Growing Your Business

Sometimes, to grow your business, you need to take a step back… As business owners, we easily get caught up in those mundane tasks we need to do to keep our business working. But when you’re in the trenches of your business, day after day, it can be hard to see the bigger picture. But […]

It’s not you… Has this ever happened to you – a customer comes into your store or booth, looks around for a while and then when you ask them if they have any questions, they say “no thanks” or even a “there’s nothing here for me”?! Ugh. Customer rejection can feel like a gut punch […]

You can call me the Queen of Procrastination* *sometimes ;) Some days I’m killing it, getting stuff done, really knocking it out of the park. But then on those “other” days, dang, not even close. So, I wondered why that was, why are some days so damn awesome and others are total duds? Sure, there […]

A lightbulb customer is someone who gives you a moment of sudden inspiration or realization. In the early years of Essential Packaging, circa 1995, all of our packaging products came in cases of various quantities. For our first Christmas, we brought in this line of matching gift bags and boxes in assorted holiday patterns. But they […]

Ah, those slow selling products… If you’re a small business retailer or maker, chances are you’ve got some slow selling products, am I right? Of course you do, we’ve all had them and that’s ok. Slow sellers can happen for a variety of reason including when too many of a particular kind were made or […]

What do colours say to your customers? Is it something we entrepreneurs even think about? We usually pick our brand colour when we start our businesses and then we forget about it. Or we randomly use any colours for our socials, emails or website. But the colours you use for your small business (in your […]