Gift Rep Sandy

Sales "repping" was nothing I really planned, nothing I especially wanted to pursue, and something I would not have gravitated towards if circumstances and opportunity had not lead me in that direction.

I became an independent manufacturer's sales representative virtually by accident.

Although I began life as a shy child, I obviously exhibited traits of an entrepreneur when very young. Growing up, I always wanted to start neighborhood clubs, or form a theater group, or coordinate local carnivals, or start and write newsletters on a wide range of socially invaluable topics. Sales also seemed to be a little bit in my blood, since I was selling Christmas cards to neighbors and friends as a 9-year-old. My father, a workaholic, self-starter with a passion for business opportunities, spent a career as an engineer before pursuing his dream in retirement with an ice cream store and a dry cleaner business ... I think that was much of the source of my inspiration.

Joined the Fashion Industry

After high school, I enrolled at a "career" college for a one-year program in fashion merchandising and salesmanship. Living in San Francisco during that year was an education in itself! I was exposed to the world of high fashion and subject to my first work experiences in the retail environment. Macy, Roos Atkins, J. & I. Magnum, and Saks Fifth Avenue were some of my early mentors. But (to my despair) I hated selling high fashion! I was never a high-fashion trend setter, but ended up in departments such as "accessories", where I was expected to sell $300 worth of $3 choker necklaces in an eight hour shift. NOT!

I left the fashion industry (very quickly) and tried my hand at a number of jobs, including a joint venture with my father running an ice cream store. But, exposure to a retail service environment in a management capacity was an important piece of the puzzle on where my career path would take me.

Always Came Back to Sales

Although work experiences outside the home slowed down while I got married and raised children, I eventually began working in a wide array of fields and positions, including accounting, health care, and education. But between jobs, and while raising kids, I always gravitated back to sales. I tried my hand at selling encyclopedias, long distance phone plans, and actually ended up doing rather well selling Avon. But selling during this period of my life was mostly just a part-time job to generate a little extra income.

In the late 1990's (my early 40's, ouch!) the kids were mostly on their own, I went back to work in retail when an opportunity opened up to help run a woodworker's "co-op" gift store. Selling gift items was very different from the fashion retailing I had done in the 1970's, and a difference I enjoyed very much. I left the co-op after a year, to manage a book department for Hastings, a chain of book, movie, and CD stores, which was opening a location near where I lived. I loved the business, and became dedicated to 'working my way up the ladder', even envisioning my retirement with the chain many years into the future.

My boss, whom I loved and respected, receive a promotion, moved out of state, and was replaced by a young, arrogant, ego-centric whom I found intolerable to work for. One day, I decided I was too old to put up with this nonsense, and asked Malcolm, my new husband and partner (and long-time independent entrepreneur himself) to set me up in my own business. He suggested I join him in an enterprise he'd just started.

Since the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial commemoration was about to begin, and an important stretch of the Lewis & Clark Trail came through our region, Malcolm started publishing a free newsletter, supported financially by advertising, to provide education about the original Lewis-Clark expedition, and showcase upcoming events and activities related to the Bicentennial. Things looked promising.

I gave notice at Hasting, and took that scary next step. Malcolm continued to write and format the newsletter while I distributed and sold advertising space. During this period, serendipity raised its welcome head!

While distributing the newsletter, largely to gift stores and visitor industry businesses, I was often asked where to find Lewis & Clark motif items to buy wholesale and sell retail as souvenirs to traveling tourists. Malcolm did some research on how to operate a business as a "manufacturer's representative", and went online to find Lewis & Clark products. One of the more interesting items we found, was a line of Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea candy bars from North Dakota. We pasted together a "rep agreement", contacted the North Dakota chocolatier, and chocolate became our first line of offerings.

At the time we began our wholesale repping business, there were only a couple books written on the subject (both out-of-print and somewhat out-of-date), no "how to" trainings to attend, and no one to mentor us. We started the business from scratch, the hard way, learning what we needed to know as we grew the business. Most of our sales leads were 'cold calls' to stores, and lines were added willy nilly in those early years, wherever we could find a willing vendor.

For the first year, we were equally involved in the business, with Malcolm gravitating toward recruiting and working with vendors and developing of business systems, while I called on gift stores, and handled order processing and bookkeeping.

After a year, we saw an opportunity in the market, and Malcolm launched his own line of gourmet foods. Since we were already a gift and gourmet marketing company, with good sales systems in place, his line of products became successful very quickly. At that point, we split the business and I become the sole proprietor of the sales rep business. I resisted at first, but soon I grew to enjoy and prefer the opportunity to make all my own business decisions. And of course, he was always there to run ideas by, and give me his opinions.

Lewis Clark Trivia and Gift is where I first started my sales repping experience

My first products as an independent 'road rep' to the gift industry consisted of Lewis & Clark motif gifts and souvenirs. In those early days, I traveled up and down the Lewis & Clark trail from as far as North Dakota all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Selling and traveling was great fun! But, alas, the bi-centennial celebration was only a few years long and my customers were asking for more and more local products. Traveling so far was becoming difficult as well, so I made a change.

Idaho Gifts Wholesale was born

Rather than focusing on just Lewis & Clark products, I began taking in any and all vendors I could find from my home state of Idaho. Narrowing my sales routes to Idaho only was an easy change and I opened many more wholesale accounts by selling huckleberry, (Idaho state fruit!) and potato motif products! Of course, I also had a couple great lines of souvenirs, some cards lines, and several lines of Idaho gourmet foods. The economy was good, Idaho had lots of tourist visiting the area, and my business was booming!!

In 2004, a password-protected wholesale-only website, www.IdahoGiftsWholesale.com, was added to the business. Many different products and companies are featured along with several resources pages specifically for helping gift retailers with their businesses. And we began getting orders for Idaho products from all over the country!

Over the years, Idaho Gifts Wholesale, a division of Gourmet Innovations LLC, became one of the largest "manufacturer's representative" company on the web. Specializing in products made in and for Idaho, Idaho Gifts, which started out as a independent manufacturer sales representative company, has evolved into a dominant marketing company for Idaho-made products.

In the fall of 2002, the my husband, Malcolm and I jumped into the specialty food industry by starting our own gourmet foods company, Tastes of Idaho (another division of Gourmet Innovations LLC). Our food line features humorous labeled products: Idaho Redneck and a elegant foil labeled line: Gold Mountain huckleberry products.

A companion retail site, www.TastesofIdaho.com was published featuring dozens of Idaho companies with hundreds of products. Huckleberry became a dominate theme along with potato-based gifts and gourmet goodies. A gift basket feature was added, giving customer the choice of purchasing stock gift baskets or designing their own! The site listed a large selection of baskets, nearly a dozen colors of shred and over 200 products to add to these custom baskets. Our business became a hit with the customers and the Idaho manufacturer's whose products we purchased for the site.

Life was good, the business was growing, and I felt I had found my life-long dream as an independent business owner!

Who would have guessed what would happen next to our growing business .... Being in my 50's (double ouch!!), my health was as good as could be expected. Going all the time, working with this customer and that vendor .... but seemingly overnight I started getting very tired and fatigued; making more and more silly mistakes that I did not understand. One spring as I was getting ready for my first sales trip of the season, I tripped and severely injured my ankle. Spending April and May one the couch calling customers between pain pills was not my idea of a good time!

About the same time, the failing economy hit in a BAD way. The Boise area, where most of my largest account resided, got hit hardest when Micron, the major employer in the area, starting lay-off hundreds of Boise valley workers. Within a year, 8 of my 10 largest accounts closed, went bankrupt and moved out of the area! I was scrambling - trying to make sales where I could only to find the referrals to new stores I had been given were dead ends!

Even after my ankle healed, my general health continued to decline. I had no energy to 'chase the sales' (as my husband called it) and I just plain lost my zeal for life. My memory was becoming less and less clear. When one day came with more than the usual balancing and coordinating schedules, I felt like I had totally lost control of my life and everything in it! No longer did I feel I was able to carry on the schedule I was keeping. Memory loss was becoming a way of life for me and, out of necessity, I began drastically cutting back on my travel and eventually, my entire sales rep business.,

All during this time, Malcolm kept encouraging me to 'write my story'. Although I was unable to work for long periods, writing was something I COULD do. So off I went .... writing a book on How to Start a Sales Representative Business (still in the workings!), setting up my first lens on Squidoo, starting my blog: www.SellingtoGiftShops.com ... Writing took my mind off my limitations.

I continued to work my shrinking sales rep business best I could. Malcolm went with me on short sales trips and my best customers called or emailed orders. Thank goodness, the website was fairly active with potential buyers and orders. Although I told my vendors the truth about my health, most of my customer never knew I was struggling ... Heck, we were all struggling, trying to rebound from the poor economy!

Social networking was becoming very popular, so I set up an account on FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter (among several others), and started working with more and more gift producers via the internet. The work became fascinating to me ... and I was no longer "on stage" like I was in the rep business! My social media travels and my writing began to help other producers out in cyberland. Slowly, I found value in the work I was able to accomplish.

In the meantime, a naturopathic doctor moved into the area. I immediately signed up for the preliminary testing and found that most of my memory and fatigue issues were caused by gluten, egg and dairy intolerances. What a godsend to finally have some answers! The doctor put me on a strict diet and prescribed several different supplement and medications. Seemingly overnight, I began to heal. My energy picked up, and my memory decline stopped. The diet was quite a challenge at first, but the benefits have paid off.

It has been a few years since my diagnoses, and I am still continue to heal ... The best part -- I spend so much of my 'downtime' working websites and blogs and have enjoyed the benefits of my learning and teaching others.

There is a saying: "When God closes a door, he opens a window". I found my "window' in web work! Both Malcolm and I are striving to learn and more about the on-line business. How to design and market effective websites has consumed a large part of of time and efforts. And, of course, the financial rewards are very satisfying!