The Keep It Sweet Desserts Holiday Rush Part 1

When Matt told me he wrote a blog post, I thought the title would be “when my wife went crazy,” but given that it wasn’t, I agreed to post his perspective on Keep It Sweet Desserts.  Look out for my thoughts on the holiday rush in the next few days.  Okay, now back to packaging…

Hello World! This is Lauren’s husband (part-time Taste-Tester and Dishwasher of Keep it Sweet Desserts) checking in.  Lauren has been missing since Thanksgiving and I’m pretty concerned, she was last seen surrounded by hundreds of outgoing boxes in our Living Room and she may have gotten lost. There is some new girl, who claims to be my wife, but it’s hard to tell since she is covered in flour, butter and melted chocolate.  I’ll let you know if I find her! Anyway, I wanted to give everyone an update on what has been going on the last few weeks.

Here’s the news:

1. As promised, we donated a portion of November sales to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey for Hurricane Sandy Relief.  They are currently distributing over 200,000 pounds of food daily to families displaced by the hurricane.  We thank everyone that ordered and helped contribute to this great cause.

2. Our first holiday season has been a great success.  Lauren has been inundated with all types of orders, from all parts of the country, for all types of occasions.  It takes a lot of coordination to run this business and I’m excited for it to quiet down a bit so we can put our heads together and figure out how to improve operationally and logistically.  One thing I’ve noticed from watching Lauren, is that baking is the easy part.  Selling, shipping, and marketing a product is the hard part.  So far, she’s up to the task!

3. Lauren has been working non-stop since Thanksgiving to fulfill these orders, which has been really tough.  She has been working from 7am to well past 10pm seven days a week, to ensure that everything goes out on time.  I’m pretty sure she has not had a day off in over a month and I am very proud of her.  As always, I’m mostly concerned with quality control testing, i.e. eating a blondie here or a triple chocolate cookiethere, just to make sure everything is just right:-)

4. Lauren received some pretty large corporate orders this year and so far has gotten excellent feedback from her clients.  One thing corporate clients want is good service.  When hundreds of orders are being sent out to different addresses with different messages, there is a tremendous amount of coordination that needs to take place to make it happen.  Keep It Sweet Desserts is committed to making this easy and affordable for corporate clients. We have already had some interest in repeat business for next year!

5. This could not have been done without help from our families and friends who despite their full time jobs, came in on the weekends to help with the abundance of orders that all seem to need to go out at the same time!  We have had a few PhDs, MBAs and JDs taping up boxes and washing dishes – definitely not their typical day’s work.  Not one of them asked for anything in return and for that we thank you!  You are all loved very much and this could not have been done without you.

6. Next year we will need to hire bakers, sales people and packers.  Let us know if you are in the NY/NJ area and are interested in being part of a growing new business!

7. There is still time to get your orders in for the holiday season.  Lots of people are tough to shop for, so if you need something last minute, send them a KISD gift certificate or Cookie of the Month Clubmembership!

We hope everyone has a Happy Holiday Season and New Year.  Here are some pictures from our last few adventurous weeks.