Business

I was at a grand opening event not long ago when one of the hosts said to me, ‘Any customer is a good customer’. It’s a phrase that goes with ‘The customer is always right’. Both are easy to say and sound upbeat in general conversation, but is it really true?

Don’t get me wrong, we love it when customers place orders (really, don’t let me stop you if you were going to click right now). The truth is, however, that not every order, or every customer, is a perfect fit for our business. I know business people who will balk at this idea and would never utter this in public. But if you’ve ever been so tuned in to your business that you actually ‘feel the pulse’, you know it is true.

Real magic in any business happens when you connect with those people who not only understand your product or service and have a need for what you provide, but who believe that you are in business for reasons that align with, and support, their values.

In a TEDx talk, Simon Sinek, diagrams what he calls the golden circle. In this circle, there are three layers, the ‘what’, the ‘how’, and the ‘why’. The what is on the outside, followed by the how. In the center, is the why.

What

For Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, it’s pretty simple to define – we bake cookies and brownies. If this was all we focused on communicating, we would probably sell products to some customers. But, we’d be like another car horn on a busy street in Manhattan rush hour traffic vying for attention. Our cookies are good (to be sure), but there are plenty of companies out there trying to get people to buy their cookies.

How

We make our cookies by hand, using the finest ingredients. Okay. I’d hazard a guess that you’ll find that phrase not just in the descriptions and brochures for other cookie businesses, but used by a slew of other companies that make food products as well. It’s a process that other businesses follow. It’s true, but so what.

Why

Finally, we get down to the heart of the matter. The tagline for Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, ‘Our cookies make people happy’, describes in simple terms, why we do what we do – to bring happiness to someone’s life. Sometimes it’s a box of cookies (what) we ship to a client’s office (how) as a thank you gift. Or it might be a gift tower (what) we send to a college student at their dorm (how) to celebrate their first birthday away from home.

In some cases, we’ve delivered cookies that we hope provided some measure of comfort during the last days of a person’s life. All were cookies (what) that we made by hand from ingredients that we select and shipped to the end customer (how).

We believe that a simple gesture of giving someone something really good, that was lovingly made, packaged and delivered in a unique way, when they least expect it, without asking for anything in return, brings happiness and a smile to almost anyone, even if for a brief moment. It just so happens, that we also make really good cookies and brownies.

It is the why behind what we do that is the most important ingredient. We seek to deliver a brief moment of happiness to every person who opens a box of our cookies or brownies. To spark a memory. To generate a smile. To provide respite from the pressures of the day. To make people happy. That’s the why.

Most businesses focus on the what and the how. There will always be some number of customers who order something based on answers to these questions. If anyone comes to our website, places an order with a valid credit card and address, we’ll bake and ship it.

Ultimately, however, we execute on the why part of our business and attract customers who make an emotional connection to the idea of sharing happiness by sending one of our gifts to another person. They value what we do beyond simply the amount of money spent on a purchase.

Fortunately, the world of technology we live in today has made finding the why easier than ever. We can search, post, share, like and collaborate with our friends next door and around the globe, all at the click of a button. The war for transparency in business is over – the Internet won.

What might happen in your business or your life if you were to stop and focus on the why? Would it make a difference in the customers you attract or the people in your life? I believe that it does. And once you’ve had a taste of that magic (sort of like our chocolate chip cookies), nothing else tastes quite as sweet.

If you should decide to send a gift to someone, or maybe you have opened a box of our cookies with a cold glass of milk at some time, I want you to know that the why will always the same – to make people happy.

If you place an order at AnnasGourmetGoodies.com, you expect your gourmet cookie gifts to be baked fresh and sent to the recipient. You expect a card with your message to be in the box. You expect we’ll send the right box, basket, or ribbon color. Whether it is a personal gift, or a corporate gift, you expect your order to be completed as placed. We’ve spent more than ten years shipping hundreds of thousands of cookies throughout the United States and Military bases around the globe, doing exactly that – fulfilling orders for our customers as expected. We’re not perfect by any means, but we own up to any mistakes and always do the right thing for our customers.

Getting your order out the door correctly is important for everyone, but especially important for our business customers. Why? Corporate gifts are often sent to either clients or prospects. The last thing a business customer wants (or us for that matter) is for someone to receive a personalized business gift that misses the mark. While we can’t guarantee everyone will love our cookies and brownies (yes – it is true that some people don’t rave about our cookies), we go the extra mile and pay attention to the details we can control to deliver a memorable gift experience.

Here are just a few things we do for our business clients:

1. Typos in the message. While there are times when typos are intentional, we always have a second look at the message on the order. If it is obvious this was due to fast fingers or a rouge smartphone, we’ll fix it before it goes out. In some cases, if the wording doesn’t sound right, we’ll send an email to our customer to make sure everything is just right. We don’t want to change the message or the intent, but if we catch those minor errors that might otherwise spoil the ideal gift, we both look better.

2. Address errors. It happens. Maybe your customer relationship software is out of date, or there is a small typo. We load our orders into a database that checks addresses against the USPS database. If it does not come back with a 9-digit zip code, we’ll first do some research on the Internet. Sometimes we can fix the error. If we still can’t find a match, we’ll either call the recipient and get the correct shipping address, or ask the client for an update. In any case, we work hard to make sure that we don’t waste our client’s money or reputation by shipping gifts to the wrong address.

3. Timing. We bake our cookies in the morning, and ship in the afternoon. Because we don’t put any preservatives, corn syrup or shortening to extend their shelf life, they’re best consumed in a week or less. We pay attention to shipping days and destinations to help deliver the freshest product possible. For example, we have a company that sends office gifts to dentists. Since most dental offices are closed on Friday – we don’t ship gifts after Tuesday so they won’t sit around over the weekend.

I read Keith Ferazzi’s book, “Whose got your back?” a year ago, and it really resonated with me, personally and in our business. We’ve cultivated relationships over the years with suppliers who have our back. In turn, we treat all of our customers with the same philosophy. It’s not something I do to get repeat business, but rather it is a way of life. I sleep a lot better at night knowing that when the oven gets turned off, I’ve finally answered the last email and setup everything for the next day, we’ve delivered exactly the kind of service we expect from others.

If this sounds like the type of service you’d like to get from a company that is sending personalized corporate gifts with your name on them, and you are not a customer of Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, then maybe you should be. And if you are already sending gourmet cookie gifts from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, you can relax, we’ve got your back.

Next Wednesday is Administrative Professionals Day. If you rely on administrative professionals to help get work done, this is the ‘scheduled time’ to stop and recognize those people who support you and your business.

Anna’s Gourmet Goodies is in business to send gifts that make people happy. But, we know from experience that there are other things you can do to show your gratitude. And while we are ready and prepared to ship gourmet cookie and brownie gifts next week, here are some alternatives you might consider if what we have is not the right fit:

Send them to lunch (or dinner) with someone else – their spouse, significant other or family

While it is nice to take someone to lunch, it is far more impactful to allow someone to share something they’ve earned, with someone else outside of work. You may have a great relationship with your staff and that is great. However, many managers overestimate the real desire of support staff to spend time with them outside of work. Lunch or dinner may actually create more stress, depending on how a manager has behaved during the other 51 weeks of the year.

Surprise them with a day off AND do all of their work

Taking a day off in our ultra-connected world is not what it used to be. The sad truth is that for many people, a day off simply means that work piles up until you return and have to do double duty to catch up. Give your admin(s) a day off and hire someone to handle all the tasks they would normally do. If this is not possible during their time off, hire someone to be their admin when they return so that the day off was really a bonus, not a postponed penalty.

Say ‘thank you’ the other 51 weeks of the year, and mean it

Surveys on workplace satisfaction vary and depending on the source (and whether you believe the results), as much as 80% of the people working at companies are dissatisfied enough to leave if given the opportunity. Why is that? I don’t believe it is the task performed. There are things all of us have to do that we don’t like, but the greatest source of discontent comes down to people who manage other people. If you work for someone who is not grateful for your efforts, nothing will be satisfying in the long run. A dose of genuine gratitude is medicine that could cure a world of hurt in the workplace. Say thanks, mean what you say and do it often

If you do decide to send one of our gourmet cookie or brownie gifts, then here are a couple of things you might want to consider.

1. Send the gift to their home, especially if they have a family. Don’t hand them a gift at work so that they have to ‘thank you for the thank you gift’. Send them something outside of work to let them (and their family or friends) know that you appreciate them outside of work.

2. Size the gift for the recipient. If you are sending a gift to a person who does not have a family or significant other, you don’t need to go overboard and send a basket of 48 cookies. A nice simple box will do just fine. All our gifts are about the experience of something really good in elegant packaging that is nice, but not gaudy or overly extravagant.

3. Consider having us ship on Wednesday so they arrive on Friday for the weekend. What a nice treat to enjoy over the next couple of days!

Whatever you decide to do for those people who support your operation, remember that gratitude is should be a part of your management philosophy 365 days a year, not just on special occasions. And while it is great to do something to say ‘thanks’ during the ‘scheduled time’, think about how you can practice the same thing at other times of the year, when it is least expected. A little lagniappe can go a long way.

The holiday season, from then end of November through December, is hands-down, our busiest time of the year. As with any gift company, we try to make sure that everyone who wants to send out our gourmet cookie gifts has the opportunity to make their recipients happy.

Every year is unique at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, but our mission is the same – to make people happy when they receive a gift of our cookies. Some packages are popular some years, other packages (like our Large Cookie-Brownie Tower) are popular another year. This year, we planned ahead more than ever, made changes to our website to enhance search, were blessed with more orders than we filled in 2011 and welcomed new friends who found us in the search engines. 2012 was a good year.

To cap it off, we wanted to do a little something different in our family and our business when it comes to giving back some of what we received. We support a variety of charities throughout the year, but we decided this year that we wanted to make it personal. To make a real connection. To take some of what our customers gave us in the form of orders and gifts for their friends, clients, employees and family, and make a small impact on a personal level.

Last year, my friend Oie Osterkamp took over the reins at the Ronald McDonald House in Durham as the Executive Director. Short of having Ronald himself running the show, I don’t think it would be possible to find a better person to fill this role.

For those of you not familiar, the Ronald McDonald House provides room and board for families and children who are undergoing medical treatment. Sometimes this is short term lasting for a few weeks, and sometimes it can last for months. These families often travel distances to have their children treated and would have no other choice, but to try and stay in a hotel or rent an apartment.

The first Ronald McDonald House was started by a professional football player in Philadelphia whose child had to have long term treatment. Seeing others who faced the often severe financial hardship of finding a home away from home, he thought there should be another option. And so, the Ronald McDonald House concept was born.

Durham was the 13th location, was the first House not associated with a professional sports team and is close to the world-renowned Duke University Medical Center. It currently houses up to 54 families, and there is a waiting list. In the years since opening it’s doors in 1980, more than 28,000 children have stayed at the House.

We visited their website and found they had a ‘wish list’. Rather than simply sending in a check, we decided to go on a shopping spree, pick up items from the list, and deliver them to the House. And of course, we could not even consider a visit without taking along a supply of our ‘magic cookies’ from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies.

I can honestly say that of all the Christmas shopping trips I’ve ever been on, this was the most fun we’ve ever had. Debbie, Anna and I donned our Santa Hats and descended on the local warehouse store to fill up a flat bed with items destined to help these families with the little things, the every day items that we often take for granted.

When we arrived at the House, Oie greeted us with his typical beaming smile. We loaded up the brass bellman’s cart to the top with paper towels, food, cleaning supplies, brooms, snacks, and of course, the ‘magic cookies’.

We started with a complete tour. This was the first time I’ve been to a Ronald McDonald house. Thankfully, we’ve never had to rely on their services. I was simply amazed at what we saw. Yes, it was designed for parents and children who are sick, but the attention to detail and the amount of genuine love and compassion that exuded from every corner of the house, was overwhelming. Like a warm blanket on a cool morning, the Ronald McDonald House of Durham wraps its guests from the moment they walk in the door, welcoming them to their home away from home.

After the tour, we sat down with Oie and had pictures taken with the items we brought to the House. Oie signed mats for each of these and we mounted them and gave them to friends, family and some of our customers at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies.

Before we left, I had the opportunity to meet one of the residents at the house and to have him try our ‘magic cookies’. What is in these cookies that makes them magic? How I wish there was something I could sprinkle in there that would wipe out the cancer, the infection, or any of the other diseases that have attacked these children. But alas, I cannot. I can however, pour everything possible into our cookies so that when someone tastes them, they cannot help but smile. Whatever is happening for that brief moment, fades, and they can enjoy the simple goodness of our ‘magic cookies’.

Clifton had been sitting quietly while his step-dad was preparing food in the kitchen. I asked him if he’d like to try a magic cookie and thankfully, he agreed. He was a bit reserved, but eventually the smile did appear and once again, for that brief moment, I accomplished my mission.

We left Oie and the Ronald McDonald House of Durham that afternoon with a fresh new perspective on giving. You’ve probably heard the old saying that ‘it is better to give than to receive’. Our visit that day was proof positive that it is entirely possible to get back far more than you give. We certainly did on that day.

I offer up a word of thanks to all the friends who ordered gifts at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies this past year. Know that we put the same level of love and care in your packages that we put in the ‘magic cookies’ we shared with the guests at the Ronald McDonald House of Durham. And while we may never know for sure that everyone had the same reaction as my young friend Clifton, I’ll be thinking about him every time I take a batch out of the oven. Now that’s a gift whose value far exceeds what was given.

I can’t remember exactly when the blueberry bushes at my family’s camp on the banks of the Pungo Creek in Eastern NC grew out of control, but they most certainly did. Despite suffering from several years of neglect, they produced an abundant crop of fruit. But the bushes had become trees, the neighboring scuppernong vines were invading their branches and other foliage including briers and the infectious mimosa were taking root among them. It was a sight that as a neighbor pointed out to me one day, would have caused the late Dr. Susan Dees, or Grampy as we called her, to throw a ‘hissy fit’.

About three years ago I made it my personal mission to pay proper attention to these plants and restore them to their glory. Despite the fact that Dr. Dees left us more than 10 years ago, I can’t help but feel her presence whenever I’m down there. Having a proper chore to balance out the lazy afternoon in the hammock has always been the price of a weekend in my NC paradise. Adopting the blueberry and scuppernong vines seemed only fitting and has proven to be both therapeutic and educational.

You might think that trimming blueberries, running a business and baking cookies are totally unrelated, but like most things I enjoy, I try to learn and draw comparisons whenever I can. You see, a business is not unlike a plant. With water, sun and soil, it grows. It produces fruit. You collect the harvest. And you try to keep the cycle going.

Businesses, like plants, need attention and require occasional pruning to grow as they were intended. This does not mean that if you leave a business alone, it will stop growing. That does happen, but some businesses grow well without much oversight at all. They sometimes become wild patches of things that bear fruit and have little resemblance to their original form. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes, it is not.

If you let them go long enough, well, they might just grow into something they are not intended to be and eventually, die. If you let blueberry bushes go too long without a good trimming, they turn into trees. When the trees get too tall and the fruit too heavy, the branches bend down to the ground. Eventually, they grow sideways, break or simply die.

The problem I faced in pruning the bushes came down to one thing, plain and simple – fear. They clearly needed a serious cleaning, but cut too much and they might not recover. After all, they’d been producing blueberries for probably 40 years or more. Replanting them was possible, but replacing their history was not.

I believe this happens sometimes in businesses. We get used to doing things and as long as the products are selling and money keeps coming in, we focus on the fruit, not necessarily the health of the whole business. It is difficult to prune products and especially, customers. But just like the scuppernong vines choking the blueberry bushes and the mimosa trees growing in their midst, businesses take on products or customers that are not the best fit and can eventually choke out even a healthy, profitable business.

We originally incorporated our company late in 2001 and began selling pies and cakes in 2002. We changed over to cookies beginning in 2004 and have had a few product ideas come and go over the years. The wholesale dessert business became less and less a good fit for our operation as the cookie business began to grow and thrive. Just like scuppernong grapes, making and selling wholesale desserts is not a bad business by itself, just not the best fit for how the business at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies was developing.

Pruning that part of the business was scary, much like those first cuts I made on the blueberry bushes. But, we did so thoughtfully, a little at a time. Like an artist painting on a big canvas, you cut a little, step back, take a look, then cut a little more. Everyone has their own style and while I’m sure there are plenty of people who would come in with a chainsaw and clear everything in a few hours, I prefer to prune slowly and intentionally.

A few weeks ago marked the one year anniversary since we pruned the last branch from the tree of our wholesale dessert business. I delivered the last Chocolate Oatmeal Pie to our long time friend Judy Wishart at the Olde English Tea Room in downtown Wake Forest. It was scary to let go of the very part of our business that was the foundation of the company. But just like the blueberry bushes, it was time to trim this part of the business. What would happen? Would we die? Or continue to grow?

If you’ve had the opportunity to hear me speak on what it’s like to own a business, you know that I’m a big believer in using your own yardstick to measure success. Top line, bottom line, social impact, peace of mind, family values – they are all important measurements that vary from person to person and no single measurement is right for everyone.

I honestly don’t watch numbers at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies nearly as close as I watch cookies and the quality of what we do, but I can tell you our sales are up nicely over the same period for 2011. This holiday season is still a large variable, but the pruning we did in 2011 has turned out okay, so far.

I was back down to the Pungo Creek last weekend and gave the bushes a serious haircut, more than in years past. It was a bit scary, but I trust that my years of patience will be fruitful. I won’t know for sure until sometime next summer. I’ll just have to wait and have faith that I’ve pruned the right amount.

We’re heading into the busy season for Anna’s Gourmet Goodies. We’ve watched some of our customers go by the wayside, while we are enjoying connecting and meeting new folks who’ve discovered our website and find it refreshingly clean and easy to navigate. I’ll be doing a bit more pruning and preparation before the holiday season and while I might not know the exact outcome for some time, I’ll have faith that time spent tending and pruning this business will help us bear good fruit, or in our case, a whole lot of cookies and brownies over the next few months. Only time will tell.