Follow Up for Lily

Just a few days after posting the last blog, Erin Dove posted the following. Makes you stop and think how we take so much for granted.

Hard to breathe

By Erin Dove — 18 hours ago

Many of you have heard the news already, but we would like to share with our entire caringbridge family. We will need all your love, support, help, and prayers. 

We are overwhelmed, heartbroken, saddened and angered by the news we received this weekend. Our sweet, selfless Bailey has been diagnosed with leukemia. 

Lily's journey brought tears of fear and the unknown. Now we are crying tears of anger, "why", and the known. 

Tomorrow (Monday) we will learn more about exactly what type of leukemia she has. And a general idea of how to treat. Exact treatment protocols won't be known until after the induction phase of treatment based on how the leukemia cells respond to the first month. It's a big day tomorrow with a lumbar puncture, bone marrow aspiration, and placement of a picc line. 

We welcome your comments, texts, emails, and prayers. Please know that we may not respond in a timely manner or at all, as we are focused on the well being of our entire family. Again we will try to keep our kids lives as normal as possible, so please continue to reach out to them and us. 

We will continue to update as we know more. 

FIGHT LIKE GIRLS

Erin

Strength, Anger and More Anger

STRENGTH, ANGER AND MORE ANGER

03/09/2015 0 Comment by School-Pak

      Back in July of 2013, I wrote about Lily Dove, a little girl who played on our Jackson Area Rookie Girls Baseball team. Lily had been diagnosed with Leukemia the month before. I've followed her journey through a wonderful website, CaringBridge.org. 

As someone who has not had to deal with having a child fighting cancer, I found reading her story made me realize what's important in life. Lily has become my hero as has her entire family, mom (Erin), dad (Ryan), older sister (Maddie) and twin (Bailey).

While not really a story that you would find on a company's website, the twists and turns the family have gone through deserves sharing. I'm posting two of the latest stories that Erin has put online. I hope that it gives pause. There are many families like the Doves who are fighting what seem insurmountable problems. Feel free to reach out to them and show them your support.

The first post deals with how Erin is handling Lily's fight. The second post is impossible to believe. 

Strength

By Erin Dove — Feb 19, 2015 2:26pm

Lily's continued strength: 

Lily's treatment and procedure went according to plan on Friday.  Again, she chose not to receive anesthesia and remained awake for her lumbar puncture and intrathecal methotrexate (chemo).  She also received vincristine (chemo) in her port.  In addition, she started on her five day steroid pulse.  We were all nervous on Friday, amongst 
many other feelings, even to the point of it being noticeable to our team at Children's.   

After all this, Lily returned to school Friday afternoon. From Saturday through yesterday (Wednesday), Lily remained at home just taking it easy.  She just wasn't herself - extra tired, but difficulty sleeping, a diminishing of her awesome-Lily personality, and just general feeling not herself.  In addition, she experienced leg soreness intermittently during that time.  This morning, she seemed exponentially better and is at school today. 

------------------------------------------------------------ 

Reflection on myself - Strong changes: 

Honesty.  I have heard from many that they appreciate my honesty in these posts.  Thank you.  This one is no different, though this is kind of a blunt, selfish post.  Honesty - the good, the bad, the real.  And I'm not apologizing for my feelings, my reactions - to what is happening to Lily, to our lives, to countless other kids and their families. 

Most of us don't like change and I guess I'd include myself in that group.  I've always been a planner and mostly in control.  But all that changed on June 21, 2013.  I had NO control.  As a mom, I couldn't make things better for Lily.  I am supposed to make things better. 

Everything changed.  Our family changed.  Our lives changed.  Our marriage changed.  I changed. 

Several months after the day our lives changed, someone told me that I had changed (and this was not meant as a compliment).  In defense and denial, I listed the reasons that wasn't true, in an attempt to salvage a friendship that essentially began dissolving on June 21, 2013. 

It took me several months after this conversation to realize that I had indeed changed.  Who would I be if I hadn't!?  Emotionless.  Soul-less.  Hopeless.  Compassion-less.  Inhuman.  Some other word that I can add "-less" to and make a new word.  :-)  I can only think of a couple things in the world that would be worse than hearing the words "Your child has cancer".  (And I don't even want to think about those things longer than it takes me to type this sentence.) 

So, mostly I am glad that I changed.  I have learned so much.  About so many things, including myself.  If I had to describe in one word how I have changed, I would say "stronger".  (I don't mean physically because exercise has certainly gone by the wayside.)  :-)  I feel stronger feelings.  Most of this is good.  I care stronger.  I love stronger.  I empathize stronger.  I have stronger faith.  I have more appreciation.  I have a greater perspective. 

Some of these stronger feelings are not good.  I know it and I'm trying to manage them.  I cry more.  I worry more.  I'm mad more.  I'm angry more.  Some of this anger is good because it's put towards helping raise awareness, making changes. 

Other anger is not good.  During the period in September that Lily experienced partial hair loss, I overheard a conversation at work with a young woman complaining about her bad hair day.  It disgusted me.  Still does.  I literally felt like slapping her and telling her that at least she had hair.  Social media and daily conversation is riddled with people complaining about their child's sore throat or ear infection.  Makes me mad.  If that's the worst thing that happens to your child, count your blessings!  I know it's all relative.  A good friend recently told me that these small problems don't seem that way to many others because they haven't had that "big bad" thing happen to them yet.  I know.  I used to be that person.  I need to chill, yet still enjoy my greater perspective.  Should I pray for those people, that they never have that "big bad" thing happen to them?  But is that fair to them because they may never be able to enjoy this greater perspective? 

Today I'm feeling mad.  Mad that Lily was/is being treated with poison again.  The poison that will save her life.  The poison that has so many side effects (short term and life long) that Ryan and I couldn't even look at them.  What choice did/do we have?  We are saving our daughter's life.   

On Friday, chemo was again put directly into put into Lily's back.  This is the 16th time it's been put into her spinal fluid.  And that's just one of the many types of chemo that she has/is receiving.  I think I can be angry sometimes. 

I guess for me, the first step is that I recognize this "stronger" anger, worry, and "madness".  Next to manage it.  Not apologizing for it though.  My tears - I've mostly learned to manage these.  At least to the point of them mostly flowing when I'm alone.  (Well, I broke this "rule" on Saturday.  Oops.  I'm a long way from perfect.)  My car rides to work have proved to be a great time and place to allow the tears to flow. 

Thank you to everyone that just read this and listened to me totally vent.  I promise my next post will be way less heavy.  Thank you to those that have embraced my "change".  The new "stronger feeling" me.  Thank you to those that have said the right things, or said anything.  Comforting simple words. 

Please read this short article.  It can be used for a variety of situations; sickness, divorce, death, job loss.  At one point in your life, you will probably be at the center of the circle referenced in the article.  Comfort in, dump out.  This is important.  Receiving a dump-in does not feel good. 
"How not to say the wrong thing" 
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html 

I could have written this article.  It's true in every aspect that I have experienced.  I hope that no one reading this will need it for another family, but 1 out of 300 kids are affected, so it may be worth saving. 
"Childhood Cancer diagnosis - five ways you can help a friend" 
http://www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk/Blog/five-ways-you-can-help 

I hope that you never have to use this either, but just in case here are: 
"15 Dos and Don'ts for Helping a Friend With a Sick Child in the Hospital" 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-karin-l-smithson/conscious-relationships_b_4350876.html 

"It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end."-- Ursula Le Guin, American writer 

FIGHT LIKE A GIRL 
Erin 

2001: A year of ups and down

2001 started out very well for us. We had increased the number of schools and our sales were up by over 30%! Our employees were the best we had up to that time, our accuracy had increased and everyone was happy.

So we were excited when our son announced he was getting married. In Poland. What a trip that was.

We initially stayed in the old Jewish ghetto part of Krakow. He had arranged tours of the castle, sites where Schindler’s List were filmed, and then a tour of the area near Krakow.

It was very moving going to Auschwitz, walking under that iconic gate and seeing the grounds. It’s really pretty impossible to explain. We then toured the Wieliczka Salt Mine and ended up in Zakopane in the mountains. It was an unforgettable tour.

After the wedding (two days with seven meals for the reception), Terri and I decided to take a side trip to Prague as we felt we should take advantage of being in Europe.

One of the most romantic cities in the world, Prague was wonderful. We arrived on Monday and then, on Tuesday, the trip took an incredible turn. Tuesday was September 11, 2001. We were so far from home and worried about returning.

We eventually got home safely but our world took a horrendous turn in December. That’s when Terri’s doctor walked into the room and announced, “You have cancer, but it’s the good kind”. Like there’s a good kind of cancer.

Christmas took on a different look as Terri faced surgery in January. Tears and depression were the focus, knowing how important family was and not knowing what the future would bring.

Terri had a mastectomy in January and has been cancer free since then. It’s been 12 years and counting. While we face the challenges of running a business, we cherish each and every day.

Front windows and an office

When we broke through the wall in our warehouse location we ended up with windows and an actual front door.

We bought some desks and got ready to roll. And we had our first big idea. We would start an online store.

This was in 1998, well before other companies. But, what should we sell? School-Paks were still so new and a lot of people weren’t buying things online as such. After a trip to the store, we decided that Jansport backpacks would be a good fit.

So we called the Jansport rep in and got set up as an account. She helped us pick out a simple selection of backpacks. We got all of the jpgs, all the descriptions all the pricing, set everything up online and sat back, waiting for the sales to roll in.

The sales rep was pretty excited about our attempts as there were so few companies selling Jansport online.

Our first sale came in for a black Super Break backpack. Which we didn’t have. So we began running around to stores looking for one. We finally found it in South Milwaukee at a Kohls store, purchased at retail and sold it for a loss since we were selling at retail and never factored in our gas and time buying it. But we established the fact that customers would buy things online.

We then approached Mead to see if we could get their items online. They showed no interest in working with us. So we ended up with just Jansport at that time.

By 2000, we had a great presence online and were stunned when we received an email from a reporter at the Wall Street Journal.  He had found our site, and some others including Office Depot, and had placed an order for supplies and a backpack. We had sent them out the next day and so impressed him that we were named “Best Overall Value” in a news story. Next we found that MSNBC ran a story about it. We were getting recognized. Finally, we were mentioned on Rosie O’Donnell’s show.

Things were starting to ramp up and all we saw was the road ahead of us. We forgot to check for potholes. And they were there.

Lori

Wow! The summer is finally over, all the packs have been sent and all the summer help is now busy studying. So it's time to catch up on some blogging. And there's a lot to talk about.

This first one, a difficult one to write, is about Lori Wozniak, our office manager who passed away earlier this month.

Lori started working for us in spring of 2001. Her background had been working for an Arts and Crafts store so she had a very strong mental databank on school supplies.

It didn't take long and she was able to take on more and more tasks. She quickly became adept at preparing quotes for schools and working on a personal, albeit over the telephone, basis with many of our coordinators.

2003 became a rough year for School-Pak and we had to release her. She quickly found a job with a medical supplier. As things turned around, we contacted her about coming back and she readily agreed.

Her ability to retain information and set up procedures, spreadsheets, documents, etc., began to show results as we continued to grow. Even though we told her not to, she would take work home with her every night.

While our day started at 8:30, she was here many times at 7:00 in the morning. "That's when it's quiet and I can get more done." It wasn't unusual for coordinators and customers to get email replies from her at 3 in the morning. She was more than dedicated.

She was a dedicated Packers fan and finally was able to attend a game at Lambeau this past year. She was pretty much pumped when football met reality as Donald Driver appeared on Dancing With The Stars.

She will be difficult to replace. Her work ethic is going to be hard to match. We're trying hard to cover her assignments.

Rest, Lori.

Realizing What's Important

Running a business can be difficult. We have to be concerned with all those things that make us go. Do we have enough product? Do we have enough workers? What will it cost to ship to a school? Can we lower prices? What do the customers want?

And then we get that shock to the system that makes us step back and see real life.

The past two years we’ve sponsored, as School-Pak, a rookie girl’s baseball team. And they are definitely rookies. Some have played T-Ball in the past but most have no baseball experience. The girls range from 1^st Graders to 3^rd Graders and come from various schools.

This year we were stunned when one of the girls was diagnosed with leukemia. Her treatment, including chemo-therapy, has been aggressive and signs point to a good prognosis. Honestly, this is the first child that we’ve known that is facing leukemia and it’s difficult to think of her without tearing up.

We’ve attended most of the games but really, we’re sponsors not family or friends so it’s hard to convey our thoughts to the family.

Our newest shock was to learn of the accidental death of one of our student-customers during a 4^th of July celebration. The difficulty of dealing with a tragic loss of a child is something unimaginable yet it happens every day.

As grandparents of four healthy grandchildren, 1 girl and 3 boys, we sometimes forget how lucky we’ve been. They were all at our house for the 4^th and they were fun to watch at the local parade and fireworks.

Our hearts and thoughts go out to these two families and those that we don’t know that face difficult life events.

Early Years In The Warehouse

1998 was a big year for School-Pak.

Having outgrown Corpus Christi’s library, we were in need of some warehouse space. What a shock to find out how much that space would cost.

Years earlier I had worked for and with Bill Kesselman (from part 2 of the School-Pak story). As a well connected Milwaukee businessman, he provided us with a list of his friends to see who could help us out.

That brought us to Max Gendelman. Max, I believe, was the founder of National Hardware and, after selling the company, had a lot of warehouse space available. My meeting with Max went well, with him basically saying, “If Bill sent you over, we can make something happen.”

Our first area was a 40 by 40 foot warehouse space. We moved our computers (we now had 2!), our production shelves and all of our stock into the space. A small corner of the room became our lunch area.

We were so excited to have finally “grown up”. And then, our first business crisis occurred.

A phone call from the our rep at a school planner company called and asked when we had opened up a location in Arizona.

Apparently, some one was using a mis-spelled version of schoolpak.com for their website.

We made a number of inquiries and found a company named Innovative Learning Products (ILP) located in Phoenix. We made contact with the owner, Ray Lopez. Ray suggested we meet to see how we could “work together”.

We flew out to meet with him and were not “sold” on his ideas. His hope was to flood the boxes, inside and out, with advertising from different companies. Schools at that time were very much against providing advertising to their students so we walked away. Ray eventually sold his company to Innisbrook and went to work for them.

Innisbrook continued to use the name as they expanded into the kit business. Customers and potential schools that went searching for us ended up with Innisbrook. Repeated attempts to get them to stop were ignored. We spent close to $9,000 in legal fees and were finally advised that, even if we spent $90,000 fighting them, they could simply stop using the address and we wouldn’t be able to recover any damages. The big guys would win. Except…

We registered a domain with "Innisbrook.com" spelled as "Inisbrook.com". We started getting their email requests. It took less than a month for them to contact us and exchange domains. Unfortunately they continue to use “Back-To-School Packs” for their kits. That still causes confusion in the marketplace but we’ve learned to live with it.

So here we were, back in Milwaukee, making packs and growing. But we needed even more space. So two years later, we broke into the next room and actually ended up with some office space.

We had made it. We thought.

The School-Pak Story, Part 3 (Corpus Christi School)

There comes a time when the neighbors start complaining about semis coming down the block leaving off pallet loads of glue and glue sticks. We knew it was time to move out of the house.

The first idea we had turned out to be the best. I called on the principal at Corpus Christi school, Barbara Nehrbass, and asked to use the cafeteria during the summer. She said that the cafeteria was used for Bingo, coffee & donuts after Mass, etc., and suggested we take the library. And we did.

The problem was that Terri was still working at the hospital and I was out calling on schools so when the trucks were ready to deliver product, they would call us at home and we'd go to the school to meet them. Terri would arrive, dressed for work, and have to help unload the truck and get them to move fast so that she wouldn't be late.

Now at that point, we didn’t own any kind of shelving or work tables. We put the library tables on concrete blocks so they would be easier to work on and started buying some shelving units.

We kept all of our stock in the library and put the finished packs into the gymnasium. As the end of summer approached, we rented a UHaul truck and began delivering the packs to the schools. We kept that up until our growth took us out of the Milwaukee area.

One of the first things we discovered was that teachers really liked the idea of having pre-sharpened pencils. We contacted the pencil makers and asked them about purchasing the pencils sharpened. No one would do it so we bought an electric pencil sharpener and began sharpening them ourselves. Then we bought another one when that one burned out. Then another one. And finally, the summer was over before we needed another one.

Eventually we were told that we could buy them sharpened but we were charged a free for each pencil! After constantly asking, today every pencil manufacturer provides sharpened pencils and it’s become the standard for all kit companies to offer them.

We also would label all the items for the student, including handwriting their names on the Fiskars scissors. It was pretty work intensive and we finally decided to offer a sheet of labels with each pack. That was back in 1994. Now every company provides name labels. This was the second idea that we had that changed the kit supply business.

 It’s also when we started hiring some help. Those first couple of years they came from family friends and our main source of students, Marquette University High School and Divine Savior/Holy Angels High School. Our son, Nick, a student at Marquette, would provide us with his friends and they worked out extremely well.

But, as we continued to grow, it was time to move on. I began looking for a larger place, hopefully a warehouse. Like anyone else, I looked to friends and associates for help. I had my own “Linked-In” program to use.

Next: The early years in the warehouse.

The School-Pak Story, Part 2

Don't know how this was missed but apparently it was never posted. Here's part 2 of our story.

Crayola became our first company to deal with.

Like most big companies that get approached by a start-up, Crayola wouldn’t give us credit. But they did come up with an interesting program.

All we had to do was send them $2,500 to start our account. (That wasn’t real easy. You see, our total start-up cost was $500. So coming up with 5 times that amount was taking a bit of a stretch.)

As we had things sent to us, Crayola would deduct that from our account until we were almost at zero. Then, another $2,500 was needed.

It’s time to step back a little at this point. In 1993, Terri was working as a group leader in the outpatient department of St. Joseph’s hospital. Her schedule had her working second shift 2 days a week for one week and then 3 days the following week. It didn’t bring in much income but it provided health insurance.

My only source of income came from an interesting place. In 1986 I became a partner in a small company, Station WVCR. We had a vending machine for VHS tapes. We were the forerunner of the Red Box, just 25 years early!

We ended up closing the business as Blockbuster became the major force for renting tapes. We couldn’t afford to keep up with the number of new release copies they provided and eventually had to close our doors.

Our main benefactor, Bill Kesselman, was the financial loser, close to $500,000. Yet, as I’ll write about in the future, he became one of the best mentors I’ve ever had.

I kept the tapes and started a small service, placing films in grocery stores (without the vending machine) and shared in the rental profits. That was now my way of earning a living.

It was tough but we held together for another 5 years before Terri could come on full time. In the meantime, I was the “missionary”, traveling across SE Wisconsin, talking to principals and parent groups about School-Pak.

It was a new concept then and it was pretty difficult getting schools to sign up. Yet a lot did and now we had another problem.

School-Pak outgrew our house!

To be continued.

Unethical Business Practice

In 1991, I founded School-Pak with the core beliefs of providing quality products, a high level of  customer service and a fair price for school supplies.

I have been unable over the years to match the sale prices of items offered by WalMart, Target, Kmart, etc., as School-Pak does not carry underwear and socks, the items that these stores want you to buy. They offer the sale prices on school supplies as a loss leader to their store.

I understand that sales model. It works for them and they will continue to do that. They don’t offer the same level of customer service and convenience that School-Pak presents.

However, I can no longer stay silent about the practices of Educational Products (EPI). I have found that our pricing has shown to be lower than theirs in many cases. EPI, however, will state that they will discount any lower bid than theirs by 3% in order to get the business.

I believe that to be the highest level of unethical business practice.

Consider the following:

You, or someone in your family, is applying for a job. The interviewer asks you what salary you need. After offering your number, another applicant, not having the same skills as you, responds that they will take 3% less than you. And you lose the job.

Or worse. Someone comes into your employment and says they'll do your job for 3% less. And you lose your job.

I can’t change the mindset of people who believe that the lowest price offsets business ethics. I can only believe that most people will do the right thing.

Terri Schulist

Founder, School-Pak, Inc

The Beginnings of School-Pak, Part 1

I had mentioned on our facebook page that we were entering our 23^rd year. Boy, that time went fast.

Someone messaged me asking how everything began. So I thought I’d share a little bit about our story.

It was August of 1991 when Terri went shopping for our son, Nick’s, school supplies. Like so many people, she grabbed that list and went off to the store. We didn’t have WalMart’s in Milwaukee back then so the first destination was Target. She couldn’t find everything on the list so the next stop was K-Mart. Not good. Office Depot? Office Max? Walgreens? It didn’t matter. No one carried all the things needed.

Back in the 90’s, there was an organization named SHOPA that catered to all the major suppliers. They were the ones who selected colors for the upcoming sales year. Purple colored folders were available in 1990 but not in 1991.

Terri followed a mother and daughter from store to store looking for that elusive purple folder. Finally, the mother grabbed a folder from the shelf and a Sharpie. She wrote “purple” on the folder and gave it to her daughter with the instruction, “She can take it up with me”, referring to the teacher.

Of course, the little girl was in tears realizing she was the only kid in the school without a purple folder. Which actually wasn’t the case in the end.

So Terri came home, sat down at the kitchen table and said, “There has to be a better way for families to enjoy summer than getting into arguments at the store.” And so, School-Pak took root.

We spoke to our son’s principal at St. Catherine’s school in Milwaukee about providing a kit with everything on the teachers’ lists. She agreed to let us give it a try and also let us use her name with some other Archdiocesan schools.

That first year we worked with 7 schools. We still provide kits to St. Catherine’s, St. Monica’s, St. Jude’s, St. Mary Visitation and Holy Family. Unfortunately the other 2 closed, as so many Catholic schools do in large cities.

Buying product was the real issue. If we bought it at retail, we couldn’t make any money selling it to the parents. So we started searching for sources. Our other son, Jason, made contact with a school supply company in Skokie, IL, Swenson’s School Supplies. Karen Swenson was kind enough to help us get started by providing items at a very minimum markup.

We also started shopping the sales at the stores, but we knew that couldn’t work for long. We needed to find a way to buy direct from manufacturers. Our first contact was with Crayola and it was an interesting start.

To be continued

Gene

Time for a little personal pride.

Just welcomed Justin Tate (JT) Schulist to the world about an hour ago. Nick (our son) and his wife Mel added Justin around 4:28pm this afternoon.

This makes the 4th grandchild, 3 boys and 1 girl.

Time sure does go fast. I remember when Jason and Nick were born and now I'm the old guy. Pretty cool.

My real hope is that they can navigate these kids through life, teaching them to be as great as they are and showering them with love. Times are pretty hard to raise children now. They both seem very capable and will do a great job.

This probably isn't "Blog material", but, I'm pretty damn proud!

Made in the US?

Wow, the campaigning is just about over. Hopefully everyone voted.

The big topic this year has been the economy and how slow the recovery has been. Unemployment numbers have remained relatively high throughout the summer and hopefully, whoever wins, there are plans to get people back to work.

No big news that jobs being sent overseas has hurt our workers, the GDP, tax collections, etc. Tax breaks for sending jobs abroad has made it attractive to American companies. And it’s somewhat understandable.

Lowering the cost of labor increases profits which increases stock prices which increases individual IRAs and 401Ks. It’s a vicious circle. No one wants their savings plans to lose money but they also want to be able to work so that they can contribute to their plans.

We recently ran a survey with our customers asking if they would be willing to accept a price that reflects the use of products made in the USA.

The results were surprising. A large percentage (67%) responded that they could accept a higher price. That was the good news.

We then wanted to find out if some product names could be substituted with a generic. For example, Kleenex shows up on a number of lists but the schools and teachers use “Kleenex” as a generic term for tissues.

We found that most parents felt that Kleenex, Post-its and Ziploc were brands that could be replaced with a generic product.

But don’t touch my Fiskars, Elmers or Crayola.

Here’s the rub. While Crayola manufactures some items in their Easton, PA plant, most of their products are produced in foreign countries. The same goes with Elmers and Crayola.

So while people want to support American jobs the most popular brands aren’t being made here.

We’re happy to say that, except for these requested brands, most of the items we offer are made in the USA. Maybe it will change someday. One can only hope that companies based here start looking at ways to bring those jobs back to help our economy.

President Obama/Romney, look at the incentives to send jobs overseas and give our unemployed a level playing field.

Binder Problems

Mitt Romney isn’t the only person having to deal with binder issues.

When we first started School-Pak, we made every effort to provide high quality, durable binders. Then came the competition, offering packs with economy binders, much lower in cost.

Naturally, we wanted to keep our customers and attract new ones so we began substituting the durable binders with economy ones. They didn’t hold up very well. They actually fell apart relatively quick, within a few weeks of school.

So off we were to find “the” binder. Our first attempt was with Samsill. Not only did they make a durable binder but they could do different colors for us. As a matter fact, one of our schools sent us their binder and we sent it on to Samsill. They began making binders for us based on the specs from the binder we sent them. Unfortunately they didn’t make the grade either, even though it was their highest quality.

Next up was Cardinal brand. They weren’t able to send us binders by color so we had to buy the assortment and have them de-assorted into colors. Once again there was failure.

Our next stop was Avery. They were able to do a lot for us and also included Boxtops for Education stickers on each binder. We thought things went well until we began getting phone calls from a few schools saying that they were having a problem with them.

We knew that it was the same Avery Binder and our price ($6.82) was lower than what Office Max was charging ($7.29), Target (their site says that the price varies by store. ??? What’s with this? Shouldn’t it be the same regardless of where you shop?), or Walmart ($8.88).

So here we are, ready to go into another school year but unsure of what to do. Why isn’t there a durable binder that holds up?

We finally figured out the problem.

All the binders we used were high quality and durable binders…if they were used in an office setting. None of them can hold up to being carried, dropped, opened, closed, etc., 5 to 10 times a day. They aren’t made for STUDENTS! THEY’RE MADE FOR PEOPLE WHO GO TO THEM ONLY A FEW TIMES A WEEK.

We’ve tried to explain to the manufacturers that “durable” isn’t “durable” in the hands of a student who uses it multiple times a day. They don’t seem to get it.  I’m not sure what they need to make it out of…concrete? I just know that 13 year olds are going to have a different way of using a binder than businesses.

It would be wonderful if teachers were aware of this. Maybe they wouldn’t be asking for something doomed to failure.

As for Mitt, he never said if it was a 1”, 2”, 3”, 4” or 5” binder.  :)

Competition: Fair or Unfair?

Running a business is difficult.

First come up with an idea. Then see if it’s accepted.

Next find suppliers for your product. Realize you’ll be doing almost everything out of your home for awhile but know that, at some time, you’ll need an office and warehouse space.

Secure both and find out you now need to pay utilities, phone service, security service. That’s not too bad except you can’t grow much because the work is too much for two people.

So you start looking for help, paying social security taxes, medicare taxes, unemployment taxes, workman’s compensation insurance plus insurance for all the stock you now have.

Finally you’re ready to go. Except you have to raise your prices to cover the cost of rent and employees. OK, that works and you’re still in the ballpark. Except you need to hire more help and you need to get more sales. So you work out an advertising budget and realize that you won’t be making much of a living on what’s left. But you make it work and find yourself growing.

After 5 years you can finally start taking a salary.

Then: BAM!

You find that the 25¢ ruler you’ve been putting in the kits are on sale at Office Max for a penny. What’s worse? They’ve copied your order blanks (so did Walmart, Target and Office Depot), removed your copyright information, and posted them in their store as a convenience to their customers.

Variations on this theme have happened for the last 15 years. An expensive lawyer could probably help you but you can’t afford it. Not unless you want to go another 5 years without getting paid. So you march into the store, complain to the manager and take all the copies with you. Finally the copying stops. But not the pricing problem.

In Wisconsin, we have an “Unfair Sales Act” or “minimum markup law” that prohibits the retail sale of merchandise at a price that is below the seller’s “cost”. As a rule, everything must be marked up by 6%. It also applies to “loss leader” items, those things that make you come into the store to buy cheap crayons as they know you’ll also buy underwear, socks, etc.

So here’s what I did this year. I contacted the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to file complaints against Target and Shopko. Crayola Markers were being sold by Shopko for 99 cents. The cost is over $1.75. I waited for a response and was finally sent a letter on Sept 17^th, stating that Target was not guilty of any infractions since “…we have documentation that shows other businesses at or below the alleged retail price. The “meeting competition defense” is an allowable exception.

Sure glad they don’t check drunk driving. I guess if everyone on the road is drunk the “meeting competition defense” would exempt anyone for a fine. Or, how about the prostitutes that work the streets? If there are two of them would they be exempt since they’re the “meeting competition defense”?

Apparently the date of the infraction is the deal breaker. If no one else is advertising a low price, you break the law. That’s what happened to Shopko who was found in violation of 4 product prices.  Of course there wasn’t any penalty. Just a warning not to do it again. I’m sure that it’s as effective with companies as it is with kids.

Just want it to be fair.

Random thoughts as school approaches

Kept thinking about the following last night while trying to sleep:

Random Thought 1 

 Our local Walgreens is promoting a free back-to-school supply event. You go into Walgreens, purchase the items (of course Walgreens isn't discounting the items) and place them into a bin. Makes Walgreens look good (and profitable) helping out kids. Why don't they just donate the items?

The same goes for Wal-Mart, now having a special give-away. C'mon. Why not just donate the items and not sell them? It's no different than the food stores that ask for donations at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's not really coming out of their pocket. Every year we're asked by non-profits across the country for donations. We do donate to a number of causes but we don't sell them the items.

Random Thought 2

Just had to deal with a school that was asking for a specific sketch book, a Strathmore one. They were for all students in the school from Kindergarten to Grade 8. We were able to supply (our price is just under $9 for the book) to those who bought School-Paks. But what about those parents that didn't order from us. Where do they find it?

We found them at an art store for $19.95 each. Do teachers realize what some of these items cost? Does a Kindergarten child need that quality? Just wondering.

The same goes for specialty compasses, protractors, pens, etc. What happened to common products? Parents are not going to find some of these specialty items without making numerous trips to numerous stores. Of course, that makes us look good. :)

Random Thought 3

Since we're limited by inventory and workers, we close our final ordering date in late July. So how should we answer "Hi, I see that you are out of stock and don't have any more packs. Can we still order?"

Huh? If we're "Out of Stock" it means we're "Out of Stock".

Most schools start taking orders in March giving the parents up to 4½ months to place their order. I'm not sure why they procrastinate for that long.

I wish we could keep enough inventory in stock for the entire year but it's just not possible. 

Random Thought 4

Without a doubt our economy is still struggling. According to the "economic gurus" we need to stimulate the economy again to propel consumer buying. If enough people buy items, we'll need more workers goes the story. So Terri came up with a brilliant idea. We've tried sending it to elected officials but our campaign donations are non-existent so we never get a reply.

Terri is suggesting that the next stimulus be the issuance of debit cards to citizens. The amount doesn't matter (we didn't go that deep into it) but there would be a 180 day expiration date. The cards could only be used for purchases and could not be used to put money in the bank or pay bills.

Just think of a few hundred million citizens with a $300 - $500 debit card purchasing items. The Consumer Spending Index should go through the roof.
Remember, you read it here first!

Summer's half over

Summer keeps speeding by and we're getting a lot of orders. Hard to believe that we're at the half-way point. And we're having a problem with a large supplier, Mead. Apparently the "big" retailers (Wal-Mart, Amazon, etc)have items made specially for them by Mead. So when customers go shopping and find something they like, they ask to put it into a School-Pak. But Mead has restrictions on selling the items to us. They have to get a release from these retailers. That takes us out of the running if a school is asking for the product. We have an agreement with Mead for their products but these don't show up in their catalog as they are specially made. I guess exclusivity is what all of us retailers would like. It's hard enough to stay competitive with multi-million dollar companies. We'd just like a level playing field when it comes to product accessibility. On a side note, teachers are still asking for items that haven't been made for years. We keep getting requests for "Spacemaker" pencil boxes. Sorry. These haven't been around for about 5 years. Teachers may be using "Spacemaker" as a generic term. Unfortunately, parents that go shopping will be looking for it. The same with "Duo-Tang" folders. They're history. The company that bought their manufacturer dropped the name. But back to the good news. The temperature today is a little more comfortable in the warehouse and our workers (college and high school students)are doing an incredible job this summer.

Blown Away

We're starting to price out packs for schools and, once again, it's stunning how the lists have changed.

Back in the day, 1991, when Terri thought of starting School-Pak, the first lists we received from schools had the usual items on it. A box of Crayons, some markers, a couple of folders and notebooks, maybe some colored pencils, a glue stick or two and some looseleaf paper.

We were so apprehensive that the packs cost more than $20.00. Who in their right mind would pay that much just for school supplies? I remember that first year when we went through all the work and sold just 1 pack at one of our 7 schools. We were doomed.

Eventually parents caught onto the idea of convenience and we began to grow. And so did the packs. Soon we were up to 6 glue sticks, 2 packages of paper 6 folders, 6 notebook, compasses, protractors, etc. You get the picture. The price went up yet parents bought because they wanted to be sure to have their kids ready for school.

Our first culture shock came in the late 90's when teachers began asking for tissue! Tissue!!!

What did that have to do with being ready for school?

OK. we added tissue. Of course the next year, teachers wanted 2 boxes of tissue since not everyone brought tissue. Fine, each pack got 2 boxes of tissue.

Oh boy! Sometime in the early 2000's, a new substance was found in schools that changed science and the way we live. They found ... lice!

Now all the headphones had to be wiped down with baby wipes so lice wouldn't spread. Makes sense. But shortly afterward it was noticed that kids had "dirt" on their hands. Here came the hand sanitizers. (Didn't schools have soap and water?)

Oh wait. Next came soft soap for the kids. And it kept growing.

This past year I worked on a quote for a school that was incredible. The teachers were asking for 6 containers (80ct) of baby wipes. A package of paper cups, 24 plastic forks, a roll of paper towels, 24 plastic spoons, 4 (yes 4) boxes of tissue, 3 containers of Clorox wipes and two boxes of ziploc bags (gallon and sandwich).

All told, the pack cost $94.48. When we took out the "grocery" items, the price dropped to $62.62. So the grocery items represented over 50% the cost of the school supplies.

Now with 20 kids in a class (although there are stories of 40 in a class)your looking at 800 sneezes per child or 16,000 to 32,000 sneezes per classroom. No wonder they need all those Clorox Wipes.

Someday maybe we'll go back to the old days. And then we'll lead all the competition by putting sleeves into the packs. They worked well in the past. (Of course, moms probably didn't like it.)

The Hunger Games

We went to see "The Hunger Games" Friday night. Overall, I found most of the film enjoyable. Early in the film there I had a difficult time following the cinematography and editing. The pictures moved a little too fast and switched too frequently. When did it become the "best" way of filming by moving the camera a little. It used to be a steady picture until someone got this great idea to make it look "real". Not a fan.

I did find two things about the experience that I wasn't in favor of. We watched a family go into the theater with their small, age 2-3, son. The movie is pretty violent and loud, probably not appropriate for a little kid. (Boy, am I showing my age!). I'm guessing that mom and dad, not wanting to pay for a baby sitter, nor wanting to give up the movie, just decided that they'd bring the little tyke along. Of course, they'll be hard put to understand why he has nightmares. The move is PG-13 not PG-3!

The whole idea behind the story is that there's a shortage of food in the future. So two children (I guess age 17-18 counts as children) from each of the 8 districts will be selected to fight to the death and become the winner of an annual competition. The kids names are put into a bowl, based on how much food they've eaten. One of the characters, who escapes being picked, has 42 slips of paper with his name on it.

Sitting next to me in the theater was a little girl, about 10 years old, who would have had over 1,000 slips of paper in the bowl. She not only ate constantly during the movie, alternating between popcorn and candy (wrapped in cellophane so it made noise with every plunge of her hand). Not only was in throughout the whole movie, but when she ran out of popcorn, mom emptied her bucket into the girl's bucket.

I could have survived most of it except she had learned how to eat with her mouth open so each popcorn kernel was heard (but not enjoyed) by me.

Mom did show some great concern over her daughter's attempt to get picked in a future hunger game. She made sure she only drank water, not some unhealthy soft drink.

What's a Brand name product?

Recently I had a conversation with one of our schools that had been approached by a competitor who had offered prices much lower than ours. I asked for a copy of their list (without their pricing) to see what was being offered. Here's what I found:

The other company used some familiar brands, like Dixon and Fiskars. However, they didn't identify which Dixon or Fiskars product they would be using. While both of these companies offer lower priced items in their lines, we've always used the Ticonderoga pencils (asked for by many teachers) and have always offered the Fiskars For Kids brand of scissors.

We've also found that a number of companies are calling their company brands as Name Brand products. Sorry. Elmers is the name brand for glue and glues sticks, not "S*****S, or *O***** ****t. (I really don't want to promote them. :) )

So what does it mean in the end? If the teachers and parents are looking for the highest quality products from companies they've become familiar with, that's what we do.

"Just keepin' it real" (Randy Jackson)