Cute handmade lip balm with hand scribbled decorations for a rainy-afternoon project or perfect for a sleep over party for your 13-year-old.
Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
Cute handmade lip balm with hand scribbled decorations for a rainy-afternoon project or perfect for a sleep over party for your 13-year-old.
Filed Under: Bramble Berry News
I just got the sweetest note from a customer that made me smile, laugh and feel very happy. For what it’s worth, I love the Hungarian Lavender as well as I noted in this post back in February.
Thank you so much for my box of goodies… As usual, every Bramble Berry Fragrance is fabulous! I have to tell you, I am totally amazed by each of them… Talk about a diversity of scents… And yet, each is absolutely fabulous on it’s own merit! I do not know how you do it, but you have a very gifted nose, that’s for sure!
First off, I was just about to start the hunt for a really good lavender EO that didn’t have that medicinal edge to it… Hunt over! The Hungarian Lavender with it’s lovely green edge, and no medical smell at all, is a dream come true. I have never been able to find a Lemon Verbena, that I could just fall madly in love with… They were mostly”Okay”… This one, however is to die for… It is multi layered, crisp, with nice soft edges… A fabulous almost classic sort of scent… I am totally in love with this wonderful jewel. The Black Amber and Lavender… Is a very ying and yang blend… Totally amazed how the balance of the rich amber and crisp lavender go so well together… Very exotic… Wonderful, simply wonderful!!!! The one that just has me in awe, is the Sugared Walnut... Smelled it, and nothing at all like it’s name… So I went to your site, and looked up the description..Well it just boggles the mind… Definitely a “Foody” scent, but much, much more… This one is in a category of it’s very own… It is very complex, and multi layered… Simply Lovely, just LOVELY… Can hardly wait to make it up in CP. Thank you so very much… Like Christmas in March!!!!
Filed Under: Bramble Berry News
Yahoo chose me a their Entrepreneur of the week.
It’s great. I’m happy to be honored. I work really hard every day. My staff puts in huge amounts of effort every day as well. It’s nice to see our successes recognized.
It’s still amazing and strange to me every time someone points to me or Bramble Berry as a role model because some days seem like a serious struggle as I wrestle with random staffing issues, vendor disagreements and customer opportunities. So, it’s nice to read my story and the Bramble Berry story through someone else’seyes.
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
Here is a lovely Silver Plated Lip balmstand that holds 3 lip balms. Maybe it would be a cute tester rack for craft shows? At $3, you really can’t go wrong.
Filed Under: Bramble Berry News
Just when you thought that we couldn’t have enough salt (2 types of Dead Sea Salt, Bali Reef Salt and Pacific Sea Salt), we’ve added yet another salt – Organic Salt from New Zealand. We’ve watched the organic market grow and it shows no signs of stopping, so we’re dipping our feet into the water with our organic essential oils and trying out the organic salt. If sales of these two lines stay strong, we’ll consider some organic oils for cooking and soap.
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
I came across some outdated news that Emma Faust Tillman, once the world’s oldest living person, died at 114. Normally I would marvel at her longevity and then move on to the next news article. In this case, something caught my eye – she was an entrepreneur with her own business! A woman, and a black woman at that, with her own business in 1910 is something worth doing more research on.
She was the daughter of former slaves (one of 23 children in her family!) and became the first black graduate of her high school. She had bookkeeping experience and took courses in bookkeeping so that she could keep the books at her father’s farm.
But, racial discrimination was very prevalent and she was not allowed to take those bookkeeping skills to work in an office setting. So, she started her own cooking and baking catering company (something in common with our beloved Martha Stewart who started on her multi-billion-dollar business from similar humble beginnings). She baked for such greats such as Katharine’s Hepburn’s father and Jackie Robinson and even President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he stayed at the old Heublein Hotel in Hartford.
Being a woman entrepreneur comes with its own challenges today. The obstacles must have been tenfold back in Ms. Faust’s day. We are so fortunate to have access to SBA small loans (where women get preference points just for being of the female persuasion), strong female leaders to look up to (Oprah, Andrea Jung, Anne Mulcahy, Martha Stewart, Idra Nooyi to name a few) and a culture that is more open to women taking charge of their own destinies. My hat’s off to Ms. Faust for leading such a long and storied life, helping to pave the way for other women entrepreneurs.
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
Can this man do no wrong? Wow, David from The Bubble Room has gotten another national press mention. On page 99 of the new People Style Watch, he gets another shout-out as a “local fave.” One of these days, we’ll have to get him to share his wisdom with us on attracting national press.
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
Sparkle Fluff using foaming bath butter! Fun stuff! Sharon, the owner of Sparkle Cookie, is going to school to be a librarian and she’s also incredibly crafty as you can see from her web site.
Filed Under: Business Musings
I recently read a post on a soapmaking board about how Bramble Berry’s pricing is higher than the would be customer would like to pay. I don’t argue with customers on a regular basis, I usually stay silent when I hear comparisons about Bramble Berry’s pricing versus other, lower cost soapmaking supply providers.
But, I have a blog just so I can spout about anything that strikes my fancy. Today, talking about the true costs about running a business from a fanatical customer service standpoint, is something I want to talk back on.
Just the other day, I heard from a customer, “You’re pricing is too high!” I held my tongue when the same customer said in the next breath, “I just ordered from XYZ, and then took 6 weeks to ship my order! And they didn’t answer my 6 emails asking about the status. Can you believe their nerve?” When I politely inquired why they ordered from the other company, the response was, “Oh, they got my business because they were cheaper than you.”
Yes, and they are cheaper because….? Anyone care to venture a guess why there are cheaper soapmaking supplies out there to buy?
Customer Service. Fanatical, be-all, end-all, Herculean customer service.
Did you know that one of our very large, main competitors refuses to take phone orders anymore? I know why they don’t take phone orders. It makes perfect sense from a strictly financial perspective. And, most of their customers won’t ever know that they don’t take phone orders because, if they’re like us, 95% of their customers order online. And the 5% that don’t order online? I pay for a full time, expert soapmaker to work 8 hours a day answering their phone calls and taking that 5% of phone calls. It’s certainly not efficient from a pricing standpoint but it’s something that rings true for one of our five values statements “Be kind to our employees and customers.” Answering the phone is kind to our customers. Answering the phone raises my overall labor costs though.
That same person that answers the phone does a lot of other things for our customers too. Guess how many orders she’s taking? Maybe 5 a day. But that same person who is available to our 5% of phone ordering customers is also available to the other 95% of our customers that have product questions, technical support needs or just general toiletry making questions. We happily answer any and all phone calls, no matter how intense, long-winded or difficult. We even go so far as to make our customer’s recipes (usually 1 to 2 a week) when we cannot diagnose a problem over the phone. The 45 technical support phone calls per day plus the time and materials to test customer recipes all adds to my overhead as a business person. But the majority of our customers wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, do you want to be able to actually phone your supplier and talk to them or get the draconian “Email us, no phone calls, and by the way, we pick and choose what emails to answer and trust that you’ll figure it out on your own and eventually forget that we gave you sub par customer service.”?
We employ 3 full time staff members just to answer customer (and non-customer) emails. I’m willing to bet that most of our competitors don’t do this level of customer service support. Those 3 full time staff members literally sit in front of a computer all day, looking up orders, tracking Fed Ex packages and answering general soapmaking questions. Answering copious amounts of daily emails raises my overall labor costs. What I really love is when we get an email something like “I ordered XYZ product from your competitor. They won’t answer my emails or phone calls and so I don’t know how to use it. Can you help me?” And, in keeping with one our five values statements, “Be an industry leader,” we always try to help.
More another day on why going with the low cost provider isn’t always a great idea when you’re trying to build a soapmaking business or if you’re just a general shopper of any product on the ‘net.
Updated 2011: Bramble Berry now employs 5 full time staff members in customer service and 2 in marketing for this blog, our newsletter, our social media endeavors and SoapQueen.TV
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
A local Otion customer, Gail, just wrote me about some fun things she’s doing with her fragrances.
Anne-Marie, I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying the new scents I bought, and the samples you gave me from your store. Thanks to you I’ll be trying some scent combinations I may not have thought of otherwise. I made some gingered peach soap bars w/the peach sample fragrance, a sachet w/Beach Breezes, and am looking forward to creating some tropical blends w/the lime fragrance sample. Thanks again for your great service!
I personally think that the Lime makes a great blending fragrance. Lime, plus a little Ginger, plus a dash of Dark Rich Chocolate? Hummmmm, so good, so good. Can you imagine that as a body scrub or a whipped souffle creme?
From a business angle of things, making new products with ingredients you already own (no new outlay of capital, no new inventory to store) seems like a win-win situation. If you make up any fun new blends and want to share, be sure to email me and I’ll publish your good idea in our newsletter or on this Blog.
Filed Under: Business Musings
Seriously, how cute is The Bubble Roome’s packaging? Amazing! And a great representation of what a small cottage industry can do. They’ve gotten gotten some huge press (Lucky magazine this month, for one) which is a tangible example of how great packaging can really move your product up to the next level of stardom. And, I love that TBR is run by a guy. We have so few customers at Bramble Berry that are men so I’m excited to see David into the craft, and with such success!
Filed Under: Bramble Berry News
I am *so* excited to be speaking at the Arizona Soapmaker’s Conference this year. What a huge honor! I’m going to talk a bit about Bramble Berry’s history and helpful business lessons that I’ve learned from teachers and mentors along the way. Some of these lessons include things like my friend Bob Pritchett recommends (“Fire Someone Today”) and Verne Harnish (“Figure out your Values before you do anything else”) have taught me. Some anecdotes are sad little lessons that I’ve learned along the way through my own many many mistakes (“Don’t rehire people you’ve fired.”)
In addition to my talk, I think I’ll be delivering a bunch of Bramble Berry orders to the gathering so that should be a bit of an organizational nightmare as well as rewarding. I can’t wait to see customer’s reactions as they try our latest fun creations.
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
This site purports to repeat actual student comments overheard at a college in Ontario, Canada. It’s entirely funny and also entirely scary, especially if you have college age kids. Click here to read Overheard at Western.
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
I love these cheeky advertising campaigns. They’re clever. They’re unexpected. And, at the very least, they make me laugh. As advertising gets increasingly ignored, innovative and fun adssuch as these will increasingly become the norm as marketers try to slip their branding into our daily lives.