It Just Got Better

So my 6th sale was one of my most memorable and maybe the most rewarding.  I got a message from a 1st Grade Teacher in KY that wanted a custom banner for her classroom.  She had a jungle theme in her room and wanted her banner to be a part of and reflect that theme.  My first instinct was jungle colors of greens, yellows, browns etc...  Not the case with this request, she was looking for animal prints with teal, purple, black and white.  So I went to my stash and had nothing of the sort.  As a new shop I was more than eager to come up with the perfect banner her.  I didn't want to disappoint her or have to tell her I couldn't do it.  So I set out on a mission to find exactly what she was looking for.  I hit my suppliers and found some really cool animal print paper, coordinating solids and embellishments to match.  I once again had that vision of how I wanted it to look.  I got home laid it all out and for some reason something just seemed off, but I went ahead and assembled everything thinking it just needed to be together and maybe it would POP!  I hung it up and....that's not what happened, not at all.  I kept looking at it and something was just not sitting right with me.  How could I ship this banner to someone when I don't have that "this is it" feeling.  Once again I don't want to disappoint.  This is what I came up with.  I think it was just to "busy" and a little hard to read.

So I had to do what I could imagine is the worst feeling for any Etsy seller and contact her to say: 

"something is just not sitting right with me on this banner. I feel like the letters don't stand out enough. I want to re-do it with black or white letters. I know I told you it would go out by today, but are you ok with it going out on Monday? I really liked working with you and don't want you to be disappointed. What do yo think?"

In my eyes the worst thing I could do as a new seller.  Great, so much for customer service, there goes this order out the window.  Telling someone their order was not going out as planned had me worried.  I really liked working with this lady and what a great impression that was going to make!  So I went to her class blog and sat down and just looked at the pictures she had of her classroom.  Then it was as if the clouds had lifted and I had a clear vision of how I wanted this to look.  So back at it I went again!  I was not going to let her down, that's not my style!  So I get it all laid out and snap a photo and send it to her.



What came next was "LOVE this! Perfect for my room. Thank you so much for sticking with it :-)"  Whewww, now that was a great feeling!  Eureka, I had done it!  This order was finally complete!  But even better was the response that I got next.  Never in a million years would I have guessed what was going to come next, an incredible opportunity to be a part of her blog and even better a giveaway!!!!  Not only does she have an awesome blog full of creativity but she offers information to other teachers that may be helpful to them in their classrooms, it doesn't get much better than that!  An order gone wrong has turned out to be one of the most important sales my shop has had!  What an fantastic opportunity!  Check it out, how cool is this:

Queen of the First Grade Jungle      

  

Thank you Queen of the First Grade Jungle!  You have definitely opened new doors for me!