Catalog Woes

You look at catalogs out there and always think....that would be fun to publish....NOT!

I wanted to share our catalog trials with you all, as I'm sure you'll get a great laugh out of them!

I'm very hands-on. I like to be involved in all projects. I know that at times it's best to sit back and let the professionals handle things, but I still like to watch from the side-lines. As we started moving forward and finding products to debut in the first catalog putting together the "look and feel" of the company, let's say the first try was not so great!

As we did the photo shoot and wrapped up, we started working on wording. If you can't tell, this area is not my strong side. With tons of help from family and friends we finished the first ever Let's Do Tea Catalog! Excited for the launch, nothing could stop us. We had a web site, catalog and a plan, who needed more.

Well the launch of the company was January 1, 2004 and by January 15th over 80% of my blessed catalog was discontinued! Yep, you got it! Not even available if I did have customers. This was a huge learning experience.

We printed 10,000 catalogs and threw away about 9,800 of them. Our catalog has truly evolved since then. Still we make mistakes or get products that tend to have a short life, but it's not an easy job! We have put together a wonderful team that always does our catalog, but like I said in the beginning, I'm very hands-on.

I still pick all our products, handle the photo shoots, and do all the layout and wording. However, there is a team of proof readers (they still miss things), photo touch up (sometimes the pictures still look funny), and more. But we all do our best and put our heart and soul into this time consuming project. We all love this task and look forward to making it better every chance we get.

So check out our newest catalog at www.letsdotea.com

Enjoy the labor!