I recently met up with an experienced retailer friend of mine. I love seeing him as we both enjoy shooting the breeze about business and life. I also value his good honest feedback about our business. We were discussing the blind spot in the Johari Window (things that we don’t know we don’t know) when he said something to me shook me to my core. “You are not a greeting card publisher, Jeremy. You are just a guy who has helped his talented partner along their way.”
I flinched when he said it. It came out of the blue and I recoiled as if to avoid it, whilst at the same time knowing, on some level, that there was truth in what he said. It amuses me to think that Blue Eyed Sun has come so far without me being a greeting card publisher, but that could well be the truth. And if it’s the truth for me, it could also be the truth for a huge number of others in our industry.
That’s not just for publishers by the way, but retailers too. Another industry friend regularly points out that there are a huge number of amateurs in retail. If you don’t know what your best sellers are, who your most profitable customers are and which products generate your biggest profits then you may well be one of them.
What my friend meant is that I hadn’t targeted gaps in the market and filled them with appropriate offerings. It appears that one is somehow able to stumble along into something that appears to be success, but has an inherent flaw hidden from one’s view. Like a mirage that you believe to be true. The truth is I haven’t developed, created or produced successful greeting card ranges. My good fortune may have been down to luck, fortuitous timing and the talents of others. It would appear that, contrary to my previous understanding, I may not be a greeting card publisher after all.
What to Do
It’s easy to hear something about yourself like this and feel defensive or angry. Especially after years of hard work in your business and industry. I believe that feelings are like metal detectors for hidden gold. If you feel a reaction then there is work for you to do around those feelings and treasure to be liberated from the muck.
Blue Eyed Sun has been reliant on the talent of one remarkable designer for many years. Part of the reason I knew that my friend was right is the fact that I have repeatedly tried and failed to create ranges with other designers. They have all bombed. It’s not like the business is complete crap either though. We have built something quite remarkable with our blood, sweat and countless tears. So I don’t feel like I am an imposter, but I can see what my friend was getting at.
The first thing I decided to do was to take stock of the value within our business. These are other truths that can keep one from jumping off a cliff, when the rug is seemingly pulled out from under your feet by the reality of your blind spot that you have previously been unable to see.
Our Value
Blue Eyed Sun has built a widely established brand presence within the trade marketplace, painstakingly forged over nearly two decades. We are well known within the industry, with years of coverage in hundreds of magazine articles, many award nominations (even some wins), a well-read industry blog and a solid presence at the UK’s leading trade shows.
We have excellent distribution across the UK having built and maintained good relationships with the majority of the leading greeting card retailers. Our wonderful team of experienced sales agents across the UK are well regarded and active in their territories. We’ve also gathered years of experience working with most of the brokers who tap into areas of the market not normally accessed by smaller publishers.
We have excellent international presence in over twenty countries. In 2016 we won the Queen’s Award for International Trade on the back of our successful expansion abroad with a fantastic network of top distributors around the world. Some pretty amazing companies have won the Queen’s Award, so it’s something special to be included amongst them.
We also own a well run manufacturing and distribution centre in Sussex, which has the capacity to hand-finish and distribute a huge volume of greeting cards a year giving us control over quality and efficiency. Last, but by no means least, we have an awesome in-house team that operate this facility. They are a loyal, hard working, customer focused group of individuals who have produced and delivered millions of handmade cards over the years.
My Value
Whilst Blue Eyed Sun is a pretty good business, it appears to have one major weakness from a greeting card publishing point of view: me.
Again, it’s not like I’m complete crap either. I am strong on bringing people together. I have a sense of humour. I’m good with people. I can lead. I am a great story teller. I can write. I can develop and grow brands. I am a strong marketeer. I am good at seeing the bigger picture and creating effective systems (the business was grown with me working part-time since 2004). I’m creative, adaptable, forward thinking and empathetic. I have grit, determination and focus. I’m also a survivor and a fighter (who happens to also love greeting cards).
I’m weaker on the details. I hate forms and bureaucracy. I’m bored by the mundane and by repetitiveness. I’m best kept away from running things that are everyday or I can disrupt them to make them more interesting (the opposite of what’s needed). I have also been a people pleaser in the past. Something which gets in the way of developing great product. You need to feedback the truth if product is to be developed into anything good.
I believe that people are most valuable when playing to their strengths. That’s what I’ve always tried to do within our team. It’s more efficient, less arduous and most likely to result in mastery. Focusing on fixing weaknesses, on the other hand, is a constant uphill battle. It can feel demoralising and is most likely doomed to failure in the long run anyway.
The big question is whether or not me ‘not really being a greeting card publisher’ is a weakness that is going to be difficult or impossible to fix or whether it’s something I can remedy by where I focus my attention.
Holding Back
One of the things that has been both Blue Eyed’ Sun’s strength and weakness over the years has been our reliance on one designer. I always saw this a bottle neck within the business that prevented us from growing further.
This was further exacerbated by a classic conundrum within most small businesses: You need to grow, but you are way too busy to hire and delegate to anyone else. Plus, there’s the added risk that trying to do so and failing will waste more time that could have been spent doing the thing you do that adds most value to the business.
What if I’m the bottleneck within our business though? If I‘ve never shown up within our business as a greeting card publisher then that is a bigger issue than our designer not training and delegating to others. And how on earth did this happen?
The legacy of this issue is rooted in the way I always saw my role, as one of support and encouragement. It’s a safe place to be. The one behind the talent. You never have to expose yourself to criticism and failure (two difficult pills for people pleasers to swallow). The downside is you never fully explore your own talents, because you are always focused on those of the other.
Moving Forward
This past year I have been experimenting with different business models and partnerships. I know that we have everything we need in terms of infrastructure to take great product to market. The sensational success of BambooCup is evidence of this as we’ve seen double digit growth at Blue Eyed Sun in the last twelve months. So, we have solid operational foundations from which to launch new products and projects.
My next step is to find people who are weak in these areas and strong in areas where I am weaker. I am on the hunt for more talented designers and more awesome product on which we can work our marketing and distribution magic. I’m interested in licensing, partnerships, distribution deals and working together with businesses with fantastic potential for growth that struggle to cope with things that we do with ease.
I am not interested in any weak product (cards or gifts that don’t sell because the designs don’t work or they’re overpriced). There’s got to be love in the product. I may not be a greeting card publisher yet, but I do know business. Both myself and Blue Eyed Sun are valuable assets for any team and we’re looking for other solid players to build even stronger teams.
Drop me a line if you have something exciting that you’d like to discuss with us. Watch this space for interesting new projects over the coming months. I am grateful to my friend for helping me to see into my blind spot. Now I need to act on it and see what happens. For now I am a story teller and, who knows, one day I may become a greeting card publisher too.
