We have some super exciting news to share with you! We've recently been confirmed to feature as 'Pioneers of the week' on Virgin Media's Pioneers website in the next coming weeks, so watch this space. The website is a celebration of success stories as well as a platform for advice and tips for small start up businesses. In light of this, we thought we would share some of our business insight and why we are proud of our little company and what we've achieved. You can read more about our back story here.
We at Create Gift Love (formerly Made Lovingly Made) are a small but very efficient company built around hard work and determination. Starting from nothing with no start up financial support or advice, things are certainly a lot different now looking back at our humble beginnings in 2012. There has been a lot of late nights, educated risks, not to mention mistakes and the annoyance of hindsight. We have made business changing decisions which have given us a great foundation to work from. To date they have included, buying equipment in light of ‘potential’ growth, employing staff, moving premises, obtaining marketing insights and the development of software.
Introducing a new system in our design process in 2014 meant we could produce lots more personalised goodies simultaneously and therefore our turnaround was a lot quicker = happy customers! This decision has had a huge impact on our productivity and we are now in the position to deal with large quantity orders from corporate clients as well as individual consumers producing over 800 personalised orders during busy periods.
All of our items are made in our workshop in Dorset and we have used our profit wisely investing in state-of-the-art equipment to guarantee the quality of products. All artwork is proofed before going into production and hand finished and polished before going through a meticulous QC check. Other competitors creating similar personalised, wooden gifts are of no threat to us in terms of quality and turnaround.
We feel proud to be leading the way in terms of innovation and Emily and Tony are often scribbling ideas down throughout the day, even sometimes when they wake up in the middle of the night! Some of our clients include Chewton Glen Hotel and Estee Lauder as well as various celebrities who can be seen walking round with one of our Never Forget Keyrings.
We are also very passionate about conserving the environment, we make sure all of our materials are ethically sourced, where possible, from local business to keep our carbon footprint to a minimum. We are also members of Make it British and Still Made in Britain and we’re proud to be contributing to the UK manufacturing industry. Creating jobs for people locally also feels great, which is in fact a real family affair with Tony’s dad and cousin and Emily’s brother all being integral members of the team.
2015 has been our best year to date and we have recently invested in a full time Marketing Manager to drive our brand profile and social media presence. Things haven't always been easy and we would tell that to any person wanting to start up a business, however, the positives most definitely outweigh the struggles and we hope our story can motivate others to fulfill their dreams and 'change the world'.
