Anne-Marie Faiola, Author at Soap Queen

Such dense paper! Such good design!

May 24, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

PaperSource makes the best papers, stationary and Japanese Papers. Our COO at Bramble Berry got me the most luscious thank you cards for a wedding present.

PaperSource Thank you cards were the perfect gift because a. great design, beautiful paper and gorgeous envlopes make life a little more cheery and b. I have a bazillion thank you cards to write for thoughtful wedding gestures from friends and family.

We had a rule in our house growing up, “Never use the gift unless the thank you card is written.” This little common sense rule, thought up by my beautiful Mother Wenche (pronounced Ven-KA), is brilliant in its simplicity. Now that I am growing up, many things that my Mother had us do are proving themselves to be practical, smart and well thought-out. It’s so cliche how this is happening as I hit my 30’s.

Apparently, writing thank you notes and hand written cards is getting all en vogue now that there are more and more emails written with less personal “touches” in our daily lives. There are appropriate ways to write thank you cards and less appropriate ways (hint: mentioning any personal news, like your new job or new hair cut or car, does not go in a thank you card).

Herb Bridge, from Ben Bridge Jewlers, gave my husband some great advice. After an amazing talk, sponsored by the Entrepreneur’s Organization, he asked Herb what business advice he left out of his talk. Herb thought for a moment and said: “Whenever I read the newspaper, if I see a friend or acquaintance listed, I cut out the article and send it to them with a handwritten note. This is the best business advice I could give you.”

One of the Greats, giving practical business advice … get clippin’.

Air freshener use on the rise by teens?

May 23, 2007 Filed Under: Business Musings

A new study by MarketTools says that 40% of people who buy air products (as in air fresheners) started buying them in the past six years. Apparently younger customers are buying, buying, buying to scent their rooms. Or better yet, asking their parents to buy them to scent their rooms.

Quote from Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, “The teenager today is purchasing what prior generations have looked to buy when they became young career professionals. Younger consumers are much older today, in terms of what they’re buying.” More than 1000 new fresheners hit the market last year, exceeding the numbers for 2005 and 2004 combined (according to Productscan Online service).

Oak Court Creations sells a really great product that allows you to just drop fragrance oil onto an absorbant paper-like pad to make your own air freshener. If you’re a small scale manufacturer, this is an easy way to capitalize on the trend and get a bit of the teen air freshenermarket.

Our new forklift

May 23, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We purchased a used forklift for our warehouse. We’ve always had this weird hybrid forklift pallet jack and “Pinky” (so-called because an employee spray painted it pink) finally quit working. Getting a forklift off a flat bed truck is a challenge, especially when it has a dead battery and cannot be driven. We had to call a tow truck to pull the forklift off the flat bed truck. Of course this had to happen when every single guy had gone home for the day and there was no one there but two girls. Of course, we’re two strong, smart and wily girls, but non-males all the same.

But, we got our forklift off the truck and all the boys in the office, including little Jorgen (Norm’s son), have been having entirely too much fun learning to drive it and generally terrorizing all the pallets that are sitting on the floor. The warehouse has been rearranged a lot in the last week!

Go support your farmer’s market!

May 22, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

I just came across this interesting idea in sustainability – live on only the food that is grown in your immediate, 100 mile vicinity. These two Canadians are trying it and it sounds difficult (though they are losing weight). The article draws attention to the things that we don’t think about in terms of our daily eating habits, like the fact that most of the sugar production in the world comes primarily from outside the US and so our sugar travels thousands of miles to reach us.

This whole school of thought goes hand in hand with the idea of reducing our ecological footprint on the earth. Here at work, we have employees who walk to work, carpool (me, me, me!), ride motorcycles and enjoy riding the bus. We recycle. We try to use recycled paper when we can. There are other things we do, but ultimately, it all boils down to trying to do our part for the environment.

But we normally don’t consider our food, where it comes from, who it supports and how far it needs to travel to reach our dinner tables.

Definite um, food for thought.

Soapmaking Trends

May 22, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Recently, the Craft and Hobby Association came out with their statistics for 2006. Overall, it’s a good year for crafts and hobby in general with the entire category of “Crafts” growing at 2.6% per year. In fact, 57% of US Households participated in crafts last year. This is a good trend! Creativity, in all of its forms, enhances lives and communities.

Not so good in the trend was that soapmaking has fallen so far down in the piece of crafting pie that it doesn’t even rate its own category anymore. Floral arranging, woodworking, cake decorating and crocheting get their own categories but soapmaking doesn’t even rate a mention.

In case you’re curious, scrapbooking was once again the number one craft for 2006.

According to the report, people craft for different reasons but a full 69% of them like to craft because “They like to learn new crafts.”

I like this statistic! Let’s teach them to soap! Soapmaking would clearly be a new craft for at least 98% of them.

I also found it interesting that only 2% of the total dollars spent on crafting are spent on Internet crafting sites. Wow! I am excited for the Internet to become more adopted as a medium for shopping. A full 56% of shopper bought at a Discount Store or Craft Chain Store for their supplies. If we could only convert 2% of those shoppers that shop primarily at Michael’s or JoAnne’s to online shoppers, our little crafty mail order business could double.

So, things to do: proselytizesoap like crazy and convince those new soaping converts to shop online.

Going Global

May 21, 2007 Filed Under: Business Musings

Full confession: I have a difficult time running Otion, our retail location and still trying to keep Bramble Berry, our mail-order company, open and working smoothly. The two locations are literally 2 miles apart.

I spent most of this morning’s business meditation reading the Inc magazine (April 2007) issue from cover to cover about how to “Grab a Piece of the [Global] Action.” I was inspired! I should open up a Bramble Berry Europe! A Bramble Berry Dubai! A Bramble Berry Shanghai!

Then, reality set in. I can’t even manage a retail store 2 miles away with ease and grace. What makes me think I could manage an entire company a continent away!? Especially a company that works on razor edge thin margins and requires all my savvy (and a very smart and dedicated staff) to try and make a profit.

But then, ego, hubris and fear set in. I was aghast that I was missing out on all these global markets and worried about losing a potential first-mover advantage. Then again, if I opened another operation, I’d take my eye off the ball and the actual cash-producing companies I have here in the little hamlet of Bellingham, WA. And, as I’ve already admitted, I am fully challenged just trying to run the two operations on my own homefront.

Bramble Berry exports about 5% of it’s total Gross Sales overseas. That percent used to be higher when I had a full time International Shipping Manager so I know that there’s an international market out there and waiting for soapmaking to be introduced to them. The International Shipping position ended up losing money. International Orders, by virtue of their high loss, damage, chargeback rates and just plain extra hassle with paperwork, cost more to process. Add the extra wages from a shipping manager and the program didn’t make sense.

But, what if I opened up another company in Europe – say France – with one of my favorite customers there and offerred her a piece of the pie (provided she would put some skin in the game)?

It’s an interesting thought and one I’ll be thinking long and hard on in the next few months after. A global market …the world is flat a la Thomas Friedman … risk/reward… it’s good food for thought.

Yellow Beeswax Surplus

May 21, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Bramble Berry has an awesome deal on Yellow Beeswax, candle grade. It’s just $3 per pound in the 55 pound bag. That’s a very aggressive price. You can use beeswax for candles, fragrance tarts, fragranced wax ornaments, or wax dipped bears.

At $3 per pound, your fragrancedwax ornaments would cost about $.50 to make and your nicely sized 4 oz candle, only about $1 with fragrance, color and wick.

International Cheese Festival

May 20, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

I didn’t think it was possible to get physically sick off of cheese and actually want to vomit at the sight of cheese but apparently, as Chris and I proved, it is indeed possible.

I could try to explain the rationale for why a soapmaker would need to visit a cheese festival (niche markets, differentiating factors, guerrilla marketing, subtle flavors, nuanced tastes between regions), but the reality is that we just like cheese.

The Cheese Festival was held at Pike Place Market and it was packed! Everyone was in a fairly good mood and the weather cooperated. The mood probably had something to do with the wine tasting festival held at the same time (insert wry and knowing grin here).

Our favorite cheese was a …. gouda aged in beer? That doesn’t sound like it’s even possible or a good idea but it was the best cheese of the bunch. Either that, or our palletes were permanetly ruined by too much of a good thing.

We left with $50 worth of cheese. I personally devoured at least 4 ounces of cheese tonight which goes to show you that one can never get too sick, for too long, of 90% fat. Just call me the human vacuum cleaner…

…the human vacuum cleaner that is going to hit the gym oh-so-hard tomorrow.

Tires that Smell Like Lavender

May 20, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

In an attempt to appeal to the female consumer, Kuhmo Tires has come out with a tire that smells like Lavender.

Because women spend so much time at ground level, smelling their … tires?

Another marketing gimmick, another day. Rather than coming out with something that actually appeals to the fashion savvy woman (purple tires anyone?), the Korean company designed a product that a. probably won’t smell much b. if it actually smells, it’s bound to smell like an unattractive mixture of lavender, rubber and road kill and c. if it really does smell, will irritate allergy suffers everywhere.

I don’t want to sound like a negative naysayer all the time. I applaud the innovation that goes into coming up with good, marketable ideas. I just wonder how much focus group-ing that Kuhmo did. I don’t recall any one of my friends ever mentioning that they wanted their tires to smell good. The market, in my limited circles, was not crying out for this innovation.

But, if you are one of the ladies out there that would like your car tires to smell like Lavender, head over to TireRack.com and buy yourself a tire for $119.

Performance? Safety? Nah, I just want my tires to smell like Lavender.

The Governor of Washington is amazing!

May 18, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

I had the extreme privilege of meeting with Governor Christine Gregoire (Washington State) yesterday morning at the early morning hour of 7:15 a.m. She came to Bellingham to speak to City Club. She called our non-profit group, The Bellingham Bay Foundation, to get the skinny on the waterfront redevelopment going on here.

Governor Gregoire was funny, smart and lightning fast with her deductive reasoning leaps. She puts two and two together faster than anyone I’ve met (except my Daddy, of course). She had laser like focus during the conversation and gave very pointed feedback.

Now that I’ve met her, I feel even better about voting for her!

I’m irritated but I’m not sure if it’s justified

May 18, 2007 Filed Under: Business Musings

I’m irritated.

I’m not sure if it’s justified though. My husband says it’s 40% justified. My staff say it’s 100% justified. Either way, justified or not, I’m irritated and spending entirely too much time on a $160 problem.

We faxed a Purchase Order to a vendor and requested “Fed Ex” shipping. Previous orders from the vendor had all shipped Fed Ex Ground.

The next day, we had our 25 kilos of very low grade clay at our warehouse in Bellingham. We were surprised to see that the vendor had overnighted 54 pounds of product from New Jersey. Ouch! That’s an expensive shipping charge!

So, we wrote them a little heads up and expected a friendly mea culpa back with a discount on shipping. Instead, the vendor refused to take any responsibility for the overnight shipping mistake, stating that we should have specifically asked for “Ground.”

I’m not sure if they’ve missed the press releases but Fed Ex isn’t just an overnight service company. Fed Ex ships five different ways. 95% of the packages Bramble Berry ships go out Fed Ex Ground. And, previous orders from the vendor shipped Ground. Why would the vendor assume that Fed Ex meant Overnight and not that it meant Ground?

Additionally, good customer service would have been phoning for clarification before the $200 shipping bill was tacked onto a $645 order.

So, I wrote back and explained our position about the prior shipping history and Fed Ex not being synonymous with overnight shipping and questioning the common sense of overnighting 54 pounds of product. I politely suggested that we split the difference in shipping so that Bramble Berry paid for part of it and they paid for part of it.

This is the note I got back from the CEO of the company.

I am sorry that you are not pleased.

I have attached a copy of the PO that we received. It does not designate ground shipping anywhere.

Please be specific with shipping instructions on any future orders.

I am not loving this response. But, I’m not entirely sure that I’m justified in being irritated or upset about it. I know what Bramble Berry would have done. I also know that I don’t like doing business with companies that I don’t feel share our values system. I also feel strongly that the CEO of the company was too terse with her response.

I’m in the process of crafting my reply. I’ve done the first draft and now I’m sitting on it for a few hours to make sure that I am entirely professional and clear headed when I finally hit that “Send” button.

Either way, you can be sure that we will “be specific with shipping instructions” on future orders to other companies.

The vendor in question has sadly lost our business.

Can you balance a check book?

May 17, 2007 Filed Under: Business Musings

Some disturbing information came out recently from the American Institute for Research. Apparently, more than half of the students that were nearing graduation at a four-year college were found lacking in basic literacy skills to handle “complex tasks.” Some examples of “complex tasks” were things like analyzing arguments in newspaper editorials or understanding credit card offers.

In a study by the Pew Charitable Trust, 50% of college grads were found lacking in simple life skills. Simple life skills were defined as having the math skills to balance your checkbook, figuring out restaurant tips and understanding news stories.

All of these findings bode badly for the continuing threat of India and China as the world’s superpowers.

It also isn’t good for young upcoming entrepreneurs in general; if you can’t balance a check book, how will you figure out your basic profit & loss every month, let alone figure out if you’re making money on a single product?

The Seagull and the Starfish

May 16, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

On my amazing, beautiful, breathtaking run along Bellingham Bay on the official “South Bay Trail” (thank you citizens of Bellingham for passing the levy that paid for this trail), I came across a fascinating sight.

I was almost done with the run and working up to a “You’re almost done! Push! It!” sprint when out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a seagull terrorizing … a starfish? “Huh,” I thought to myself, “Do seagulls even eat starfish!?” And thanking the universe for a legitimate excuse to stop my death march sprint to the finish, I came to a full stop and watched.

The seagull kept trying to pick up the starfish. Given that the starfish was 4 or 5 times larger than the seagull’s entire head, I put the possibility of the seagull making any headway with the starfish at about nill.

To my surprise and amazement, after about five minutes of toying with the starfish, the seagull managed to get the starfish just at the right angle to gulp 2 arms and the bulk of the body into its mouth and down its throat.

And then … it just sat there.

The starfish’s body was larger than the seagull’s head. Adding the arms into the equation, there was no way that the seagull was going to manage to gulp the starfish down (bringing us back to the original question: Do seagulls even eat starfish?)

I watched for about ten more minutes. The seagull sat there, with a stupefied expression on its face. I imagined it was thinking things like:

“Great, now what, Dummy?”

“Ewwww, the little tentacles are moving! I would spit this thing out, but I don’t want to look stupid since I have an audience.”

“Hey, wait a minute! Do I even eat Starfish!?!”

While I waited for the Seagull to do something, (anything!) I began to notice the detailed beauty of my surroundings. I saw many many more starfish. I saw beautiful fluffy purple starfish working their way up among the rocks. I saw the contrasting colors of the orange starfish set off beautifully by the surrounding kelp grass. I actually turned off my iPod and heard the waves and the wind. For once, I really noticed the beauty of the trail I run down every few days.

It was a calming, focusing 15 minutes before the chaos of the day started.

There are lessons to learn from the fifteen minute interlude with the gull and starfish. Some that come to mind are:

1. Stop and smell the roses! Don’t miss the scenery in pursuit of the goal.
2. It’s good to challenge yourself.
3. But sometimes, if you challenge yourself, you may end up stuck with a massive lump in your throat, unable to breathe.

They like us, they really really like us

May 16, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

This review from Epinions totally made my day!

Here’s an excerpt:

Looking for a reliable on-line store for premium fragrance and essential oils, I Googled upon Bramble Berry in Bellingham, WA. With an excellent assortment of my favorite Milky Way Soap Molds, just the right how-to books, some new Melt & Pour soap base, and quality colorants, there was plenty of goodies for all one-stop shopping needs.