Greetings from Spain

Last week I was telling you about our trip to Marrakesh and adventures in the Souks.

You can read about it here. 

Our new man in Morocco (I introduced you to last week), a young guy called Aymen has been messaging me regularly and seems to be making good progress. I gave him a short list of target products and prices and he has found some suppliers that can actually manage this. But this is only stage one I tell him, and thankfully he seems to understand. Next is samples to check quality, then we have to figure out how to ship cost effectively to our warehouses. The critical stage is what bankers call KYC.. It's not a rip off fried chicken chain.. haha.

KYC means Know Your Customer.. in the case of banks, it's to make sure that customers are not using bank accounts for dodgy purposes, because governments worldwide have made banks take this responsibility.  

So it looks like I'm on the way back to Morocco when I get chance, to do a spot of KYS.. Know Your Supplier - a friendly ethics check. I'll explain.. 

We my friends are in the Gift Business.. the act of giving (I am fond of telling anyone who will listen) is nothing short of an act of love. Thus: We are in the business of facilitating love.. Therefore, and most giftware traders our customers especially,agree we have a moral imperative to ensure there is nothing dodgy in the supply chain. Obviously child labour is an issue, but in developing countries with cash economies it is relatively easy for bad players to pay pittance piece work rates, or even slave labour. And quite rightly our customers.. that probably you, hold us to account to make sure the gifts we sell are not tainted by dodgy practices.

So my job is to go and check, meet the suppliers, find out if they are decent people, talk to workers tour the factory where possible, draw my own conclusion.

I remember in the early days of travelling to India meeting a fashion jewellery supplier, they had a spectacularly nice trade show stand with smart young sales people. The besuited bossed bragged about supplying some well know high street brands, and bullied us into placing a (for us at the time) a mega order. But before confirming I insisted on a trip to their production facilities which were in the heart of old Delhi.. we were taken by rickshaw down winding back lanes, draped with random electric wires and rubble underfoot. Lead through a maze of go-downs and ancient souk like shops. In a dingy below ground mud floored room we found a hundred ladies in dim light threading beads and packing and labelling jewellery.  And lets not be fooled, in India a lot of production is done in villages by organised outworking gang-leaders, this was just the finishing part. If this was finishing, what was the rest like. I canceled the order.

I learned not to trust the pushy guys, the ones that make impossible claims, the false image. In my chat with young Aymen I told him how important this is... Deal with gentle folk I told him, anyone else will be trouble in the long run. We found Marrakech to be stuffed full of pushy guys (not many ladies)  so I worry that in there we can find gentle folk, but Aymen told me that away from the tourist zone you can find honest humble business people.. 

What happened in India? That boss guy didn't give up he chased me for the order for weeks if not months. I told him straight the reason why. He dropped the prices, I still said no. Eventually (maybe) he got my message, and sent me photos of ladies working at tables with good lighting and smiles. But an image is one thing a good heart is another. 

Maybe we did some good I don't know, but we never confirmed that order.

Of course there are many people who don't believe. Who think that just the image is good enough, you don't really have to have real integrity, that's for fools. Many times I have been told, honest business people never get rich, you have to be dodgy to succeed. Our ex-business partner in Spain was sadly like this, and that relationship couldn't succeed, despite many years of trying to persuade on the benefits of going straight. Seth Godin, is a marketing genius, I subscribe to his always apt micro blogs.. today's words of wisdom explain why dodgy doesn't work, and even more so in today's world.  Read it here.. it's called: Don't Pee in the Pool.  We are all connected even if we think we are not.

Of course I don't always get it right, I'm human and can make poor character judgements, but I believe we have a moral duty to try and do our best. Trading fairly is a powerful way to change the world for the better, YOU are part of this process, selling gift products, that help other humans be kind to each other, we all in the circle, it's like karma.. 

Speaking of Spain, we have been interviewing for Spanish staff for the new Spain website in Sheffield. I can't believe how many people applied for the job, and so many likable enthusiastic people all so keen to work for AW.. I spent an hour debating with Tomas, Katka and Rodrigo over the list of candidates. It's hard work trying to decide which ones to employ, who understands the AW ethos, who will fit in. It's a new adventure.. I'll keep you updated.

Next week I'm the UK..

Take care