Our Olive Oil more good news

[rox]

BTDT,
For some we get an award, for others we get a huge Certificate. For the Los Angeles County Fair Best In Show, for International Light Olive Oil we got a very nice engraved vase. You do get something physical to prove that you won.

jsut as I suspected we did come up good eggs in Paris, I also think I figured out why but it is going to take a little bit roe sleuthing on my part.

I didn't ehar a darn thing back last week from i gourmet dot come either. They were to have tasted it last Tuesday, so I guess I'll give them to Tuesday before i follow up again. In the meantime today I finally finished labeling and packing the USA order, man what a job that is. I packed 30 cases today. Next come a task I really don't enjoy, working with the shipping companies, ugg what a PIA. First i have to output all the shipping labels, a label for every box and preparing a shipping manifest, ugg ugg ugg.

Tomorrow we have helpers, yeah! There is an olive oil school in St Remey de Provence which is not far from us. The students as is typical in the French education system, they do a lot of internships. We had a student help us for a week at the hrvest and now she has come back to learn tree pruning, and she borugh another fellow with her. My husband's brother does a pretty good job selling our olive oil to his customers and friends and acquaintences. A friend of somebody my brother in law sold our oil to was talking to Paul, orur second intern about him goig to olive school. He said when it was time to do internships he should look us up as we make pretty good olive oil. So that is hw we got the second intern. They show up tomorrow with a loopers, a pruning shears and a hand saw. Yippie! 4 extra hands for a week. While I ahve been ding all this inside work my husband has been steadily pruing trees. He is getting tired if it now though, we have been doing this practically non stop since December 27th. We took soem time to spray round up to kill the weeds that are jsut starting to grow. I drive the tractor and my husband walks behind and sprays.

The almond trees are almost in full bloom, almost. Then my husband will go spray them one more time to kill this pesky little insect that really hits our almod crop hard. now this year finally our chemical salesman has given us the right chemical. So let's hope this year we git the little buggers. I still have 5 almond trees left to prune, after having worked on them for 2 years straight. Finally in 2007 we will ahve finished a major pruning of allt he almond trees and it is time to go back around already and clean out again.

No other big news, jsut work, work, work. Can't wait for our son to come over on Saturday, I am really looking forward to seeing him as I have not seen him since july of 2005. With the two extra helpers here for a week, hopefully we can be getting close to finishing our pruning and enjoy a little down time with our son.

 

[AlanB]

Work will still be there Rox, make sure you spend the time with your son.

Sounds like things are going great though

Congrats on the awards. I know it has to make you feel great to see some recognition for your hard work.

 

[rox]

Y I P P I E !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We got the New Customer I wanted i Gourmet dot com!!!!!


I made one last phone call to the buyer, I mean really this was going to be my last call. Our 4 pallets are all stacked and ready to be stretch wrapped.
We were so tired that I jsut decided to wait until tomorrow to select my final choice for freight company, even though I could have done it at the end fo the day. So we are basically done and I decided to make one last attempt to get this new customer and I got through and talked to him on the phone and he is placing an order. he said he will roder within the hour.

I can't beleive it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If any of you TBNers are in sales you know how much effort goes into establishing a new customer, especially for retail and liek this internet company. They get so many samples, they get so many e-mails, and so many phone calls it is near impossible to get through. this is the first time I actually got to speak with him, the rest was all by e-mail and also talking with others who worked in the business in customer service. When I coudl not get the buyer I would give my same sales speil to whoever answered the phone and begged them to tell the buyer this information. Well I do think that worked the best, i got through by talking to associate level staff and they promoted our product to the buyer.

Now I am relaly finished seeking new customers. Well fo course I hope the oil sells well by this company, ti should sell well, it has a lot of credentials and over the internet people can't try the oil, so seeing awards won will hopefully sway them to purchase and then if they like it, re-order.

I am sjut posting here because i have to kill an hour becasue he said it would be an hour for him to put his order together. it is going to be so nice not to focus on marketing. Now I can focus on the tourism. We are finding out that tourists buy a lot of olive oil, they come and visit the farm and buy direct. I have made strides in this area of our business but i can do more. Man I'm really glad to get this new customer, really glad. I even went and opened a celebratory beverage.

 

[milkman]

That is GOOD news, I'll wait and see if they get back in touch with me, if not I will be getting hold of them end of next week. You deserve a cool one.

 

[rox]

They ordered 50 Cases!!!!!!!!!!!
That is a good order for a first order, our oil is pricey.

Soon all you TBNers will be able to buy our olive oil over at i gourmet dot com, is that not super cool?

Milkman, who knows if it helped or not but I am positive it did not hurt at all that you asked about oil form Salon de Provence. We got the Order, 50 cases!!!!!!!!!

YIPPIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey it is times like these that this big font was made for...
OTOH, could be the adult beverage I am still sipping that is generating that huge font...

 

[Phils]

our oil is pricey.

I've bookmarked their website but see where they sell 100ml bottles of vinegar for $160! Now THAT'S pricey!

Glad you got in, it looks like a great site. Will we recognize yours when it appears?

Phil

 

[Bird]

Gosh, Rox, sure glad you don't get excited about anything. But congratulations anyway.

 

[rox]

Bird, I am a very enthusiastic gal, and I guess you could tell that from the font I selected . I don't recall ever usig a big font like this before, but really I am overjoyed to get this order. i am the same way for others when they have joys and successes.

We came from a long way to get this. When my husband and I bought this olive farm we sold everything and even had to borrow the last $60,000 from my parents (which we are still paying back) because the US dollar kept falling and it was almost a year between the offer to purchase and the final closing. Then a month before the closing the owners of the farm, the husband died. Thankfully it was int he wifes name. So we close, she gets her mega check and as part of our contract we were to get the company records customer lists etc.

So we waited a respectable amount of time, seeing as how she was a new widow and all, and approached her for the customer list. Well she tells us she doens't ahve one it was all in her husband's head, and he's now deceased.

So now we sit here thinking we bought a turn key operation, only to find out that we dont' ahve a single customer, this was 2004. Here we thought we would jsut take over and not really have to do any business development. Not so.

Plus my hsuband had told me that he really didn't want to do any sales type of work, sales calls etc. he jsut isn't a sales type guy. So i knew that going in, but we both never expected nto to have a single customer.

The effort has been tremendous to find repeat steady customers, enough of them to sell all the oil to every year. the fall back is we sell to the mill but then we dont' make as much money. Finding, signing up and keeping customers is really hard work, and work we didn't expect to do. So basically it has fallen on my shoulders to bring in the olive oil revenue. It is a lot of strees, having to carry that load. Now with this new customer, now I can finally breath, now really I feel we are full up and the stress level will go down. We don't want to get any bigger than we are. we dont' want to go out and buy olive oil and put it in our bottles and put our name on it. On our back labels we have our names on them. If it has my name on it, I only wnat it to be our olive oil. This is our retirement, well early retirement, but we are not out to make this thing so big that we have to hire help or kill ourselves to maintain it. You don't want to get to many customers becasue then you cna't fill their orders because you don't ahve enough olive oil of your own.

If this new acount stays with us and the public buys through them, it is jsut perfect, we would have the perfect amout of customers. he placed the perfect sized order, ti was exactly the amount I was hoping he would order, and actually i suggested this amount to him. This had been a 3 year effort and finally today I ahve met all the marketing goals i set, so yeah I'm a little giddy...

 

[Bird]

Yep, Rox, major accomplishments do tend to leave us a little giddy at times. And I'm glad for you. I know you and your husband have worked hard and earned and deserved success.

 

[EddieWalker]

Rox,

CONGRATS!!! You more than earned it. Steph and I are very proud of your accomplishment and feel honored that you've chosen to share it with us.

Eddie & Steph