting, without much listening. For me, one of the most exciting areas of social media has been the groups that I’ve been involved with online: primarily with Facebook and WhatsApp (although I have also tested group tools on LinkedIn, Telegram, Slack and Allo).

Good online groups can be very supportive environments for niche subject areas in order to learn and grow. One of the reasons Ladder Club publishers have been so successful in recent years is the Facebook group that alumni can join for year round support and encouragement. I’ve answered hundreds of questions in this group and it’s so lovely to see how other members (who were previously students) are now answering a lot of questions for others themselves. The group as a whole has grown in strength as a result.

I’ve also been involved in several networking groups on WhatsApp and have developed and grown friendships that have opened all sorts of interesting opportunities, lessons and personal growth over time.

Network Thinking

I’ve written before on the importance of fully understanding Network thinking (which is open, random and supportive) over Institutional Thinking (which is closed, selective and controlling). You cannot be the latter and ignore the former online, especially not in groups. People can sniff out self interest a mile away. Most importantly, it erodes trust. They say of trust that it is won in inches and lost in miles. So take care when building it online.

Building trust through being open, random and supportive takes time. You have to be open to all comers, it’s random so you cannot simply pick and choose who you respond to based on how it will benefit you personally and you have to be supportive of others instead of just looking out for yourself.

It sounds easy when I say it like this, but it takes time to adjust. My friend, Thomas Power, who first articulated this distinction and who spoke on the subject at the GA Members’ Day  a couple of years ago reckons it can take up to ten years to make the change from CSC institutional thinking to ORS network thinking.

Practicing Network Thinking

When I first watched Thomas speak on the subject I understood what he meant as I have instinctively operated in a similar way for many years. Last year, I decided to test myself on this to see if I really had the stomach for fully adjusting to it.

Buying and sending other publishers’ cards on The Greeting Card Project felt like madness at times (from the CSC perspective) and yet it was totally essential to encouraging more greeting card sending overall. It would not have worked had I promoted Blue Eyed Sun in the videos.

The experience has completely changed me and how I see greeting cards. It’s opened my eyes to the life of retailers, publishers and card buying consumers.

I want to invite you to join the next stage of this project’s journey so that you can experience all of this too.

Join the Group

The fact is that I can’t continue to do it alone. I’m like the twig on it’s own in the earlier analogy. I’m at breaking point with it and I need your help to grow this project. It was only meant to be for a year, but I feel at over 20,000 views on social media, that this project has some momentum and could help our industry as a whole if more people get involved this year.

It’s too much to ask any one person to continue to make videos every week on card buying and to share them online. Collectively however we could do more as a group. Perhaps not just with videos, but with images and hashtags as well.

So, if you have been at all inspired by The Greeting Card Project last year and want to get involved in sending more cards this year to make it even bigger and better, please join the group at www.Facebook.com/groups/TheGreetingCardProject

Watch The Greeting Card Project Videos

Great product is good for everyone: retailers, publishers, suppliers and, most importantly, card senders. If the product is good it’ll sell well. But if all the cards in the industry are good, how do you make sure yours are the best? We can’t all be winners and it’s a very competitive market. It's always a gamble launching new ranges. To be successful you have to learn how to win at cards.

Market Challenges

Competition amongst publishers is fierce, with new talent starting up businesses every week. The Ladder Club which supports new publishers had one of its busiest years ever this year and PG Live’s Springboard area continues to grow.

In addition to the plethora of great start ups, larger publishers have launched smaller brands in order to compete. Paperlink have Meraki, Five Dollar Shake with Counting Stars, Second Nature have Lime, Woodmansterne with the Proper Mail Company and Carte Blanche have Hotchpotch.

We’ve also seen an influx of Giftware companies joining the party with Widdop & Co, Katie Loxton and Transomnia all launching card ranges. Lesser and Pavey have followed suit with their Hearts Designs brand.

On top of all the new players, the space available in the independent sector has been shrinking as as many indies go under or decide to hang up their boots by not renewing expiring leases. This is further compounded by brokers sweeping up large chunks of the sector effectively closing doors that were previously open to smaller outfits via sales agents, trade shows and direct marketing.

As the market shrinks and consolidates and casualties are lost along the way there is a rush by all publishers to create best selling designs to win the race and become one of the top ten ‘must haves’ in any retailers store.

The trouble is that many end up…

Playing it Safe

The card market has always swallowed up good ideas and innovative product. New looks and trends get absorbed by other companies and reincarnated in all sorts of interesting ways. I’m not talking about blatant copying here (a bugbear for all of us). I mean the very nature of creativity, that is constantly influenced and stimulated by the environment in which it is working. Following trends feels safer for everyone, but it has cost.

Trends come through like big waves and the result is that lots of product ends up looking the same. At the moment it’s foiled messages on stripes and flowers, flamingos, unicorns, llamas and drink related cards.

There’s a strong temptation to follow trends and keep adapting with (rather than to) the competition. The trouble is you end up looking like everyone else and have no discernible point of difference. This leads to a lack of loyalty with customers and price becomes the dominant deciding factor at the point of purchase.

Worse still, you don’t take risks and your creativity becomes constrained and restricted by the urge to make money. In the end, vast quantities of unicorns, flamingos and llamas end up sitting in warehouses across the country as the party fizzles out and moves on to the next ‘big thing’.

The real power lies in staying different from the pack and creating great cards that consumers love to buy. Staying different over the years has always been one of the biggest challenges we’ve had at Blue Eyed Sun and I imagine that it’s the same for most publishers.

What is the secret to long lasting success? It’s simple and I’ve been teaching it to Ladder Club delegates and new publishers for the last fourteen years:

Create something different that sells well.

And yet asking someone to create a best selling card range that’s different from everything else is like holding a gun to someone’s head and asking them to relax. The truth is…

Nobody Knows Anything

Screenwriter, William Goldman, famously wrote of Hollywood that “Nobody knows anything.” What he meant is that nobody in the movie business knows for certain what is going to work commercially. It’s a guess (and at best an educated one) every single time. I think it’s the same with most creative businesses.

If it were a straight forward affair to create best selling cards, we wouldn’t such a variety of publishers. There would be just one player serving all of the market's needs. Inevitably the magic would disappear as the market became commoditised and eventually it would become obsolete. People don’t buy cards because they have to. They do it because they choose to.

That it’s not easy to create best sellers means that the card market continues to present opportunities for companies to enter and rise quickly when they execute well and meet its needs.

Understanding these needs is crucial. So what are they? Having spent the last year visiting over 50 stores and buying cards every week on The Greeting Card Project, I’ve tried to get inside the minds of consumers and retailers to understand them more closely. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

The consumers’ needs

At it’s simplest level, the consumer needs a card that allows them to connect with the recipient they are sending it to. The card can represent the seller, the recipient, something about the relationship between them or a combination of these elements. When this works well there is an emotional connection and an intuitive sense that the card is ‘the right one’. It’s a lovely feeling when you find the right card and you look forward to sending it.

We’re all different though, so variety is important as we don’t all like or choose the same things. Consumers want the right amount of choice. Too much and they can feel bamboozled. Too little and  they can’t find a card that suits. They want nice designs, meaningful or humorous sentiment and they want cards that ‘feel right’ for them (this can change over time). Price is important, but is not always the deciding factor. If the card is right, the design will win out over price on most occasions.

Retailers’ Needs

Like all good businesses, good retailers pay attention to their customers and their needs. They gain an intuitive sense of what will work for them and what won’t by watching their best sellers over time. The best retailers track their sales data and are ruthless at culling cards that don’t sell (and filling the space with better sellers). Most importantly they make sure that they never, ever run out of stock of their best sellers (and they know every single one of them well).

It’s easy for a retailer staring at the same best selling stock every week to get bored of seeing it. Ordering something else because you feel that you’ve “done that” range is all well and good if it’s not selling. It’s a costly mistake if it’s in your top twenty percent of sellers and you don’t know it.

Retailers also want their own businesses to stand out on their high streets from the competition. They’ll often ask for exclusivity on cards in order to do this, or they will try to be first to find new ranges and publishers. Another reason why larger players have created sub brands in order to target different sectors more effectively.

Others’ Needs

Other people within the market have needs too. There are sales agents (what’s new?), distributors (language changes, rectangular), brokers (size, shape, colour), suppliers (volume, finishing), multiples (consignment, barcoding, alpha codes, text positioning) and warehouses (communication, sizing, volume). All of which affect the market in a variety of ways.

Despite their importance, I’ve decided to pay less attention to them in this post, because it’s the end consumer that pays all of our bills and the retailer is still the dominant route to the end consumer.

How to win at Cards

There’s no silver bullet to creating best sellers that are different. Where do good ideas come from anyway? Nobody knows. If someone tells you it’s them, they’re kidding themselves. Everything new has a source of inspiration, an element of play, some experimentation and a connection to the collective subconscious.

We’ve seen a lot of businesses come and go in our industry over the years. The companies that clearly define themselves as different from the competition are the ones that most often stand the test of time. Whether you are a retailer or publisher, understanding your niche, your point of difference and playing to your strengths is essential if you want to win at cards.

How to create best selling greeting cards

20 Lessons in Creativity

How to deal with Failure

I recently spoke to a group of small business owners at at Sage Summit in Atlanta. In the audience was author and podcaster, Temitayo Osinubi, from The Marketing Disenchanted Podcast. The podcast has featured several marketing greats including Scott Monty, Mark Schaeffer and Brian Fanzo.

Temi invited me on his show and a few weeks we later I found myself being interviewed on my first ever podcast. We discussed all sorts of things ranging from greeting cards to digital marketing. Temi had some really great questions and I had a fun time answering them.

We chatted about my Looking Back from Perfect exercise, the relevance of greeting cards today and being more open, random and supportive. We also discussed how this blog transformed Blue Eyed Sun, why I started The Greeting Card Project, my work at The Ladder Club as well as how to compete with larger corporations.

Our discussion even covers fake news and the controversial ways influencers like PewDiePie, Kendall Jenner, Katie Hopkins and Donald Trump grab our attention. I also reference Louis CK, Justin Packshaw and The Start Up Van.

You can listen to the hour long podcast now by clicking the triangular play button below:

Read Marketing: Then vs Now

How to market you retail business online

See Jeremy speak about the Digital High Street at Autumn Fair

Visit the Marketing Disenchanted website