people.

We made over 2000 hidden message candles this festive season and here's my experience when it comes to corporate gifting:

When it comes to personalisation, there are no short cuts. As exciting as making candles in bulk quantities sound, each candle had to be hand poured, hand trimmed, personalised with individual messages, cleaned, labelled and packed manually. Every single candle is handmade, with love. Every package has a human touch. And these are some of the beautiful people who made it all happen in less than 10 days!

No matter how strenuous the process got, my family was there to help out. While my mother helped me in making the candles, outsourcing help and following up with the vendors, my father took care of the finances and made sure nothing derailed the timeline, among other things. My grandmother took the responsibility of sorting out the letter beads. No matter how easy it sounds, it was no doubt a crazy task! Sorting out more than fifty freaking thousand beads. God.

I could not thank my sister and brother in law enough for sacrificing their only day off and coming over to help out, oh, and for the much needed moral support too. I guess this was the perfect official welcome for my brother in law to the A Trillion Smiles fam huhu!

Looking back, I realise how different each and every step was from how I thought it would be. Amazon failed us, but our packaging wale Vijay Uncle made sure to get the branded rigid boxes and polymailers delivered on time. Vistaprint disappointed us, but our vendors went above and beyond to deliver the raw materials in less than 48 hours.

Selling the idea, simplifying manufacturing processes, cutting costs and making money are important for any business. But for me, nothing comes before people.

And for these people, I'm beyond grateful.❤

#corporategifting #hiddenmessagecandles