Thursday, April 25, 2013

Them's the breaks.....Part 3

Evening all,

I suppose this is a bit of a sub blog...the blog within the main blog.....but it is important and we don't know where this might end up, so sit down beside me & let's see where we go.

OK, today I had another meeting with the client,  Mr Big (that's what I've decided to call him)...to present the concepts for the packaging design

I'm not sure yet quite what   to make of him....my gut instinct tells me he's okay....I think we are just sussing each other...but how we will get on long term.....
well it is too early to say, we both know that... Mr Big & me.

What Mr Big wants  from  me is to produce all his salads & sandwiches...agree a decent margin (for him), roll up & stock the fridges...what I am getting are lots of promises from him about volume, dollar signs, more big contracts...


When I suggested a  packaging design  that would be exclusive to his empire, which I would organise , Mr  Big was hooked because......that, as the Spice Girls once sang...
that was, what he really, really wanted.

Inside.....Mr Big wants much more than just sandwiches & salads in generic branded packaging.

Mr Big, has big ideas, he has massive footfall, he also has, not  just money to invest, but that generous spirit that means, he doesn't expect me to take the fall if it doesn't work out....not for the first month, at least.....

Yes, myself ( aka The Delicious Food Co) & Mr Big  are standing at the top of the cliff all decked out in our bungee jumping gear and we are ready to jump.

Watch this space.....

Shirley x



Sunday, April 21, 2013

Them's the breaks.....Part 2

Hello again,

After posting my blog on lucky breaks I started getting very nervous.What if it doesn't happen....what if the client changed his mind..I'm a firm believer that "one in the hand is worth two in the bush" and this one was very much still in the bush. A few unanswered voice messages & I started to feel very jittery....had he changed his mind...had a change of heart ...had he brought me to the top of the cliff to show me the view only to push me off....(that's happened to me before & it  wasn't pretty....) I need this bit of business.....I need the challenge....

I'll text him I thought....be assertive...assumptive....use the word "when we start" rather than "if you still want to to ahead"...... "when" is the language of winners...".if" is not ...The good news is that it looks like this is going ahead....we've had a meeting...he's been emailing me the stuff I asked from him....he's tackled a potential stumbling block head on.....

I've met my designer, Creative Goddess, Orla Brosnan & we're putting together  some concepts for the packaging....

The client is getting very excited....and therein  I've just learned something very important.....
at this stage, the client needs me as much as I need him...he's counting on me...as much as I am counting on him.... We are at the top of the cliff , looking at the view side by side....there has been a shift in the balance of power...

I might well just have the edge.....

Fingers crossed !



Shirley x

Monday, April 15, 2013

Moving Out....

Evening all,

I'm moving out.....actually it's probably more correct to say I'm moving in....

Since September 2008 I've been renting an office, just around the corner from the kitchen...my own private little oasis of heaven..... somewhere that is just mine.....somewhere to escape to.... my bolt hole..my potting shed.....

It's also where I have done a phenomenal amount work, accounts, sales, quality audits and of course 100,000's of labels. It's where I have received great news & bad news, in relation to business accounts won & lost...Where I have order docket books with over 12,000 invoices all recorded in neat monthly sales reports by me...

 It's also where I keep my personal diary of the highs & lows of my life as a person rather than as a food producer... the contents of which would make quite a movie.....

But things are changing, my lovely landlady is planning change & needs my  office & I have no option but to surrender my bolt hole and rather than look for another office, I've decided to move back home.....Strangely I am really excited about this.....I've just realised how much I've missed being at home....I'm often in my little van from 6.30am gone before anybody gets up, home after Mr Delicious has cooked dinner.

 I miss home....

My office will be in the tiny utility room, which will be made over like a centre spread in Elle Deco.
It will  be the control centre of The Delicious Food Co's planned expansion.....in between closing deals, I'll go jogging down the canal, I'll go for coffee with my neighbourhood friends...  I'll take the dog for walks.....I'll snack on raw carrots & eat nuts...I'll probably take up yoga...the frantic pace that I lived my life for the past number of years will stop

I will never again wonder at 5.30am, what the hell am I going to wear today..

I'll be one of those super organised business women I've read about in magazines....I'll be a new me, a different me, a more relaxed me...

The problem is.....where the hell will I hide my diary....

Shirley x

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Them's the breaks....Part 1

Hello again,

If you read my last blog "A pub, A Thesaraus etc..." apologies, that was a draft that I posted, so I hadn't really lost my marbles with a rambling blog about me , President Obama & my beloved dad..I was just trying out some ideas never meant for public view...

A valuable lesson in blogging learnt.

Anyway back to the breaks ...which can turn a business round.

Every business needs a lucky break, a phone call, a chance meaning, being in the right place at the right time. Lucky breaks tend to come from your own hard work.... following a lead that another person might have ignored....That "we make our own luck" is probably a truism in life..it's just that sometimes it seems that no matter how many doors we knock on that lucky break seems very elusive.

I've had a lot of lucky breaks at The Delicious Food Co, but in fairness the genesis of the lucky break came from ourselves. On Friday, I had a meeting with a potential client that might well be a lucky break of epic porprtions. The client wants to upgrade their whole food offering and sees my love & passion for food as a way to do that.They have worked with me before, they like my style & my vision and are willing to invest to get it right. It's a huge challenge, we are going to work as partners, develop things slowly.... the client speaks my language... albeit with a very different accent.

He has been very clear...we will work together, but I will have to deliver in terms of sales at his end. He will give me a much help as I need, but I am the expert and the expectation will be high...
but....
he says if it doesn't work out like any relationship, I'll find, my phone stops ringing, texts will go unanswered & I will gradually realise I am being dumped


This could be the challenge of my career and I am so ready for it..

Wish me luck....

Shirley x

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Bridal Suite without Mr Delicious

Hello again,

Oh.. it's been busy few days..I spent Monday & Tuesday @ Going for Growth National Forum...in beautiful Barbertown Castle, where us girls gathered en masse to network & learn more about being Entrepreneurs..it's a great mentoring system whereby successful female entrepreneurs mentor a group for 6 months. Now, I'm not a "let's burn our bras" kinda girl, but this is great. Our mentor, the wonderful Miriam Byrne from City Analysts, told us to leave our life outside business at the door & engage as a business people for the 6 months duration of the process.

Miriam is my kind of "sistas doing for themselves" kind of girl...no bull.

If you've been following my blog...you will have a sense of the drama of my food producer life....the highs & lows...the agony & the ecstasy , the sleepless nights of worry, so it's with great joy that I can tell you that in the surround of so much positive energy & talent & the comfort of my four poster bed I had my best nights sleep in months, alone.

Bon soir

Shirley x

Sunday, April 7, 2013

A Labels Queen ? Moi ?..,

Hello again,

I've had some tips on blogging from some true pros (cheers Grace & Shane @THEATREclub), & they've suggested I shorten my musings ...I'll do my best...but no promises..

Today I'm going to tell you about me & my relationship with labelling...anybody who knows me well, will tell you that this girl spends too much time on labels...In as much as it is an irony of my life that I am a food producer, it is an even greater one that I have spent so much of my life in Reads of Nassau Street. I'm sure it is no coincidence that my favourite pub in Dublin is The Bailey on Duke Street, just a stroll away from Reads, where I have spent many hours waiting to pick up yet another batch of labels, meeting friends having just picked up labels....labels....labels.....labels..

Labelling is a legal requirement on all foodstuffs, not produced on the premises. Most labelling is applied by machine, but no so in The Delicious Food Company, here, unlike our food which is "made with love & packaged with humour", this does not extend to the physical act of printing or applying labels....no love...no humour...

Last December we took delivery of a new labelling printing machine & 20,000 beautifully designed labels...In the last three months I have printed every single one of of those labels, inserted the best by date, typed in a daily musing....printed them off in my office..& rolled them up ready for application to our produce in the kitchen...hours & hours of labelling...

If there was a pie chart of my life there would definitely be a portion allocated to time I spend labelling... printing labels, sticking on labels, collecting labels from printers, but things are about to change...I'm moving office & leaving my labelling days behind.The labelling machine is not coming with me...we're over.

I've just taken delivery of another 20,000 labels but they are in the kitchen where the machine is headed. This morning I printed over 600 labels, hopefully it is the last Sunday morning I'll have to do that...

Now...what will I do to find the void.....

Shirley x

PS: The Delicious Food Co,salads & sandwiches are stocked in
All Fresh Supermarkets, Mortons Hatch St, Lighthouse Cinema, Spar Merrion Row/Mount St/Dame St/Barrow St/Tara St/Kilmainham/Cracked Nut/Georges St/Green Door Bakery/ Citibank/Ubode/ESBI


Thursday, April 4, 2013

Delicious meets Gok Wan....The Make Over

Hello there,

So, you think this is easy, do you ? You just tap on the link & up I pop, me in all my naked (OK exposed) glory...all those emotions...those highs & lows.... fears & jubilation...the agony & the ecstasy of my life as a food producer.

Well let me tell you ..it's not.

I thought starting my blog would be hard, getting it going, finding my voice, that would be the hard thing, but now that I think  I've done that & I like where this is going  the challenge is to keep you interested, amused & informed.. I also  want you to know that whilst the going is tough I'm doing okay.

So take a seat beside me, in my little van & let me share with you my latest musings.

I don't think I've told you my story about how I got here with The Delicious Food Co. We have a been around for about seven years now  and in that time have  been a supplier of premium sandwiches & salads to the in house cafes of many of Dublin's most salubrious joints; Google, RTE, Deloitte, PWC, Ernst & Young, Citibank, AVOCA to name but a few, hundreds & thousands of items to discerning customers.Yet for some reason, I never really felt accepted.The Cafe Sols, The Artizans....they were grabbing all the limelight, whilst there we were with our gorgeous genuine artisan breads, our mini salad pots, our 1,000 items into Google every week, a client list others would kill for...so why did it feel that nobody noticed us.

One evening at a networking event I met a man who introduced me to a concept that incredibly I hadn't really considered before...That chance meeting with the man I now refer to as Gok Wan, changed everything...you see he had heard of us...he was sure he had tasted us....but he couldn't see us,  we had been so busy working, producing & delivering our produce we neglected the most important thing..ourselves  Gok Wan introduced me to the concept known as BRANDING..

It was such a Eureka moment... I knew we were good at what we did, were busy, even after the recession kicked in,  we operated so far  under the radar we had no recognisable identity. Gok Wan gently pointed out that what I needed was ...a MAKEOVER.


Meetings were arranged, design agency appointed...the makeover  commenced.There was a snag....the agency just didn't get me...they were making me look like something from "Tesco's finest"
all twinset & pearls, a poshness  that just wasn't me...They kept telling me that they knew about branding & I kept telling than the brand was mine...so like all relationships that are going nowhere fast..we parted...This makeover was going to be tougher than I thought

Then like manna from heaven, God gave me another chance...when I met Orla Brosnan in car park (don't ask...) of  the Hilton Hotel in Kilmainham

My God ...is Orla Brosnan of BCreative talented or what..she totally got me....she knew that this girl wouldn't be seen dead in a twinset...this girl is more of a hippy chick ...together we have made The Delicious Food Co into a brand, a tiny minuscule brand at this stage ....but it's there...our delicious food, made with love packaged with humour. People say I'm a peoples person My best friend once said to me when I was chatting to somebody, that if I could take the elements of my personality & package it & sell it I could make a fortune. I just never thought it would happen.

And now it has....Shirley...food producer...available in a salad pot near you.



Who'd have thought it.....


Shirley x