Mad Gabs

It’s summer in Maine which usually makes people think lobster bakes, beachy days, hiking, paddling and all things recreational. I can honestly say that I have done none of the above–yet.    We are up to our ears in work, kids summer schedules, and preparing to take a record-long vacation.  So no,  it’s not bad all around, but it is a lot to juggle at the moment.
The big things on my list are working on a new catalog, and umpteen new products to add to our lineup.  In addition, we’re doing a few trade shows in September and October and our booth needs some critical pieces like a new backdrop and floor.

All that said, today is Friday and after watching my 6 yr old perform in his first play today, and my 10 yr old play in a baseball game tomorrow, I am off until Tuesday. The weather is looking sunny and warm, the mountains are calling, and maybe we’ll manage to squeeze in some seafood!

It’s not over yet, but today I’m finally feeling like I can even consider catching my breath again.  Not to sound like I’m complaining, because I’m not!   May 2010 will go down in history as our biggest month of sales ever.  It’s super exciting, and along with that always comes stress.  Now that a lot of the orders have shipped, I’m feeling a little more relaxed, but when I look around the office and shop it looks like a  tornado has been through here!

May was also our first month without our long time staffers Tricia and Amy.  We welcomed Margo (new Tricia) and Sam (new Amy) during April where they trained for most of the month, which left us in good shape (but with a very high payroll!).  They are both doing really fanstastic jobs acclimating to their roles, making many improvements and finding new ways to do old tasks.  I pity them both trying to decode my horrible handwriting, but that talent only comes with time.
It’s  a beautiful Friday here in Maine and I’ll make one last stop at the post office to mail some packages and step away until Monday.  Whew!  What a wonderful month.

Today we said goodbye to Tricia, who was my first full time employee. She’s leaving after 12 years here at Mad Gab’s, and we had a little surprise luncheon for her to say a proper goodbye.  It was teary, I read a little ditty I wrote for her, and we ate yummy food and laughed. I’m tired and sad to see her go in many ways, but it’s the right thing all around.  She’s ready, we’re ready and Mad Gab’s has an almost completely new crew. It feels like we’re heading into a new dimension. We’re stronger, healthier, and ready to kick some bootie!

I’ve been really bad about blogging lately. I think I got super distracted when I created a Facebook Fan page.  I started digging through old pictures of product, displays, and me!  I’m amazed all all the iterations of packaging we’ve been through….while my hair seems to have remained unchanged. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

2009 was really good to us, and I end this year feeling grateful and pleased. We had our best year ever, which after 18 years is no small feat.   We’re looking at 2010 as already a record-breaker too, so it seems our momentum continues.    I’ll do some more reflecting over the holidays when we take a full 10 days off to go into the mountains, ski, free-style with the kids and eat, eat, eat.  When I get back I expect to have my goals and budget for 2010 set and ready to put into action.  I can’t wait!

I’ll end by sharing this photo of our display in 1993. THe wood came from a coffin company in Northampton Mass. that donated all their scrap to me.  It then went to a town police officer (who used to be my softball coach) who took it to a shelter for developmentally challenged adults. THey would plane down the wood, router out the holes on top and then I’d stamp them and spray with poly. It was quite a process and reminds me how far we’ve come. Still a long way to go, but we’re well on our way.

Happy Holidays everyone.

gab

Display circa 1993

Every time I say “Tennessee” I’m reminded of that old Arrested Development song from many moons ago……Anyway, every November we head to the International Gift Exposition in the smokies for a week long trade show that connects us with Zoo’s, National Parks, Gift shops, tourist destinations and resorts, etc.. While the venue may not be as exciting as New York or San Francisco, the show is always a good one and we come home tired and with a nice pile of orders.  (and some good barbeque in our bellies!)

This year we mixed it up a bit and are only having one of us at the booth, with one day of overlap.  By doing this we are able to minimize the need for extra help for the kids, and simplify the traveling part. 

So tomorrow I will get up at 3am and head to a 5am flight. I should be in the booth working by 1pm, and hopefully I will have caught a nap along the way. Matt just texted me saying that we’re off to a great start with sales. I have high hopes we wont be disappointed!
I’m off!

Well here it is…our new trade show booth. It worked out really well and made for a smooth and enjoyable show.   We worked with zoos, state parks, general stores, casinos….and a shark-dive place in Fiji, which is kinda cool. All in all the show was a big success and we look forward to heading back next year!

For me it’s a great step outside the bubble that is our daily life here at the mill. It’s peaceful, very conducive to getting stuff done but a bit isolating for an extrovert like me. I usually get all charged up from trade shows and then I come home and collapse (especially after a red eye).

Four days and three nights in las Vegas was plenty to get the work done, have great mexican, asian and french food, and then high-tail it back to Maine’s glorious fall weather and cooler temps…but not before I scratched some itchy scalps!

So here we are in September, the kids have gone back to school which makes for a more sane and structured life around here.  I’m able to work more hours, along with Matt, so we can get more done individually and collectively. Not bad.  

Right now our big focuses are on new products for 2010, a new catalog and new trade show booth. I went back to the man who built my first real booth 10 years ago, a local Portland carpenter/set designer and he did us right a second time!  Our booth is even better than I had hoped, and we’ll premiere it in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait! I’ll be putting some pictures up in a bit, once my web guru can work out a kink or two. Photos of the booth for sure! 

Happy Weekend.

As I type this up, it’s a sunny Friday afternoon and the invisible powers that be are uploading our new catalog to an FTP site, so we can proof it next week. This, too is our best yet. It’s really nice to finally be in a place where things are only getting better, we’re stronger than we’ve ever been in many ways, and the road ahead looks sweet.

We’re heading to Las Vegas next month for the Las Vegas Souvenir and Resort Gift Show. What that means is that a lot of my time these days is gobbled up doing the prep work. We’re having a new booth built by a local builder/set designer that is going to be great and I should have a peek at that this coming week.  In addition to the booth, there is a long list of to-do’s: Pre-show mailing, show specials, design for the display of products in the booth, travel plans, childcare, etc.    With every new show there is always the big question “What’s new?”  That we have to go prepared to answer. And for each show we grapple with what that will be as we often have more than one product in the works, or sometimes we dont and the show gives us the push to do that.

I have been playing with natural lip glosses for many months and in July we did a test of the latest formula and packaging. I’m so glad we did, as we learned really critical information that helped direct us to launch a different kind of spiffed up lip balm. I’ll have more on that later, as things develop.  I learned a lot in the survey process and am grateful to have those lessons before bring something to market and not after! So much of the past 18 years has been improvising, and when we can put some method to the madness things usually turn out well.

Every time I sit down to write here I prep myself for a quick 5-minute write.  Maybe if I sat down every day I could do that…but with all the busy-ness that goes on in a day by the time I finally get to my chair and my mind set to writing, it seems I can’t stop. I guess it goes with being a talker, once those floodgates are opened there’s not stopping!

Anyway, another busy week under my belt/cutoffs. I love Fridays like most of us, and today my 9 year old Silas is here at the office with us because there wasn’t any camp scheduled for today.  (The town we live in hosts a Clam Festival and about 50,000 people descend on our quaint little village to celebrate all things clam, but that is another story.)  He loves to come to work as long as he only has to be here sporadically.  Over school vacation there are times he comes for 2-3 days in a row and that gets old. Today Silas wanted to work, so we found him a few small things to do in the shop-mainly putting Moose Smooch tubes into boxes, and putting the boxes together.  He’s happy, we’re happy and it puts a little dent in things that need to get done.  I was looking at him today and marveling at the few inches left between us in height, and remember how it was to have him at work when he was a baby.

When I was pregnant with Silas Mad Gab’s was exploding. I worked around the clock and rarely sat down or took a break.  The day before he was due my OB told me to go home, to which I replied  “You dont understand, I own this company and ….”she didn’t let me finish. “Go home, now”. She insisted and I did. He was born the next day, and I was back at work about a week later with him in tow.   There were months of crying, diaper mishaps,  spitting up, and just general baby chaos that I thought would never end.  When he finally did start going to a sitter at 11 months I could not have been happier! So fast forward through one more baby, and 9 + years and here is this tall, kind, helpful soul who is curious about everything happening at Mad Gab’s and eager to help. He’s a born entrepreneur too…funny story. A friend mentioned the word “entrepreneur” in conversation with Silas and he asked her to spell it. She did, and he asked where the “d” was. She asked him to clarify and he thought the word was “entreprenerd”.   Silas is a lemonade stand guy who can rake in 10, 15 $25 just setting up in front of our house selling lemonade (if I’m not paying attention he’ll sell all of our blackberries too), and then calculates his margins after buying supplies. I guess the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Anyway, if this blog is supposed to be a peek into my reality and life as a small business owner, that’s how it looks today. Full of sun, son and a glorious weekend ahead.

I am on a list called HARO (help a reporter out) and I get 3 emails every day listing the needs of reporters….most of which is irrelevant to me (Looking for husbands who have cheated on their wives….national men’s magazine…..etc). However,  once in a while I reply to one that sounds like it might get us a little media coverage and nice people find out that we’re worth talking about!  This woman was looking for single start ups, and even though I was single (and 19) when I started Mad Gab’s, the fact that I’m married now meant that I didnt’ fit the bill for Laura’s current article.  Laura offered to try the products anyway, and decided to include a shout-out in her blog.  Read on…..

http://singlestartups.com/2009/06/mad-gabs-wildly-natural-body-care/

Mad Gab’s (Wildly Natural Body Care)

In the process of looking for cool, single CEOs, I’ve also stumbled across some great products made by other entrepreneurs (single and otherwise).  I’ve decided to highlight those products I find which might come in handy for the busy professional.  Gabrielle Melchionda, founder of Mad Gab’s was kind enough to send me a sampling of her fabulous natural body car line (I LOVE her branding).  I don’t know about you, but my days often run way into nights, and I love the idea of using a relaxing, soothing all natural product like this Lavender “Sleepy Moose Balm” when it’s finally time to wind down.  Check out her products at MadGabs.com (I especially love the peppermint scent) currently available for both retail and wholesale.  Gabrielle has a great product and would have been a great interview…except for that pesky little husband!