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We just ended another season of gift giving a few months back and are well into the new year.  While we bake and ship cookies and brownies throughout the year, the Holiday Season is by far our busiest time.  We are very thankful for all those customers who have made sending gifts from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies an annual tradition.

While I believe our cookies and brownies are among the best available anywhere at any price, we’re really in the business of creating a gift experience that makes people happy.  In the process of building, growing and operating Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, I find that I end up receiving more gifts than we send.  However, they’re not wrapped and don’t come in a box with ribbons and bows.

The rocks ‘rock’

I shared the story of how we incorporated the Kindness Rocks Project into our company and like a boomerang, the effects just keep coming back around.  Recently I stopped into one of our favorite charities, The Shepherd’s Table Soup Kitchen to drop of some ‘extra’ cookies we baked.  I had given them one of our rocks earlier and Michael greeted me with an unusually big smile (can’t say I’ve ever seen him without a smile).

He said that they loved the rock so much that an artist from NC State University painted the message in large letters on the hallway leading into the kitchen.  It’s where the volunteers come past to help serve up some 300+ meals to guests who otherwise, might not have a hot lunch that day.  It might not seem like much to those of us who don’t worry about our next meal, but it probably qualifies as a small miracle for the guests at The Shepherd’s Table.  And having been there many times, it is evident that those volunteers are indeed, people with kind hearts.

And if that was not enough of a gift that came from a rock, I received an email from one of our regular Holiday Gift customers.  They shared the story of finding Anna’s Gourmet Goodies a few years ago from the Dish This! catalog.  This customer was recovering in the hospital and while thumbing thru the catalog, found our company.  They decided to order gifts for their customers and were happy, not only because they were a big hit, but with how easy the process was to order.

Late last year, this customer’s parent was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  It seems that we sent them a rock with the message ‘Be Here Now’ on it.  They placed it on a small table outside the parent’s home as a subtle reminder that whenever they come or go, to be thankful for that moment.  What a beautiful gift I received from this story.

Help from my friends
If you’ve read a copy of my book, “Outside the Oven”, you might remember the Forward, written by my friend and former manager at SciQuest, Jack Spain.  He was not only kind in his description of my talents and abilities but shared his thoughts on themes that we both have in common as it relates to both life and business.

Finding people to work is a challenging task for businesses of all sizes.  Thankfully, we’ve had the right people show up at precisely the right time, every year.  Jack has been working with us during the Christmas holiday for several years.  Early in the fall, I received an email with his availability and his request to reserve a few days to work at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies.  What a gift it is to find people that appreciate our company values, look forward to working and take the initiative to schedule time with us.

I’m in the ‘Club’
One of the other ‘benefits’ of running a small business is that you have the opportunity to wear many, many hats.  Fortunately, my life and business partner Debbie takes care of a magnitude of details at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, but I own the technology part of the company.

We’ve been using software from Endicia to ship packages via Priority Mail for more than 10 years.  We spend a fair amount of money with this company and for the most part, have been happy with their software.  Until this past summer when they released an update that completely broke the address validation feature.  All software has bugs, but this was a potential disaster heading into our busiest season.

Looking for an alternative, I reached out to my friend Joe Bumgarner.  We worked together at SciQuest and he is now in charge of Business Development at OE Enterprises, an organization that provides vocational opportunities for adults with various disabilities.  One service they provide is shipping fulfillment.

Joe agreed to show me their software solution.  I drove out to their offices in Hillsborough where I took a tour and Joe demonstrated how they use their software to print shipping labels.  Standing there, he looked at me and said, “You’re about to be ‘Jeffed’.  I turned around to see one of the participants in their program approach quickly with a big smile on his face.  He bent over, gently took my hand, and rubbed it on his forehead.  He smiled again, waved, and went back to his work.

Joe explained that Jeff was non-verbal.  Growing up, his inability to communicate left him frustrated.  The staff at OE worked with him to greet people with a handshake but he insisted on greeting new people his way.  OE helped Jeff transform into a happy, productive member of their team.  His gesture to me was his way of saying ‘Welcome’.  What a gift it was to meet Jeff, join the club and be reminded of the importance of communicating with other human beings.

I gave up making any type of New Year’s Resolutions years ago.  Instead, I’ve adopted the principle of selecting a single word for the year based on the book One Word That Will Change Your Life.  My word for 2020 is ‘grateful’.

Like any business, Anna’s Gourmet Goodies is always looking for new customers and to grow our revenue and bottom line.  Prices for most everything we buy have not been going down and expenses seem to be always ticking upward.

But it does not escape me that the financial rewards of Anna’s Gourmet Goodies are only one aspect of the business.  The experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met and the opportunities I’ve been given are gifts that aren’t wrapped and cannot be measured on a Balance Sheet.

Tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that, when we pack up boxes of our cookies and brownies, rest assured I’ll remember these and the many other gifts I’ve received over the years.  And, I’ll drop a little bit of that gratitude inside every package.

It’s happened to me.  It’s probably happened to you.  And it has certainly happened to our customers who’ve sent gifts from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies.  Can you hear it?  Crickets.

I’ve sent family members boxes of our cookies and brownies and never heard a word.  Recently Anna’s lost a customer after one order.  We setup a program for them to send thank you gifts to clients who spend a certain amount of money on their products and services.  They included a thank you card and a link to their site to collect comments and/or reviews.  Crickets.  They dropped the program after one small order.

We have more examples from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies and our gift business, but I suspect you have examples where you’ve done something for someone expecting perhaps some small measure of recognition and heard nothing but crickets.

I try to recognize someone’s thoughtfulness when I’m the recipient, but I’ve failed.  It doesn’t mean their actions did not have an impact, I’m grateful for the effort and do my best to pass it on.

In a prior post, I wrote about ‘The ripple effect of kindness’. It is an amazing phenomenon. While we don’t always see the end result of all our actions, we know that just as a drop of water makes waves in a still pond, the impact of acts of kindness, selfless service and thoughtfulness spread far and wide.

I sit on the Board of Directors for the Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation (SKSF) and earlier this summer Anna volunteered (okay I ‘volunteered’ her) to help with a project called ‘Educating Emily’.  August Turak the founder and Chairman, in what can only be described as an act of pure, selfless kindness, is underwriting the private education for Emily, the daughter of a contractor who works for him.  Anna spent time on Augie’s farm offering Emily her experience, advice and friendship.  Her small gesture was a ripple that may yield untold benefits someday.

Every summer we reach out to customers that typically order gifts from us during the Holiday season.  We try to come up with a unique way to connect in some small way as a reminder that they are more than simply a transaction.  We genuinely care about their trust and our relationship.

In thinking about what we might do this year, I was thinking about my experience at SKS and found a website for ‘The Kindness Rocks Project’.  It was started by Megan Murphy.  Megan walks the beach near her home in Massachusetts collecting rocks and sea glass.  One day, she decided to write messages on rocks, leaving them behind for people to find.  Unbeknownst to her, a friend was walking on the same beach, found one of Megan’s rocks, sent Megan a message with a picture and told her how it made her day.  She had no idea Megan wrote on the rock.  The idea and movement were born.

Putting these two things together felt like the perfect match for reaching out to our customers and sharing something we believe at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies.  I purchased several packs of cards with messages from TheKindnessRocksProject.com, found a landscape supply company for small rounded river rocks, purchased spray paint, paint markers and set out painting rocks.

I must admit there was something therapeutic about sitting around the table at night and writing messages on these rocks.  Each one is unique, all done by hand.   I selected a group of messages from the cards and put them on rock, after rock, after rock.

Some customers received a note card with the story about Anna and Emily along with a Kindness Rocks card.  Some customers received rocks.  We reached out to just under a hundred of our Holiday gift and other regular customers, and waited.  While we expected a few responses, we hoped that tossing out rocks would create ripples in the pond.

The initial responses we received were overwhelmingly positive. But then, over the next few weeks, more feedback started to trickle in.

We heard from Debbie and our friends at Fortress Financial.  It seems that Debbie and Marie both used the rocks as a learning experience with their grandchildren.  They left them in strategic places where they could be found and hopefully, make an impact on the person finding the rock.  This was a perfect example of what we hoped would happen – inspiring folks to spread the idea of kindness.

If you happen to visit Brentwood Flooring America in Raleigh, you’ll probably find a rock or two in various places around the showroom.  Brentwood is a long-time customer and shares a similar philosophy on the importance of treating everyone, especially their customers, with a little more kindness.

Finally, Debbie and I were having dinner at Sassool, one of our favorite restaurants started by the Saleh family and named after their mother.  I saw a sign describing how they adopted the Kindness Rocks Project in their business.  I painted a rock and paid a visit to Mounir to get his story.  Turns out they used this project as a part of their annual celebration with employees.  They let everyone paint their own rock, then scatter them around the Raleigh area.  Anyone finding a rock could return it to Sassool in exchange for a free meal.

Mounir completely understood the bigger idea behind the Kindness Rocks Project.  Not only did he teach employees at Sassool about reaching out with an act of kindness, he understood that while not every rock would be returned, he was making an impact on others that could change their life in some way.  And for those who did return the rock, it was about sharing the values behind Sassool as a company, not just a free meal.

One of my favorite authors, the late Dr. Wayne Dyer said that ‘When you change the way you see things, the things you see will change’.  I wonder what would happen if we all changed the way we see the acts of service and kindness to others.  What if we saw the act as the reward with no expectation of anything in return?  What if we thought about planting seeds with no expectation of seeing the harvest?

As we head into the Holiday Gift Season, we’ll be sending out lots and lots of packages.  They’ll all contain our small batch, hand-made cookies and/or brownies, wrapped with love and care.  And while it’s likely that most recipients may not acknowledge the sender for their act, I am confident that everyone that receives a package from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies will feel the thoughtfulness and kindness of the sender.

Like ripples in the pond, we have no way of seeing the ultimate impact, but just knowing that we played some small part in getting something started is enough of a reward for us.

Being in the specialty foods industry for nearly 16 years has given me a different perspective on food and the people who help make it.  I have admiration for the large companies, like Chobani, who churn out millions of units of their products every day as well as chefs like David Mao at David’s Noodle Bar, who lovingly hand rolls his famous pork dumplings, one at a time.

Anna was home for spring break and we decided to take a road trip to visit a small lunch spot in Siler City, named by OnlyInYourState as ‘The Best Burger Joint’ in the state.  It was about a 90 minute ride, but spending the afternoon with my daughter while searching for burger nirvana ranks up there as the perfect way to spend an afternoon for me.

We arrived at Johnson’s Drive In just before the lunch rush and a line had already formed.  One line for take out and one for dine in.  It’s a small place by today’s standards.  A dozen stools at the counter and about six booths all covered in green leatherette – it feels like stepping back in time, in a good way.

The place was busy for sure, but there was no feeling of anyone being rushed.  Johnson works the grill like a master conductor with skills only time and experience can produce.  The waitress attends to each of the diners, welcoming ‘outsiders’ like us, as well as regulars who don’t even need to order – she knows.

The menu is on the wall above the grill, no need for printed paper in this place.  I think I remember seeing an option for hot dogs, but I’d be surprised if Johnson sells more than a few every now and then.  People come here mostly for one thing – cheeseburgers.  I struck up a conversation with another traveler who made a detour to stop in that day.  He recommended the cheeseburger all the way with homemade chili, slaw, onions and mustard.

We were seated at a booth and the waitress came by to take our order – cheeseburger all the way, fries and a sweet tea.  If you are going to sample the best of Southern cuisine, this is a must.

Burgers are cooked to order, so it takes a few minutes longer than your typical fast food variety.  But when she delivered them in a sheet of waxed paper, they were piping hot.  I mustered up the self restraint to stop for a couple of quick photos, then carefully bit into Johnson’s hand crafted masterpiece.  It was so good, I actually got goose bumps.

Wanting to take in the full experience, we decided to try a slice of Chocolate Pie from the menu.  The waitress apologized, but they were all out.  “I could bring you another burger?”  Sold.

We savored every bite, taking in not only the food but the atmosphere.  The burgers were good to be sure, but Johnson’s was more than that for me, it was an experience, something we focus on every day at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies.  Watching the customers, the staff and the Burgermaster himself gave me pause to think about our cookie business and what I might learn from someone who has been doing basically the same thing for nearly 71 years.

Here are a few of my observations:

Made from scratch

Claxton Johnson starts his day early in the morning when a delivery truck comes by with full sides of Western grain-fed USDA Choice beef.  He picks out only the best beef, and then grinds it fresh into portions for the day’s burgers.  No frozen, pre-made patties here.

We pick up our flour from Lindley Mills, crack fresh eggs, and mix each batch of cookies adding one ingredient at a time.  No pre-mix in our bakery.

A well-defined business

Johnson’s Drive In is open Tuesday thru Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.  No nights, no mornings.  No telephone to call in orders.  No credit cards.  No expanded seating or second location.  When the day’s meat is all cooked, he shuts down the grill.

We operate our business via AnnasGourmetGoodies.com.  We bake and ship cookies Monday thru Friday throughout the year, with some exception made during the Holiday Season.  We have no plans to open a store or distribute cookies via retailers.

Do one thing really well

Claxton Johnson makes great cheeseburgers.  His hamburgers are good and I’m sure the hot dogs are as well.  But cheeseburgers are his masterpiece.

We make chocolate chip cookies.  Our oatmeal raisin cookies, brownies and shortbread are all very good, but our chocolate chip cookies are outstanding.

As we stood up to leave, I took in one last look around, watching the master at work on the grill and at the lunch counter.  I started to edge over and tell him about our experience, but I decided not to break his stride.  He knows.

In his book The Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hours required to master a skill. Claxton Johnson passed that mark long before I was born.  And I like to think we’ve passed that mark making our gourmet cookie and brownie gifts a while back as well.

I love to seek out other artisans and masters in the food world to see what I can learn from them.  While I don’t expect to ever be in the cheeseburger business, I walked away with more than a full stomach and a smile, feeling as though I spent a little time in the presence of a master of his craft.   That’s the feeling we strive to create every time someone bites into our chocolate chip cookies.  Goosebumps would also be nice.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

It’ springtime here in Carolina and my herb garden and surrounding plants are starting to strut their stuff. While I probably don’t take as much time away from the oven or the keyboard as I should, I do enjoy looking at the plants up close as they begin to transform themselves without the least bit of help from me. Some things we’ve planted have died, while others keep coming back year after year.

We prune things back a bit, move some around from time to time, and sometimes we try new things, giving them room to grow. I’m thinking the same rules should apply to things called ‘ideas’ that we plant in the garden of our mind.

An idea, like a flower or an herb, is really an amazing thing. Some provide wonderful health benefits. Some are just pretty to watch. And some are harmful and should be avoided (i.e. I won’t be growing any poison ivy in my garden). If we expect to have a bountiful garden, then we have to take the time to plant and nurture those ideas that are helpful, and give them room to grow. And when things don’t work out, we have to set aside our fears, take out the pruning shears and get to work.

It is okay for different people to have different types of gardens. I watched an interview recently with Elizabeth Gilbert, the best selling author of the book, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. She spoke of her mother and how she planted a ‘Depression Era’ garden where everything had a purpose and a place. Her garden on the other hand, was one she described as having ‘indefensible beauty’.

Having a business like Anna’s Gourmet Goodies has provided me the opportunity to cultivate my mental garden with all kinds of ideas. (Thankfully, Debbie has learned to tolerate my cultivation habits). Some have worked, while others have wilted, but I try to actively tend to the things I plant.

I was at a networking event the other night and someone asked me about our business, how we were doing in this economy, and what ideas I was working on. It made me think for a moment of Elizabeth’s quote about indefensible beauty.

In our last newsletter, we included a note and a special offer to help us send cookies to raise money for Annalise Pelton as a part of a St. Baldrick’s Event. Some of you responded, and we sent up a large bucket to be auctioned, along with some packages made special with her picture and logo. We posted a photo of her angelic smile on our Facebook page. Priceless.

About a week later, Annalise finally lost her battle with cancer.

The memory of that photo, the idea that maybe, for a brief moment, what we do at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies made this little girl smile, is one that I’ll be tending in my mental garden for the rest of my days. I may not always tell this story when someone asks about our business because it is sometimes difficult to share, but you can be sure that it is well rooted in my mental garden.

We’ve been working on some new ideas in the bakery for gluten free products. It’s early in the process, but there is a possibility that we may have a product some day. When my neighbor, who suffers from a severe gluten allergy, tasted the cookie for the first time, it actually brought a tear to her eyes. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had something this good?”

The idea that our cookies make people happy is not some clever marketing idea, it is the foundation of what we do. And when I take time to cultivate new ideas in my mental garden, I’ll do so with the idea of creating indefensible happiness among our customers. Now that’s an idea worth nurturing.

If you’re an entrepreneur or an Internet junkie and happened to be in Raleigh this past week, you had a diverse menu of choices to feed your brain. Triangle Entrepreneur Week and The 2011 Internet Summit were the ‘must attend’ events starting on Monday, November 14. Panels were filled with local and nationally known speakers sharing their best new ideas.

Jon Leonardo from TEW invited me to join a panel focused on the food business. Entrepreneurs and foodies joined myself, Trevor Chambers from Bella Monica Flatbread Company and host Sarah Wechsberg at Sitti restaurant in downtown Raleigh on Tuesday morning. Trevor is a friend, a former customer of Anna’s Gourmet Goodies and a great guy to hang out with and talk about food. We shared different perspectives on the food business (wholesale vs. online retail) but we both share a common passion for making truly exceptional products and taking great care of our customers.

After the panel ended, I headed over to The 2011 Internet Summit where I had a chance to mingle with the tech savvy Triangle crowd and hang with my friends Jack Spain and Susan Maravetz from TheMGen.com. As is the case with most conferences, I suffered from severe information overload, trying to catch as many presentations as possible. I connected with some great people and walked away with some ideas and perspectives I hope to apply to Anna’s Gourmet Goodies.

Some bite sized nuggets I picked up:

It’s a mobile world – 62% of people under 50 have a Smartphone

“Governments don’t create jobs any more than hospitals create children” – Marc Cendella, Found of TheLadders.com

If you are into improving your search ranking, you really need to be on Google+ – look at authorship markup

14% of people tune out TV commercials – 43% of people tune out banner ads

“The Devil has a Prada iPad case”

33% of FB use is on a mobile device

The Internet continues to shift the power away from companies that used to control their message, into the hands of consumers. Social media is about the democratization of opinion, where anyone with an Internet connection and a phone or camera can immediately have a large and potentially long lasting impression on virtually any company or product. If you’ve been hiding behind poor quality or shoddy service, your days are numbered.

This is great news for Anna’s Gourmet Goodies. We started our company by creating great products and making people happy. Customer service is not something we do because ‘we have to’ – it’s a part of who we are and how we live our life – period. We’re continuing to improve how we use the Internet and social media to tell our story and reach those customers who value what we do and want to do business with Anna’s Gourmet Goodies. Forget about the bad economy, this is a great time to be in business if you love to serve your customers.

I’ll be filtering through ideas in between baking cookies over the next month and a half or so. Our holiday schedule is already filling up, so I expect that I’ll have to leave some of the things I picked up at the Summit in the proofer to rise for awhile. We’ll be living our lives in ‘five minute increments’, spinning cookies, packing boxes, and making people happy. It was a good week for sure and a great source of energy to get me going for the holiday gift season.