Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A Tidbit of Info

I gotta admit, since the CropChocolate.com launch I have used words I have never used before. Tidbit is a perfect example. It's so fitting though; tidbit: a choice morsel of food, a choice or pleasing bit. Anyway...

So we're half way through Leti being gone. It hasn't been easy and we recognize how patient you've been while we've run repeats. We have been shopping and McCall has filled our trailer full of treats but there's one thing we're facing--man-power to kit the product. We will never get in the situation we were in three months ago--that is not kitting product before we sell it.

So this is what we're gonna do. Included in the repeats, each day we will feature two new products. On Saturday the 3rd we will feature only one deal--a new deal--at 3pm Eastern. On Sunday the 4th we will be closed. On Monday the 5th we will feature only one deal--a new, different deal--at 3pm Eastern. Next Tuesday we have another employee that will start and she will just kit new product. Her name is Jasmine, she just graduated from high school and is looking for summer work. We will post a picture of her, Corbin, Benjamin, Yanet and Thadeus in the next few days so you can get to know them a little gooder.

As always, thank YOU! We are way SWEET on YOU!

Best,

Jon N.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

A Leak in the Company

Maybe it's not a good idea to leak information on upcoming changes...then again, maybe it is. After all, lots of the peeps in the news purposely leak information to get press coverage. Well we're not doing it for press coverage--nobody in the press cares about the la Carte. But we know who does; YOU!

On Sunday we are going to pause the sales on the site. You will still be able to chat on SweetTALK, post pictures, follow the progress as we roll out the changes and just chat and stuff.

Here's the leakage part. Below are two pics of what the new la Carte will look like. The Complete Transaction button will always be there--blaring red saying BUY FROM US, BUY! BUY! BUY! We're desperate!!! JK.

Also there's a box that will tell you what your total of your order is. It calculates only the checked boxes. Where you see the question marks, there will be pics of the product.



There's a rat in CropChocolate.com!

Best,

CropChocolate.com

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

What a Week!

There's a scene in the movie Camelot--it's probably in the play too--where King Arthur has escaped the kingdom of Camelot to get a little time just before meeting Guinevere. He sings a song that starts with, "I know what my people are thinking tonight." First of all it seems a bit pretentious to even call you my people or put myself in a king's shoes. However, since we talk back-and-forth on the Sweet and Sour Comment section and since we often times try to fulfill many of your requests, I feel like we have a kinship. Definitely a friendship but more like a familiar thing going.

Why do I bring this up? The past few days have been a bit slow--we realize that. So here's why. When we broke off from our old fulfillment company we stole one of their best and brightest--a Mexican born American that moved here legally when she was eight. Her dad got a great job offer in Nevada, worked on a visa until they could apply for citizenship, took the tests and became legal citizens. Opportunity eventually led the family to Utah. She's now married with two kids.

We quickly saw her potential and made her an offer from working as a menial labor employee at the old fulfillment center to managing our warehouse. You have seen the difference she's made in just a few short months. Many of you are getting your packages in less than 5 business days and we're thrilled with what she's done. Sure we still have some obstacles that we're working on daily but we're close to the sweet spot!

When we hired Leti we told her we would increase her salary and give her a bonus on a percentage of fulfillment. If the warehouse is 98% accurate and 98% of the shipments are sent before their deadlines (2 business days for a normal order and 5 business days for a la Carte order), we would give her a generous bonus. So far she's rocked it and we couldn't be happier.

But like in every good story, conflict enters stage-right. A few weeks ago Leti called and said her family was going to Mexico for 3 weeks to visit her grandparents--perhaps for the last time. They were going to drive from SLC to El Paso and on to some city that McCall and I can't even pronounce. So what do you say or do when a valued employee asks for such a thing. She's not going to sit on some beach--we think. She's going to see her grandparents who's health is failing.

Here's what we did. We paid her a bonus, told her to travel safely and come back to Utah--CropChocolate.com needs her.

How does this relate back to King Arthur's song? We try to read as many posts and requests as possible. These past few days it's been impossible because we've had to pick up Leti's workload. We know you're thinking, "Where's the new SWEETS?"

Unlike King Arthur, we're not scared. We're not quailing or quaking. We just working as hard as we can to get those treats off our shelves and into your homes.

Thanks for understanding!

Best,

Jon N.

PS - We are also shopping. A lot!

Friday, June 18, 2010

The CropChocolate.com Family

About six months ago we asked for volunteer designers to participate in a program called the Chocolatiers. It was a wildly popular program that never really got off the ground. We sent out 90 free kits in the first month of the program and the Chocolatiers sent pictures back of amazing creations and ideas. At the same time we rolled out this program, we had some gigantic growing pains--we had so many orders that our warehouse could not keep up with the demand and most of you patiently waited while we made huge changes to our warehouse operations and now we're close to being in the sweet spot.

The Chocolatier program went silent while we were going through re-organizational pangs and as of a few weeks ago, it was flat on its face. Then we got an email from Megan, a CropChocolate.com member and contributor, about reviving the Chocolatier program. From that email, Megan and McCall started putting together a strategy to revive the program. As of this week, it has been churned, poured and hardened into a program that we hope will be greatly successful--not only for the Chocolatiers but for all the contributors and family members at CropChocolate.com.

Here's what we've done; we're no longer shipping free product to the Chocolatiers, we're giving them CropCredit; and in return, we've asked them to share pictures, instruction, experiences and more so that the visitors and contributors on CropChocolate.com can get ideas and share more ideas on how to use product.

This weekend our goal is to have a few new features on SweetTALK. One of the features will allow contributors to post pictures of their creations. This feature is open to all users on CropChocolate.com and for the Chocolatiers, we have some very specific requests. We are going to run this as a quarterly program for now and as we grow we will increase the occurrences to monthly. There will be times when a Chocolatier will not be able to create during the quarter or month and in this case, we will open the program for substitutes. Although the group is relatively small--140 out of 15,000 viewers and contributors--this number will be increased to many of you who so often share comments, ideas and more.

We are continually amazed at the talent we see as you post pictures in your profiles. When the Chocolatiers emailed their pictures to us of their creations from those 90 give-away kits we were blown away. We are grateful for their response and their support. Just this week McCall asked them to reach out to their favorite brands so they were so quick to jump right in. Already, from their hard work and time, we have a number of new relationships starting to form. They waited patiently as we engaged, discontinued and restarted the Chocolatier program and for that we say THANK YOU!

Our hope is that this group will give more tools and ideas to YOU! And that a few of them go on to become the next Tim Holtz. We have not felt from them that they feel they are an exclusive club but a bunch of family members at CropChocolate.com who have volunteered to give their time and design ideas to YOU and to help us succeed!

We are continually grateful for each member that contributes to CropChocolate.com and each person who spends their hard-earned money to support this growing company. THANK YOU!

Warmest,

CropChocolate.com

Thursday, June 17, 2010

An Update and Stuff

We are deep in the la Carte and SweetTALK changes and wanted to let you know how a few things will work.

1. If you have items in your la Carte when we roll out the new changes, you will have 30 days from the day the la Carte goes live to check those items out.

2. The "Complete Transaction" button will always be displayed on your la Carte page so you can check out any time you want.

3. Each item will have a check box by it. If the item is checked it means you want to purchase that item in the order you're checking out. At the bottom of the la Carte page there will be a calculator that will tell you exactly how much is in your la Carte. This amount will change when you check and un-check items in the la Carte.

4. We will create an order history in your profile where you can look at all the items that you've ordered in the past and plan your future orders and budget. Also, you will be able to see the status of each order--whether it's confirmed, being picked or shipped along with any applicable information like USPS tracking numbers.

5. The ability to post pictures on SweetTALK. This will be a great asset for the Chocolatier program as well as a great way to share your latest creations. Since there are thousands of AMAZING scrapbookers who visit CropChocolate.com each day, it is going to be so dang rad to see what you create, do and more.

Thank YOU all for being part of CropChocolate.com!

Best,

CropChocolate.com

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Update on Car Accident and Site... Mostly the Site

This morning we finally got a call from the insurance adjuster--9 days after McCall's accident. They're going to total out our car. The frame was bent, the engine was damaged and then there's the cosmetic reparations. Unfixable. We now have the pleasure of negotiating the value of the car with all the add-ons and extras. This ain't gonna be fun. BTW, it's a wonder that McCall and Huck walked away unscathed. Thank YOU all for your concern and prayers.

Here's the other news--we are going to make things way gooder for YOU. We haven't hammered out all the details but today we met with our board of directors--yes we have two very sound business minds that we opt to consult with when we make high-dollar value decisions. One is a CEO of a large company and the other is a CFO. We present the reasoning and the expected results and they beat us up for a few hours. So far it's worked out quite well.

So here are the changes:

1 - We are going to give you complete control of your la Carte--meaning you can check out whenever you want. What's more, we are going to allow you to check out parts of your la Carte when you want. Say you have $130 worth of product but you only have a $70 budget. This new function will allow you to choose which items you would like to purchase this week and which items to hold until the budget will allow for another transaction. Here's the catch though. Each item will have an expiration date. You will be able to hold items for a certain number of days until it's removed from your la Carte and put back in circulation. This is gonna be a great tool to help manage your purchases.

2 - More sweetness in SweetTALK. Another change we are going to make is giving more functionality to SweetTALK. Not only will you have an easier way to navigate to SweetTALK but you will be able to add pictures with information on them. We will be able to do great things like contests for a free scrapbook cruise--CropChocolate.com is working with an events company to do a cruise early next year. More details later but for now--or very soon--you will be able to put your pics on SweetTALK!

3 - Order history with status information. Not only are we going to create an order history so you can see what's on the way, what was in an order 2 months ago and what color the items were. You will see what the status on your order is--if it's being picked, if it has shipped, what the tracking number is, how many boxes are in the order and cool stuff like that. Hopefully most of your order questions can be answered through the order history addition.

There are some other really small things that you will like--like a search function on the Past Deals page. The ability to choose color and size when applicable--this is particularly relevant to CropChocolate.com t-shirts and other way sweet things we have on the docket.

We got beat up a little bit in our meeting but some of the rough edges on the CropChocolate.com stone got chipped off in the process for a smoother rolling organization.

Thank YOU all for making this growth possible!

As a side note; we've noticed some customers complaining that the Sweet or Sour Comment section is not used for its intended purpose. Can we just say this--CropChocolate.com belongs to YOU. We haven't said anything about what you say or how you say it because we feel like this site is as much yours as it is ours. We only ask a few things; keep it clean (like 4 letter words clean. We know girls will be girls.), no personal attacks and always say McCall ROCKS! Is that too much to ask?

Thanks again!

CropChocolate.com

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

What a Difference a Second Makes

Soon after McCall and I got married I bought her the safest car on the road--a tank with a big cow guard on the front. We both wanted to start a family right away so her safety and the safety of our children became my primary objective. We pulled some money out of savings and bought the tank and up until today at 11:30 AM it looked like this.

Whenever we travel or when McCall goes someplace this is the vehicle that's driven. On most days McCall will ask me if she should take our smaller economy car that I drive to save money on gas but I always say, "Please take the truck so I know you're safe." Of course she does what I tell her to do because she's a good wife and she knows who the boss is in our home. Just kidding.

This morning I asked her to go pick up some product samples and to run a few errands and all was well until she called upset, "I goe fnweo eonf anfeond neofd!" I responded, "What's wrong baby? Where are you?" She finally got it out, "I just got hit and the person ran!"

"I'll be right there! Where are you?" She told me and I was there in 5 minutes.

McCall was driving through an intersection on a green light and a young boy turned left in front of her without breaking. Luckily she saw him and took on the blow with the front bumper rather than the driver's side door and she was able to slow to about 20 MPH rather than 40. The witnesses all said he entered the intersection at around 40 MPH. With the two combined speeds, McCall took on a 60 MPH (edit: they have just told us that the estimated collision speed was 85 MPH - YIKES!) collision with a Suburban. Both cars smashing to a complete stop. The boy then hit the gas on his vehicle and pushed through the wreckage and went around McCall's car. Quickly McCall thought, "HEY! I'm not paying for your mistake!" and she slammed her car into reverse and chased the boy until she got the license plate number. Then she stopped, called me with a shaky voice, "I goe fnweo eonf anfeond neofd!"

We took care of a few matters then called the doctor's office and reported what had happened. They told us to get to the hospital ASAP so within 30 minutes of the phone call, McCall was put in a backless robe, hooked up to monitors and 4 vials of blood were drawn. All the while, McCall smiled and made friends with the nurses and a few patients in the hospital--one of which McCall said, "We need to take her some flowers and give her stickers and rub-ons for her little girls." As tough as our day was, McCall was looking for ways to make other people's lives better--this particular patient was 100s of miles away from home and had her cervix sewn due to the pressure the twins that she was carrying were putting on her...stuff. Sorry, I'm not a doctor so stuff will have to suffice.

This is why we bought that tank with the cow bumper. Here are a few pics of the after-math:



McCall and Huck are home and healthy tonight and for that we are grateful--grateful for protection and for prayers. Thank YOU! Your prayers were felt!


As a side-note: The police found the runner--he is a 16-year-old who was scared to death. We have been working with our insurance company and the owner of the vehicle's insurance company to come up with a solution. We are in the business of selling scrapbook product at SWEET prices, not ruining teenager's lives.

Thank you again for your prayers and comments on CropChocolate.com! We are continually overwhelmed by your support and love.

Jon and McCall