Grow! Grow! Grow!

Growing a business is a complicated formula. A “one size fits all” formula for growth does not exist. However, from speaking to many business owners and entrepreneurs we have found that one distinct portion of the equation is necessary regardless of your industry, HARD WORK. It is a requirement for growth and quite frankly cannot be substituted. I think it is safe to say that with the current economic climate, hard work has become a necessity in order to stay competitive.

The entire Tickle Toes teams works very hard to exceed our customers’ needs and will continue to do so. The most recent example of this hard work comes from a member of our tremendous sales team, Amy Hoffman. Last Friday we were expecting her to fax over a last minute rush order. At around 8 pm, as I was on my way out of the office, I glanced over at the fax machine and didn’t see the order. “It’s Friday,” I thought to myself “she’ll send it in the morning.”

The next morning I walked into the office at 8:30 am and sure enough there it was. Out of curiosity, I looked at the time stamp printed across the top of the page, Friday November 20^th 11:24 pm. I was shocked (in a good way) and it actually motivated me. An hour later this same salesperson called to confirm that we had received the order. That kind of hard work and dedication is admirable and impressive.

We are surrounded by individuals who give 100% day in and day out, from our awesome show rooms / sales people to our talented manufacturing team. We are grateful for the team around us and hope that we will be able to grow together.

New Showroom!

Tickle Toes is happy to inform all west coast retailers that Tickle Toes has teamed up with a new showroom in Los Angeles. We are excited to be working with Diana Gonzales in her showroom, Rock Candy Kids, and look forward to a successful future. Diana has been very helpful in these early stages of getting the ball rolling and we are happy to be debuting in the upcoming Spring Market October 16^th- 20^th, we hope to see you there.

Please feel free to stop by Rock Candy Kids awesome showroom at any time and ask about Tickle Toes.

California Market Center
110 E 9th St. Suite A619B
Los Angeles, Ca. 90079

Ask For: Diana Gonzales & Raquel Avila

Phone: (213)623- 1087
Website: http://www.wix.com/rockcandykids/diane

A Casual Saturday

It takes a great deal of hard work and sacrifice to operate a business. To be successful you must dedicate a great deal of time and effort. It is exhausting and you do everything you can to keep your energy and motivation levels at maximum capacity. However, there are days when that third shot of espresso isn’t even working.

We were having one of those days a few Saturdays (see what I mean when I say, “a great deal of time”) ago sitting in the office discussing various projects. The phone rang at about 11am and much to the callers surprise someone actually answered. The caller is a long time customer of Tickle Toes products, in particular Hooded Towels. She started of by explaining that she received her first Tickle Toes Hooded Towels as a gift at her baby shower. Now that baby is 4 years old and still using the towel and they have purchased others since. She simply called to thank us for making a quality Hooded Towel that has remained in tact after many cycles through the wash. We thanked her sincerely for the wonderful feedback and said our goodbyes.

After that phone call we suddenly felt a bit more motivated and energetic. Sometimes something as simple as a 5 minute phone call from a pleased customer can make all the difference. Thank you again to our wonderful caller for making our day!

Anyway, I will be posting shortly about some of the fun and exciting things we have coming up in the next few weeks.

Till next time…..

Made In America

Made In America -even typing those three little words feels a bit strange. We are more used to terms like, Made in China or Assembled in Thailand or Product of Mexico. We as a nation of entrepreneurs and innovators have all but lost our ability to manufacture anything. So many companies have gone the way of importing rather manufacturing. Globalization (in part) has come at the cost of forfeiting our ability to produce products. This may not be a big deal for some industries but for others it has had crippling effects.

In particular the talented men and women who had mastered the art / science of garment working, furniture making, etc. have long since moved on to other occupations. The process of seeking out individuals with this set of skills is difficult to say the least.

Tickle Toes takes great pleasure in stating that we are Made In America and that we will always be Made In America. In addition to offering you the absolute best in children’s and infants accessories, the manufacturing of our products allows talented Americans to use their unique skill sets.

It is an unfortunate fact that most consumers are indifferent to where products are being manufactured and especially now when so many people have been affected by the slowing economy. However, there are companies all across this great nation that despite consumer indifference, continue to manufacture the best products in the world and at the same time support local communities and families.

Clearly supporting our local communities and families would be impossible without you and for that we are eternally grateful.

Moving On Up!

Moving is never fun. Moving a warehouse / factory and offices is borderline horrific. And once the moving is finished you feel this great sense of relief. Well here we are - relieved, we needed a place that was better suited to our needs and we believe we have found it. Like any move - ours included lots of hard work, coordinating several logistical issues, accidentally dropping a few things, yelling, tears, etc…. Well, I made up the tears part but everything else was true and we got through it just fine. We have settled right in to our new facility.

Aside from moving, everything has been progressing quite well as we work towards lining up all of our ducks for the upcoming August Children’s Club show in NYC. Additionally, our wonderful team in Texas will also be showing at the Dallas Children’s Apparel show this week and again at the end of June in the Dallas Gift and Toy Show. If you are interested in which shows we will be attending please feel free to contact us directly.

Well that's all for now but please be sure to check back with us soon!

Check out our review on locallectual: http://blog.locallectual.com/?p=3362

Spring!

Spring is officially here and as is the case every year, it brings along an opportunity to start anew. Okay, so that is the mother of all clichés but it is certainly true now more than ever for Tickle Toes. We are excited for a fresh start and looking forward to leaving behind the cold, short days in exchange for long, warm ones.

A fresh start at Tickle Toes most importantly implies the selecting of new fabrics and creating of new designs for the upcoming shows / seasons. Our design decisions are largely based on market trends, feedback from our sales team and of course our customers needs. Our sales team does a wonderful job listening to suggestions from customers and relaying those suggestions to us.

If you have any suggestions for some fun fabric prints or designs please feel free to email us at info@tickletoes.com.

Post Show Recap

We kicked off the New Year with the January ENK show in New York. Overall, it was a good show, especially considering all that is going on in the world today. The show was noticeably smaller than last year but we remained optimistic throughout the entire 3 day event. We were very happy to see that some of our wonderful retailers made it to the show. We were even happier to see them writing orders and more importantly exhibiting a positive attitude towards the upcoming year. It was refreshing to hear comments such as, "things will get better, it's only a matter of time" or "I do not believe in doom and gloom but I do believe that everything will turn around". Their glass half full approach is most likely a product of their entrepreneurial spirit and their everlasting belief in staying positive.

Anyway, there was a great deal of excitement echoing in our offices and factory in the weeks leading up to the show, we were all very excited to showcase our latest addition to the Tickle Toes family of products, the Minkie Hooded Towel. Instead of the traditional band of fabric across the hood or full fabric hood, our creative team, headed by President Nicole Fiorina, created the hood using minkie fabric. With some eye catching colors and designs, the new plush and cozy styles were met with great praise.

We are very pleased with the feedback we received at the show and thereafter. We look forward to presenting some new designs in March and will be adding these new Hooded Towels to our website shortly.

We are currently working hard for the upcoming March show. Also, check out our latest review by hotmomsclub.com (see link below), they recently reviewed our printed fabric Hooded Towel.

http://www.hotmomsclub.com/articles/17760

Intro

This is our first crack at the highly saturated blogging world. We wanted to start a blog, first and foremost, to offer an additional mode of communication for our customers. We also imagined that it could be a place where people would visit to read some interesting stories, hear about the latest products or find current information about our company.

We hope you enjoy our blog and spread the word!

Our first post (well technically second post) is coming soon so please check back within the next week or so.