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David's AW News: Got Zapped!
Fri Apr 05 2024 22:46:00 GMT+0800 (Malaysia Time)

Greetings from the AW Frangipani Warehouse, Bali


Yes I'm back in Bali (on the way back to the UK).  Last week I was telling you about our time in China and some of the new family businesses we are forging relationships there. 
If you missed it you can catch up with our new friends here. 

Tomas took himself off to Beijing to visit the Great Wall of China for a couple of days, and agreed to meet me in Bali later. But huge storms across China, delayed and cancelled swathes of flights, it turned into a bit of a drama just getting from China to Denpasar, Bali.  I missed a connection and had to spend an extra day in a Guangzhou airport hotel. Tomas came down from Beijing on a seriously delayed flight and somehow we ended up on the same flight - even sat together. After a very bumpy flight we arrived in Bali at midnight yesterday.  The storms followed us in and I didn't get any sleep (it seemed) because of biblical crashing thunder and epic electric lightning which seemed to be zapping my particular hotel room..

The next morning bleary eyed we headed to the AW-Advantage beach office to discover our electric supply had been zapped by the storm...  

Our Frangipani warehouse is not far away and has a small office for Ringo and his admin team and a sample room / meeting room. Not much space.. but somehow tables and chairs were found and all 16 people from the beach office packed up laptops and computers and (no drama) relocated to the warehouse office.. crammed cheek to jowl.. we found them cheerfully getting on with it. Ringo's team graciously relocated to the warehouse sitting on boxes.

Raul (the IT wizard) and Peter (the SEO wizard) from Slovakia are already here ahead of us. So because it is already one year since we launched AW-Advantage.. It is time for staff reviews and renewal of contracts. 

Our second day in Bali improved, a good night's sleep,  the stormy weather passed, the sun came out, electricity was restored and we were able to get back to the beach office. 

So today we have been doing staff reviews, the system is very different in Indonesia. How it works is staff are given an annual contract, at the end of which some robust negotiations take place. Someone who feels they have contributed well over the year might ask for a hefty increase, or if someone has performed badly they might not be renewed at all. In our case we are very happy to keep everyone and we are looking to expand at least another three people - we don't want to lose anyone.  So far as I'm writing negotiations are continuing and nobody seems to want to move on... looking good! 

Today is the one year anniversary of launching AW-Advantage, regular readers might remember we had a Balanese ceremony and blessing from the local holy man - actually something strange happened then. 
You can read the report here.
To celebrate, we are planning our first (of many hopefully) annual staff meals.  Apparently we are going to Turtle Island.. should be interesting..
I'll tell you about it next week.

Meanwhile in the UK.. we have lots and lots of things back in Stock. A big India shipment arrived and lots of wonderful lines ideal for your spring displays.
I was just chatting with Rodrigo, our UK webmaster, and he was excitedly telling me about Crystal Elemental Soaps. Soaps with an elemental theme (water, fire etc) they are beautifully packaged and the best thing is they have a mystery crystal inside. The AW-Aromatics team has been working on this for about six months.. I love the concept.. wash your hands and eventually a crystal will emerge.. I feel this will be so easy to sell to your customers.

Take care. Have a lovely weekend. Don't get zapped :)
More news next week.

David












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