Featured 6 - Outside the Oven

I’m still using my word for the year

If the Bradford pear trees in my neighborhood could speak and only say one word, it would be ‘Spring!’. Their white flowers are like trumpets, announcing the closing of the winter and the arrival of spring.

Those of us on Daylight Savings Time have moved our clocks forward and the turning of the calendar from 2014 to 2015 is in the distant past. Did you make any resolutions for the year? If you are like most people, they’re long forgotten. I gave up on that practice a few years ago and adopted another method that is simple and actually sticks – a single word.

My friend Alan Hoffler of Millswyck Communications introduced me to the book, ‘One Word Will Change your Life’. I used it last year and decided once again to pick a single word to focus on for the entire year in both my business and personal life. This year’s word for me, is ‘Reach’.

It’s both a noun and a verb. It’s a word that propels me to take action. It might be as simple as extending a hand to say hello to a stranger. Helping a neighbor. Picking up a piece of litter. Or stretching myself to learn and master something new.

At Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, it is at the core of what we do every day. We reach out to people on behalf of others. We send them a gift of our cookies and brownies, sharing different messages depending on what the sender has to say. Sometimes it is a thank you, sometimes to extend sympathy, and sometimes just to say hello.

I was delivering some cookies to Crossroads Infiniti, one of our local customers, several weeks back and had the opportunity to strike up a conversation with one of their customers in the waiting room. This Mom, with toddler in tow, was waiting for her car to be serviced.

She shared the story of her husband, a Marine, and his deployment on an aircraft carrier. She did not have or share a lot of detail, but enough to know that he was in harm’s way in a part of the world more dangerous that I’ll probably ever know. He loved our cookies and enjoyed getting them any time he visited the dealership’s service department.

I immediately saw this as an opportunity to extend our reach. I asked for his address and shared my intent with Paul the General Manager. He agreed that sending this Marine cookies was the right thing to do. I wrote him a letter, describing my conversation with his wife, included it with a fresh batch of cookies, and packed everything up for shipping.

It just so happened this was the day of the biggest snowfall we had this winter. Nothing compared to what folks in the Northeast experienced, but enough to shut down our town for the day. But the cookies were made and we needed for them to reach their destination.

A little snow in North Carolina goes a long way

I piled the few orders we had on a sled and started the trek to the Post Office. It’s only about a mile or so from the bakery. While I might have been able to drive, it felt like the right way to send off these orders. I stopped along the way to strike up a conversation with a veteran wearing his Vietnam War hat and shoveling snow. I listened to some of his stories. He immediately understood my mission, and I went on my way.

The Post Office gladly accepted our orders and sent them off to their respective destinations. About three weeks later, I received a wonderful email from the Marine, thanking me for the cookies. They had reached their destination, but more importantly, we were able to reach out and extend our thanks with a little taste of home to someone half way around the world serving our country.

In the past weeks, we’ve had the opportunity to reach out to employees of a security company and wish them a Happy Anniversary, to clients of a financial planner to say Happy Birthday, and to residents of apartment communities to thank them for calling their community ‘Home’.

I keep a copy of my word posted above my desk as a reminder to look for opportunities to practice, every day. It’s more than a ‘To-Do’ list or a long forgotten New Year’s resolution – it’s a reminder to reach out and focus on mental, physical, emotional and spiritual growth. If you’ve never picked a word and would like to give it a try, it’s not too late. Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.

For Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, it’s about remembering that every single time we send something out the door, we are reaching out to someone, somewhere with a message and a gift that will hopefully bring them a brief moment of happiness. And that’s a goal worthy of a little extra reach.

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Corbin, The Colonel, Our Cookies and his Creed

Any chef will tell you, it takes more than a list of ingredients to make something great. If you have ever had a pack of our cookies, you have a complete list of everything in them. But I’d like to think that after more than 13 years of baking, and 50+ years of ‘personal experience’ we’ve developed a unique recipe that makes every batch of our cookies and brownies something special.

I’m often asked about my background and how it is that I came to bake cookies. Like most people, my life’s recipe is filled with events and experiences that, combined, brought me to where I am today. One of those experiences was meeting a man who became one of the most recognized faces on the planet based on his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices. Colonel Harlan Sanders.

A quick stop in Corbin, KY to visit the birthplace of one of the most recognized brands on the planet.

I tinkered with business ideas from a very early age. In high school, I discovered an organization called Junior Achievement and that forever impacted the course of my life. Junior Achievement was an after-school program which gave me the opportunity to setup and run a real company. And to meet successful leaders and entrepreneurs like David Jones, the founder of Humana, Inc.

I had the opportunity to meet Colonel Sanders on a couple of occasions, including a brief appearance in a television commercial promoting Junior Achievement. He arrived as you might expect in his chauffeur driven white Cadillac with red leather interior, wearing his white suite and string tie. He was cordial and greeted all of us. He delivered his lines, “Your friends are in Junior Achievement. You should be too.” and was driven away to his next appearance.

Later that year, I was the Master of Ceremonies for our annual banquet. We honored the Colonel for his support. During the ceremony, he stood up and handed me a personal check made out to Junior Achievement for $50,000. It left an indelible mark on my high school career, meeting someone so well known who really cared about young people and giving back to his community.

Colonel Sanders developed and perfected his recipe for fried chicken in a small motel/restaurant, Sanders Court, in Corbin, KY. Despite the success and notoriety of the food, Interstate 75 routed traffic away from his establishment. Customers dwindled and he was forced to sell the business. At age 65, he went back out on the road, selling his franchise concept of Kentucky Fried Chicken. He had a total of $105 in his pocket.

At a time when most people are winding down their career, the Colonel was just getting started. There were many twists and turns along the road, but eventually he sold his business for $2 million, stayed on as their ambassador, and became one of the most recognized brand names in the world.

Last fall, we stopped in Corbin (as I have done in the past) to visit the original place where KFC was born. The restaurant includes areas where some of his original equipment is on display. It is a reminder and an inspiration of what can happen in business with enough persistence, patience and passion to be the best.

In addition to the Colonel’s secret blend of 11 herbs and spices, his recipe for success included a strong commitment to how he treated his customers and franchise owners. The Colonel’s Creed speaks volumes about what can happen when you put the right ingredients in a business, something we aspire to do at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies as well. You’ll find a copy of it on the wall if you happen to stop by the Cafe:

The Hard Way

“It is comparatively easy to prosper by trickery, the violation of confidence, of the weak…sharp practices, cutting corners – all of those methods that we are so prone to palliate and condone as “business shrewdness”. It is difficult to prosper by the keeping of promises, the deliverance of value in goods, in service and in deeds – and in the meeting of so called “shrewdness” with sound merit and good ethics. The easy way is efficacious and speedy – the hard way arduous and long. But, as the clock ticks, the easy way becomes harder and the hard way becomes easier. And as the calendar records the years, it becomes increasingly evident that the easy way rests hazardously upon shifting sands, whereas the hard way builds solidly a foundation of confidence that cannot be swept away.”

While you should avoid saying ‘never’, it is unlikely that my face or the cookies from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies will ever achieve anything close to the level of notoriety of Colonel Harlan Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m comfortable with that.

I do believe, however, that while there are countless places where you can purchase a cookie or a brownie made with most of the same ingredients we use (flour, butter, sugar, eggs, etc.), none will be exactly the same as what we bake at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies. That’s because the ingredients of a business are more that simply what is listed on the label. It contains the experiences and passions of the founders as well as the people who help run the business. A small, but important ingredient in our business, came from my chance meeting with The Colonel.

What comes out of our oven every day is more than simply raw materials, it is the sum total of a lifetime of experiences and a focus on what we consider the most important measure of success for our business and what we do – to create a simple moment that brings joy and happiness to the person who bites into a cookie or brownie that we’ve made. It’s not always been easy. Building a business takes time. But from what I learned early in life from people like the Colonel, hard work and doing the right thing is ultimately the best recipe for success.

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Cookies and brownies baked with a bit of history

Every business has a story and history, some longer than others. The supplier for our primary ingredient at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, organic whole wheat pastry flour, comes from a mill that was a business before America was a country. Founded in 1755 by Thomas Lindley, Lindley Mills operates at the same location and is run by a ninth generation descendant, Joe Lindley.

It’s the only flour we’ve ever used for our cookies and brownies. And while I could get a distributor to deliver the product, I’ve made it a point to take time to get to know the folks at Lindley Mills and pick up our order at the mill. We usually stop in with a supply of our cookies made from their flour that are always well received. It might seem like a small thing, but I believe that having a personal connection to an ingredient produced by a descendant of the founder of a businesses started more than 254 years ago, adds more to our product than simply great flour.

Anna and I hiked up the creek to the site of the Battle of Lindley's Mill. — Anna and I hiked up the creek to the site of the Battle of Lindley’s Mill.

The mill was the site of one of the largest and most hard fought engagements in North Carolina between the British Loyalists and the Whigs. Anna and I toured the battle ground some years ago where the markers tell the story.

On September 12, 1781, Loyalist leader David Fanning crept into the state capital, then in Hillsborough, secured the town and captured over 200 prisoners including Governor Thomas Burke. They moved the prisoners down to where the Wilmington road crossed Cane Creek at Lindley’s Mill.

On the morning of September 13, the Whigs ambushed the Loyalists as they were crossing the branch, killing their commander, Colonel Hector McNeil. The Loyalists managed to secure the prisoners at the rear of the Spring Friends Meeting House and Fanning organized a flanking attack on the Whigs. The Whigs held their position for several hours, but were eventually driven back. Fanning, who was wounded, turned over command to Colonel McDugald who managed to reach Wilmington safely with the prisoners.

In total, more than 250 men on both sides were killed or wounded. They were cared for or buried by the local Quaker community. While not a victory for the Whigs, the battle served as a turning point, inspiring them to double their efforts, fight on to suppress the Loyalists and ultimately, win the war.

The mill was operated by the Lindley family for more than 100 years. After that, it changed hands and operated as a variety of grain related businesses. In 1975, two hundred and twenty years after opening, Thomas Lindley’s descendants re-purchased and restored the mill to operation. They’ve been grinding organically grown grain there on the same site, for the past 39 years.

There are a lot of reasons why the cookies and brownies at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies taste so good. We developed the recipes and the process we use to make each small batch, by hand. Rather than simply tell you ‘we use the finest ingredients’ (a phrase you’ll find on just about every cookie or food site in the world) I thought you might like to know a little more about the history behind our ingredients.

We just picked up a large load of flour to begin getting ready for the holiday baking season. I placed our order with June and Dewey helped pull the bags. Mr. Joe was busy that day (as he usually is), but I’m pretty sure he managed to get one of the cookies we delivered. They loaded us up, and I stopped on my way out to snap this picture of the mill, surrounded by the brilliant colors of fall.

The history of Anna’s Gourmet Goodies is relatively short, going back a scant few years to 2001 when Debbie and I founded the company after I won Grand Champion at the Cheesecake Bake-off Competition for my Apple-Bourbon Cheesecake (yes – that’s another story). Lindley Mills not only provides us with a reliable source of a superior quality product, but adds an important ingredient to the soul of our business – a real sense of history and some perspective on time.

I always look forward to taking a ride out in the country to visit our friends at Lindley Mills whenever we need a load of flour and a dose of perspective. We’ll carry it back to the bakery, mix it up with our other ingredients, and continue to turn out incredible cookies and brownies that are filled with passion, love and more than a little bit of history.

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Plan your gifts to avoid this happening at work

Giving someone a gift, whether a friend, customer, employee or co-worker, is an action meant to create a moment of happiness, both for the sender and the recipient. However, when that process gets interrupted unexpectedly, it has the potential to create the opposite effect for the sender.

We witnessed this recently when a potential customer came to us for help with her Holiday Gift plan. We were one of several vendors and the person in charge did a considerable amount of work putting together samples, pricing, lists, etc. Alas, the program was canceled at the last minute when someone cut the budget. While she was professional in every way, I could hear the sound of disappointment in her voice.

Our Holiday Gift Planning Guide

If you have worked on any project at a company only to have your work discarded, the project cancelled, or the budget cut at the last minute, you know how this can kill your motivation. Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University did some interesting studies on what really motivates us at work. And as it turns out, it’s not money, although that does play a role. One of the most devastating and de-motivating things people face in the world of work, is to pour their heart and soul into a project, only to have it canceled or discarded.

Professor Ariely gave this TED talk on his research into what really motivates us:

Professor Dan Airely discusses what really motivates us at work.

Or you can read a summary in this blog post if you prefer:

What motivates us to work?

For individuals who send out our cookie gifts, this type of situation does not really apply. But, as we head into the season where companies traditionally send out gifts, chances are this situation has the potential to come up more than once. In addition to the desire to be generous with employees and customers during this time of year, there is also pressure to make sure that expenses don’t exceed revenues.

At Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, this is an important time of the year for our business. We certainly want to help individuals and companies create an experience that generates a moment of happiness that lasts well beyond the season.

We can’t magically create ‘budget dollars’ for any company, but we can help make sure that what we do is a good fit for each of our customers. Our menu is pretty simple – two types of cookies and chocolate brownies. We offer a variety of packaging options to fit a range of gift budgets. If what we have on the website doesn’t exactly fit, please ask us for options. And if you ask us to do something we can’t or doesn’t fit our business, we’ll tell you straight up.

To help our customers (and even those who choose someone else for gifts) think through the process, I’ve created a simple (4) step guide to planning a project around sending gifts. It’s not complicated, but worth thinking about, especially if you are delegating this task to someone in your company. I’ve updated our worksheet template to include some new macros and sorting options that help categorize gifts and recipients. (If you have any questions or issues after downloading, please give me a call).

You can get all the details and download your copy here.

I’ve always believed that sending gifts should not feel like a burden. Everything we do at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies is designed to make our cookie and brownie gifts easy to send and always well received. And if it is your task to take on this project, we hope that you (and/or your company) have the budget in place and we’ll work with you anyway we can to make sure the end result is worth the effort you put into the project. Making people who send and receive our gifts happy, is what motivates us every day.

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Welcoming people at the front door

A few weeks ago an email with a subject line, “Front Door Ideas-and a Cookie-Worth Stealing” popped into my inbox. It was a post about how a hotel chain welcomes customers at their front door with cookies (not ours – but that’s okay). It made me think about some of our customers and how they use our cookies to welcome clients “at the front door”. Perhaps more importantly, I thought about how we welcome clients to our front door – our website.

Making others feel welcome is something I grew up with and had the chance to share with Debbie several years ago when we visited my Aunt Opal, before she passed.

Aunt Opal welcomed us as soon as we arrived — Aunt Opal with Debbie and Anna

We were traveling back home and decided, on a whim, to stop by. She lived in the house where my grandmother was born in 1890, a chance to re-visit a piece of family history. We knocked on the front door for our un-announced visit (family visits in the country do not require reservations) and after exchanging greetings and hugs, we were welcomed in the house. It was close to lunchtime and she offered to prepare us a ‘little something’.

I like to think that Aunt Opal was really a seven foot tall woman packed into a five foot frame. With seemingly no effort and barely taking a break from telling stories, she put together a feast that would have fed at least two dozen people. We sat down in the kitchen where my grandmother ate as a child and I can’t remember a time in my life when I felt more welcome.

After lunch, we spent time catching up on family news. She gave us a tour of her garden, a plot that would have been a challenge for people half her age to tend. We left well fed, with an arm full of preserves and some rich memories. I can almost smell the cornbread and find myself re-telling this story almost fifteen years later.

What does this have to do with Anna’s Gourmet Goodies? I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. We bake cookies, but are really in the experience business, creating memorable impressions. To make that happen, we do our best to practice principles I learned growing up of making people feel welcome as soon as they come in the door.

This past week, we added a new client. After sending us their order, we helped them edit the message a bit, corrected a few typos (did not even tell them) and offered up an alternate package that better suited their needs and actually cost less. Yes we are happy to have the business, but more important, we wanted to make them feel comfortable and welcome right away.

When we send cookie gifts for our business clients, branded with their logo and message, we know that in many cases they are trying to make their clients feel welcome. By practicing the family values I learned growing up over and over again, we try very hard to make it look as easy as Aunt Opal did preparing that meal, leaving an equally lasting impression that hopefully will inspire recipients to tell their story to others as well.

Our ‘house’ might be digital (website, Facebook, Google+, Twitter), but if you happen to stop by, we’ll try our best to make you feel welcome right from the start whether you are a first time customer or a member of the Anna’s Gourmet Goodies family. And if we do it right, perhaps you’ll tell that story to someone else 5, 10 or 20 years from now and in turn, welcome others the same way into your ‘house’, wherever that might be.

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I met my match on Valentine’s Day

I was living in Louisville when I met my match. I’d moved back to my home town from North Carolina after winding down a business I started upon graduating from Duke. I started a second software company in Louisville, but that one also fizzled out after a few years. I re-started my career working at a local company selling engineering software and hardware.

I dated a little, and while there were some terrific women, nothing really fit my idea of a long term relationship. Friends and family fixed me up on a few blind dates – most of which ended often before the dessert course was ordered.

I saw an ad in the paper (yes – back when we read newspapers) for Singles Night at the Hawley Cooke Bookstore on Valentine’s Day. I remember thinking that if my mom were still around and I told her I met someone at an event like this, she would likely approve. It was worth a shot since most of the other avenues were not guiding me to the kind of person who might be a good fit.

This card helped me find my life's match. — This card helped me find my life’s match.

The plan for the night worked like this: When you walked in the door, there were two baskets – one for men and one for ladies. The bookstore cut small children’s Valentine’s in half, one in each basket. You had to go around the room, introduce yourself, and see if the cards matched. If they did, you entered a drawing for prizes. The idea being this was a clever way to invoke conversation and find possible ‘matches’.

I can’t remember exactly how many people where there, but it was a crowd. My first match was an attorney from Louisville. While we enjoyed some conversation, it was pretty clear that she might not make it past the main course at dinner, much less the dessert menu.

I was thinking of calling it a night when I noticed this beautiful young woman that I had not spoken to. She was there with a friend, and while she was attempting to be social, did not seem all that interested in finding ‘a match’. She walked up, introduced herself and asked to see my card. I showed it to her and she said, ‘Well, aren’t you lucky – it looks like we matched.’ I’ve heard people tell stories about the moments they remember when they first met their spouse – this is mine. I was indeed very fortunate that day.

We enjoyed some conversation and finally, as I was walking her out to her car, I asked for a phone number. She obliged.

After a few stumbles arranging our first date (Debbie’s memory on this differs from mine), we started seeing each other on a regular basis. We shared many of the same interests, yet we were different in many ways. Most importantly, we became friends and that carries through today, 21 years later.

A few years after we met, my career brought me back to North Carolina. In a leap of faith, Debbie decided to also move, leaving behind her job of 17 years as a paralegal. Shortly after the move and a little more than two years of dating, I was convinced this was a match that would stick. Fortunately, she did not swallow the engagement ring in the glass of champagne I served that night and said ‘yes’ to my proposal. We were married on, what else, Valentine’s Day in Louisville.

We shared our story with the bookstore and they were so excited they featured our wedding on the local news channel. I’m not sure how popular Valentine’s Day is for weddings, but it makes it nearly impossible to forget my anniversary.

After my trip to the ER last year, Debbie says she does not want a repeat of that day. I have no worries that will happen again. I’m not sure exactly how we’ll spend the day, but it will probably involve a nice meal with both my Valentines – Debbie and Anna. We’ll probably cap it off with some big chocolate brownies from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies and a scoop of raspberry sorbet – one of our favorites.

Valentine’s Day for me is a reminder of just how lucky I was to find my match on that fateful night at a bookstore in Louisville. I hope you’ll take time to remember how and where you found your match, and share that story. And if you haven’t yet found your match, keep looking. If you can still find a local bookstore, that might be a good place to start.

Of course, if you’d like to send the special person or persons in your life something memorable, hop on over to our website. We’ll bake, pack and ship it, and toss in a little extra scoop of love, no additional charge.

Have a memorable Valentine’s Day,

–Chris

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