Greetings from Affinity Park - The UK HQ of AW
Last week I was telling you about Reincarnation and other Special offers. I updated you about Mr Chatterjee (our man in India) and the terrible situation there and they are coping. You can read it here.
Many of you kindly sent messages of encouragement, which I passed on to Mr Chatterjee, he called me to say how moved he and his family were by your messages.. He asked me to pass on this message to you.
Hi David
I am really very honoured for all of your concern about us. As a my family friend you always care for us. I have conveyed to my family & the children home about your newsletter, and all your customers' messages. All of them are really very happy to know this because all of you worried for us. In India maximum states are either semi or full lockdown. Our State local train closed and the market only open 7 to 10 am & 5 to 7 pm only for essential commodities. But I think complete lockdown will start soon for breaking the chain of covid. ..
My family and children request me to convey their thanks & regards to you and all others.
Best Regards
Chatterjee
Since then he has messaged me that things are getting worse, many deaths in his village, there are no beds available in the town's hospitals and severe oxygen crisis. However he will do his best to prepare product samples. I told him not to worry about this, just to stay safe.
One thing about Sheffield I really like is the street art. There are a few prolific artists, some authorised and some not, but always edgy or fantastic. I noticed driving to work a new poetry mural on the side of the road..
As I sat in the traffic it caught my eye and reading it - I thought about Mr Chatterjee in India.
We are all waves in the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden.
Which seemed to me to expose the vaccine nationalism argument as very sad and short sighted. No-one is safe until we are all safe. The whole world needs to be vaccinated before we can put this behind us and move on. Sure countries should look after their vulnerable folks first, but then asap help the poor of the world. Vaccine patents need to be scrapped (at least in the short term) and knowhow made open source. It's crazy that big pharma guard secrets to boost profits at the cost of lives.
We are all waves in the same sea..
The mural was inspired by a poem written on the side of a package sent to the Sant’Anna School, a university in Pisa, Italy, during the coronavirus pandemic. The package contained protective equipment that was donated by former Chinese students of the University as an expression of gratitude and friendship to the community who had welcomed them so warmly. Sent on the package in Italian, the poem was written by the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca and translates to: ‘We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden.’ And I should absolutely give credit to local artist Will Rea - his work appears all over Sheffield and certainly brightens our lives.
Creative people are the lifeblood of any community, company or country..
At AW we are fortunate to have lots of creative talent, channelling your ideas and suggestions into real products and projects.
Last week I was also telling you about our beefed up Customer Service team..
This week we branched out and added an (hopefully very creative) member to our marketing team.
We are all leaves on the same tree..
Meet Ash.. here with Rodrigo.
As you know at AW we don't have sales people or do the tradeshows (even before covid) - we believe the products should be fairly priced and pretty much sell themselves. So no pushy (or otherwise) sales people.
This business model (we were the first to try this I believe) has worked well, in that AW has grown organically every year for over 20 years. But we still need to communicate with our lovely customers, and we do that via marketing and the websites.
At AW the plan is rather than have a nationwide team of sales reps, cars, expenses, commissions and egos - a small enthusiastic marketing team tasked with imparting ideas, sales tips and information - is a better use of resources and your time.
Thus Ash will work with Rodrigo to communicate more.. The idea is to give you more useful information that will help you to sell more and more easily identify products that will delight your customers. Plus hopefully more chance to give us the feedback to further shape the future products.. he is going to revamp and invigorate our social media presence.
Don't worry.. this doesn't mean we are going to sell to the general public (ie your customers) - as you know we are strictly B2B at AW. We will never sell on amazon, run our own retail shops online or in the high street. Your job is the retailing, ours is the sourcing and wholesale. But Ash is going to make AW Instagram, YouTube and Facebook come alive with useful game changing info and ideas to help you expand your business and delight your customers.
Supply lines are still rather rusty, but stock still manages to arrive - this week Soap Flowers and some Indian shipments. Check out the back in stock lines and special deals we have for you below.
So as lockdown eases and soon restaurants and pubs open up, it's time to take heart. Things are getting better, holidays can happen, the sun will shine again.
Just remember others are not so lucky, and as we once again enjoy nature and live after lockdown.. that we are all flowers in the same garden..
Take care