500 sales calls... only 2 sales (Holiday Business Update)

As of today, this is all that our business has sold for the 2022 holiday season. A couple personalized boards and a few candle packs. Our furniture business set a goal for this year's holiday season, and our goal is to turn nobody away and deliver everything on time for Christmas. Well, looks like we're right on track. No issues here. Maybe one day, with a little bit of hustle and an insane amount of luck, you too can make as much money as us. And an insane amount of luck, you too can look like me. That's been our holiday season update for 2022. Thanks for watching. But seriously, two boards, two boards, that's it. We're expecting to have a booming holiday season, and all we've gotten so far is an order for two boards. I mean, last year, I shipped about 75 boards from my living room. And now I've got a 4,000 square foot warehouse, and I've only sent out two. What is the problem? I know we didn't set a goal this year for a number of boards that we wanted to sell, but that's because we didn't want to limit ourselves with thinking about too small of a number. We legitimately thought we'd be drowning in orders right now because we were expecting to hire salespeople and fulfillment people and be much further along than just the two of us right now. Oh yeah, newsflash, we're just down to the two of us. Jenny does sales and I do building and fulfillment. So that's a big update for you. But we literally spent all year preparing to be slammed this holiday season. We got two lasers set up. We got all sorts of inventory systems. We got our packaging ironed out. I've got a giant warehouse full of industrial-sized tools. Look at this lumber rack. I was expecting to have so much lumber on that rack this time of the year. And just nothing. It's time to be grateful. It's always a good time. It's always a great time to be grateful. When we're stressed and overwhelmed and things aren't going the way that we want, it's time to just stop and be grateful for what we have. We always want more, but we can be grateful for what we have. Today we have boards to fulfill from non-business customers. We have a few dozen customers that don't use us for Christmas gifts. Even if we don't sell another board for Christmas gifts this year, we're still going to be okay. We just got to remember to have joy and be thankful. For what we already have and the customers who already use us. But it's also going to be incredibly depressing if we don't sell more Christmas gifts than we did last year. Yeah, I've kind of been banking on selling more than last year. O'Hara means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. O'Hara means family. Excuse me, sir. Did you clock out for this break? Hey Siri, how many days until Christmas? It's 52 days. 52 days. Is that too early to start asking people to buy Christmas presents? This time last year, people were telling me that they had already bought their Christmas gifts for their clients. So I'm not too early. But unless... Were they lying to me last year? No, nobody's ever lied to get rid of a salesman before. But seriously, all jokes aside, honestly, I don't feel like I was lied to last year. Because people listed specific companies and exact products that they had already purchased for their Christmas gifts. That's a little bit hard to make up on the spot. So what's the problem here? Here's my theory. I'm talking to about a dozen companies right now about holiday gifts. Big companies. Like if I sell these guys, we're gonna blow last year's holiday season out of the water. Most of them have already verbally committed to us as their holiday gift source. And they've even agreed to the price, which is like the last step in a negotiation. But nobody's put in their order yet. I think when it comes to holiday gifts, people decide what they want to do in October. But they wait to actually purchase until closer to November or December. Or, you know, till the last minute. And that makes sense. It's literally the same thing parents do with their kids' Christmas gifts. They know what toy they want to buy, but they wait until the last minute. And then the store's out of that toy. And then they're scrambling, going between eight different stores, trying to find what they wanted to buy. It's just human nature. We wait until the last minute to do things that we decided weeks ago that we were gonna do. But if you wait until November or December to start talking to people, like I did last year, you've completely missed the boat. We just have to have faith in our customers. They're usually honest people. And I'm gonna wreck these relationships if I push them too hard to check out. And this is a little weird. For the first time, I'm filled with joy about the future instead of angst. Usually, I don't know where next month's rent is coming from. And that's honestly really started to wear on me the last few months. But if these holiday orders come through, we'll be able to hire more people, build more boards, and maybe even start designing our first kitchen table. And that gets us really excited. Nobody's gonna believe this. Guys. No joke. Yeah, literally. We were filming the outro for this video. In the middle of filming this video, one of my companies just came through with a order for 120 boards for their holiday guests, for their clients. Hello, $15,000 payday. I'm not even kidding. It just happened today. Gotta have faith. We're not crazy.