Gift Basket Magazine - press release

Since forming in April of 2009, The Gift Basket Association has been pushing hard to bring resources to the industry. From an online directory to now, a full on magazine, GBA is making an impact and creating the buzz within the industry they had hope to ignite. Trends and Tips, the name of the official magazine of GBA, is just that - its trends that are happening now and in the future as well as tips to help gift basket companies and suppliers grow their business.

Trends & Tips is divided into sections including "be your business best", "impressions", "a better place", and an entire section for supplier and partner information. Quintana's approach is to make this a community magazine with many members throughout the gift basket industry contributing as well as industry experts and business related partners. Industry experts Tom & Pam Newell, Mary Ann Jacobs and Flora Morris Brown, Ph.d contributed as well as Quintana herself.

"The holistic approach we're taking is to help gift basket professionals improve their companies in a complete fashion. It's less about fancy designs and more about how to get new customers, manage your work/life balance and providing superior customer service. And, more important, we're doing it in a fun, easy to read manner."

Trends & Tips offers some great information and extras to make it a fun read including a word search, recipe, "good intentions" and more. You can order your copy at www.giftbasketassociation.com/magazine.html. Advertising information, single and annual subscriptions are available.

One final invite from Quintana, "We've decided to make this a quarterly publication so we invite all advertisers to get on board and be a part of this community!"

www.giftbasketassociation.com

Time to say goodbye?

Yesterday, I fired a customer. Yep, I fired a customer. It wasn't an easy thing to do. The monthly sales they were giving to us was pretty decent. It is a great company that does some great things for people and the average price of the gifts we were doing was well over $100. On top of that, its an account that one of my sales reps brought to us so in addition to giving up the sales, I'm taking away commission from her. Steady commission. So, the reason behind it? Let me explain.

The gal that ordered from us was rude, condescending and never accepted any of our gifts. She always sent them back for some sort of re-work. Her inability to communicate what they wanted was causing a moral issue in my office and we were losing money having to redo each gift. It was almost as if she did it on purpose.

When we started showing live video, it was the perfect solution. Show her what she's getting and make sure she's ok with it before we delivered it. And one day when she wasn't available and her boss was, we showed her the basket and her boss made us completely redo it. She was apologetic but realized it wasn't what they wanted....redo again.

Bottom line - sometimes its ok to give up a client, situation or person that is draining you of time, money, moral and energy.

An amazing experience

Well, it's out - the first trends and tips magazine hit the streets today. And, well aside from a blank page in one magazine, the response was overwhelming! I received so many compliments today, new advertisers interested, people joining, more orders - people were definitely interested. The most shocking thing to me is the amount of annual subscriptions we received. I figured everyone was going to just buy one issue to "check it out" but I thank you for your trust and your feedback today told me that it was all worth it. Many of you felt empowered - that you could accomplish so much with this one issue. That you could make significant changes and improvements to your businesses. And quite honestly - that's the goal. We are truly working to uplift the industry and I'm so grateful and happy that you were so pleased with the contents.

Have a little fun with it to....on to the next issue.

It's raining but still a beautiful day!

Today is one of those days where I really sit back and count my blessings. Despite the fact that its raining here in San Jose (and I have an outdoor living room & kitchen that needs to be covered FAST), it's a great day. We launched the pre-order process for the new Trends & Tips Magazine yesterday and I couldn't stop smiling. It's always a risk to start these types of projects but I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. Now seeing the emails, comments and orders coming in is just validation.

I want to thank all of you for your positive feedback and comments. I know you're all excited and hope I can live up to your expectation! Yikes!