ARGH!
We’ve just got back from our very first ever (live and in person) trade show.
The show was called GLEE and it was as the Birmingham NEC.
It’s pretty much a garden and leisure show, but we were in a pet specific section.
It’s fair to say that this show has caused us some serious stress over the last few weeks.
Remember - we were making edible cards for dogs on our kitchen table six months ago – and now all this!
For the last six weeks or so, we have spent every day making cards and every night designing our stand, physically building and assembling it, organising how we get to the show, how to pay for the show, where we stay, what/if we eat.
We’ve rented vans, designed countless backdrops, overthought absolutely every single last detail of our stand (we even revised the design for our lanyards four times).
But we did it, and I’m so glad we did.
Although it was a mad stress, we got to see what people really think about this daft little business that we dreamt up.
And what was particularly mad about that, for us, is that we genuinely saw people smile at what we do.
It has always been our intention to spread happiness.
We try and do it in everything we make.
Yes, we’re ultimately about the doggies, but we know that humans are a big part of what we do (they buy the cards, you see).
In all the stresses of running a business and being involved in every single working aspect of the company, you sometimes lose sight of the happiness that you’re spreading into people’s lives.
Dog people are great. They absolutely love their dogs to bits and that really is a beautiful thing to see.
We saw that a lot at this show and it was brilliant.
Really brilliant.
Yes, there was a boatload of stress and financially, it was terrifying.
But we took the leap of faith and we left feeling like we’d made the right decision.
To cap it all off, we even won an award for Best New Product – of which we got this snazzy wall plaque.
And yes, we put up in the office the second we got back.
We’ll be appearing at more shows later in the year and quite frankly, we can’t wait.
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